Tom Barry (35 page)

However, Brian Murphy points out that Peter Hart took that latter quotation out of context as it ‘refers to a completely different incident in the Civil War'. Denis Lordan of Barry's flying column told Dorothy Stopford, a Protestant, that ‘the boys' went to a Protestant house to seize a motor car, were fired on, and one was killed. Then ‘“our fellas took it out on the Protestants”. The descriptive word “Protestant” is used, but both the original motive for the raid (the stealing of a car), and the subsequent reprisal, on account of the killing of a comrade, was not occasioned by sectarian motive. Indeed, it was not even recorded if anyone was killed as part of the reprisal.'
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Dr Murphy asserts that, ‘to link Lordan's comments with the Dunmanway massacres [of April 1922] is misleading, a misrepresentation which is compounded by calling the chapter [in his book] “Taking it out on the Protestants”. Moreover, in adopting this sectarian interpretation of events, Hart rejects the opinion of one of his sources, an IRA veteran, who maintained that the massacre was the product of anarchy, and that “we had nothing against” the Protestants.'
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Peter Hart speculates on a ‘plausible explanation' of ‘at least two and possibly as many as five, separate groups involved' in the killings, ‘probably including members of … Volunteers.' He further writes that, ‘All of the men identified as participants were committed republicans – veterans of the Tan War who went on to fight in the Civil War … These men probably acted on their own initiative – but with the connivance or acquiescence of local units. This is demonstrated by the non-intervention of the I.R.A. garrisons in Dunmanway and elsewhere.'
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The facts do not bear out local units ‘acquiescence' nor ‘the non-intervention' theory as already discussed, nor does the IRA's veteran's comment that he quotes, back up the theory, nor is it known who committed the killings.

‘These were revenge killings on many levels' Hart records, and list reasons of
probabilities
of ‘the desire for vengeance', because the ‘minority population of West Cork were seen not only as past enemies and current undesirables but also as a future fifth column in the struggle which many I.R.A. men saw coming'.
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In a sweeping statement he writes that the ‘atmosphere of fear and polarisation provided the communal context for the massacre. One could not have taken place without the other. Protestants … were seen as outsiders and enemies, not just by the I.R.A. but by a large segment of the Catholic population as well.'
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Furthermore he noted that: ‘Within this rhetoric of ethnic intolerance can be detected the quasi-millenarian idea of a final reckoning of the ancient conflict between settlers and natives. To some republicans, revolution meant righting old wrongs, no matter how old, and establishing the republic entailed the reversal of the old order.'
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However, the action Tom Barry and other officers took to quell the disturbances together with the statements of Tom Hales, Seán Buckley, Con Connolly, Ted O'Sullivan (all Third Cork Brigade officers) demonstrate that these suggestions misrepresent the position. To consign to the pages of history an account of magnified vendetta by the IRA and by some Irish citizens as blanket intolerance against fellow citizens, in early 1922 and during the previous war does not appear to be justified, from the evidence now available. (Peter Hart has used interviews with people whom he has acknowledged in his sources with initials (e.g., CR, RG, GD, etc.). It is unknown whether these initials are exact or fictitious. Some are certainly fictitious as he has written: ‘Protestant men and women begin with a “B”' (e.g., BB, BF, BG, BO, etc.). In any case all are anonymous. (Tom Barry was to hammer home vigilance regarding the recording of history, and insisted, as will be later demonstrated, that historiography should be above reproach.)
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Dan Cahalane, IRA veteran, of Barry's flying column said that ‘religious beliefs had nothing to do with Republican beliefs. Some Protestants were most helpful' during the struggle. ‘Others who wanted to hold on to Imperialism were only loyal to that master'. The killing ‘of those men at that particular time was unhelpful to our [Republican] cause'. Dan pointed to where one shooting took place in April 1922. He had purchased the house later and had no idea who was responsible for ‘the awful' killing, though he admitted to knowing ‘the names' of informers from the Dunmanway ‘haul'. He was ‘shocked'.
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Jack Fitzgerald recalled for Ernie O'Malley that in the ‘Kilbrittain district Protestants were not shot as spies, [because] they knew that the men were fighting for a principle, they said that the others – other districts around Ballineen and areas were different.' Jack, who was in Donegal during the Civil War, found ‘the best crowd were the Presbyterians for they knew that we were fighting for a principle.'
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This is very different from the scenario that Peter Hart paints: ‘All the nightmare images of ethnic conflict in the twentieth century are here', and uses a sweeping statement of, ‘the transformation of life-long neighbours into enemies, the conspiracy theories and the terminology of hatred' where ‘sectarianism was embedded in the Irish revolution, north and south. Any accounting of its violence and consequences must encompass the dreary steeples of Bandon …'
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But beneath the ‘steeples of Bandon' many men ‘on the run' were harboured by people with limited resources. Some of these sympathetic citizens ‘ran up' sizeable bills with Protestant merchants like Jeffers', Goods' and other shops in Bandon and never a word leaked out. Indeed the merchants did not put undue pressure on the individuals for payment. Many other members of the Protestant community in the area risked everything, including alienation from fellow religious, because ‘they had this desire' to have ‘our own government', and be ‘an independent country'. ‘Being Protestant' did ‘not necessarily' mean ‘being loyal to the crown'.
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Flor Begley through his IRA intelligence work, had the names of many spies and informers. He quotes a man who worked for ‘a Protestant farmer' being surrounded one day. Percival and his men were doing the rounds and informed the man that ‘he knew his movements' and the rifles he had hidden in the shed. ‘I have my own intelligence service here and I know everything'. He was being transported in a tender with two other prisoners, but managed to escape. ‘Right enough', Flor Begley wrote, ‘the information was deadly accurate.'
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In questioning Peter Hart's interpretation that there was an IRA campaign of hostility towards Protestants ‘because of their religion', Brian Murphy asserts that ‘Erskine Childers, a Protestant, was in no doubt that there was no element of sectarianism in the Nationalist struggle for independence'. Childers found that ‘at no time' had civilians – ‘Protestant Unionists living scattered and isolated in the south and west, been victimised by the republicans on account of their religion or religious opinion or religion' (
sic
).
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Because Peter Hart is selective both in his representation of facts and only partially quotes from the chosen paragraph in the official British
Record of the Rebellion in Ireland,
Jack Lane affirms that ‘Hart engages in trickery to try to prove his theory that the Bandon Protestants were killed because they were Protestants' and concludes, ‘he fails'. Brian Murphy asserts that Peter Hart ‘heightens the suspicion' that Protestants ‘were killed for religious motives', because Hart wrote: ‘The truth was that, as British intelligence officers recognised, “in the south the Protestants and those who supported the government rarely gave much information because, except by chance, they had not got it to give”.' However, Peter Hart omitted (as Brian Murphy notes) the paragraph's conclusion:

An exception to this rule was in the Bandon area where there were many Protestant farmers who gave information. Although the intelligence officer of this area was exceptionally experienced and although the troops were most active it proved almost impossible to protect these brave men, many of whom were murdered while almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss.
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Peter Hart compounds this further in a footnote that he gives in editing
British Intelligence in Ireland, 1920–21
. Despite the recording in Sir Jeudwine Papers confirming that there was ‘an exception' to the ‘rule' in the giving of information by ‘Protestant farmers' in ‘the Bandon area', Peter Hart writes in a footnote: ‘Some condemned West Cork Protestants did give, or try to give, information but there is no evidence that they acted
en masse
despite this statement.' Though dismissing this ‘evidence' he has in his ‘introduction' written: ‘Rarely has the secret life of the British state been so exposed to inquiry as is now possible with these confidential histories.'
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Jack Lane questions the ‘moral difference between giving and trying to give information in the circumstance of the time'. Is there a ‘distinction enough to dismiss one and not the other as a deliberate act of assisting the government's war effort to defeat the IRA?' The report clearly states, that ‘in the Bandon area … many Protestant farmers evidence' was supplied. To state that they didn't give it ‘en masse' (all together) in a war situation pushes the limits of credulity.
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This evidence indicates that the IRA killing of spies and informers and the part played by Tom Barry was not sectarian, but based on their intelligence of the ‘many … who gave information', as noted by Montgomery, who ‘often found that the best intelligence was received by us in Cork'. Smith's diary notes: ‘“One T” is shrieking for help, but we can't guard
everyone'
(‘T' = Tout?).
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Sir Jeudwine records that in Cork, ‘There were numerous informers, however, and most of them were procured by and gave their information to military intelligence.'
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Brian Murphy in his analysis, names Protestants (including West Cork resident doctor Dorothy Stopford, Denis Lordan's friend) who were prominently involved in the Republican movement, and asks, ‘Could these Protestants have acted in such a manner, if their fellow religionists were the calculated targets of sectarian attacks?' Dr Murphy concludes, ‘Hart's findings on this important issue of sectarianism are open to question'.
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In 1949 after the publication of his book, Barry received letters some mentioning his ‘well-handled' account of Protestants. One correspondent, Risteárd Ó Glaisne from Bandon referred to the April 1922 killing. As an ‘Irish Protestant' he used ‘the Irish form' of his name as ‘an affirmation' of his ‘belief' in Ireland ‘and as a vote of confidence in the attempt to cultivate that sadly withered tree assiduously'. He was ‘delighted' that Barry ‘should go to the trouble of correcting … the stupid misunderstandings of a small group'. Ó Glaisne was only ‘acquainted with the record of the Irish “over-ground”,' so he appreciated getting ‘the whole truth' because he was confident he said that Barry's ‘would be a version' which he ‘could quote with some confidence'. Ó Glaisne gave Barry the details he obtained from ‘the narrow' perspective:

I always loathe having bitter prejudices paraded as mature judgements, and that is what one has almost always to endure when Irish Protestants of a now-elderly generation speak of 1918-21 – what continually amazes me, as a matter of fact, is that men with these prejudices seared across an area of their minds can now live happily in the twenty-six county state thinking and acting constructively, as they do; I think the explanation is that, having been treated decently for years as they have been, they have resigned themselves to the status quo, and only recall with bitterness now the memories they have of those years as one occasionally draws down an old dust-covered box from an attic.

John Chinnery had been ‘wanted' by the IRA, and was shot while harnessing a horse in April 1922. Risteárd Ó Glaisne met Chinnery's brother some time afterwards and ‘was surprised and delighted by his outlook. As a Protestant he is, I would say, typical of the best of his generation, a man of deep, direct piety. But he was also very happily progressive. He evinced the keenest interest in Irish and spoke in conversation of “our own governments” – that phrase can always be regarded as strikingly significant from an Irish Protestant … We must eradicate traditional prejudices … because I think Protestantism as a spiritual force will have to be more vigorous if ever in the history of Protestantism it is to justify itself in Ireland.' Writing on one of the cases, Ó Glaisne understood that the IRA had called to Chinnery's house ‘on a number of occasions' and failed to get him. He ‘was suspected of giving the military police information on the whereabouts of the IRA'. He was caught ‘open-handed' one day, when ‘he dropped a letter' as he ‘was passing some police', Ó Glaisne wrote.
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Ó Glaisne pulled no punches as he told of those who were shot, and he would not want any ‘prejudices' continued. ‘Don't forget,' he wrote ‘that when these ordinarily quiet, humorous, positive philosophic people think about “The Troubles”, “The Bad Times”, all their ordinary attitudes forsake them … A brushful of incidents and ig-norant rumours smeared this part of their minds at that time with a tar which is undefaceable. Quite undefaceable! I have often thought to right wrong impressions, have after much mutual invitation succeeded in reducing bigots to silence, only to find the same old prejudices come out again six months later.' When speaking to the ‘older Irish Protestants' regarding the past he says he finds ‘a barren chagrin' but ‘younger Irish Protestants have minds which cannot receive old bitternesses'.
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