The Brian P. Murphy OSB Archive. (Series 9)

The Evolution of British Policy and the Emergence of a Sinn Fein Publicity Department

in the years after the Easter Rising, 1916-1918.

Mss notes, Part 20

Suppression Of Freeman’s Journal And Role Of Irish Bulletin 

The suppression of the Freeman’s Journal towards midnight of 15th December 1919 was reported by the Irish Bulletin in a manner that gave a working example of British military rule.  The Bulletin began by quoting from the Freeman’s Journalof the morning of its suppression in which the leading article had criticised “the miserable Irish Executive” for attempting to enlist Civil servants as Special Constables:  despite having some 50,000 troops “with all the equipment of modern war”, and 14,000 men “in the shape of a militarised police force” (Irish Bulletin, 16 Dec. 1919 ?? link with earlier mention of FJ).  The British response to the article was based on the allegation that it contained “false statements and statements likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty”, was then recorded by the Bulletin:

” ‘I, in the exercise of the powers conferred on me as such Competent Military Authority’, proclaimed the warrant of General T.S. Lambert, Commanding Dublin Brigade, ‘… hereby order you Superintendent George Willoughby DMP, your officers, constables and assistants … to enter if need be by force, the said premises at any time of day or night… and to seize all copies or parts of copies of the said “Freeman’s Journal” … and also the type and other plant used or capable of being used for printing or publication of the said newspaper’…”  (Irish Bulletin, 16 Dec.1919 ?? look up DMP book)   

The stark words of the warrant conveyed the harsh reality of military rule.  They also served to confirm the opinion of Erskine Childers that the treatment of the press under military rule was far more draconian than under the more civilised control of the official press censor.  The Freeman’s Journal was to remain suppressed for some seven weeks, until 28th January 1920.  Throughout that period the Irish Bulletin and the press generally, both in England and Ireland, expressed criticism of the application of press censorship by means of DORA [Defence of the Realm Act].  The Daily News played a prominent part in exposing the nature of this form of censorship by reproducing, in miniature, the offending copy of the Freeman on the day following its suppression (Freeman’s Journal, 20 Jan. 1920 in which special gratitude was given to the Daily News).  The Dublin Evening Telegraph, which was also owned by FitzGerald and Hamilton, bravely and consistently criticised the Freeman suppression by military edict, and published extracts from a letter of Bryan Cooper, the former Press Censor, to prove their point.   

Once again Bryan Cooper took the same side as Erskine Childers in his criticism of Government Rule by Proclamation.  In a letter to The Times of London on 18th December 1919, Cooper—while condemning the crimes of some Sinn Feiners, such as the murder of DI Hunt in Thurles—was critical of a government policy which branded the entire Sinn Fein party an ‘illegal association’.  He was critical, too, of a policy that made it a crime to collect money for Afforestation and to publish the report of an Inquiry Into The Industrial Resources of the country.  Cooper concluded that:  

“at the beginning of the year the Government had an opportunity of bringing peace and contentment to Ireland.  The path which they are now following leads not to peace and contentment, not even to the maintenance of law and order, but to the alienation of the sympathies of moderate Irishmen and the strengthening and consolidation of Sinn Fein.  Had the leaders of the most extremist section of the Sinn Feiners been permitted to dictate the actions of the Government, they could not have adopted a policy better calculated to fulfil their desires than that which the Executive are now pursuing” (The Times, 18 Dec. 1919; also extract in Dublin Evening Telegraph).

The harmony of view between Childers and his former adversary, Bryan Cooper, speaks volumes for what was really happening in Ireland.  Other English commentators shared the same view and the Irish Bulletin and the Sinn Fein Weekly Summary endeavoured to make their voices heard.  Regularly the Irish Bulletin published extracts from British sources which praised the character of Sinn Fein and criticised the English policy of coercion.  On 19th December 1919 the Irish Bulletin published items from the special correspondents in Dublin of the Morning Post, The Times of London and the Daily Mail.  The Morning Post correspondent reported that:

“the Sinn Fein frame of mind is as open as a book to anyone who can read… in a sense this is the most honest movement of the kind the country has experienced.”  

The Times reported that:  

“like it or not, we have all to admit that where you find an active intellectual centre in Ireland to-day, you have an active centre of Sinn Fein”. 

The Daily Mail reported that the Sinn Fein movement was a “mature, determined, national, disciplined and above all intelligent revolt” (Irish Bulletin, 19 Dec. 1919 citing Morning Post 17 Dec., The Times, 18 Dec., and Daily Mail, 15 Dec.1919)   

These laudatory comments were followed on 22nd December 1919 by reflections of the English press which were hostile to the government policy of coercion.  The Daily Mail declared that—

“military rule has goaded the people into a rebellious spirit.  The military rule in Ireland is bound to provoke outrages just as the Coercion Act provoked the violence in the Eighties.”  

The Westminster Gazette reported that “Ireland is governed under a system of coercion such as there has not been within living memory“.  The Times stated that—

“those who have followed the course of events in Ireland during the past few months cannot fail to note the steady development with which the Executive have had recourse to drastic measures of repression…” (Irish Bulletin, 22 Dec. 1919 citing Daily Mail, 15 Dec., Westminster Gazette 16 Dec., and The Times, 17 Dec. 1919).  These observations not only accurately reflect the growth of repression as Government policy associated with the increasing ascendancy of Lord French and Sir John Taylor, but also testify to the success of the Dail Eireann Propaganda Department in making these changes known.   

This success was based, in large part, on the co-operation between the Irish Bulletin in Dublin and the work of Desmond FitzGerald and Erskine Childers in London.  These combined efforts continued to make a telling impact on the debates in the House of Commons especially through the contributions of Wedgwood Benn:  and from that source returned, as it were to Ireland, and there secured a place of prominence in the pages of the Irish Bulletin.  This cyclical pattern of promoting the Irish cause had been introduced from the earliest days of the Irish Bulletin‘s publication and, as the year ended, it had become a regular and significant feature of the publicity campaign.   

On 22nd December 1919 the Irish Bulletin publicised a contribution from Benn in the House of Commons in order to add weight to the theme of that day’s issue that ‘Coercion Provokes Outrages’.  Without making any reference to the help that he had received from his Irish associates, Benn made a detailed statement on crime from what he declared to be “the figures of arrests that I have collected from the newspapers” (Irish Bulletin, 22 Dec. 1919, citing Benn in the House of Commons on 9 Dec. 1919).  In 1917 he said there were 719 arrests;  in 1918 there were 2,600 arrests;  and in 1919 there were 7,600 arrests.  These figures were taken from statistics published in the Irish Bulletin.  “Is it not perfectly obvious”, Benn concluded rhetorically, that “the policy pursued merely provokes the very disorder it professes to do away with?” (Irish Bulletin, 22 Dec. 1919)               

In the same speech in the House of Commons on 9th December 1919 Benn made an interesting observation on seditious literature, which brought John Horgan’s pamphlet, The Grammar Of Anarchy, back into the public domain.  Benn asked, 

“What is meant by seditious literature?… I have got here some seditious literature which has been suppressed by the police.  It is a book called “The Grammar of Anarchy” and it contains nothing from cover to cover but quotations from associates of honourable and right honourable gentlemen on the Treasury Bench delivered during the time of the threatened Ulster Rebellion.  Do not let this House be taken in by camouflage about seditious literature“`’  (Irish Bulletin, 19 Dec. 1919; same issue Dan Allis).  

Benn remarked that many Irishmen had been arrested for their association with seditious literature and implicitly raised the question why no action had been taken against Bonar Law and other members of the Cabinet whose words were to be found in The Grammar of Anarchy  The well-established connection between Childers and Benn goes some way towards explaining Benn’s familiarity with The Grammar of Anarchy.  This connection was, moreover, strengthened by the continuing contacts between Childers and Horgan. 

In the Autumn of 1919, Childers and Horgan had co-operated in publishing a second edition of The Grammar of Anarchy.  Horgan had decided to seek re-publication of the pamphlet in England and, on the advice of Childers, had sought the assistance of Alice Stopford Green and Dame Una Pope Hennessy (Horgan, From Parnell to Pearse, p336).  Following their advice and help, the London publisher, Nisbet & Company, had agreed to publish the pamphlet, and a copy was sent to every member of the House of Commons.   It was in this context that Benn had raised the significance of the pamphlet in Parliament.  

Commenting on Benn’s speech in his diary, Childers noted briefly that Benn had made a “good speech”.   Benn’s speech was but the first of many in the House of Commons that referred to Horgan’s pamphlet.  In Autumn 1920 the Manchester Guardian observed that 

“a famous little book called The Grammar of Anarchy is now being used all over the world as a kind of anarchist’s Bible and it is composed simply and solely of incitements to riot, rebellion and lynching quoted word for word from public speeches made by colleagues or political supporters of Mr Lloyd George…”  (Manchester Guardian, 24 September 1920 in Horgan, Parnell, p337).

The co-operation of Childers and Horgan, however, did not simply end with the re-publication of The Grammar of Anarchy.  It continued in the journal, Studies: the very last words of Horgan’s article in Studies in June 1919 were those of Childers;  the very first words of Childers article declared that:  “a new edition of Mr John Horgan’s Grammar of Anarchy is timely”  (Childers Diary, 10 Dec. 1919, 7811, Trinity MS; Erskine Childers, Law and Order in Ireland;  Studies, Dec. 1919;  Childers’ Diary, 10 Dec. 1919, 7811, Trinity for mention of article).  Childers expressed his gratitude that the pamphlet had recently been re-published and related how copies of its first edition had been confiscated from booksellers by the police without compensation.  This action, Childers concluded caustically, provided “an illuminating example of “law” as it exists in Ireland”  (Erskine Childers, Law and Order in Ireland, in Studies, Dec. 1919 p598).

Apart from drawing attention to Horgan’s book, the article by Childers expanded, and brought up to date, the detailed expose of the military nature of British rule in Ireland that had already been publicised by himself, John Horgan and the Irish Bulletin.  In many ways it was a survey of the actions of Dublin Castle during the past year.  Childers maintained that—

“the military regime described by Mr Horgan under the title ‘Precept and Practice in Ireland’ in the June number of Studies—an article which was a useful commentary on his pamphlet—has been steadily intensified since that date.  Here are some of its principal achievements” (Childers, Law and Order, p.601).  

Among the actions selected by Childers for special mention were the Proclamation against Dail Eireann on 17th September, the raid on the Dail offices on 11th November—a day he noted that was designed to commemorate “the divine blessing of peace”—and the suppression of many nationalist newspapers and of nationalist organisations.   

Childers stressed particularly the effect of these repressive actions on the system of propaganda.  He stated that:  “by the arrest of employees and the wholesale seizure of papers, records and propaganda”, the authorities can severely hamper the “publicity and constructive work” of the Irish nationalist organisation (Childers, Studies, p603).  In contrast, Childers commented, the British Government 

“uses without scruple the immense power conferred upon it by diplomatic agencies, cable control, Parliament and secret propaganda to calumniate the republican movement as an organisation to promote crime” (Ibid. p604).

The words of Childers provided a blunt reminder of the powers of propaganda that the English Government possessed and of the unequal struggle that Dail Eireann was facing. 

Childers concluded by quoting from Sir Horace Plunkett’s speech to the National Liberal Council in London on 29th October 1919, the speech that he had helped to prepare.   Having explained that Plunkett was a member of the King’s Privy Council in Ireland, Childers quoted him as stating that—

“in the circumstances the country is marvellously free from serious crime.  The Government recently published ugly looking statistics of crimes attributable to Sinn Fein.  The great majority of these consisted of expressing political opinions unpalatable to the military authorities, or, as they would express it, calculated to impede the police in discharging their function of suppressing meetings and newspapers of the leading political party”  (Childers, Studies, p606).

These opinions from the Chairman of the Irish Convention, a Privy Councillor, and a recognised sympathiser with the English Government, were bound to unsettle the minds of the British Establishment far more than any overt Sinn Fein propaganda.  Plunkett’s conclusion provided the establishment with an even greater shock:

“Beneath all this tragedy—this futility and farce…—there is being established an Irish Republic with, at least, as much moral sanction as your Government can claim, and with ten times its political influence not only upon the thought and action of the Irish people, but upon the anti-British sentiment throughout the world.  Such is the achievement of the English Government to-day”  (Ibid).  

It was no surprise that Childers embodied the sentiments of Plunkett in his own conclusion:

“There is no sign that the Government realise the moral responsibility they are incurring.  Official utterances assume, with insufferable hypocrisy, that a congenitally depraved people is engaged in a causeless campaign against a humane and impartial government.  Meanwhile a Cabinet Committee, dominated by life-long Unionists like Mr Walter Long and Lord Birkenhead, have been considering a Home Rule Bill.  No one consults the Irish people” (Childers, Studies, 607).  

The analysis by Childers of the nature of the Irish situation at the end of 1919, made with the help of John Horgan, was remarkably prescient:  the threat posed by a Cabinet Committee under Walter Long’s direction was correctly recognised; the conduct of the Dublin Castle administration, claiming to be humane while engaging in coercion, was also accurately delineated.  His warning on ‘official utterances’ was to be more than fulfilled, when British propaganda, under that heading, developed ‘official’ news to a fine art in the 1920s,    

Childers, having made his own specific contribution to the publicity campaign, returned to Dublin with his family on 18th December 1919 and lived at 20 Wellington Road.   At this time he became a director of the National Land Bank, which had been established by Dail Eireann to address the Irish land question under the directorship of Robert Barton, his cousin.  

 (To be continued)