Ireland (21 page)

The talks began on 11 October 1921. Both sides made compromises, but the British refused to yield on three major issues: the question of Ireland leaving the empire; the oath of allegiance to the king; an independent Ulster state. When Collins reported this to the Dáil, de Valera put forward the proposal of External Association with the Empire as a means of breaking the deadlock. This meant that he knew that Britain would not agree to an Irish Republic.

Eventually, the British agreed that Ireland could be a Free State, consisting of twenty-six counties. They also agreed to change the wording of the oath of allegiance and to set up a commission which would decide on the final boundaries of the new Ulster state. Negotiations reached stalemate and, at the beginning of December, Lloyd George announced that he was going to declare that the talks were over. This would mean a return to a war even more brutal and vicious than before. Collins knew that the IRA would not be able to fight for much longer. The Irish people, too, would not support a return to war. They had had five months of peace, and would not wish to return to war just before Christmas.

On 6 December 1921 the Irish delegation faced a terrible decision: sign the Treaty that had been drawn up, or return to war in Ireland. Collins and Griffith were in favour of signing. The other members of the delegation were opposed. At a meeting in Downing Street, the Prime Minister offered them a choice between the Treaty and war. Facing such a stark choice, the Irish delegation signed. As he put his name to the Treaty, Collins knew that many within the IRA would see him as a traitor. He turned to Lord Birkenhead, one of the British negotiators, and said that he was signing his own death warrant. It was to be a prophetic statement.

The delegation returned to Ireland, heroes to some, traitors to others. Collins thought that de Valera would support the Treaty, but instead he vehemently opposed it. To Collins’ dismay, his great friend Harry Boland also opposed it. Ireland, the Dáil and the IRA were bitterly divided.

When a Dáil vote in January 1922 supported the Treaty, de Valera and his supporters walked out. Arthur Griffith was elected President of the Dáil in de Valera’s place, and a Provisional Government was set up. Collins became its Chairman, as well as Minister of Finance. On 16 January 1922, Dublin Castle, the most potent symbol of British rule and oppression in Ireland, was handed over to Collins. He was late for the handover and joked that as Ireland had waited nearly 800 years for this moment, a few more minutes hardly mattered.

British army barracks throughout the country were also handed over. Some of these were handed over to IRA men opposed to the Treaty. They now became known as Republicans, while soldiers of the Provisional Government became the Free State army. There were violent clashes between the two factions and tensions ran high. The prospect of civil war loomed. In Ulster, Protestants burned Catholic families out of their homes and committed terrible atrocities against them. Hundreds were killed and thousands fled to the Free State.

The prospect of civil war drew nearer when Rory O’Connor, the leader of the Republicans in Dublin, seized the Four Courts. In speeches, de Valera supported O’Connor. At first, Collins did not act against the rebels. He was still hoping to prevent civil war. He had been responsible for so much bloodshed, and had seen so many of his friends die, that this is quite understandable.

An election was held in June, in which the Free State government won a majority of seats. This showed that the people were in favour of the Treaty, or at least did not wish to return to war. Rory O’Connor now declared that Republicans should target members of the British army still in Ireland. This angered and alarmed the British government. They gave Collins an ultimatum. Either he took action against the rebels or they would. Collins called on the rebels to surrender. They refused, and the Free State army began to shell the Four Courts on the morning of the 28 June 1922. The civil war had begun.

The civil war was a tragedy for Ireland and its people. At the very moment when the country was about to gain her freedom after centuries of oppression, Irishmen, who had fought side by side during the Easter Rising and the War of Independence, were now killing each other. It was a tragedy of the civil war that it set brother against brother, father against son, and created a poisonous atmosphere of hatred and distrust that was to last for generations.

For two days the shelling continued in an attack similar to the British attack on the GPO during the Rising, along with rifle and machine-gun fire. On 30 June the rebels surrendered. Before they did so, they set fire to the Four Courts, destroying valuable records and documents going back hundreds of years. Cathal Brugha, a Republican stalwart, was in the Four Courts with Rory O’Connor. Brugha escaped with other Republicans and took cover in the Hamman Hotel in Sackville Street. Though surrounded by Free State soldiers, Brugha still refused to surrender. He burst from the building firing his revolvers and died in a hail of bullets.

Michael Collins wept when he heard the news. Brugha, who had fought bravely in the Easter Rising, and who had been seriously wounded, had been Collins’ most bitter opponent. Yet Michael knew that Brugha had loved Ireland, and had wanted to see her free. Like so many others before him, he had now given his life for his dream. A few weeks later Harry Boland, Collins’ former friend and ally, was shot and died of his wounds. Michael again wept when he heard of the death, unaware that soon he would suffer a similar fate.

The Free State army went on the offensive and shortly took control of all the cities and major towns. The guerrilla tactics, which the IRA had adopted against the British forces, no longer worked for the Republicans. They were few in number, had few arms and no longer had the support of most of the people. They were only really successful in the south of the country, and it was in Cork that they had one of their biggest successes, though it was a terrible tragedy for Ireland.

In August 1922, Arthur Griffith died suddenly at the age of fifty. He had devoted his life to Ireland, and was worn out from worry, stress and work. Following Griffith’s death, William T. Cosgrave was elected President of the Dáil. A week after Griffith’s death, Michael Collins, Commander-in-Chief of the army, travelled to Cork to inspect the Free State Forces there. On 22 August he travelled to west Cork to visit the ruins of his old home, which had been burned to the ground by the Tans the previous April.

On his return journey, he stopped in Bandon to meet Séan Hales, the local Free State commander. A few kilometres away, at a lonely place known as Béal na mBláth, Séan’s brother, Tom Hales, along with other Republicans, were lying in ambush to kill Collins. Both brothers had fought side by side during the War of Independence but were now sworn enemies who would kill each other if the opportunity arose.

The convoy reached Béal na mBláth just as dusk was falling on the evening of 22 August 1922. At they reached the ambush site, shots rang out. The convoy braked to a stop and Collins shouted: ‘Jump out and we’ll fight them.’ His soldiers obeyed, and both sides exchanged volleys of gunfire. During the exchange, Collins was hit in the head by a bullet and killed.

His body was brought to Cork and from there by boat to Dublin. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, where his great boyhood hero, O’Dononvan Rossa, had been buried seven years before. His death was a tragedy for Ireland. He had been a great man, and had he lived would have done more great things for Ireland. But alas, his fate was to die from a bullet fired by someone who had fought for him and who, one year before, would have gladly given his life for him.

The civil war did not end with Collins’ death. It continued with great brutality, and with many terrible atrocities, until the following May. By then Séan Hales, Rory O’Connor, Liam Lynch (leader of the Munster Republicans), Erskine Childers (who had brought in the guns at Howth), and a great many others who had loved Ireland, and fought so bravely for her freedom were dead, either killed in combat or executed.

The execution of Rory O’Connor again showed how the civil war had destroyed friendships. The order for Rory O’Connor’s execution was signed by his great friend Kevin O’Higgins, who was then Minister for Justice. Six months before, Rory O’Connor had been the best man at Higgins’ wedding. Some years later, on 10 July 1927, Republicans avenged O’Connor’s death when they murdered Higgins in cold blood while he was on his way to Sunday Mass.

When Liam Lynch, the leader of the Munster Republicans was killed, Frank Aiken took his place. But the Republicans had lost heart and Aiken advised them that they should give up their struggle. Demoralised, and aware that they could not win, they did give up and the civil war ended.

É
amon de Valera and the Republicans had rejected the Treaty and the Free State. When the civil war ended they took no part in the Free State government, which was led by William T. Cosgrave. De Valera was also blamed for Michael Collins’ death. While it is unlikely that he had any part in the killing, nevertheless his opposition to the Treaty helped to create the atmosphere in which hatred of Collins intensified. By sending Collins to London, and then rejecting the Treaty, de Valera had indeed helped to sign Collins’ death warrant.

In 1926, de Valera and his supporters founded the Fianna Fáil party, also known as the Republican Party. In an election in 1932, Fianna Fáil was elected and de Valera became the leader of the Irish government. This was ironic – de Valera becoming the leader of the Free State that he had previously rejected. It was his rejection, and that of his supporters, which had helped to bring about the civil war, and the deaths of so many of those who had been their friends and colleagues.

De Valera’s government abolished the oath of allegiance to the king and also refused to pay money owed to the British government. This money had been loaned by the British under various land acts for the purchase of land from landlords. This action led to what became known as the ‘economic war’ between Britain and Ireland. Britain placed a heavy tax on Irish imports, especially cattle, which was Ireland’s most important export, and this lead to great hardship for the country and its people.

In 1937, de Valera’s government drew up a new Irish constitution. Under this constitution, Douglas Hyde, a Protestant who had founded the Gaelic League, was elected the first President of Ireland in 1938. De Valera also negotiated an agreement with Britain in which the Irish ports, still held by the British, were returned to Irish control. In return, Ireland agreed to pay some of the money they still owed the British government.

By now Ireland had reached a state of stability. It had its own police force, the Garda Síochána, a functioning judiciary and civil service, an electricity generating station on the River Shannon and its own radio station. Much of the damage to the infrastructure caused in the War of Independence and the civil war was repaired. Ireland’s flag of green white and orange could now fly proudly. Green represented the Catholics, orange the Protestants and white was a symbol of the peace and unity that should exist between them. Unfortunately, such peace and unity did not exist in Northern Ireland where Catholics were discriminated against, and where sectarian hatred of them was encouraged by the Orange Order and Protestant fanatics.

When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Ireland remained neutral for the six years of conflict. Britain was severely critical of this stance and wished to have the use of Irish ports to protect their ships crossing the Atlantic from America with much needed supplies. De Valera refused to give up the ports, and for a time it seemed as if Britain might try to take them by force.

Northern Ireland, still part of Britain, was regarded as being at war. German planes bombed Belfast and in April and May 1941 over 700 people were killed by bombs. The Irish government, supposedly neutral, sent fire engines to Belfast to fight the fires that raged there following the bombing. The Free State was also bombed by the Germans, most likely by mistake. The worst incident occurred in Dublin on 31 May 1941 when twenty-nine people were killed and ninety injured in a bombing raid, which also damaged or destroyed 300 homes.

The IRA also caused problems for de Valera’s government during the Second World War. Though it was now an illegal organisation, its aim still was to obtain the 32-county Irish Republic so many had fought and died for. Seeing the Second World War as an opportunity to try and obtain its objective, the IRA went on the offensive. De Valera’s government was forced to imprison without trial a great many IRA men, and nine were executed for various offences.

The war brought great economic hardship to the Irish people. Rationing was introduced and tea, a drink beloved by almost every Irish person, was in short supply. There was a shortage of coal, and turf was harvested on a large scale as a replacement fuel. However, the war did help to heal some of the scars of the civil war, as people were forced to cooperate in order to survive.

The Second World War ended in May 1945. In 1949, Fine Gael, founded in 1933 by the followers of Michael Collins and the pro-treaty supporters, was elected and declared the Free State a republic. Since then, it has been known as the Republic of Ireland, though it still consists of only twenty-six counties.