A history of the Irish rebellion of 1916

Prefatory Note

The purpose of the Authors is, first, to present an account of the Rebellion in its relation to the European War, which shall be accurate and comprehensive, and may serve, it is hoped, as a standard record of this episode in Irish and European History, and, secondly, to exhibit, not to criticise, conflicting ideals in present-day Ireland.

PREFATORY NOTE

The purpose of the Authors is, first, to present an account of the Rebellion in its relation to the European War, which shall be accurate and comprehensive, and may serve, it is hoped, as a standard record of this episode in Irish and European History, and, secondly, to exhibit, not to criticise, conflicting ideals in present-day Ireland.

V

Chapter I. Page

Distinguishing Features of the Rebellion — Its Association with Germany — Its Military Gravity — The Strategic Importance of Ireland — As Illustrated in Anglo-Irish History — Peculiar Significance in Anglo-German War — Ireland's Flank- Position — Her Natural Harbours — Germany's Appreciation of the Value as a European Factor — First Hint of Possible Identity of Irish and German Interests — Casement's Remarkable Article before the War — Germany and the Revival of Physical Force Movement in Ireland — German Government's Efforts to turn this Movement to Account in the European War 1 — 23

CHAPTER n.

The Theory of Sinn Fein — The Labour Movement in Dublin — Opposition in Ulster to Home Rule — Formation of Ulster Volunteers — The Nationalist Volunteers — Question of their Control — The Gun Running at Howth . 24 — 44

Chapter III

r. Redmond's Attitude towards the War — His Authority disputed by a Section of the Volunteers — " Home Rule on the Statute Book " — Position of the Irish Volunteers — Recruiting in Ireland — Ireland Exempted from Compulsory Military Service — The Spread of Discontent — Critical

! Days — The Affray at Tullamore — A Famous Document 45 — 66

CONTENTS

Chapter IV. Page

Reflections on the Character of the Rebellion — Analogy of the '48 RisingJ— Literary Influences — Biographical Notes on the Nationalist Leaders — P. H. Pearse, his Writings and Educational Work — Professor McNeill — Sir Roger Casement and his Irish Policy: the Impressions of an Eye Witness, — Thomas Clarke — Thomas McDonagh, Poet and Literary Critic — William Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, Edward Daly and Michael O'Hanrahan — Major McBridc — Eamonn Ceannt — Cornelius Colbert, Michael O'MaUin and J. J. Heuston — Sean MacDearmada — James Connolly and his Influence — Other Leaders 67 — 102

Chapter V

A New Factor — Influence of Irish-American Organisations on the Volunteer Movement — Casement in the United States — His Earlier Relations with Germany — An Intermediary with the Irish-American Extremists between the Irish Volunteers and the German Government — Volunteers' Engagement with Germany — Proceedings of the Clan-na-Gael — Casement in Germany — Intrigues in the Prison Camps — Attempt to raise an Irish Brigade 103 — 114

Chapter VI

Development of Seditious Movement in Ireland — Its Military Organisation— Xhe " Citizen Army " — Attitude of the Authorities — Ineffective Measures — Drilling and Arming of the Volunteers — Methods of Obtaining Arms-^lnadequacy of Rebel Armament ..... 115 — 1

CONTENTS xi

Chapter VII. Page

The Rebels' Military Plans — Germany's Co-operation — A Wellconceived Design — Scheme of a General Rising — Its Success Dependent on Ample Supply of Arms — Deficiency to be made good by Germany — Concerted Operations of Rebels with Germany — Effect of a General Irish Rising on British Home Defence — Diversion of British Strength to Exposed Flank in Ireland — Opportunity for a German Stroke across the North Sea — Casement's Expedition a Vital Factor in the Plan of Campaign 128 — 134

Chapter VIII

The Expedition from Wilhelmshaven — The Aud : Capture of Casement — Decision of Irish Executive — Volunteer Council— Action of Mr. John MacNeill .... 135 — 146

Chapter IX

Proclamation of Republic — 'Character of the Fighting — Defence of the Post Office — Trinity College — Lord Wimborne's Proclamation — Attitude of the People — Second Day of Rising — Mount Street Bridge — Arrival of Sir John Maxwell — Surrender of Rebels 147 — 177

Chapter X

The Rebellion in the Provinces — hauses of its Failure — A Sporadic Rising — Events in the Vicinty of Dublin — frustrated Attack on Skerries — Desperate Encounter at Ashbourne — The Wexford Rising — Seizure of Enniscorthy — Surrender of Wexford Rebels — The Rising in Galway — Attack on Galway City — ^isbandment of Galway Rebels — Other Southern Counties Affected-^Lffects of Miscarriage of Casement Expedition — Precautions in Ulster — Operations of Mobile Columns — Measures of Pacification — Surrender of Arms — Military, Civilian and Rebel Casualties . . 178 — 201 xii

CONTENTS

Chapter XI. Page

The Aftermath of the Rebellion — Causes of Re-action in Rebel favour — Execution of the Leaders — Arrests and Deportations— Revulsion of Popular Feeling — Attitude of Irish- Americans — Mr. Asquith's Visit to Ireland — Movement toward Settlement — A Propitious Moment — Mr. Lloyd George's Scheme — Causes of its Failure — Reconstitution of Dublin Castle — An Unanswered Question . . 202 — 217

ArPENDICES

219—271

A HISTORY OF

THE IRISH REBELLION

Chapter I. Ireland's Strategic Importance

The Irish Rebellion of 1916 was invested with a peculiar gravity and significance by twx> circumstances which distinguished it from earlier insurrections in the modern history of Ireland. The first was the German connexion. The national instinct of Ireland has been, historically, francophile, and the German name, throughout the last century, was chiefly associated in the mind of Nationalists with mercenary troops employed to combat the rising of '98. The French tradition dated back three centuries to the time of the rebellion of the great O'Neills of Tyrone. It was continued in the community of arms of Irish and French in the days of St. Ruth and Sarsfield, in the deeds of the Irish Brigade under the French flag at Fontenoy, Blenheim, and Ramillies, when Irishmen by the ten thousand died in the service of France on the battlefields of Europe, and later in Humbert's invasion of Ireland. It persisted even to 1870, when, while Great Britain preserved a frigidly correct neutrality, Irish sympathy took visible form in the despatch to France of an Ambulance Service, and of a combatant Compagnie Irlandaise that, but for the restrictions upon volunteering imposed

A under the British neutrality laws, might have expanded into a modern Irish Brigade.

The idea of German-Irish friendship was not, however, altogether new. An attempt, though not a very extended one, to " educate " Ireland in this sense had been in progress for several years. Observers in America noted the increase of social intercourse and intermarriage among the two stocks of immigrants.* Two causes had contributed to the decline of French popularity in Ireland : first, the anti-clerical and sometimes anti-Catholic policy of the Third Republic; secondly, the entente with England. The entente, however, affected mainly those extremist Irishmen who continued to believe in physical force and wished to establish connexions with that country, whatever its name, which, in the event of a European war, would most likely be found threatening Imperial interests. At the outbreak of the war the general body of the Irish people found itself still to some extent affected by historical memories older than those of the quarrel between the Church and the Third Republic; the appeal of Fontenoy and the Irish Brigade helped considerably to promote a pro- Ally sentiment throughout the country. The Ultramontane attitude in politics is not characteristic of modern Ireland, and the considerations which told at the Vatican in favour of the

* The Parliamentary Party endeavoured after the outbreak of war to prevent their Irish -American supporters from going into alliance with the Germans of the States, and the United Irish League of America finally adhered to Mr. Redmond's policy of supporting the Allies. But, as illustrating the influence on events of the German-Irish social rapprochment, one may mention the withdrawal towards " neutrality " of one of Mr. Redmond's most prominent supporters in the States, the President of one of his Leagues. This man had married a German wife ; he did not go over to the Clan-na- Gael or any of the pro-German Irish organisations, but merely withdrew from politics for the period of the war.

Central Powers carried very little weight with the most Catholic people in Europe.* It remains true, therefore, broadly speaking, that it was historically unnatural to find a body of Irishmen

* Formerly it was different. We recall how little sympathy Ireland (so far as she was vocal) extended towards Garibaldi and the Italian patriots in their struggle against the Bourbons, Austria and the Papal Power. Ultramontanism in Ireland seems to have been finally overthrown at the time of the Land League. But in any case it would be difficult to credit Ireland with a principled " foreign policy." The revolutionaries in the nineteenth century looked generally to France and to America as authors of the Rights of Man. But revolutionaries were a minority of the people — in '48 and in '67 as in 1916. Of the most typical of physical force Nationalists, John Mitchel, a Frenchman (the late Emile Montegut) wrote : — " He is less revolutionary than the average English shopkeeper . . . less versed in Liberal ideas than the most obstinate monarchist on the Continent. . . . He is revolutionary on the surface, in his accent and expression, but not in spirit or in principle. Nor is the obstinate attachment of the Irish to Catholicism calculated to conquer the sympathies of the Radicals. In short, neither the extreme nor the moderate sections of society set store on Ireland, and she finds them in turn indifferent or lukewarm towards her cause. (Mitchel) applauds Mazzini, the enemy of Catholicism ; likewise he would applaud an Ultramontane Bishop of Ireland blessing the standards of a Celtic insurrection. He salutes the French Republic with hope. ... On his arrival in America he learns the news from the East, and he echoes the warlike trumpets of the Czar which resound on the Danube. In each of these events he hears the good news : England's agony." It might be argued, however, in regard to the events of 1916, that the Irish revolutionists were obsessed by the Idea of Nationality, and in this respect resembled in some degree the makers of modern Germany (in so far as these conceived of the world as being divided necessarily into mutually hostile race entitities) ; which the Allies, on the other hand, asserted a principle of European solidarity of interests. Nevertheless, there is the irony of human affairs in the salutation of an autocratic Kaiser as Prince Charming by a group of revolutionists who proposed to set up a co-operative Commonwealth based (vide the Republican Proclamation) on adult (male and female) suffrage.

allied with Prussia in the European war which had begun with the invasion of Belgium and France.

In the next place, the moral gravity of the Rebellion was fully matched by its military gravity; for it exposed Great Britain to a disadvantage which, serious as it would have been if she had been engaged in war with any other Power, was vastly more serious when she was engaged in war with Germany. Strategic geography, especially in relation to sea power, is not a subject which the average British citizen has been trained to regard with intelligent interest. His lack of acquaintance with Ireland's history, and the fact that her foreign relations have long been merged with those of the neighbouring island, tend further to obscure his realisation of the strategic importance of Ireland. Yet the most cursory glance at Irish military history serves to show how capital is that importance, and it is emphasised by the frequency of the occasions, during the period when Great Britain enjoyed a complete immunity from invasion, on which the soldiers of foreign Powers have landed and fought on Irish soil.

The menace which an Ireland in unfriendly hands offered to the flank of Great Britain may be traced as far back as Roman times. During the period of the decline of the Roman Empire, when its hold upon Great Britain was relaxing, we constantly hear, both from native and Roman sources, of the excursions of the " Scots " (the conventional appellation of the Irish Gaels) to Britain and Gaul, which seem to have been almost as much dreaded as were those of the Danes in later days. The most formidable of these invasions were led by Niall of the Nine Hostages, the last but one of the Pagan Kings of Ireland, who on one occasion collected a great fleet and landed in Wales, whence, though forced to retreat by the Roman General, Stilicho, he carried off immense plunder ; it was in another of Niall's excursions to Britain that St. Patrick was taken captive to Ireland. It was, of course, the wane of Roman power which made these Irish invasions of Britain more frequent and daring; and it is not to be supposed that, if they had not been beset by growing difficulties nearer home, the Romans would not have made some attempt at punitive action across the Irish Sea. In a later century the Danish grip upon the main strongholds of the Irish coast contributed powerfully to the extension of the Danes' sway over the northwestern counties of England. The influence upon the Danish wars in England of Brian Boru's victon- at Clontarf on Good Friday, 1014, which, by virtually extinguishing the Danes' power in Ireland, deprived them of their Irish bases, has not been adequately estimated by any English historian of the period. It was, perhaps, some dawning realisation of the strategic importance of Ireland in relation to his own kingdom that, a hundred and fifty years later, secured Henry EL'a ready assent to the freebooting expedition of Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke — better known as Strongbow — which first started the English upon their four centuries' career of conquest in Ireland.

Certainly the British Government's constant fear, from the time of Henry VIII. onwards, of the danger to which Great Britain was exposed by hostile expeditions to Ireland explains., if it does not at all excuse, the merciless severity with which Irish rebellions were suppressed, and in part, indeed, explains its general Irish policy. It governed the people by force, and kept them down to prevent them from giving aid to an invader, with the inevitable consequence of its harshness that any invader, no matter from what quarter, would have been welcomed and aided by the native Irish and Anglo-Irish. The vicious circle in which its policy revolved had the further result that ''if a chief, encouraged by the prospect of help from abroad, rose in rebellion, it was not enough, as it would be under ordinary circumstances, to reduce him to submission, inflict reasonable punishment, and take guarantees for future good behaviour. He was executed or banished, or brought prisoner to London ; and the people, who were mostly blameless, were expelled or exterminated, and the whole district turned into a desert, in order that an invader should have neither help nor foothold."*

Invasions, or attempted invasions, from overseas were nevertheless more frequent than most English people, whose education in the history of the United Kingdom is limited almost exclusively to purely English affairs, are aware. No less than three expeditions were fitted out at foreign ports in 1579-80, when the great Geraldine Rebellion broke out for the second time. The first, equipped by the Pope on the recommendation of Philip II. of Spain, and consisting of a small squadron of three ships with seven hundred Italian soldiers, never reached Ireland; for its commander, an English adventurer, by name Thomas Stukely, touching at Lisbon on his voyage, joined another expedition led by the King of Portugal. The second, led from Spain by Fitzmaurice, who was accompanied by the Pope's legate, Dr. Sanders, landed at the little harbcur of Smerwick, in Kerry, where it took possession of the fort of Dunanore, perched on top of a rock jutting into the sea ; this, however, was a small affair in which only eighty Spanish soldiers were engaged. The third expedition consisted of seven hundred * Joyce, " History of Ireland," Part IV., Chap. I.

Spaniards and Italians who landed in October, 1580, from four vessels at Smerwick, and also occupied the fort of Dunanore, where, after waiting for six weeks in the hope of a rising by the neighbouring peasantry — who, however, had been too thoroughly crushed to join the invaders — the force was invested by land and sea, and slaughtered en masse by Lord Grey upon its surrender.

Twentv years later, during the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, the great Earl of Tyrone, on the 23rd of September, 1601, a Spanish fleet entered the harbour of Kinsale with three thousand four hundred troops under the command of Don Juan del Aguila. The Spaniards immediately took possession of the town and of the castles of Baltimore. Castlehaven, and Dunboy. Del Aguila was besieged, but the northern earls came to his support in a famous march southwards, and the English army of investment was itself besieged in turn. Finally, by good luck more than anything else, the issue was decided in its favour in the battle of Kinsale, and del Aguila surrendered and returned to Spain, after having maintained himself in Ireland for more than three months. During the gre^t rebellion beginning in 1641. in which Owen Roe O'Neill, nephew of the famous Earl of Tyrone, was the outstanding figure, the banished Irishmen who had risen to positions of great influence in the service of France, Spain and the Netherlands used their best efforts to secure foreign support. O'Neill himself at the outset held out hope of French help from Cardinal Richelieu, and, though no large bodies of foreign troops actually landed in Ireland, landings of officers, arms and stores from overseas were frequent.

If we leave aside for a moment these two great episodes of Irish military history which most strikingly emphasise the strategic interdependence of Great Britain and Ireland — the Cromwellian war and the war of William and James — the tale of foreign expeditions to Ireland is taken up again with the expedition of Thurot in 1759-60. At this time a French army of invasion was collected at Vannes in Brittany, which was to be conveyed by a powerful fleet anchored at Brest under Admiral Conflans, while a smaller squadron of five vessels lay at Dunkirk under Thurot, an Irishman, whose real name was O'Farrell. Conflans was intercepted and defeated by Hawke off Quiberon Bay on the night of November 14th; Thurot eluded the British patrol, and, after being driven by storms to Bergen in Norway, appeared with three ships off Carrickfergus in February. He disembarked with about a thousand men, attacked the castle and compelled it to surrender, and, being unable to secure there enough provisions for his starving forces, obtained them from Belfast under threat of burning both that town and Carrickfergus. After five days the French re-embarked, and were subsequently intercepted and engaged off the Isle of Man, when Thurot was killed and his ships captured. Finally, the Rebellion of 1798 was undertaken with the promise of foreign support. In 1796 Wolfe Tone arranged in Paris for a French invasion, and in December of that year a fleet of forty-three ships of war, with fifteen thousand troops and forty-five thousand stand of arms, sailed from Brest for Ireland under General Hoche. The fleet was separated by bad weather; sixteen ships only anchored in Bantry Bay, where, as the bad weather continued and Hoche had not come up, they cut their cables after a week and returned to France. In the following year another abortive attempt at invasion followed with the sailing from Ireland of a Dutch fleet with fifteen thousand men under Admiral de Winter — an attempt which was utterly defeated at Camperdown. Too late to assist the rebellion in 1798, General Humbert with a French force of rather more than a thousand men landed at Killala in County Mayo, and, after dispersing a force of militia, was surrounded and surrendered at Ballinamuck in County Longford. Soon afterwards a larger French expedition, under Admiral Bompart, with nine ships and three thousand men, was engaged and defeated off Lough S willy.

Humbert's was the last French expedition which landed in Ireland, but it was not the last which contemplated such a landing. Robert Emmet, when he arrived in Ireland in 1802 to organise the insurrection of the following year, had just returned from France, and had hopes of aid from Napoleon; it was the accidental explosion of one of his ammunition depots which precipitated the rising in July, 1803, instead of in August, by which time he expected invasion from France. In that August Nelson wrote to Addington: — " My station to the westward of Toulon, an unusual one, has been taken upon the idea that the French fleet is bound out of the Straits, and probably to Ireland." In October he wrote : — "Their destination, is it Ireland, or the Levant ? That is what I want to know/' Collingwood is quoted by Mahan as being equally convinced that Napoleon's ultimate objective for Villeneuve's fleet was Ireland. Mahan maintained that as late as January, 1805, Nelson fully believed that " if the enemy left the Mediterranean, they would proceed to Ireland."

The Cromwellian war and the war of William and James, however — especially the latter — most strongly emphasise Ireland's strategic importance for Great Britain. In the first, no overseas expedition on the Royalist side reached Ireland, if we except Prince Rupert's arrival in February,

1649, in the harbour of Kinsale, with sixteen frigates. But Cromwell's strong sense of the insecurity of his position in England, while Ireland on her flank remained in Royalist hands; the extreme ferocity with which he waged the war in Ireland; and lastly, the ruthless policy of wholesale expropriation under which he offered a large proportion of the people of three provinces the alternatives of "Hell or Connacht " — all these attest his determination, justified after the German manner of " military necessity," however repulsive in its moral aspect, that the Royalists and their foreign supporters should be left no foothold in Ireland for a flank attack upon Great Britain.

In the war of William and James the succession was decided in Ireland. William took possession of the Throne of England almost without opposition, but he had to fight for Ireland, and he was not secure as King of England until he had fought for her and won her. The events of the war are too well known, even by those whose general knowledge of Irish history is most defective, to need recapitulation here. It will be more to the purpose to invoke the testimony of the writer who first defined for the English-speaking peoples the principles of sea-power — Admiral Mahan. The quotation must be prefaced by a correction of detail unimportant in its bearing on his argument, but necessary for the sake of historical accuracy. In his reference in the following passage to the Battle of the Boyne, he ignores the fact that it was not until nearly a year after that battle that the French General St. Ruth arrived in the Shannon with a fleet to take command of the Irish army; and French support continued to arrive until after the signing of the Treaty of Limerick, when Sarsfield, with a fine sense of honour which was ill repaid by the subsequent breaches of the Treaty on the English side, refused to receive a

French fleet of eighteen ships of the line and thirty transports, which sailed up the Shannon with two hundred officers, three thousand soldiers and arms, and ammunition for ten thousand men. "When." says Mahan, " the sea not only borders or surrounds, but also separates a country into two or more parts, the control of it becomes not only desirable but vitally necessary The

Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an estuary than an actual division, but history has shown the dangers from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV.. when the French navy nearly equalled the combined British and Dutch, the gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost wholly under the control of the natives and the French; nevertheless the Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English — a weak point in their communications — than an advantage to the French. The latter did not venture their ships of the line in its narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon the ocean ports in the South and West. At the supreme moment the great French fleet was sent to the south coast of England, where it decisively defeated the Allies, and at the same time twenty-five frigates were sent to St. George's Channel against the English communications. In the midst of a hostile people, the English Army in Ireland was seriously imperilled, but was saved by the Battle : the Boyne, and the flight of James EL This movement against the enemy's communications was strictly strategic, and would be just as dangerous to England now as in 1690."'*

The policy which, on the one hand, influenced Great Britain's enemies, whether in concert with Irish rebels or not, to attack her again and again

* Mahan. " The Influence of Sea-power upon History,'1 Chap. L, pp. 40-41.

through her flank in Ireland, and, on the other hand, influenced successive British Governments to employ every possible means, fair or foul, to avert or minimise this constant menace, was based upon the appreciation on either side of the capital importance of Ireland's geographical situation in relation to the maritime communications of the world. " If the map be examined with an eye to traffic," says one of the most distinguished of Great Britain's few students of strategic geography, " it will be found that it consists of large areas where the possible routes are numerous and widely spread, so that if one line of communication be cut, the supplies can be directed to another, and small areas, where surrounding obstacles compel all traffic to pass along a narrow avenue, the lines of communication leading from many bases coalescing in one common defile. These small areas constitute most of the strategic positions of the world. The sea defile or strait is particularly important, because the approach of the opposite shores generally makes the position one which is not only a crossing-place of traffic, but of the two kinds of traffic, land and sea, and thus of importance to the operation of both fleets and armies. Every defile causes a joining, crossing and deflection of routes. "#

The British Isles, as a geographical unit, command such a joining, crossing and deflection of routes, and, in the internal geographical economy of that unit, Ireland occupies a peculiarly dominating flank position. The command of one of the most important groupings of sea communications in the world confers on the United Kingdom an especially valuable advantage when that King-

* Vaughan Cornish, " The Strategic Geography of the British Empire." Royal Colonial Institute Journal, February, 1916.

dom is contesting with Germany for the control of sea communications between itself and its Dominions, and with the country (France) where its largest expeditionary force has to be reinforced and supplied. The island of Great Britain restricts the entrance to the North Sea to a strait of some eighteen nautical miles between Kent and France, and a passage of about two hundred and fifty nautical miles between Scotland and Norway. So long as these two passages were held, ships based on the harbours of Germany could not interfere with the communications between the outside world and the southern or western ports of the British Isles. The holding of the shortest line between the north of Scotland and Norway, however, did not suffice for the commercial blockade of Germany, since there lies a long stretch of Scandinavian coast to the north of it, and another patrol line was held for commercial blockade. This ran from the Orkneys to the eastern extremity of Iceland, and thence beyond the Arctic circle to the fringe of the polar ice — a distance of some seven hundred and fifty nautical miles.

Such was the strategic-geographical situation of the United Kingdom vis-a-vis Germany in the great war. In the paper to which reference has been made Dr. Vaughan Cornish laid emphasis upon the capital importance in this situation of the position of Ireland. That island stands to Great Britain in the same relation as Great Britain does to Germany — across the line of sea routes to all the nations. The passage between Cape Clear, in Ireland, at the western entrance to St. George's Channel, and Ushant off the coast of Brittany, is the same width, about two hundred and fifty nautical miles, as the passage between Scotland and Norway. A shorter line held from the Irish coast would block the entrance to the Bristol Channel and a yet shorter line the southern entrance to St. George's Channel. Again, the North Channel between Fair Head, in Antrim, and the Mull of Cantyre, in Argyll, is much narrower than the Straits of Dover, having a width of only eleven nautical miles, and, if this line were held, it would block the northern entrance to all the important commercial ports of the western coast of Great Britain; for there is none in the Western Highlands of Scotland. There would remain the route round the North of Scotland apparently open for the use of ports on the south and east coasts of Great Britain; but, since the trans-oceanic ports lie further south, the proper steaming tracks would pass close to the north coast of Ireland. A hostile naval Power holding Ireland would, therefore, cut off Great Britain from all overseas communication.