The Evolution Of British Policy And The Emergence Of A Sinn Fein Publicity Department
In The Years After The Easter Rising.
Mss notes, Part 29
The Hunger Strike And Its Aftermath
The Hunger Strike—which lasted from 5th to 14th April—proceeded in tandem with the MacCurtain inquest. While [Frank] Gallagher wrote encouraging letters to his fiancée, Cecilia Saunders, informing her on 6th April that “things are going excellently here”, he was only trying to assuage her fears (FG to CS, 6 April 1920, FG 10050/102, Trinity Ms). In reality the situation rapidly became extremely grave and this condition was vividly portrayed by Gallagher in his book, Days Of Fear, a book he dedicated “to the memory of Erskine Childers” (Frank Gallagher, Days Of Fear, London, 1928) Ginnell??
Even at an early stage of the Hunger Strike, Gallagher was suffering badly. An entry in Childers’ diary for 8th April 1920 records that he received a “distressing letter” from Gallagher requesting him to write to the press about the conditions of the Hunger-Strikers: a request which Childers complied with on the following day (Childers’ Diary, 8 and 9 April 1920, 7811, Trinity Ms).
The knowledge that Childers was working on behalf of the prisoners meant a lot to Gallagher. On 11th April he noted that the firm line of Lord French would lead to deaths, “unless, in the end, the Press campaign Erskine has got under way will overwhelm him” (Gallagher, Days Of Fear, p47).
On 14th April, the last day of the Strike, Gallagher again stressed the importance of Childers:
“Have seen to-day’s papers… hardly any other news but of us. No need to complain of lack of publicity… Erskine has seen to that ably”
He then gave a special mention of the Irish Independent (Gallagher, Days Of Fear, pp 123,124).
Childers was, indeed, working hard on behalf of the Hunger-Strikers, both in an individual capacity and in co-operation with the Irish Bulletin. His diary for the first two weeks of April records several meetings with Desmond FitzGerald—one a joint meeting with FitzGerald and Arthur Griffith on 9th April to discuss a letter regarding the Hunger-Strike—and a meeting with Art O’Brien on 5th April.
Apart from these meetings with men involved in the publicity work of Dail Eireann, Childers also met many other individuals in an attempt to bring the plight of the Hunger-Strikers to a wider audience. Among those he met were George Russell (6 April), Fr. Albert (8 April), Sir Horace Plunkett (9 and 10 April), Bernard Shaw, at Plunkett’s house (10 April), and Wallace Smith of the Press Association (11 April).
On 12th April [1920] Childers took a major initiative by sending a cable to about twenty of his friends and contacts, asking for their help. The claims of the Hunger-Strikers, Childers assured them, were just. Among those to whom Childers sent the cable were Lord Parmoor, Lord Cavendish Bentinck, Lord Buckmaster, and several MPs—including Wedgwood-Benn, Asquith, Kenworthy, A. Henderson, and H.A.L. Fisher.
Many of these men came to play an important part in the Peace With Ireland Council that was formed at the end of the year.
Basil Williams, his long-time friend, also received a cable, and Childers noted that he was already doing what he could to help. Childers also observed that Sir Horace Plunkett had sent a copy of the cable to Lord French (Childers Diary, 12 April 1920, 7811, Trinity MS).
The cable from Plunkett was duly noted in French’s diary and illustrates the influence of both Childers and Plunkett (French Diary, 12 April 1920, French Papers 75/46/3, IWM).
It was against this background, and in co-operation with Childers, especially by adverting to his articles in the Daily News, that the Irish Bulletin highlighted the issue of the Hunger Strike in its pages. The particular condition of the Hunger-Strikers was portrayed in the wider context of the conditions in Ireland as a whole.
On 7th April the Irish Bulletin published part of an article by Childers entitled, Military Rule In Ireland, What It Means To Women, in which he gave several individual cases that had been carefully investigated. It was the attention to detail that made the cases so compelling, for instance: Mrs. Maurice Collins, five weeks short of her confinement, raided on 31st January 1920 at her home at 65 Parnell Square; husband arrested under 14 B of DORA [Defence Of The Realm Act]; husband released on parole but returned to jail after three more raids; no evidence, no trial, no apology (Irish Bulletin, 7 April 1920; Erskine Childers, Military Rule In Ireland, Dublin, 1920, pp8-12). With a powerful appeal to his English readers, Childers ended his account of Mrs. Clarke with the words “Women of England, you have votes and power: this is your responsibility” (Childers, Military Rule, p10).
The Irish Bulletin chose not to publicise another example provided by Childers regarding the situation of Mrs. Robert Brennan of 10 Belgrave Road, Rathmines. It is possible that Robert Brennan, himself, may not have wanted it advertised that, while on the run, his wife and three young children had been raided by the military on 27th February.
Possibly, too, Brennan may have been reluctant to reproduce the complimentary description that Childers gave of him:
“a marked man for no reason save that he is a responsible literary worker for the Republican cause, to whose integrity, broad-mindedness, and charm of character all who know him will bear witness” (Childers, Military Rule, p11).
The conclusion that Childers drew from the raid on Brennan’s house was as damning, and as powerful, as that made on the home of Mrs. Collins. The search of her house, he asserted, was—
“conducted with a roughness and insolence worthy of veritable Huns. Nothing found. No apology. This is not civilised war” (Childers, Military Rule, p12).
On 9th April the Bulletin recorded that some eighty Irishmen were then on Hunger-Strike and had gone five days without food. It noted that two prisoners were members of Parliament—Phil Shanahan and Tom Hunter—and that a number of Town Councillors were also held in custody. In an earlier article on 31st March the Bulletin had argued that, by arresting elected Sinn Fein representatives, “it is in the power of British militarism to turn an Irish democratic majority into a minority” (Irish Bulletin, 9 April and 31 March 1920).
Some of the prisoners, who had been sentenced under DORA, appealed for treatment as political prisoners; other prisoners, who had not been charged, demanded that they be released or interned as Prisoners of War.
Taylor and Lord French, however, both of whom had fully supported a hard-line against hunger-strikers when the problem had been discussed in 1919, showed no sign of yielding to the prisoners’ demands. The Irish Bulletin summarised the situation in its issue of 12th April. It recorded that:
“in answer to appeals, the Prisons Board state they have no authority to intervene, the Castle having deprived them of all powers in the matter. The prison Doctor has resigned in protest. The Chairman of the Visiting Justices, Mr. T. Clarke, JP, has resigned his Commission and his Chairmanship after a vain appeal for the Viceroy’s intervention” (Irish Bulletin, 12 April 1920).
The Irish Bulletin was not exaggerating the conditions inside the prison. Thomas Clarke, in his letter of resignation from the Chair of Visiting Justices, explained that—
“I resigned my position as a protest and in condemnation of the Monstrous injustice of British rule in this Country in seizing and casting into Prison men of the highest Character and reputation without trial or charge being made against them and thus depriving our fellow-Countrymen to resort to such desperate and revolting remedies as hunger-striking endangering their lives and permanently injuring their health. The agonising scenes of inhumanity and torture which I have witnessed in Mountjoy Prison will never be effaced from my memory” (Prisons Committee Minute Book 1916-1920, Dublin City Archives in Tim Carey, Mountjoy, The Story Of A Prison, Cork, 2000, p186).
The Bulletin concluded that Lord French—
“speaking through Sir John Taylor, the Assistant Under Secretary, declines to modify rules or to accord to the prisoners the treatment to which they are entitled” (Irish Bulletin, 12 April 1920).
The scene outside Mountjoy—with the army and police, in tanks and armoured cars and armed with bayonets and Lewis guns—confronting hundreds of relatives of the dying prisoners was a gift to the Propaganda Department of Dail Eireann. So remarkable were the scenes surrounding the Hunger-Strike, it was remarked that—”the Continental and transatlantic Press sent representatives to Dublin to watch its progress” (Editor of Frank Gallagher, Days Of Fear, London, 1928, pp7,8).
Photographs of relatives of prisoners, praying the rosary on their knees before the serried ranks of the Crown Forces, conveyed the reality of British military rule in Ireland in a far more compelling form than any written articles.
Inside Mountjoy, Frank Gallagher, who was reading Harry Johnston’s Colonisation Of Africa, hoped that those subject people, suffering under an Imperial yoke, might draw some encouragement and derive some benefit from the world-wide awareness of the Hunger Strike. He—
“felt an unspeakable pity for these rude people who come so suddenly under an Empire’s harrow… all empires are the same, ruthless, efficient, completely soulless, incapable of understanding. One wants to cry… but, brothers of Africa, we whom you know not of are making one Empire weaker” (Gallagher, Days Of Fear, p25). The observations of Gallagher reflect the contemporary view of Sinn Fein and Dail Eireann that their struggle was the same as that of India, Egypt and other subject countries throughout the world.
Gallagher concluded, in words that reflected Roger Casement’s sentiments about Imperialism, with the hope that—
“one could feel that somewhere in these dark, twilit forests there was even one village where the white man would never come, and where the hushed peace would never be broken… so much more gentle than the coming of the pioneers of civilisation, with their slave-gangs and their treacheries, and their trail of corpses and forced labour in mines… God seems very patient with the pioneers of civilisation…” (Gallagher, Days Of Fear, pp25,26).
The sequence of events that led to the ending of the Hunger Strike was published in the Irish Bulletin of 15th April 1920. Having summarised the number of incidents in which Lord French and Sir John Taylor had refused clemency of any sort, the Bulletin printed the Manifesto of the Irish Trade Union Congress and the Labour Party calling for a General Strike throughout Ireland. The Manifesto, issued on 12th April, called for support for our fellow workers now in Mountjoy, Wormwood Scrubs, and other prisons, and—in allusion to Lord French and Sir John Taylor—declared that
“their titled jailers venomously shriek: “Let them die”… We, workers, dare not allow this tragedy to come to pass. Verbal protests are vain… Let your response to this sudden call be so unanimous as will impress the people of other lands with your determination to put an end to tyranny and oppression” (Irish Bulletin, 15 April 1920).
The General Strike was effective throughout Ireland on 13th April and the Catholic Hierarchy also passed a resolution denouncing the attitude of the government. On 14 April, after the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the Governor of Mountjoy had been called to a conference with Lord French, the prisoners were released.
The release did not proceed smoothly: the first attempt at release was accompanied by the imposition of conditions by Dublin Castle; the second attempt at release was unconditional. The Times declared: “The policy of the Government has been throughout confused and obscure” (see The Times, 15 April 1920; nb murder of Kells of Dublin Metropolitan Police on same day).
As portrayed in the Irish Bulletin, the ending of the Hunger Strike marked the victory of the weak against the strong, of the innocent against the tyrant. This was the message that Dail Eireann attempted to convey to a wider audience.
The ending of the Hunger Strike also created differences in the hitherto rock-solid accord between Lord French and Sir John Taylor. These differences were witnessed, indeed participated in, by William Wylie, the legal adviser to Dublin Castle, and were to contribute to the re-shaping of the Dublin Castle regime.
Wylie recounted in his memoir how, in the absence of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor General, it fell to him to give an opinion on the treatment of the Hunger Strikers. Having distinguished between three classes of Hunger Striker, Wylie had concluded that, while some might be left to die, others—who had refused to recognise the courts—should be released.
He put this written opinion in a sealed envelope and sent it to Taylor for transmission to Lord French. Both Taylor and Wylie had offices within Dublin Castle. Wylie recalled that within two minutes Taylor entered his room—
“demanding to know why I dared to send such a communication to the Viceroy. I did a bit of blazing myself, and the letter was resealed and sent. In half an hour French telephoned for me to come up to the Viceregal Lodge and see him. I did so and explained the situation as well as I could” (Leon O Broin, W.E. Wylie And The Irish Revolution 1916-1921, Dublin, 1989, p53; original in PROE).
Wylie had no time for Taylor, and his supporters referring to them as—
“the Taylor gang who believed in reprisals and terrorism and whose slogan was ‘No Home Rule’…” (O’Broin, Wylie, p53).
It was in this context, and with Lord French making the decisions, that the prisoners were released. Wylie, who was not impressed with French’s intellectual acumen, was amazed when he heard of the wholesale release from jail: it was far greater than he had anticipated!
Writing afterwards Childers narrated the final offers of the Government to the starving prisoners on the afternoon of 14th April, which shifted reluctantly from release on parole to unconditional release: but afterwards claiming: “that the prisoners had been released on parole”.
The Government also claimed that “the convicted prisoners had been released in error”. This claim, Childers accepted, “was no doubt correct” (Childers, Military Rule, p22. Frank Gallagher, Days Of Fear, London, 1928, p101 seq. gives the events of Wednesday 14th April from the prisoners’ perspective).
Then, in rather bizarre circumstances, having fiercely attacked Sir John Taylor in the press, Childers completed the purchase of his house at Bushy Park, Rathgar, on 16th April. (Childers Diary, 16 April 1920, 7811, Trinity MS).
The Irish Bulletin of 21st April attempted to give some insight into the background that had provoked the Hunger Strike by citing an article by Childers in the Daily News. Childers, writing on 19th April, entitled his article, Espionage. In it he dismissed the claim of Denis Henry, the Attorney-General, that Dublin Castle was forced to undertake imprisonment without trial in order to protect informants. The Government excuse that it—
“relied on information given by men of good position who stipulated that they should not be asked to give evidence in court”
—should not be used to justify internment (Childers, Military Rule, p24. Incidentally, Henry’s offices were in the same house as the Irish Bulletin).
Rather, Childers affirmed, it should be admitted that “Ireland is permeated with spies, ordinary and extraordinary, imported Englishmen and perverted Irishmen”, and it was this type of person who was informing on any one who believed “in the independence of Ireland”.
Childers listed a sample of those who were gathered into this net of indiscriminate arrest—
“pacifists, intellectuals, Labour leaders, workers in the cultural, economic and industrial revival, and elected members of Parliament and local councils.”
Childers then gave his conclusion:
“I want to insist on this general statement, that an attempt is being made to break up a whole national organisation, a living, vital, magnificent thing, normally and democratically evolved from the intense desire of a fettered and repressed people for self-reliance and self-development. This attempt, if we are to give words their right meaning, is the great, the fundamental crime” (Childers, Military Rule, 26; Irish Bulletin, 21 April 1920).
This general conclusion about British policy in Ireland, redolent of Casement’s critique of British policy in relation to the Great War in his Crime Against Europe, removed the walls of Mountjoy from the centre of attention and focused worldwide opinion firmly on the walls of Dublin Castle.
(To be continued)
Roger Casement: The Crime Against Europe. With The Crime Against Ireland
Introduction by B. Clifford.
184pp. Index. ISBN 0 85034 101 9.
Athol Books, 2003. €18, £15
