The evolution of British policy and the emergence of a  Sinn Fein Publicity Department

in the years after the Easter Rising.

Mss notes, Part 32

Before the end of May 1920, Sir John Anderson and ‘Andy’ Cope had taken up their appointments at Dublin Castle.  However, it was not until early August 1920 that the complete new body of officials was in place in Ireland.  On 15th July 1920 Mark Sturgis, who was personally selected for the Irish assignment by Sir Warren Fisher, took up residence with his colleagues in the Royal Marine Hotel, Kingstown. (Michael Hopkinson (ed.), The Last Days of Dublin Castle. The Diaries of Mark Sturgis, Dublin, 1999, p12.  Kingstown has been re-named Dun Laoghaire.  Mark Sturgis Diary, 30/59, PROE, Kew, for the original diary).  Sturgis, although not officially enjoying the title, acted as an Assistant Under Secretary.  The official position was held by ‘Andy’ Cope, who was assigned the hitherto unheard of task of opening up secret talks with the Sinn Fein leaders, even with those engaged in the armed conflict.   

Among the other officials were G.N. Crutchley, L.N. Blake Odgers, M.T. Loughane, J.P. Fairgrieve, and Geoffrey Whiskard (Michael Hopkinson ed., The Last Days of Dublin Castle. The Diaries of Mark Sturgis, Dublin, 1999, pp1-10 for Introduction on these new officials).  They were joined on 9th August by Basil Clarke, the final member of the new entourage, who was appointed Director of the Department of Publicity and Public Information.  This team marked a completely new departure for British rule in Ireland and was to contribute greatly to the shaping of British policy until the signing of the Peace Treaty on 6th December 1921 and, for some of them, up to the foundation of the Irish Free State on 6th December 1922.  H

However, it was to take some time before the fine lines of British Government policy were finalised in regard to Ireland and before Anderson’s team made their presence felt.  In the meantime the Sinn Fein campaign of propaganda continued.   

Sinn Fein Propaganda—May 1920—Focus on General Macready

 On 11 May 1920 another article by Erskine Childers was published in the Daily News.  It was entitled Propaganda, and the first sub-heading was The Manufacture Of Hate.  As if he was monitoring the changes that were taking place in the British administration, Childers noted in his diary that, on the same day (11 May), Macready had taken part in the Conference on Ireland to secure more troops.  In that context, the first words of his article were extremely relevant:  “The propaganda of a militarist regime is a study in itself”, and he proceeded to illustrate how the public mind throughout the world “is poisoned against Ireland” (Erskine Childers, Propaganda, Daily News, 11.5.920 in Erskine Childers, Military Rule In Ireland, Dublin, 1920, p32)   ?? Carson to MPost [Morning Post, ed.] 9 May ’20 re. prop. cf. book 

The focus of the article was on the crime statistics issued by Dublin Castle.  At the beginning of the year the Irish Bulletin had published a critique of the figures and methods adopted by Sir John Taylor and, even with the departure of Taylor and before Greenwood had time to establish himself, a new Castle initiative, along the same lines, had been launched at the beginning of May with the daily publication of ‘Summaries of Official Reports of Outrages’ (Irish Bulletin, 26th May 1920, says this started on 1st May;  Childers, Military Rule p34 says this started on 3rd May).   

Before writing his article, Childers consulted with Brennan and Gallagher at, what he termed, the “propaganda office” on 30th April and 1st May.  On his own admission, Childers found it “distractingly difficult” to analyse the “official tables” but, with the help of the Irish Bulletin staff, he produced a comprehensive response to the British propaganda (Childers’ Diary, 30th April and 1st May 1920, Childers Papers, 7811, Trinity Ms).

Under the sub-heading of The Manufacture Of Hate, Childers attempted to reveal “the mechanism of militarist propaganda”.  As a starting point, he took the speech by Edward Shortt, the Home Secretary, on 28th April, in which he had excused the actions of a mob attacking Irish sympathisers outside Wormwood Scrubs on the grounds that “the young London men naturally showed their resentment at hearing people extol those whom they believe to be murderers” (Childers, Military Rule, p32.  Shortt had been the Chief Secretary for Ireland).  

Childers maintained that the only reason why the young men thought the 175 prisoners to be murderers was “because the Home Secretary and his colleagues, sheltered by parliamentary privilege, had declared them to be murderers” (ibid).  He then referred back to the role of Informers and to the implications of rule by DORA [Defence of the Realm Act], under which no witnesses were required:

“Mr Shortt’s speech is typical…  he and his colleagues are telling the world that Ireland is a nation of criminals, and Dublin Castle, through its propaganda department, supplies the statistics” (Childers, Military Rule, p33).  

In many ways the battle was the same as that fought out under the regime of Sir John Taylor:  under the heading “outrages attributed to Sinn Fein”, Childers maintained, it was possible for Dublin Castle to include anything that it pleases.  Childers compared this procedure to that of Sinn Fein which: “undeterred by periodical raids upon its offices, compiles and circulates weekly statistics with specific details affording the fullest scope for criticism”.  Identifying himself publicly with this work, Childers asserted that:  “I know the work to be done scrupulously by men of honour as well as literary skill” (Childers, Military Rule, pp 34,35).

Part of the article by Childers consisted of the re-statement of the rebuttal of “the crimes attributed to Sinn Fein” that had appeared in the Irish Bulletin of 24th February 1920.  He then drew some general conclusions from the statistics provided for the four years, May 1916 to March 1920: 

“The Castle attributes to Sinn Fein less than 2,000 outrages, including 36 murders, Sinn Fein specifically charges against the Castle 35,636 acts of aggression, including 45 murders and seven deaths due to prison treatment” (Childers, Military Rule, p36).  

From these figures Childers presented two reflections:  firstly, it cost England half a million lives to “destroy Prussianism” in Europe, and 36 lives to maintain it for four years in Ireland;  and, secondly, during the one week, the third in the previous January, in the course of an eruption of ordinary crime which had little or no counterpart in Ireland, the Registrar-General reported 49 deaths by violence in 96 great towns in England and Wales (Childers, Military Rule, p36). 

Childers supported his statistics with more particular and personal accounts of criminal acts by servants of the Crown which were not punished.  He stressed, in particular, the shooting of civilians in Limerick, Arklow, Dublin and at Milltown-Malbay where, he reported, there was “‘a little ‘Amritsar’, with a verdict of murder against five soldiers and police’ (Childers, Military Rule, p37).  

No action was taken in these cases, Childers maintained, because military courts of inquiry were above the civil law.  He concluded that—

“the Castle’s rule is absolute;  it admits nothing, deplores nothing, and, so far as it can, imposes silence on the whole of this black side of the military regime.  The rule is perfectly logical.  War practice and war propaganda imperatively demand it (Childers, Military Rule, p37). 

By this time Childers and the Irish Bulletin were working with complete unison of purpose:  the basic material in the Irish Bulletin—which regularly carried extracts from the articles by Childers in the Daily News—made its mark on foreign journalists and people of influence; the Daily News reached English readers where its reasoned arguments and powerful prose had an incalculable effect (see Irish Bulletin, 30th April and 11th and 13th May 1920, for extracts by Childers).  

Brennan and Gallagher also managed to present regularly a column in the Irish Bulletin, entitled “The Weekly Summary of the Acts of Aggression Committed in Ireland by the police and military of the Usurping Government“.  Taken together, the propaganda emanating from these three sources presented a formidable threat to British policy in Ireland and was recognised as so doing by their opponents. 

General Macready, upon his arrival in Ireland, had immediately noted—

“…the total absence of counter propaganda on the part of the Government in reply to the very efficient circulation of systematic falsehood spread broadcast by Sinn Fein and their friends in England and America” (Macready, Annals Of An Active Life, vol.11, p454).

In order to counter this unfavourable portrayal of the Army, Macready outlined his plans for a Press Section of the General Staff at the end of April 1920 and informed a gathering of pressmen that—

“in future they would be given the facts about any events in which troops were concerned, and impressed on them that he did not intend to disseminate propaganda” (Record Of The Rebellion In Ireland In 1920-’21 And The Part Played By The Army In Dealing With It. Volume II, Intelligence, pp14,15).

The responsibilities of the Press Section of the General Staff were carefully identified: firstly—

“examining the papers and contradicting untrue statements about the troops;  secondly, framing and issuing communiques about actions in which troops were involved, attacks on military property, and results of Courts-Martial on Civilians;  and, thirdly, all other military matters affecting the Press and Publicity” (Ibid, p15). 

Macready appointed Major Reginald Ingram Marians OBE as head of the Press Section of the General Staff.  Prior to the War Marians had served as an officer in the Territorial Army, and was assigned to the Irish Command in May 1918.  He had been awarded the OBE in June 1919 for his military services.??add details?  Among his assistants was Captain J.W. Brooke, the official army photographer.  

When General Macready made his announcement to the Press on 29th April 1920, it was immediately challenged by the Irish Bulletin.  It recorded that General Macready had “announced that it was proposed to supply the Press with information regarding matters in which the military were concerned”, but it noted that the information provided in regard to the shooting by the military on civilians in Arklow:  “was grossly false, and was contradicted  not only by the non-Sinn Fein National Press, but by the ‘Irish Times’ organ of British Propaganda in Ireland” (Irish Bulletin, 30 April 1920).  

Other extracts were also selected to diminish the credibility of the statements by the Army.  On 14th May the Irish Bulletin also attacked the Dublin Castle list of “outrages” which, it maintained, “are not facts but propaganda” (Irish Bulletin, 14 May 1920;  and 20, 25 and 26 May 1920).

The Irish Bulletin then took the offensive by producing, in two separate issues on 4th and 5th May, detailed information relating to British military rule in Ireland.  The first issue, entitled, Hunting The Representatives Of A People, contained the names of c100 members of Councils and Corporations who had either been arrested, or there had been efforts to arrest them since their election in January 1920.   Names and dates were provided.   Another list was provided of Irish MPs who were either in prison or on the wanted list.  Some, it was noted, were living abroad (Irish Bulletin, 4 May 1920).

The second issue was entitled, Outstanding Incidents of English Aggression in Ireland from 1 January 1919 to 30 April 1920.   As with the first issue, and as was always the practice of the Irish Bulletin, names, dates and some details of the incidents, which involved both police and soldiers, was provided (Irish Bulletin, 5 May 1920).  The overall impression created by these two issues was that the military and police were a threat to the democratic functioning of Dail Eireann and to the local elected assemblies.  

This focus on the democratic mandate as the basis for the actions of Sinn Fein and Dail Eireann was resumed on 17th May.   This publication—the Irish Bulletin of 17th May 1920, was a five-page edition, devoted to an analysis of the Local Elections of January 1920—was the work of Robert Brennan.  At the time of the Elections, he had promised to study all the relevant material and to send his findings to de Valera for use in America.  This edition was the result of his findings, and it elaborated in even greater detail on the material published in January and February in the Irish Bulletin.  Apart from a more in-depth study of the result, Brennan also spelt out more clearly how the English Government had introduced Proportional Representation to minimise the Sinn Fein vote and chronicled the acts of aggression against Sinn Fein and its candidates.  A telling quotation from the English Press, in this case the Daily Mail, was used, as was often the case, to make a point in favour of Sinn Fein.   

The Daily Mail reported that—

“when the General Election of December 1918 had resulted in the capture of the vast majority of the Irish constituencies by the supporters of the Irish Republic, the English Press explained that the result was due, not to the belief of the Irish people in an Independent Ireland, but to the fear of conscription and to various other causes arising from the War.   The reply of the Irish people thirteen months later when these supposed causes has disappeared, was to place the adherents of Irish Independence in charge of the Municipal Councils throughout four fifths of Ireland and this under a new system of election “designed to cripple the power of Sinn Fein”… (Irish Bulletin, 17 May 1920 citing Daily Mail).  

It was against this background, with the Irish Bulletin challenging the fundamental tenets underlying English rule in Ireland, that Childers wrote the last of a series of articles for the Daily News on 20th May.  It was entitled Rival Governments (Childers, Military Rule, p37, containing Daily News 20th May 1920.  For publication of the articles in pamphlet form, Childers added a later article of August 1920, which was not part of the original series).  

Although denying that he would make an appeal on Ireland’s behalf as a matter of principle, that is exactly what Childers did.  Drawing upon the details provided by Brennan and Gallagher, he attempted to make the issue of Irish Independence a matter of principle:  

Everyone knows that there is only one way in which a white people can be ruled in a civilised manner, namely, by its own government democratically chosen by its own people.  This is axiomatic truth with the binding force of a moral law…”  

Childers then proceeded to spell out the consequences of this ‘moral law’:  

“England is saying, through her Government that her own strategic and military interests entitle her to annul this moral law in the case of Ireland, because the Irish people demand their independence.  They will not give up this demand.  I beg you to believe this.  The practical question, then, is, how long and at what cost can you continue to govern Ireland in an uncivilised manner” (Childers, Military Rule, pp37,38).

The argument of Childers was based on the supposition that Dail Eireann was the lawfully-elected Government of Ireland.  He contrasted this Government, “resting on the moral sanction of a great democracy”, with the English Government, “resting solely on brute force” (Childers, Military Rule, p38).  The British Army and Navy, Childers agreed, could hold Ireland, but “cannot govern it”, he maintained.  The RIC, he claimed, should be re-named the Royal English Constabulary, because it were forced to engage in political work in England’s interest.  The view that he presented of the role of the RIC got to the root of the problem—

“Mercifully it is being recruited mainly from Englishmen now;  for, of all expedients for subduing a recalcitrant nation, that of arming it against itself is the most infernal.  You set up a fratricidal vendetta in which each side is compelled to regard the other as traitors, and which only becomes clean and chivalrous when conditions permit of open war” (Childers, Military Rule, p39).

For Childers the open attacks on Police Barracks provided an example of open warfare, and, in those circumstances, he maintained that “the Republican record is spotless” (Childers, Military Rule, p39).  

To prove his point, Childers stated that “the courtesies of war” had been practised by members of the IRA towards policemen who had been captured in their barracks, while they themselves, if captured, “faced death or penal servitude after trial by court-martial” (Ibid).  

Possibly, Childers and the Irish Bulletin, were disingenuous by not referring to the number of policemen killed by assassination;  possibly Childers was suggesting that such actions were to be expected, if condition did not “permit of open war”.  

The information that both Childers and the Irish Bulletin promoted, relating to the conduct of the IRA when attacking RIC barracks, did merit attention and certainly served as good publicity.  So too did the final observations of Childers which praised the manner in which the Republican police and the Republican Land Courts were maintaining law and order in Ireland.    

Days after this compelling critique by Childers of English rule in Ireland had appeared in the English Press, the Irish Statesman, the journal associated with Sir Horace Plunkett, published a similar denunciation of the British Government.  Childers had always endeavoured to maintain his contacts with Plunkett and his Irish Dominion League, and the article that appeared in the Irish Statesman on 22nd May 1920 may well have been the fruit of those contacts:  

“This is a time for plain speaking and we shall speak plainly.  The propaganda supplied to the British Press from Dublin Castle is a propaganda of lies.  The version of the state of Ireland based upon this propaganda which the Coalition’s kept Press serves up to the British people is lies” (Irish Statesman, 22 May 1920 in the Irish Bulletin, 25 May 1920). 

The paper was also cited on 26th May, to support an examination of ‘outrages’ in the month of May.  The Irish Bulletin was quick to publish this view of Castle propaganda, which was in tune with its own, and it was also prepared to publish the Irish Statesman‘s view of crime in Ireland, even when it contained some criticism, as well as praise, of Sinn Fein policy. 

The Irish Statesman affirmed that

“there is ordinary crime in Ireland as there is in every other country in Europe—only less of it… but one form of crime, and one only, is unhappily rife abnormally in Ireland.  We have never ceased to denounce the murder of policemen, and to urge the official leaders of Sinn Fein to raise their voices in denunciation of it.” 

However, the Irish Statesman continued—

“the way to stop these murders is not to flood the country with troops, but to remove their cause.  Policemen exist to preserve order.  Over the greater part of Ireland the police do not preserve order.  They do nothing at all except defend themselves from attack and organise counter-outrages.  Some order is nevertheless preserved.  It is preserved, with increasing success by Sinn Fein” (Irish Statesman, 22 May 1920 in Irish Bulletin, 25 May 1920). 

Despite the major difference over the assassination of policemen, the rest of the article was at one with the sentiments expressed by Childers, especially in the concluding praise of Republican Police and Republican Courts.  

(To be continued)