Passing from bad to worse, the year drew to an end.
As if the fury of those days were breeding them and putting them upon
the streets, the shaking lorries increased in number; and the flying
Crossley tenders swept by in the hunt--hunting, hunting, hunting for
the elusive foe, which was everywhere and nowhere--which was on the
pavements, which was behind the counters of the shops, which was
wrapped in the uniforms of tram conductor, of railway porter, of
postman, which made use of any refuge that it might help the infant
Republic to take a place among the nations.
Terrible tales were whispered in those final weeks of the dying
year. Tales of frenzied men hunted by bloodhounds. Tales of pitiless
ambushes, of police slaughtered to a man, and the bodies hacked to
pieces with axes. Tales of savage reprisal following on shameful deed,
of burned shops, of deserted farms, of peasants gone to couch with fox
and hare. Tales of new proclamations and new restrictions falling alike
on guilty and innocent.
“Auxiliary Division, R.I.C., the Castle, Macroom.”
“Whereas foul murders of servants of the Crown have been carried out
by disaffected persons, and whereas such persons immediately before
the said murders appeared to be peaceful and loyal people, but have
produced pistols from their pockets; it is hereby ordered that all
male inhabitants of Macroom, and all males passing through Macroom,
shall not appear in public with their hands in their pockets. Any
male infringing this order is liable to be shot at sight.”
Tales of bridges destroyed in the country places to impede the movement
of Government troops, and other bridges leading to the market towns
blown up as reprisal by forces of the Crown. Tales of gross murder of
isolated police replied to by tales of blindfolded prisoners taken at
dead of night to lonely places and there told they were to die, made to
kneel praying and listen while a grave was dug, and this play-acting
done, the victim promised life if he would say was his neighbour, the
butcher, a peaceful citizen or a follower of Sinn Fein, did his friend,
the bootmaker, who so amiably dusted his shop of a morning also in
the dark of night dust a gun which came up from under the boards. And
could the kneeling man rise to meet this fierce hour and refuse the
information, his thwarted captors returned him to his cell.
Tales that the golden age of robbery had come. Criminals in all
countries hear of the anarchy abroad and take tickets to the
distressed country. Armed men emerge from the lanes and the alley ways
and rob by night and by day. It is whispered some of the robberies
of the Ulster banks are carried out by Irish Volunteers acting under
orders, it is shouted that some of the highway robberies are conducted
by out-at-elbow Black-and-Tans, acting without orders and trying to
turn an honest penny in an unfriendly land.
Then, in the midst of war, rumours of peace. The dove flutters a moment
into sight, and takes wing again. Father O’Flanagan, Acting President
of the Irish Republic, telegraphs to the British Prime Minister:--
“You state that you are willing to make peace at once without waiting
for Christmas. Ireland also is willing. What first steps do you
propose?”
The telegram was sent when Sinn Fein was hard pressed. Many of the
leaders were in prison, the rest were hunted day and night. It was
imperative to keep a tight hold on supporters if the movement were
to hold together. A sudden gesture of this kind might be taken as a
sign of panic and begin a general rout. There was a day or two of
heart-searching in the Republican camp, and ‘Watchman,’ in one of the
Nationalist journals, came forward with the warning that if the nation
was not to be stampeded it must remain as cold as ice, calm as a summer
lake, and wary as a fox going on all its toes. The mysterious Michael
Collins emerged from his obscurity with a second letter in which he
thanked nobody for refraining from murdering him, and told the nation
to “stop talking, and get on with the work.”
The dove clapped its wings and fled away, and ere the sound of its
flight was lost news came that as reprisal for an ambush in the public
thoroughfare, the City of Cork was in flames. The machinery of war was
in motion again.
Deed of terror following deed of terror, the days wore out, Christmas
came and went, and the year came to an end.
Hampered but still free, fettered but not completely bound, finding the
draught of difficulty as a sick man finds a strengthening medicine,
through all that came and went, Sinn Fein continued with the building
up of the Republic. Republican Courts, which had been suppressed,
continued in existence, sitting when and where they could, judges,
lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, and all the following of law, flitting
from place to place like birds bereft of a nesting ground, against all
legal tradition taught to be sparing of argument, as at the very moment
of judgment, they might have to snatch up bag and baggage, and judge,
lawyer, plaintiff, and defendant make tracks to the hills. Yet in the
face of opposition, because of it, these courts met with considerable
success. Clients arrived in the hope that the judgments given would be
more lenient than in the established British Courts, clients came from
patriotic motives, from motives of adventure, and not least because
they dared not stay away. Intimidation was present here as elsewhere.
For both parties in the struggle had great belief in the weapon of
intimidation, and there was taking place one long competition in
intimidation between the Crown Forces and the Republican Volunteers.
The strange situation had arisen of two Governments claiming to rule
the country, and neither one able to protect its adherents from the
other, nor able to control its own extremists.
The inner circle of Sinn Fein held council when it could, framed its
policy and issued its edicts. Cabinet Ministers might sleep each night
in a new bed, those of them who were not sleeping night after night
in one of his Britannic Majesty’s prisons; but their words were not
without weight. In their offices in attics and in cellars, they built
up the infant Republic.
It was told that the Minister of Finance found time to acknowledge all
funds, although the very rumour of his name sent the gates of Dublin
Castle back upon their hinges and a host of armed men abroad. Again and
again his offices were captured, and his very signature found damp upon
some cheque, yet with the choicest of his correspondence he was gone to
some new attic, to some new cellar, there to begin again.
The Minister of Commerce, passing from place to place like any
Ishmaelite, issued his edicts that such and such British goods should
be boycotted, and the unwilling shopkeepers dared not disobey.
The Minister of Propaganda, pedalling, pedalling his ubiquitous
bicycle, interviewed foreign journalists, got together his facts for
the day’s issue of the _Irish Bulletin_, all the while thanking the
dark for its cloak, thanking the cold for an excuse to muffle up.
So the work of the Departments was done, nor was it probable that it
would be undone, for man thrives on difficulty. The danger to this
national awakening was not then, it was going to be later on in the
easy days of peace.
The old year came to an end, and the first day of the new year brought
Sinn Fein Ireland a happy augury. It went from mouth to mouth that
President De Valera had returned from America. Everywhere the question
was put, “Is he come?” “Where has he landed?”
47, whom I ran across about this time, told me he received reliable
information of the President’s whereabouts within a few hours of the
landing, and he had passed on the news to Headquarters. It was decided
that no steps should be taken to arrest the President, and henceforward
to the truce in June, the difficulty for the agents of the Crown was to
avoid coming in contact with him.
This was not the story told by Sinn Fein, who made it known that
the astute President, aided by the Republican secret service, was
making ridiculous the clumsy efforts of the Crown Forces to capture
him, and patriots chuckled over their teacups. The awakening was a
rude one. Auxiliary police, raiding the grounds of a house in the
Blackrock district, found digging potatoes a mysterious person with
side whiskers, who was possessed of important papers. He was escorted
to the nearest barracks, where it transpired he was no less a man than
the President of the Irish Republic. He received an apology and was
released.
The patriots of the teatables were thunderstruck, and more insulted
than if their President had been maltreated. Some there were who
received a shock from which they never recovered.
It was in these dark days my wife and I first made acquaintance with
A. E., first saw presiding over a circle interested in mysticism and
the occult this benevolent and rather giant person, wrapped up in
an ancient greatcoat, and all crowded into a chair. There was not a
wrinkle to speak of in his face, as if a serene mind had allowed him to
pass trouble by, and through his spectacles looked out eyes as blue as
the sky.
On the wall were two pictures by his hand of visions he had seen in
some uncommon hour. For this man, who is gaining an international
reputation, was many-sided, and each side exceeded the stature of an
average man.
He was a painter of some ability, and better than his painting was his
poetry, and better than his poetry was his prose, and better than his
prose were his ideas; and more astonishing than his ideas was the
facility for expressing them. He seemed informed on half the subjects
in the world, and a question would start the stream of eloquence
flowing. Never was there such an example of rich payment received from
trained concentration and years of clear thinking.
The new year started as the old year had ended in fury and ruin.
One of the dreariest of those afternoons, when evening was sweeping
up out of the Liffey in the guise of a river fog, I found myself upon
O’Connell Bridge watching a line of soldiers holding up traffic and
searching motor cars. Standing there as chilly of thought as I was
chilly of body, I became intuitive like a prophet, so that I was ready
to open my mouth and prophesy.
Militant Sinn Fein had reached the limit of its popularity with the
nation, the swing of the pendulum had got to its end and would come
back again. It had been a melancholy task for loyal people watching the
Republican ideal spreading through the country like a disease, finding
week by week the British Empire losing the Irish nation, first by tens,
then by hundreds, then by thousands, and for this reason above others,
that Irishmen--be their opinions wrong, be their deeds wrong--were
being hunted down in Ireland. The case of the deserting Unionists was
the case of the man who is willing to beat his own wife, but who takes
her part when an outsider appears to do the business.
Waiting on the bridge this evening, watching the fog rise off the
river and the soldiers search the cars as they drove up, I knew the
Sinn Fein militant policy had reached the limit of national sympathy
and patience. As restrictions grew worse, as trade grew worse, that
numerically greatest portion of the population to whom ideals are a
consideration secondary to material prosperity, would look more and
more askance at the people who were bringing them to ruin.
The Republican cry was a false cry as far as the Irish nation was
concerned. Only a minority of the people were genuine in a desire
for the Republic, and many who shouted “Up the Republic” had no idea
what they meant. A band of enthusiasts had struck a spark, and now
the country was wrapped in the flames of a national passion; but the
majority of the people had been caught in the conflagration through
circumstance. The psychology of the crowd had operated, the spirit of
the herd.
Now that the youth of Ireland, who had been cheated of the European
war, had had a fill of struggle, the time was at hand when the wise
fireman, dragging his hose after him, might get into position to put
the fire out.
Ireland suffered under a genuine grievance. The taxation was unjust;
there were other injustices. But if a truce could be called and an
offer made which put right what had before been wrong, the dream of a
Republic would pass away as a man’s dream passes away in the morning.
Let the tension be slackened and life find its true values again, and
all the shouts left in the throats of the true Republicans would not
trouble the nation again. The effort had been used up, and the gods do
not give such passion twice in a generation. They are chary of their
gifts.
Thinking this, I waited on the bridge, wondering how long would go
by before some one in the crowd fired at the soldiers, whereupon
the soldiers would return the compliment, and there would follow a
stampede, and I would be offered the choice of being shot to death
or crushed to death. But nobody drew a gun on this occasion, though
another time, very soon afterwards, I was on the same spot, and
somebody in the crowd threw a bomb or fired a shot, somebody who was
well down a side street a moment afterwards, and the soldiers fired
into the brown as I expected, and a woman was killed.
But the dove of peace, which had fluttered into sight for a day or two
before Christmas, had fled away, and was not yet to be seen back again,
and during these first weeks of the new year it became evident that
spirit was to descend yet farther into matter.
I take the following quotations haphazard from issues of the _Irish
Bulletin_ (the Republican organ) of that date. Such remedies as these
were tried to cope with the situation.
“On Saturday night, January 1st, Auxiliary Police raided a dance hall
in Lisduff, co. Leitrim. The dance was interrupted, and the dancers
questioned and searched. They were then compelled to sing ‘God save
the King’ and denounce President De Valera, after which they were
ordered out of the dance hall, shots being fired after them.”
“A Proclamation has been issued by Major-General Strickland, English
Military Governor in Cork, prohibiting the use of motor-cars,
motor-cycles, and pedal cycles between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the
Martial Law area, which now extends over one-third of Ireland. This
order comes into force on the 20th inst.”
“On the afternoon of Friday, January 14th, 1921, Auxiliary Police
arrested So-and-so. All the men were prominent merchants in the
town.... The men were taken to the local barracks and were then
formed into a procession and compelled to march through the town
carrying Union Jacks and trailing the Republican flag in the dust.
An itinerant musician was compelled to head the procession playing a
banjo. At the rear of the procession a large party of Black-and-Tan
Constabulary drove in a motor lorry cheering and shouting. After they
had marched through the town the merchants were forced to kneel down
in the public street and kiss the Union Jack, whilst the Constabulary
burned the Republican flag.”
“On Wednesday, January 26th, Constabulary rounded up many of the
prominent residents of Fermoy, co. Cork, marched them to the bridge
in the centre of the town, where they were compelled to paint on
the walls such inscriptions as ‘God save the King.’ ‘God bless the
Black-and-Tans.’”
“On Friday, January 28th, at Leitrim, men of all ages and classes
were commandeered by Constabulary and marched to parts of the road
where ‘ambushes might occur.’ There they were compelled to fell
trees and cut down hedges on both sides of the roads.”
“On Wednesday, February 2nd, a number of the residents of Glanworth,
co. Cork, were commandeered and were marched out of the village. They
were then compelled to remove trees which had been felled across the
roads (by the I.R.A.) some time previously.”
“On February 4th military and constabulary rounded up over a hundred
men in Listowel, co. Kerry, including elected representatives,
merchants, professional men, etc., formed them up into parties and
marched them out of the town to various country roads across which
trenches had some time previously been dug. There the parties were
given picks and spades and compelled under threats of being shot
to fill in the trenches. The weather was very inclement, and no
discrimination was made in selecting the victims--age or illness
being no protection. Mr. John W. Galvin, proprietor of the Central
Hotel, who was suffering from heart affection and asthma, was among
those forced to fill the trenches. During the work he complained of
heart trouble, but was compelled to continue. While being marched
back to town he fell dead.”
From the _Irish Independent_ of January 1st.
“Martin Conway, one of the victims near Bruff, is stated to have
crawled four miles after he had been wounded, while he was acting as
a sentry near Caherguillamore House. He was tracked by a bloodhound,
which had accompanied the police party, and he immediately fired at
the hound, killing him; but was himself killed by the return fire.
Mr. Conway was a prominent Sinn Feiner, and had been on the run.”
_Independent_ of January 4th.
“Afterwards, it was stated, a bloodhound was employed in a search
for Tobin, and a pool of blood was found on the mountain where the
wounded man had evidently rested. On Sunday morning his dead body was
found within a hundred yards of his mother’s house, whither he had
evidently crawled from some place of hiding during the night. He had
his coat under his head, and had evidently lain down to die.”
Tragic to read? Yes. Regrettable to read? Yes. But the Crown Forces
were victims of circumstances no less than were the Irish Volunteers.
The trouble began by Britain refusing to concede certain Irish claims;
this led to outrage, and outrage to reprisals, and reprisals to a
state of civil war. The reprisals were carried out to intimidate (and
to a certain extent the reprisals did justify themselves), to satisfy
thwarted effort, out of contempt. I have spoken to several Auxiliary
Police, humane men, men who had taken part in the European War, and not
one of them spoke of the Sinn Feiner as an enemy and an equal, as he
might have spoken of a Frenchman or a German. If it were suggested the
reprisals were unworthy, the answer would be, “Good enough for them,
the swine!”
Yet the Irish Volunteer believed himself to be serving an ideal. I
quote an extract from General Lawson’s report, dated December 30th.
“The captains ... appear to have been ... as a class, transparently
sincere and single-minded, idealists, highly religious for the
most part, and often with an almost religious sense of their
duty to their country.... They fought against drunkenness and
self-indulgence, and it is no exaggeration to say that as a class
they represented all that was best in the countryside.... They
and their volunteers were trained to discipline, they imbibed the
military spirit, and then as now they looked upon their army as one
in a very real sense, an organisation demanding implicit obedience
and self-abnegation from rank to rank.... They stood for much that
is best in human nature.... There is a spirit of a nation behind
the organisation ... sympathising with and believing that those who
belong to the I.R.A. are fighting for the cause of the Irish people.”
The Irish Volunteers, lacking numbers and equipment, were forced to
conduct the fight by any method they could, and the Crown Forces, if
they were to get in a blow at all, had frequently to get down on hands
and knees, and meet the enemy on their own level. Such are the humours
of life.
Surely the gods must laugh as they watch, or, indeed, are they wiser
than man believes, and order these complex events that he, weary of
reading from the old lesson book, may have his attention caught by old
truths put in a new way, and learn again the lessons of fortitude and
restraint.
January came to an end, February came to an end, and the disastrous
tale of deeds continued; but the days were getting longer, and the cold
was going out of the air, and a man felt when the sun came back again,
peace also might return.