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Home , Irish Citizen Army, Liberty Hall, Michael Mallin

James Connolly and the

Paul O’Brien

The role of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) be informed where and when you in the 1916 Rising tends to be overlooked, have to attend for training. or is portrayed as an auxiliary movement that played a minor role during the Ris- Within a fortnight the first ‘red army’ ing. The ICA was a revolutionary army that anywhere in the world had been formed; grew out of the movement dur- 1,200 had enrolled and drilling had com- ing the Lockout in 1913. The idea of a de- menced under the command of Captain fence force for workers had been in the air James White in Croydon Park. In reality for some time as the locked-out workers were the difference between those who enrolled subject to assaults and intimidation by the in a fit of enthusiasm and the numbers who police and the hired thugs of the employers. turned up for training was substantial. The After Bloody Sunday in August 1913, both ICA was not exactly a ‘Red Army’ perhaps Larkin and Connolly were convinced that a ‘Red Guard’ is a more apt description. On workers needed an organisation of their own 27 November the ICA held its first march to protect picket lines and union meetings through the Streets of . Connolly ex- from assault. The actual proposal to form plained the purpose and reasons for the for- a citizen army did not originate in Liberty mation of the ICA in a British socialist news- Hall but in the conservative sheltered clois- paper that December: ters of Trinity College Dublin. At a meeting in the rooms of the Rev. R M Gwynn on As a protection against brutal 12 November 1913, Captain Jack White pro- attacks of the uniformed bullies posed a ‘drilling scheme’ for locked out work- of the police force, as well as a ers and that a fund be opened to buy boots measure possibly for future even- and staves. Jack White was an upper class tualities arising out of the fer- Protestant supporter of Home Rule, pub- ment occasioned by the Carson- lic school educated, and a former member ism in the North. of the who had fought in the Boer War. He approached Connolly with the Connolly may have been conscious of the suggestion, offering his services to train and potential use of such a force when prop- drill any organisation that was set up. The erly trained, ‘but ‘future eventualities’ were next day at a rally to welcome Larkin home far from the mind of the majority of the after his release from jail, founders’. addressed the rally and in a dramatic an- The Citizen Army was never central to nouncement told the assembled crowd that the dispute; even if it made the police more they were in a ‘state of war’ and: circumspect about attacking the workers. It also functioned as an outlet to counter the The next time we go out for a demoralising effect of idleness and unem- march I want to be accompanied ployment. It was an army without uniforms by four battalions of our own or rifles, which at times made it an object men. I want them to have their of laughter on the streets of Dublin. But as own corporals and sergeants and Connolly was to recall ‘its presence had kept men who will be able to ‘form the peace at labour meetings and protected fours’. Why should we not drill the workers from the ‘uniformed bullies’. It men in Dublin as well as in Ul- also prevented evictions’. As the dispute pe- ster. When you come down to tered out in early 1914 attendances at pa- draw your strike pay this week rades diminished and the organisation was I want every man who is willing practically moribund. to enlist as a soldier to give his In late January 1914, as the strike pe- name and address, and you will tered out, it seemed to a number of ac-

54 tivists that the ICA had ceased to be rele- If it is lawful for Carson to arm, vant. Republican ideology ran deep in the it is lawful for us – the workers – Dublin working class, and in the changed to arm; if it is lawful for Carson circumstances, a number of workers trans- to drill, it is lawful for us to drill. ferred their support from the ICA to the . The active membership Larkin called on the workers of had fallen to about fifty. On 24 January to rally in Dublin to protest at: 1914 Sean O’Casey, who was the secretary The suggested amputation of of the ICA published in the Irish Worker Ireland’s right hand, the exclu- ‘An Open Letter to the Workers in the Vol- sion of Ulster and the criminal unteers’. O’Casey appealed to the workers and traitorous conduct of a class- of Ireland to stand by the ICA, and not to conscious group masquerading be taken in by the ‘chattering well-fed aris- as Army Officers, who have tocrats’ who run the Volunteers, and not to set themselves up as a military ‘drill or train for anything less than com- Junta evidently determined to plete enfranchisement’ and for ‘the utter al- thwart the will of the people. teration of the present social system’. Over a number of weeks O’Casey argued for the By this time the ICA was in bad shape, independence of the ICA, and its develop- the penalty of dismissal which the employ- ment a force for in Ireland. Larkin ers held over the heads of workers who as- was the driving force behind the ICA at this sociated with the ITGWU frightened hun- stage and would not have published these dreds of men into abandoning their con- articles unless they represented his position. nection with the Citizen Army. That was one aspect of the decline, but the creation of the Volunteers was one of the most ef- Defeat and Reorganisation fective blows which the Irish Citizen Army The decimation of the ITGWU in the course received. Thousands that had originally of the Lockout took its toll on the union attached themselves to the Citizen Army and its leaders. Connolly, as always was passed over into the more attractive and bet- indefatigable; working hard to rebuild the ter organised camp of the Volunteers. union. However, the political ground had Larkin reorganised the ICA and a new shifted. The outbreak of the war in August constitution drafted. Money was raised for 1914 ended the strike wave in Britain. In Ire- uniforms and equipment. Tents were pro- land workers had little fight left in them; and cured and summer training camps were or- for the next while sheer survival and rebuild- ganised in Croydon Park. ing the union was the main priority. Larkin What was significant in the new ICA was physically and mentally exhausted. The constitution was the absence of class politics. terrible defeat had left Larkin in the position Not once is the working class mentioned; of a working class general without an army. instead, vague generalities, about the ‘peo- Never a man to stand still and drawing on ple of Ireland’ and ‘Irish Nationhood’, that his last reserves of strength he threw him- would not be out of place in the constitution self into rebuilding the Irish Citizen Army. of the most conservative nationalist organi- The two strands that made up the core of sation, dominate the document: Larkin’s politics were and re- 1. That the first and last principle of the publicanism. Given the dearth of working Irish Citizen Army is the avowal that class militancy Larkin’s republican politics the ownership of Ireland, moral and came to the fore. On 28 March 1914 a material, is vested of right in the peo- Manifesto to the Workers of Ireland was is- ple of Ireland. sued. It was signed by the leaders of the labour movement, but it bears the stamp of 2. That the Irish Citizen Army shall Larkin’s hand, protesting at the proposed stand for the absolute unity of Irish na- exclusion of the North in the Home Rule Bill. tionhood, and shall support the rights

55 and liberties of the democracies of all union red hand badge engraved with the ini- other nations. tials ICA. The first consignment of uniforms engendered a sense of pride among the citi- 3. That one of its objects shall be to sink zen soldiers; it demonstrated that they were all differences of birth, property and in fact a real army that could stand compar- creed under the common name of the ison with the Volunteers at the Bodenstown Irish people. parade or on any other public occasion. 4. That the citizen Army shall be open to all who accept the principle of equal Rebellion in the Air rights and opportunities for the Irish people. Larkin had worked tirelessly over the previ- ous seven years in Ireland, and had reached The original draft was amended so that a point of mental and physical exhaustion clause two included the following: ‘to arm that even his indefatigable spirit could not and train all Irishmen capable of bearing overcome. His friends and comrades urged arms to defend and enforce its first princi- him to take a break. He decided to travel ple’. A fifth clause added at Larkin’s sug- to America, to raise funds for the union and gestion at least nods towards the working to explain to American Labour the position class ethos of the ICA: of the Irish workers. In his farewell message Larkin announced that Connolly would take Every enrolled member must be, command of the Irish Citizen Army. At the if possible, a member of a Trades end of October 1914, after Larkin’s depar- Union recognised by the Irish ture, Connolly arrived in Dublin and within Trade Union Congress. days made his mark on the city, hanging a large banner across the front of Liberty A Council of twenty-four was elected, Hall proclaiming: ‘We serve neither King though this included Thomas Foran, the nor Kaiser – but Ireland’. Over the following ITGWU president, and Francis Sheehy- months Connolly worked hard to rebuild the Skeffington, a well know pacifist; both of ITGWU and the ICA. whom were most likely elected for their influ- The resurgence of the ICA coincided ence rather than their military prowess. The with an upturn in the political atmosphere. ICA was an organisation of workers, an ex- Opposition to the war was growing, espe- tension of the trade union movement, rather cially as the threat of conscription in Ire- than an organisation of socialists: ‘its ranks land increased. The split in the Volunteers included many quite sophisticated socialists, had convinced the Irish Republican Brother- but its training was military, not political’. hood (IRB) that now was the time to strike Captain White knocked the ICA into against the old enemy. A hint of rebellion shape. The members worked hard at drill was in the air and Connolly in the pages of and military tactics evenings and weekends. the Workers’ Republic fanned the flames. Guns were obtained by any means possible. Beginning in May 1915, in a series of arti- There were great discussions as to whether cles in the Workers’ Republic, Connolly tried they would be classified as combatants and to develop military tactics for modern revo- be protected by international law in the lutionary warfare. He set out the basis for event of hostilities. Initially, each citizen sol- a ‘people’s warfare’ based on the experience dier wore a blue armband and officers a red of the revolutionary upheavals starting with armband. Captain White put in an order the bourgeois revolutions in the nineteenth for fifty uniforms of dark green serge from century and up to the socialist revolution in Arnott’s outfitters. The battalion looked Moscow in 1905. In particular he was try- smart and military kitted out in the new uni- ing to develop a strategy for urban warfare forms, topped off with the famous slouched such as the Citizen Army might be called hat, worn in the same style as the South upon to participate in. Connolly was cer- African Boers, one side pinned up with the tain that the British would not use cannon in

56 Dublin. His Marxist background convinced Perhaps, it is only fair to leave the an- him that capitalist England would not de- swer to that question to James Connolly. stroy capitalist property in Ireland. There- A few weeks before the Rising in the pages fore the insurgents should occupy positions of the Workers’ Republic he stated: ‘The that were ‘not a mere passive defence of a Irish working-class, the only secure foun- position valueless in itself, but the active de- dation upon which a free nation can be fence of a position whose location threatens reared’. Whether the ICA’s participation the supremacy or existence of the enemy’. in the was the correct course Nine months later his military tactics would of action, and on what political basis, has be tested to the hilt. On 30 May 1914 Con- been a matter of dispute and contention ever nolly wrote in the Irish Worker: since. We believe that there are no real This was always going to be a difficult Nationalists in Ireland outside of political tightrope for Connolly to walk. The the Irish Labour Movement. All danger of liquidating the labour movement others merely reject one part or into the broader nationalist camp was al- another of the British Conquest ways present, or of making political con- – the Labour Movement alone re- cessions that marginalised the labour pro- jects it in its entirety and sets it- gramme in the name of unity. Many on the self to the reconquest of Ireland left believed that Connolly had lowered the as its aim. red flag in favour of the green flag and that ‘Labour had laid its precious gift of Inde- This article, along with a series of ar- pendence on the altar of ’. ticles that Connolly had published in the Captain Jack White in his autobiography Irish Worker in 1912 was the basis for his first published in 1930 reflecting on his res- pamphlet The Reconquest of Ireland, which ignation from the ICA gives credence to this was published by the ITGWU in 1915. In position: the Irish Worker Connolly laid out the path that led to the execution yard in Kilmain- If I had stayed with the Citizen ham jail just over a year later. This arti- Army instead of going off in a cle is the key to understanding the direc- huff to the National Volunteers tion that Connolly took the Citizen Army when the Transport Union ap- after he took command. His aim was to put pointed a committee to clip my labour in the forefront of the national strug- wings and control me, I believe I gle. Given the crisis thrown up by the war could have merged National and in Europe, the ICA would be the catalyst Labour ideals instead of leaving that could unite all sections of the national- the merger to come the other ist movement in a revolutionary fight against way round. the British presence in Ireland, while main- taining its political independence within the broader movement. In the months before The Road to 1916 the Rising all ICA members were asked to confirm their support for the Rising. They The question as to whether the Irish Vol- were asked three questions: unteers or the Citizen Army should fight a defensive or an offensive war was a politi- Are you prepared to take part in cal, tactical and moral question that divided the fight for Ireland’s freedom? both organisations. Connolly’s position was Are you prepared to fight along- political rather than moral and whether the side the Irish Volunteers? Are rebellion was a defensive or offensive war you prepared to fight without just a tactical question. If the British inter- the aid of the Irish Volunteers? vened to disarm the Volunteers or the ICA, Significantly they were not asked if they or introduced conscription in Ireland then were prepared to fight for a workers repub- he would fight a defensive war that would lic, or precisely what they were fighting for. have mass popular support. Connolly was a

57 Marxist and supporter of the Socialist Inter- armed, and as the sun set over the last day of national. In 1907 the congress at Stuttgart July 1914 it appeared that the rival parties had passed a resolution that, in the event of were on a collision course. The outbreak of an Imperialist war, the duty of socialists was the Great War on 4 August engulfed Britain to do all in their power to stop the war, and in a crisis that dwarfed its problems in Ire- use the crisis to overthrow capitalism. Con- land. Prime Minister Asquith shelved the nolly was determined to turn the imperial- problem by putting the Home Rule bill on ist war into a class war. As he told Cathal the statute books, but postponed its imple- O’Shannon: ‘I have missed the opportunity mentation until after the war ended. He also before, but I won’t miss it this time’. provided that the bill would not be imple- On 19 January 1916, fearful that Con- mented until statutory provision had been nolly’s strident demands for a rebellion made for the exclusion of the Ulster coun- would alarm the British Authorities and un- ties. In this way he managed to appease dermine their own plans, the IRB met with both the constitutional nationalists and the Connolly to discuss the situation. Connolly unionists. But as FSL Lyons noted; ‘It was, had declared that if the Volunteers were un- of course, an illusion. The Irish problem had willing to go ahead, the Citizen Army would. been refrigerated, not liquidated. Nothing The tone of Connolly’s public demands for had been solved, and all was still to play military action can be gauged from the pages for’. Given this crisis both the Irish Republi- of the Workers’ Republic. On 22 January he can Brotherhood and the Irish Citizen Army issued a ringing call for action: ‘the time were determined to strike a blow that could for Ireland’s battle is NOW, the place for end British rule in Ireland. Ireland’s battle is here’. The IRB informed The Citizen Army had 340 members him of their own plans for a rising that leading up to the 1916 Rising and about 175 Easter. He was told that mustered for action on Easter Monday. The was in Germany organising arms and am- majority were attached to the garrison in the munition to be shipped to Ireland. After GPO and in the College of Surgeons. The three days of intense discussion and debate ICA was the first unit into action. Just af- with Padraig Pearse, Sean MacDiarmada, ter midday on Easter Monday a contingent and he agreed to be co- of the ICA attempted to take , opted onto the Military Council, thereby ce- but they were beaten back. Seán Connolly of menting the military alliance between the the ICA, a fine young actor with the Abbey Volunteers and the Citizen Army. Theatre, was the first casualty suffered by the rebels during the attack. England’s Difficulty – Ireland’s The GPO was occupied as much for its Opportunity symbolic nature as for its military signifi- cance. The tricolour which came to sym- In the decade before the Great War the bolise the nascent Republic flew over the United Kingdom experienced a series of GPO, but Connolly ensured that the Plough crises that were almost unprecedented in and the Stars was hoisted over the Imperial modern times around the struggle for con- Hotel, owned by his old adversary William stitutional reform in the House of Lords, the Martin Murphy. The occupation of the Ja- series of strikes that were part of the ‘great cob’s biscuit factory had little strategic or unrest’, the fight for the vote for women, military value and Connolly may have or- and the issue of Irish Home Rule. In Ire- dered it to be occupied in retribution for land the crisis was at its most extreme. The the owner’s conduct during the lockout in British Officer class in Ireland had effec- 1913. In Fairview a company of Volunteers tively mutinied in March 1914 on the issue of and the ICA tried to destroy Annesley Rail- whether they would obey orders to suppress way Bridge in order to prevent the British armed resistance to Home Rule by the Ul- from reinforcing the garrison by train. The ster Unionists. The country was awash with ICA occupied the Dublin and Wicklow Ma- arms; three civilian armies were drilling and nure Company which overlooked the bridge

58 possibly in retaliation for the difficulties en- The historical significance of the ICA, countered by the ITGWU in 1915 in trying what D,R. O’Connor Lysaght has called its to unionise the company. By occupying Ja- ‘heroic period’ was between 1913 and 1916. cob’s factory and the Dublin and Wicklow He also points out that there were consid- Manure Company, Connolly and the Citizen erable changes, both tactical and strategic Army were putting down a marker that the in the composition and strategy of the ICA revolution had social and economic objec- in that period. Only five of the original tives as well. On the eve of the Rising, at twenty-four members of the Army Council an assembly in , Connolly had mobilised on Easter Monday 1916, and the instructed his comrades in the Citizen Army two senior commandants of the ICA, Con- that: nolly and Mallin, had not been on the ear- lier body. Frank Robbins, who was close to In the event of victory, hold on to Connolly politically, writes of the problems your rifles, as those with whom in the Citizen Army in the aftermath of the we are fighting may stop before Rising. Many of the old working class mem- our goal is reached. We are for bers had resigned and the newer recruits had economic as well as political lib- little or no loyalty to the union. Also, the erty. relationship with the was strained as a result of the continuing en- The rebellion in was domi- deavours of the IRB to bring the ICA under nated by the nationalist politics of the IRB their control. and the more conservative politics of the The ICA fought in the War of Indepen- Irish Volunteers. But, this was leavened by dence and on the republican side in the the support of James Connolly and the , but were totally isolated from the Citizen Army who saw the opportunity to working-class movement and only played a light a flame that might inspire socialists support role with no independent class posi- across Europe to oppose the war and turn tion during those turbulent years. It strug- their guns on their own ruling class. Despite gled on until 1935 before dissolving to form the failure in military terms of the 1916 Ris- the nucleus of the left wing of the Labour ing, almost eighteen months later the Rus- Party. sian working class did precisely that. The Much ink has been spilt in the social- war in Europe was one of the decisive fac- ist press debating whether Connolly and the tors that pushed Connolly and the national- ICA were right to participate in the Rising. ists into an armed conflict with the British But history has justified Connolly’s position; state. In doing so Connolly had won a place what ended the Great War was the Russian for the working class in the emerging strug- Revolution of 1917, and the German Rev- gle for Irish independence. olution in early November 1918. Connolly had hoped the revolution in Ireland would Aftermath ‘set the torch to a European conflagration’ that would sweep away capitalist and bond- Two leading members of the ICA, James holder. With hindsight it is easy to say Connolly and , were executed they should have waited until the situation after the surrender and eleven were killed in both in Ireland and internationally was more action. Connolly’s execution after the Ris- favourable. But it is to Connolly’s, and the ing left the ICA leaderless and without any comrades of the ICA’s, credit that they had political direction. the courage to act when they did.

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