After the War of Independence Some further questions about West Cork, April 27-29 1922 By Niall Meehan mand of Sam Maguire, who was in March 2008 Irish Political Review turn Michael Collins’ man in England. In The Irish Political Review (February The Civil War disrupted a combined 2008), Jack Lane commented on a recent pro and anti Treaty IRA attack on the RTE Hidden History documentary on the state of Northern Ireland, whose con- July 1921 IRA execution of the Pearson solidation contributed to the long-term isolation of northern nationalists from Brothers at Coolacrease, Co Offaly. Jack sons they were killed was a provocation orches- while Protestant mobs engaged in mas- observed, ‘The devil is in the detail’ pro- trated by Wilson’. Jack also suggested that IRA sacre. The paradox was not lost on the political forces in the South. vided by researchers Pat Muldowney and leaders, ‘Tom Barry, Sean O’Hegarty, Tom Hales, English press. The Manchester Guardian Southern sectarianism Philip McConway, but largely ignored by could not figure out who did it and were always commented in March 1922: “whilst The 26 County state did develop convinced that it was a provocation’. Where is the envenomed politicians in the Ulster par- the Hidden History programme makers. sectarian traits, but there is no legiti- evidence for these thoughts? Where is the liament are voting themselves powers to mate comparison with the North. In Jack goes on to comment on later killings of ‘detail’? use torture and capital punishment the South no organised, systematic loyalists in Dunmanway between April 27-29 I am currently looking at the emergence of revi- against citizens whom they forbid to attacks on Protestants took place. In 1922, while the Truce between Irish and British sionist historiography in the 1970s, and its use to defend themselves, whilst they scarcely fact the physical coercion of national- forces was in force. The killings took place four reframe the conflict between 1919-21 in ethnic or attempt to protect them from massacre, ists in the North, on the basis that months after the republican split over the terms of purely sectarian terms. Some of the research some of their own partisans in Belfast they were Catholics, was mirrored by the Anglo Irish Treaty, two months prior to the out- may be relevant in response to some of the points carry wholesale murder to refinements of ideological control, based on Catholic break of the Irish Civil War. The killings are impor- raised by Jack Lane. An enquiry into Peter Hart’s barbarity”.’ social teaching, of nationalists in the tant to those who suggest that the Irish War of revisions of his own account may also be instruc- After partition came into effect in June 1922, South. Protestants were not persecut- Independence was a largely sectarian or ‘ethnic’ tive. In 1992 Hart completed a PhD thesis in TCD. ed because, aside from other consid- conflict. Jack correctly points to the pivotal role of ‘Virtually all the 232 victims were It was also named The IRA and its Enemies. erations, it made no political sense. Peter Hart’s The IRA and its Enemies (1998) in Catholic, and 11,000 were made jobless Northern sectarianism The Catholic Church’s cruel Ne promoting this view, one shared by the historian and 23,000 homeless as Protestants Temere decree, issued in Rome, did Roy Foster and a couple of journalists who assid- Catholics suffered sectarian oppression in the protected their access to socio-econom- deplete Protestant numbers in mixed uously promote it. The April 1922 killings in Cork North. In July 1920, 8-10,000 Catholics and ic resources. Over 4,500 Catholic- marriages in the South. However, rel- are used to give the impression that the same socialists were expelled from the Harland and owned shops and businesses were ative Protestant social and economic thing happened elsewhere, for instance the Wolff shipyards and from other workplaces by burned, looted or wrecked. Property privilege was maintained. Coolacrease killings in Offaly in July 1921. unionist mobs. Unionist leadership was directly worth £3 million was destroyed. However, while correctly pinpointing the April implicated, while the leaders of Protestant ‘Anti-Catholicism in the new state of The South developed a 1922 events as ‘the elephant in the parlour’, Jack churches in the North acted as apologists. Northern Ireland existed in its pure functioning civil society that engages in speculation in which the ‘detail’ is left Sectarian attacks intensified after the Northern form, operating at the levels of ideas, generated internal secular reform. behind. Ireland State was set up in June 1922. They were behaviour and social structure as it The state was forced to abandon its Jack raises the possibility of agent provoca- even more one sided than what went before. came to shape the society whose state use of the Church to run education, Newspaper report of death of Ned Young, last surviving veteran of teurs being responsible for the April killings and Nationalists had begun to offer some resistance. Protestants now controlled... The health and social services. In the Lloyd George wrote to Churchill: ascendancy in the North was effected sectarian state of Northern Ireland the Kilmichael Ambush that took place on 28 November 1920 (The speculates on a role for the fanatical unionist MP Southern Star, 18 November 1989). In The IRA and its Enemies ‘It is true that several protestants have reform was not possible. Nationalists Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson. Wilson led oppo- immediately by means of the (1992, 1998), Peter Hart reported interviewing a Kilmichael ambush were the victims of coercion and of sition to the British withdrawal from the 26 been murdered, but the murders of Protestantisation of the administration veteran one day after publication, November 19 1989 Counties, encouraged sectarian pogroms against Catholics went on at a rate of three or and personnel of the state.’ (Anti- unrelenting economic and political defenceless Catholics in Northern Ireland, and four to one for some time before Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600- discrimination for over 50 years. thirty of the cases was the seizure even stated to called for the re-occupation of the 26 Counties. Catholic reprisals attained their present 1998: The Mote and the Beam, 1998: However, in The IRA and its Enemies (1998) be ‘by order IRA’’. In raising the possibility of British agent provo- dimensions and even now the propor- 92-93) Peter Hart attempted to suggest a degree of In rural areas some who had not yet received cateurs, speculation is mounted on speculation in tions are two Catholics murdered to one Wilson was killed at the height of anti-Catholic republican sectarian reciprocation in Cork for land seized it. They also drove or stole livestock. suggesting that Wilson might have been respon- protestant although the population is violence. Immediate threats of British re-invasion events in Belfast between 1920-22. There were also cases of farm occupations by sible. It is also suggested that Wilson’s assassi- two Protestants to one Catholic’ (in Jim prompted Michael Collins’ June 28 1922 Free In the interregnum after the Treaty split, in the those claiming to have been previously evicted. nation on June 22 1922 by IRA volunteers, McDermott, Northern Divisions, the old State attack on the Republican Four Courts garri- first six months of 1922 up to the onset of civil This activity tended to affect Protestants dispro- Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, might IRA and the Belfast pogroms 1920-22 son, the start of the Irish Civil War and subse- war, there was a breakdown of civil control. Kee’s portionately, because Protestants were dispro- have been prompted by suspicion about Wilson’s 2001:191). quent victory of conservative forces in Irish soc- The Green Flag, Volume III, (1972: 163), reports, portionately large landowners. Some of this activ- role in the April killings. It can reasonably be sur- Brewer and Higgin’s observed: iety. Ironically, the pretext for the attack, the killing ‘In the three weeks from 29 March to 19 April, 323 ity appears to have been for personal gain. It was mised that Sam Maguire, a Dunmanway ‘the orgy of violence in 1922 once of Wilson, was more likely linked to Collins than to post offices were robbed in the South of Ireland; sometimes accompanied by the sending of Protestant and member of the IRA in England, Protestants controlled the state saw Anti-Treaty forces. Collins had been exercised and forty consignments of goods were seized threats to protestants, claiming to be in response ‘knew the [Dunmanway] victims personally’. But Catholics alone as victims… [I]t was ille- about the daily attacks on Catholics in Northern from the Dublin and South-Eastern Railway to the pogroms in the North. Both sides of the Jack continued, ‘He [Maguire] suspected the rea- gal for Catholics to possess weapons, Ireland. Dunne and Sullivan were under the com- between 23 March and 22 April, though in only IRA, which was in favour of regulated land reform, actively opposed this sectarian opportunism nic cleansing’. However, Surprisingly, there is commentary in the 1992 Peter Hart asked the following question in an I replied that it would not thesis not carried over into the 1998 book. effort to explain a ‘polarisation of perceptions’ on have been misrepresen- Hart identified an individual as possibly revolutionary violence: ‘If a Protestant farmer was tation had I stated what being involved in the April killings in his 1992 attacked, was it because of religion or politics or Peter Hart denied. After thesis, on page 377 fn 47: his land or all three’. One contemporary observer all, in 1996 Hart wrote ‘Frank Busteed, the Blarney IRA leader felt competent to state in 1921: ‘If Protestant wrote: who killed Din Din O’Riordan (see Chapter farmers are murdered, it is not by reason of their ‘Similar cam- 1) and, notoriously, Mrs Lindsey, was quot- religion, but rather because they are under suspi- paigns of what might ed by Ernie O’Malley as saying ‘We shot cion as Loyalist.