The Evolution Of British Policy And The Emergence Of A Sinn Fein Publicity Department

In The Years After The Easter Rising.

Mss notes, Part 27

Gallagher and Childers 

  The killing of [Alan] Bell had a direct and immediate effect on the Irish Bulletin for it led to the arrest of Frank Gallagher on 27th March.  Gallagher, under his pen-name of David Hogan, later gave a description of his arrest.  He placed the event in the context of the Curfew laws that forced Irish people into their homes in the early evening, preparing the way for the British Army lorries, with their searchlights blazing, to conduct their searches:

“That night as I sat by the fire, looking at the great headlines which told that Alan Bell’s hunt for the Republican funds was over, I heard the lorries come from the Beggars Bush Barracks nearby” (David Hogan, Chapter headed ‘We Want You’,  which were the last words heard by Alan Bell, see Four Glorious Years, Dublin, 1953, p149).

Gallagher was not happy as his landlady, of Unionist sympathies,  confronted him with the news in the evening papers.  He wrote later—

“I did not believe in assassination, but injustice bred cruel children.   Britain had suppressed every other expression of our nationality except the gun…  I was on the defensive” (Frank Gallagher, Days Of Fear, London, 1928, p18.  In this account of his arrest, Gallagher gives his own name and not that of ‘David Hogan’ to the arresting officer).  

Gallagher recounted how—

“sleep came easily—and so did waking.  The room was black as pitch.  I heard the swish of a hand feeling for the switch.  The walls blazed with light.  At the door were half-a-dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets.   

 “There was a long silence and at last an officer came into the room: 

” “David Hogan?”

  “Yes.”

“There was a pause and I watched the soldiers, wondering would they come suddenly towards me. 

““Get up and dress—we want you”.

 “The officer had spoken the last words Alan Bell had heard” (Ibid, p150). 

Sinn Fein Weekly Summary for week ending 3rd April 1920 records Gallagher’s arrest under his own name for 29th March).  “We want you” were, indeed, the words recalled by members of the Squad in the seizing of Bell. 

The loss of Gallagher was a grievous blow to the publication of the Irish Bulletin.  The burden of maintaining the high standard of the journal and, in particular, defending the good name of MacCurtain and Sinn Fein fell on Robert Brennan, who had just returned from his three weeks in England, and Desmond FitzGerald, both of whom were on the run.  

Childers also played his part in sustaining the Sinn Fein publicity campaign by sending an article to the Daily News on 23rd March, entitled Military Rule In Ireland.  It was published on 29th March and was followed by seven other articles in April and May.  These articles, subsequently published in pamphlet form, in both English and French before the end of the year, had a major impact on British, American and French opinion (Erskine Childers, Military Rule In Ireland, Dublin 1920; La Terreur Militaire en Irlande, traduit par J. Gros, Paris, 1920).

Childers somehow also managed to find time to promote the interest of the Land Bank and to cultivate influential acquaintances.  

From 23rd March until the evening of 27th, March Childers toured the west and south of Ireland on behalf of the National Land Bank and, at the same time, winning over support for Sinn Fein.  In Ennis he met Bishop Fogarty, “a charming, lovable man and a burning patriot”;  in Limerick he met Bishop Hallinan, Stephen O’Mara, and Mayor Edward O’Callaghan, “a shrewd, capable man”, who had received a threatening letter;  and in Cork he met John Horgan, ? Dowdall, Professor O’Rahilly, Liam de Roiste, Terence MacSwiney, and Fr. Dominic.  

The news of Bell’s death came through as he was talking to the Cork Sinn Feiners.  On his return to Dublin, Childers met Dumont, the American consul, and Fr. Sweetman, a Benedictine priest with a school and small tobacco business in Gorey, whom he described as “the most un-Catholic Catholic we ever met” (Childers Diary, 23-28 March 1920, 7811, Trinity MS;  own book on St. Gerard’s).

Childers met a further range of contacts on 30th March, including James MacNeill, Alice Stopford Green, Professor Arthur Clery, and Maire Comerford in regard to a Sinn Fein Educational Scheme and, later in the evening, George Russell and Albinia Brodrick, the sister of the Earl of Midleton.  

The next day Childers attended a meeting of the Directors of the National Land Bank.  Many of these people, coming as they did from a Protestant and Unionist tradition, were won over to the constructive ideals of Dail Eireann and became important voices in the publicity campaign of Sinn Fein.  

Of more immediate impact on the publication of the Irish Bulletin was a meeting of Childers with Desmond FitzGerald on 29th March.  They had a long talk about foreign propaganda and it was agreed that Arthur Griffith should be consulted about articles relating to Robert Barton, who was still in prison (Childers Diary, 29-30 March 1920, 7811, Trinity MS).  

On the evening of 29th March, Childers visited Frank Gallagher in Mountjoy Prison, where there were some sixty other Sinn Fein prisoners, all confined without charge or court process, and brought him a letter and some cigarettes (Childers Diary, 29 March 1920, 7811, Trinity MS).  These prisoners began a Hunger Strike on 5th April:  and their plight, and Dublin Castle’s handling of it, was soon to become a major policy and publicity issue.  

In the meantime, despite the absence of Gallagher, the work of those associated with the Dail Eireann Publicity Department continued efficiently, as did the publication of the Irish Bulletin.   

On 30th March the Irish Bulletin began to challenge claims, emanating from the British press, that MacCurtain had been killed by fellow Sinn Feiners.   It reported that the Daily Mail of that day had stated:  “on unimpeachable authority that official enquiries in Ireland have proved beyond doubt” that MacCurtain was “the victim of Sinn Fein vengeance” (Irish Bulletin, 30 March 1920;  Strickland Diary, 30 March 1920,  Strickland Papers p363, IWM for reference to Daily Mail and the view that it was ‘upsetting’ Sinn Fein).  

The Times of London had published a similar report on 29th March.  The Bulletin commented scathingly that “official enquiries” and “unimpeachable evidence” have often been used by the British Government in Ireland to prove what was untrue (Irish Bulletin, 30th March 1920).  

Faced by the evident worsening condition in Ireland, and the exposure of it by the Irish Bulletin and by Childers, the British Government began to question the capacity of both General Shaw, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and of Ian Macpherson, the Chief Secretary, to improve the situation.  

Changes In The Dublin Castle Administration 

 From the point of view of the British administration in Ireland there was an air of confusion, if not of crisis, as the month of March ended:  the army and the police had failed to prevent the IRA campaign of selective assassination;  they were in the dock, quite literally, over the murder of the Lord Mayor of Cork;  and, despite the countless bans and proscriptions of Sinn Fein and Dail Eireann, both organisations were functioning with a high degree of popular support.  

Lord French, who was in London when MacCurtain was killed, attended several meetings at the Irish Office before he had a decisive meeting with Lloyd George and Bonar Law on 23rd March 1920 (check Macready and check French book).  Lloyd George suggested that the Irish administration, as conducted by Macpherson, was unsatisfactory and that General Macready, a soldier and policeman, would have more to offer the Army in Ireland than General Shaw (French Diary, 21-23 March 1920, French Papers 75/46/3, IWM).

The strong point in Macready’s favour, according to Lloyd George, was that he would be more acceptable to Parliament:  as his appointment would “imply a policy of ‘Police’ power rather than Military power” (Ibid).  It was the experience of police work, as practised in Belfast and London, that proved a major factor in Macready’s appointment to replace Shaw.  Although French had great respect for Shaw and defended his reputation to the last, he confirmed the details of Macready’s appointment in further meetings with Macready, Long and Bonar Law before he left London on 25th March (French Diary 24-25 March 1920, French Papers 75/46/3, IWM;  and Long to French, 31 March 1920 and French to Long, 4 April 1920, French Papers 75/46/10, IWM). 

Macready arrived in Ireland on 14th April 1920 to take up his Command.   General Strickland, whose command at Cork was to play a vital part in the army campaign, met Macready on 21st April and described him as “most affable”, and “full of enthusiasm” (Strickland Diary, 21 April 1920, P363, IWM).

With his experience of police work and of Ireland, his liberal outlook and his marriage to Geraldine Atkin, whose family originally came from County Cork, Macready offered new prospects for Ireland.  However, his words to Macpherson about Ireland, expressed privately in January 1919, posed a question as to the qualities that he brought to the task at hand:

“I loathe the country you are going to and its people with a depth deeper than the sea and more violent than that that with which I feel against the Boche”  (Macready to Macpherson, 11 Jan. 1919, Strathcarron Papers, Bodleian; Charles Townshend, British Campaign, pp 74,75 for background to Macready)  

Fortunately for Macready, the words did not enter the public domain;  and, if it is a virtue to be even-handed in regard to one’s enemies, his loathing was evenly directed against the Orange element in Ulster and the Sinn Fein element in Ireland as a whole. 

The resignation of Macpherson on 2nd April 1920 was, despite the deteriorating situation in Ireland, accompanied with a certain degree of success.   During the last days of March, 29th – 31st, Macpherson had been responsible for the successful guiding of the Second Reading of the Government of Ireland Bill through the House of Commons.  Observing that there would be no Chief Secretary for Ireland in the new Bill, Macpherson joked that his speech might well be “the lay of the last minstrel” (The Times, 3rd April 1920). 

When the Bill was passed by 348 votes to 94, The Times remarked that: “the division was notable for the singular fact that not a single member for an Irish constituency voted for the Bill”  (The Times, 1 April 1920).

In fact some 22 Unionists voted against the Bill and others abstained.   The political forces in favour of Unionism in the Government ranks, however—provided by such voices as Walter Long, Bonar Law, Arthur Balfour and Austen Chamberlain—proved irresistible.  In particular, the passing of the Second Reading marked a success for the viewpoint of the Ulster Unionist Council which had declared its option for a ‘Six County ‘Ulster’.  

Privately Lloyd George, had accepted this reality a few weeks earlier, when he confided to C.P. Scott that, as to the Bill, “they must at all costs pass it.  Nothing could be done to amend it to which Carson objected” (Trevor Wilson (ed.) The Political Diaries of C.P. Scott, 1911-1928, London, 1970, p382 for the diary of 16/17 March 1920) . 

Somewhat cynically, Philip Kerr, Lloyd George’s Private Secretary, informed Scott that the Bill accomplished 

“two essential things:  it would take Ulster out of the Irish question… and it would take Ireland out of English party controversies” (Ibid).  

The democratic claims of Irish republicans, as manifested in the 1918 and 1920 Elections, and as further expounded in the pages of the Irish Bulletin, did not figure in the political calculations of the British Cabinet.  Neither, for that matter, did the hopes and aspirations of Unionists living outside the six-county fragment of Ulster.  

(The Times, 8th April 1920 for General Wilson ‘freedom of Belfast’, and recounting the words of the Chinese philosopher that “there were only two countries in the world fit to live in  China and Ireland … the only two countries which the Irish did not rule”;  and cf Jackson).  

Macpherson saw Lloyd George and Bonar Law, after the Bill had been passed, and he informed Lord French that they were concerned about his health and of the need “to re-construct the Government” (Macpherson to French, 2 April 1920, French Papers 75/46/9, IWM).  In these circumstances Macpherson stepped down gracefully and confided to Lord French—for whom he expressed great friendship—that he could not face “an immediate journey to Ireland to clean out the Augean Stable at the Castle” (Ibid).  

Macpherson hoped that French would be allowed to retain his post as “the crowning work of your distinguished career”, but was less sympathetic to those who had conspired to remove him from office declaring:  “My disloyal colleagues and their satellites have triumphed and I wish them joy!!”  He concluded, with some disdain, that “I am succeeded by Hamar Greenwood!” (Macpherson to French, 2 April 1920, French Papers 75/46/9, IWM).

‘The lay of the last minstrel’ was to be played out by Greenwood and not by Macpherson.  French informed Macpherson that he was “grieved and distressed” at his departure, and congratulated him on his splendid speech and magnificent majority (French to Ian, 4 April 1920, Strathcarron Papers MS 490, Bodleian Library).  Supporters of Sinn Fein were less sympathetic to Macpherson.  A ballad, entitled, The Bould Black and Tan, was composed to be sung to the air of Master McGrath.  It read: 

“Said Lloyd George to Macpherson I give you the sack 

To uphold law and order you haven’t the knack. 

I’ll send over Greenwood a much stronger man 

And fill the Green Isle with the bould Black and Tan.” 

(Leaflet, The Bould Black and Tan, Barton Papers, 

5638, NLI;  nb see also Macready book for same).

Greenwood was, indeed, “a much stronger man”.  This quality was recognised by Major Street who, having recounted Greenwood’s prowess as a lawyer, parliamentarian and officer in the War, concluded that “above all, here was a strong man, a man who had faced the world and knew his power” (see I.O., The Administration Of Ireland, London, 1921, p82 and summary of career pp81-83).  

These were the views of an Intelligence Officer who worked with Greenwood and admired his methods.  A more measured evaluation is provided by Charles Townshend, who suggests that Greenwood’s strength was marked by inflexibility and his liberal colours masked the instincts of a natural conservative (Townshend, The British Campaign, p76 for an evaluation of Greenwood).  

Prior to his arrival in Ireland on 6th May 1920, Greenwood had to contest a by-election for his constituency of Sunderland.  He made Ireland an issue at the election and supported the firm policy of the Coalition Government.  Having won the election, he proceeded to implement that policy in Ireland. 

The passing of the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill and the appointment of Greenwood as Chief Secretary did not signal the passing of Walter Long from the Irish scene.  He remained in regular contact with Lord French and, on 24th June 1920, he was appointed Chairman of a new Irish Affairs Committee which was designed to supervise the final transition of the Ireland Bill to the passing of an Act.  This Committee, like its predecessors, was dominated by Unionist members.  

Other Ulster leaders were also promoted in the Ministerial changes that accompanied Macpherson’s retirement:  Colonel Sir James Craig became Financial Secretary to the Admiralty and the Marquess of Londonderry became Under-Secretary of State for Air.  

The dominant position that Unionists had secured in the resolution of the Irish problem, following the Curragh ‘mutiny’ of 1914. and of the accession of the Ulster Unionists to the War Cabinet in 1915, was further confirmed by the composition of Lloyd George’s new Ministry.  

However, while Greenwood and Macready were preparing to take up their new responsibilities, Lord French and Sir John Taylor remained in control of day-to-day affairs in Ireland.  It was they who had to deal with the final events surrounding the death of Thomas MacCurtain. 

(To be continued).

Further Reading:

Casement – Life & Times by Angus Mitchell  (Second edition, Paperback (26 Mar 2026).