History of the Sinn Fein movement and the Irish rebellion of 1916

Introduction

NOT within the confines of human knowledge has it been known that any one nation has wielded such power or exercised such arbitrary control over international communications as England does to-day. The ships on the water that carry the mails, the ocean cables beneath the water, and the wireless telegraphy above the water are each and all completely in her hands. Every avenue of intelligence is guarded by her police and picketed by her agents. Service to her interests is the rule applied to the suppression or the dissemination of news.

In the titanic struggle for existence in which she is engaged, this, from her point of view, may be justifiable; but from the point of view of history, founded upon truth, it is a malforming of facts and a poisoning of the wells of knowledge. In none of the fields of her worldwide activities is her censorship so complete or so drastic as it is in matters relating to Ireland or Ireland's interests at home or abroad. Not that there is anything new in her misrepresentation of Ireland and the Irish. That she has done for centuries in the forum, on the stage, and through the influences of her literature and drama. But never has there been such wholesale suppression of realities and falsification of truth as since the great war. Commencement was made by the false acclaim of Ireland's loyalty, and the climax was reached by the perversion of the rebellion of Easter week into an inconsequential street riot. As time recedes from that tragic event, the larger will it loom in the memory

vii viii INTRODUCTION

of the Irish race; and whatever tends to penetrate and clarify the fog in which Enghsh misrepresentation has sought to enshroud it, is a distinctive and lasting service to historical truth. To everyone whose mental vision is not distorted by prejudice, the opportunity of learning the truth and of forming impartial judgment of the actions and motives of the men who have been maligned, or at most misunderstood, must be welcomed.

Fortunately for the cause of truth, this opportunity is now presented by the timely publication of "History of the Sinn Fein Movement and the Irish Rebellion of 1916," written by an author whose facilities for acquiring first-hand knowledge were unsurpassed, and whose capacity for imparting it will be appreciated by those who read the book.

To write intelligently and convincingly of Irish affairs requires familiarity with a tangled subject and a keenness of vision that will perceive the genuine from the counterfeit. These qualifications spring from sympathy for and with the people, without which the writer (as in many cases exemplified) plunges into a morass of generalization, and becomes as detached from his subject as Ireland is in spirit from England. That the author of this book is thoroughly imbued with that sympathy is manifest on every page; yet, withal, his sympathy does not cloud his perception or warp his judgment. He maintains throughout a fine sense of proportion, and his shadings but make more emphatic his work in relief. What is called the impartial pinnacle is in Ireland almost impossible of attainment. The rancor of party politics reaches an intensity unknown in America. Here political disputations generally center on domestic material questions - and very rarely affect the personal relations of the citizens. There, there

INTRODUCTION ix

are involved social distinctions and ambitions, traditional prejudices, racial and not infrequently religious antipathies, and above all the ever present, though slumbering, hostility to English rule. Through this maze the author guides a well-tempered steady pen that at no time is dipped in gall, though the opportunities for invective are not few. Conspicuous in this regard is his treatment of the Parliamentarians, the Home Rule Bill, and the recruiting propaganda, subjects to which strong and vivid expressions might well be applied. Yet, notwithstanding the provoking inducements to "let the gall'd jade wince," he pursues a course of moderation that enhances the value of the clear and simple, but dignified, narrative.

A most valued part of the book is that which deals with the Sinn Fein movement. Fostered by misrepresentation, and aided by lack of correct information, ignorance regarding it has assumed amazing sway. Even men of a high order of intelligence have been misled by rumor and "cable hearsay" to form the most grotesque opinions concerning its nature and purpose. The prevailing view is that it was a secret oathbound society with revolution as its object and dark deeds its means. No doubt it will surprise many to learn from the clear definitions given in this book that it was not a secret oathbound society, and had no relation to plans or schemes for revolution. No doubt but that many Sinn Feiners were revolutionists in spirit and act, and equally so there were many Sinn Feiners opposed to revolution by force. Of itself, the movement might be termed patriotic political economy, and for unselfish aims coupled with patriotic purpose has not had its equal in modern times. Indeed, it was more. It was altruistic in its projected service ro country and human-

X INTRODUCTION

ity, and its spirit is expressed in a free translation of its title: For Ourselves. It was born of the terrible condition of Ireland: a fertile country, always on the verge of famine; an island favorably situated on the world's great water lanes, its coast line indented with capacious harbors, without shipping or commerce; a land with fine water facilities and rich mineral deposits, without trade or industry; and a vigorous, fecund population, decaying so rapidly as to bring into view the vanishing point of the race. Said the Sinn Feiners: Nature has blessed our country; it has been cursed by man. We eat English bread, we wear English clothes. Industrial enterprise depends on English capital, and the best products of our land are taken to English markets. We are taught to think and speak in English and fashion our morals on English lines. Let us encourage, as far as we can, home industry, by refusing to buy or consume articles of foreign manufacture or product; let us stimulate Irish trade by the aid of Irish capital being applied to Irish enterprise; let us retain and employ our men by cultivating the soil, reaping the harvest, and feeding our people, instead of raising sheep and cattle for the Englishman's table; let us have a system of national education that will instill into the heart of youth love of country, reverence for its historic past, and hope for its future welfare, instead of the present system that denationalizes and degrades and fosters contempt for everything Irish. These and kindred objects constituted its program, and they were capable of attainment by means of association only. Surely fault should not be found with a people who by peaceable means endeavor by cooperation to elevate themselves to a plane of dignified national existence and intellectual progress. This is the Infinite design, and for a time

INTRODUCTION xi

at least it has been frustrated by man. It is noticeable that even under the extraordinary powers conferred by the Defense of the Realm Act Sinn Fein has not been proclaimed, nor has there been one public trial or prosecution for espousal of its principles. The reason is plain: its principles do not violate even a clause of English law, and while the society has not been placed under legal ban, its members have been persecuted upon the vicious, but oft-applied, principle that he who seeks to benefit Ireland thereby becomes the enemy of England. If the author did no more than give the instructive outline of this most interesting chapter of Irish History, and rescue it from possible oblivion or certain derision, he has made a valuable contribution to what has been termed the dismal science, and furnished a text for elaboration as to how an impoverished, disarmed, and powerless people, acting in unison, may thwart the schemes of the powerful.

But it is in his treatment of the rebellion of Easter week that he reaches the climax of interest. Naturally is this so, for it contains all the dramatic elements which stir the imagination and is saddened by the somber fringe of tragedy. His narrative is an etching. Its clear cut lines are unembellished by flower or figure, and in their strength and simplicity lie their historical value. Philosophic reflections and deductions are left to other minds and times, but the living facts are presented so vividly that they cannot be minimized or distorted. Some features are so prominent that they are calculated to engross the attention to the exclusion of others equally important. First among these is the established determination of the ** Castle" to disarm the volunteers and arrest the leaders. By this act of aggression it was intended to accomplish three things:

xii INTRODUCTION

first, to strike terror into the people by the moral advantage of dealing the first blow; secondly, to coerce the men arrested into enlistment in the army; and thirdly, to still in the silence of the prison cell the voices of the men who had agitated against and made recruiting a failure.

A sinister sidelight is thrown upon the "Castle" council when it was urged that the contemplated assault upon the people would produce a bad effect in America. General Friend, the commander of the forces, declared that he did not care about America, and that at all events, if the Irish there became troublesome, the American government would deport them. The second feature is the unfortunate countermand of Eoin MacNeill to the volunteers. Had this not been issued — well, it is idle to speculate on "what might have been." One thing may be reasonably assumed, that even though the end were not different, the cost of reaching it would have been. Many of the circumstances surrounding that fatal order may never be known. Casement, the pure and chivalrous, is dead, and MacNeill, the scholar and kindly gentleman, is immured for life. Notwithstanding that in the bitterness of defeat men may rashly express themselves as to causes, it is creditable to the Irish race that not one word had been uttered impugning the honor or the motives of either of those splendid patriots. And in harmony with that tribute, it may here be mentioned that, so far as is known, there has not figured in this rebellion that tool of England and shame of Ireland, — the informer.

Worthy of the classic lines which have immortalized the Greek heroes are those men, who, with knowledge of their plans having been disordered and of the overwhelming power of the enemy they challenged, went intrepidly to sacrifice for their principles. The timid

INTRODUCTION xiii

and prudent calculator may say that they were rash and wildly impractical and wholly devoid of comfortable worldly sense. While from a selfish and superficial point of view this may be partially true, yet the fact should not be overlooked that but for such men in all ages humanity could not have broken the shackles with which tyranny and power had frequently bound it. But these men were not blind fatalists. They were Christian men, of blameless lives, with tender ties of blood and affection, endowed with intellectual gifts of a high order, and a fine moral fiber that gives grace and beauty to human existence, and that vibrates in sympathy with every aspiration for truth and justice. All that makes life's journey pleasant and attractive was held in promise for them, had they but pursued the smooth and beaten path of self-interest and sterile egoism. For their bravery and courtly conduct generous words of praise have been extended even by their English enemies. It is only from the servile Irish "Herodians" that bitter words have come. What must be the remorse of Mr. Redmond, their chief, when he reflects on the language he used in a cablegram to New York a short time after the outbreak and before the truth escaped the censor. He said: "The whole disgraceful plot is viewed with execration by the Irish people. It was almost entirely a Dublin movement; partly the creation of the Sinn Fein cranks and German agents there, partly of the remnants of that mass of discontent and anarchy which was left by the disastrous Larkinite strike. ... I have received communication from all parts of the world declaring vehement condemnation by Irishmen of this insane and wicked attempt to destroy all Ireland's hopes, just at the moment when, after centuries of vain struggle, they were about xiv INTRODUCTION

to be fully realized." For his sin "Vathek" was condemned to eternal exposure of his scorched heart in a transparent body.

So numerous were acts of heroism and devotion to duty that to single any one of them would appear invidious. One, however, may be mentioned as presenting incidents of romantic adventure worthy of being enshrined in poetry. Longfellow enshrined "Paul Revere's Ride" from Charlestown to Lexington in graceful verse, and Buchanan Reed sculptured "Sheridan's Ride" to Winchester on Homeric lines. In "The O'Rahilly's" ride to Limerick, vividly described by the author, there is rich material and inspiration for the poet's genius.

A true perspective of the acts and motives of the men who organized and led the rebellion of Easter week can only be had through sympathy with heroic endeavor. It would be as unjust to their memory as it would be misleading to the student of history to measure them by the gross materialism of the day. Granted that they were idealists, but they were idealists with a very practical turn of mind, that had a clear conception of their rights as well as their duties. They knew that God alone fixed Ireland's place on this planet, that He gave its people a language and implanted in them an instinct for racial and national existence, that He conferred upon them the right to make their own laws for Ireland and in Ireland, and that He had never abrogated that right by transferring it to England. They knew they had been deprived of that right by force, and that it could never be regained except by a duty fulfilled, and the fulfillment of that duty was life's highest law. They were convinced that a nation that has lost its freedom does not deserve it, unless to regain it it is ready to march to victory through constancy in sacrifice.

INTRODUCTION xv

In sadness the written and spoken history of their country told them that the path of the patriot led to poverty, exile, imprisonment, or death, and that his only ladder to fame were the steps leading to the scaffold. With that grim record before them, every man of them staked his life against desperate odds. They knew that the chances of victory were remote, but they determined to leave an enduring example. Why this sublime courage and splendid fortitude.^ Because they had absorbed the spiritual meaning of Kathleen ni Houlihan, so that it had permeated their soul. To them patriotism meant more than calculating for opportunity and balancing for expediency. It was to them a religion that, when needs be, required sacrifice — • and sacrifice of life and liberty they made for conscience and for Ireland, that her much troubled and tried but immutable spirit may live.

John W. Goff

New York, March 4, 1917.

Preface

DURING the last week of May, 1916, I received a letter from Dublin stating that my friend, Arthur Griffith, the founder of the Sinn Fein movement, had been arrested and his house ransacked by the British miUtary authorities.

As it happened, I had in my possession, and still have, a copy of The Sinn Fein Policy, as written by Griffith. I was aware, before I left DubUn, that very few copies of the pamphlet were in existence. On realizing that Griffith was silenced in an English prison, and out of a feeling of comradeship to him and a desire to preserve his work, I decided to set down the truth regarding that policy and movement of which the world then was, and still is, thinking.

The men whose names have since been immortalized in the hearts of men and women of the Irish race the world over were my personal friends. For years it had been my privilege to work with them, to know them intimately, and to share a little in that work of preparation which later led to the reawakening of the soul of Ireland. Many of them were intimate and particular friends and comrades of mine — for example, Michael O'Hanrahan and The O'Rahilly — and I felt also that the time had come to set upon record the truth regarding them and the ideals for which they worked and died. Since April, 1916, many articles about these men have appeared in American periodicals, often by writers whose knowledge could not be other than second-hand. Even when written with the best intentions, these articles gave rise to false impressions. In order, therefore, to portray these men as I knew them, to set down some of the facts of the case for Ireland, to show the manner in which this nation, one of the small nations of which we hear so much in these days of war, has been plundered and xviii PREFACE

robbed of her industries, her rights and liberties — of all, in short, save her honor — I set about the compilation of this work, if for no other purpose than that my own two little sons might know the truth.

It has been said, and truly, that England has erected paper walls around Ireland. On the inside of these walls she writes that which she wants the Irish people to believe about the rest of the world, and on the outside that which she hopes the world will believe about Ireland. For months before the rebellion the Irish people were told that the men of Ireland were joining the British army by so many thousands per week, the truth being, as was later demonstrated, that the men of Ireland, and the women, too, were preparing to strike for their freedom. In spite of political intrigues, base bargains made by traitors, and appalhng economic conditions, there were many in Ireland with red blood in their veins and the old dream in their hearts, who worked and prayed that their dream might come true and who called deep in their hearts to the Ireland of their love:

0! Dear Dark Head, though but the curlew* s screaming^,

Wakens the echoes of the hill and glen; Yet shall thou see once more the bright steel gleaming.

Yet shall thou hear again the tramp of men; And though their fathers' fate be theirs, shall others

With hearts as faithful still that pathway tread. Till we have set, oh! mother dear of mothers,

A nation's crown upon thy Dear Dark Head.

The bright steel gleaming was their hope, as it has ever been of an unconquerable and martial people, for who can conquer a race that breeds men who went smilingly to death for freedom, and men who, with the guns of the usurpers around them and their city in ashes behind them, went singing into exile, young men whose unconquerable spirit was so evident in their erect bearing as they marched on their way to English prisons that tears streamed down the cheeks of women and old men took off their hats as they passed?

PREFACE xix

While it will thus be seen that the subject has been approached frankly from an Irish point of view, at the same time no effort has been spared to keep the record in strict accordance with the facts available, even when these facts are such as I would willingly see erased from the record of Irish history. At the same time the mass of material has been so great that the chief difficulty has been to compress it within the compass of a single volume.

Regarding these omissions, it may be well to mention that I had originally intended to devote one chapter to the record of English atrocities committed both during and after the actual fighting, of which ample proof is available. This record, however, has grown to such an extent that even the barest enumeration would fill many pages, and I had, therefore, to leave its publication for another occasion. The manner in which the English acted in the execution of their prisoners of war and their treatment of the three thousand men and women who were deported to England, Wales and Scotland, is in itself sufficient indication of what took place after the surrender of the Republican leaders. It requires no stretch of the imagination to conjure up the picture of what the English soldiery would do in a helpless city when we see the official heads of the British Government acting in a manner that is now a matter of authentic history.

In this connection nothing could better illustrate the feeling throughout Ireland following the executions and deportations than the letter addressed by the Bishop of Limerick to General Maxwell. This letter was written in reply to one from General Maxwell demanding that the Bishop take action against two of his priests alleged by the British Government to have acted in sympathy with the Republicans. The letter follows:

ASHFORD, ChARLEVILLE,

May 17, 1916.

Sir: — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 12th inst., which has been forwarded to me here. I have read carefully your

allegations against Rev. and Rev. , but do not see in them

any justification for discipHnary action on my part. They are both

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excellent priests who hold strong national views, but I do not know that they have violated any law, civil or ecclesiastical. In your letter of 6th inst. you appeal to me to help you in the furtherance of your work as military dictator of Ireland. Even if action of that kind was not outside my province, the events of the past few weeks would make it impossible for me to have any part in proceedings which I regard as wantonly cruel and oppressive. You remember the Janjeson Raid, when a number of buccaneers invaded a friendly State and fought the forces of the lawful government. If ever men deserved the supreme punishment, it was they. But officially and unofficially the influence of the British Government was used to save them, and it succeeded. You took care that no plea for mercy should interpose on behalf of the poor young fellows who surrendered to you in Dubhn. The first information which we got of their fate was the announcement that they had been shot in cold blood. Personally, I regard your action with horror, and I believe that it has outraged the conscience of the country. Then the deporting by hundreds, and even thousands, of poor fellows without a trial of any kind seems to me an abuse of power as fatuous as it is arbitrary, and altogether your regime has been one of the worst and blackest chapters in the history of the misgovernment of this country. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

►I^ Edward Thomas O'Dwyer,

rt. ^ If. T /-. Ti/r Bishop of Limerick,

To General Sm J. G. Maxwell, ^ •'

Commander-in- Chief,

The Forces in Ireland.

It was also my intention to devote some little space to the consideration of the means taken by Mr. John E, Redmond and the Parliamentary Party, in conjunction with Mr. Lloyd George, the present British Prime Minister, to force through a scheme of sham Home Rule that would have left Ireland in worse plight than ever. The time may come when this matter will, with its later developments, aflFord subject matter for another chapter of Irish history. In this place I merely propose to show what two of the most serious-minded Irishmen of their day. Archbishop Walsh of Dublin and the Bishop of Limerick, to whom reference has already been made, wrote and said of the actions of Mr. Redmond and his colleagues.

PREFACE xxi

Writing in a Dublin newspaper under date of July 25, 1916, Archbishop Walsh made the following statement:

Dear Sir: — For years past I have never had a moment's doubt that the Irish Home Rule cause in Parliament was being led along a line that could only bring it to disaster. But it was impossible to shut one's eyes to the lamentable fact that Nationahst Ireland, or, to speak with accuracy, the preponderating majority of those of our people who still retained faith in the efficacy of Constitutional agitation, had become hopelessly possessed of the disastrous idea that "the Party" — or to use the new-fangled term, its "leaders" — could do no wrong. Fair criticism was at an end, and any one, thoroughgoing Nationalist though he might be, who ventured to express an opinion at variance with theirs became at once a fair mark for every political adventurer in the country to assail with the easily handled epithets of "factionist," "wrecker" or "traitor."

Having then a duty to discharge to the ecclesiastical position that I have the honor to hold, I felt that I could most fittingly indicate my strong view of the lamentable position of the Home Rule cause by what seemed to me a sufficiently striking indication of it — absolute abstention from everything that could be regarded as expressing concurrence in the courses that was being pursued.

The country seemed to be satisfied with that course. The Home Rule Act was on the statute book; it could not be displaced or modified without "our" consent; the end of the war would automatically bring with it the reopening of our old Irish Parhament in College Green; and so on.

As the necessary result of the abandonment of the policy of Independent Opposition — the only policy that can be followed with safety by Irish representatives in the British House of Commons — our country is now face to face with a truly awful prospect.

The Home Rule Act is still on the statute book. Will Irish Nationalists be any longer befooled by a repetition of the party cries, that this fact makes them masters of the situation; that the act cannot be modified without Nationalist consent; and that Ireland awaits only the end of the war to find the portals of the Old House in College Green automatically opened for the entry of the members of a Parliament greater than Grattan's.'^ I remain, dear sir, faithfully yours,

►J^ William J. Walsh,

Archbishop's House, Dublin, Archbishop of Dublin.

xxii PREFACE

P.S. — I cannot close this letter without expressing my amazement that the country has so long allowed its attention to be distracted with all sorts of side issues regarding the Irish Parliament that is to be, whilst an effective bar is kept up — for this is what it comes to — against all real consideration of the question whether the Parliament that is to come to us is to be a Parhament in any sense worthy of the name. ►I^W. J. W.

On September 14, 1916, for reasons which will be sufficiently obvious to those who have read the letter addressed to General Maxwell, Bishop O'Dwyer was presented with the freedom of the City of Limerick. In the course of his address on that occasion, he dealt at some length with the facts of the situation as he saw it. I quote the following report of his speech from one of the Irish papers :

Since the war began they had heard a good deal about the Empire and their place in its greatness and their duties towards it. That argument did not appeal to him (Dr. O'Dwyer). An empire in any true sense consisted of a number of kingdoms, each of which was a unit, self-contained and self-governed, but all of which came together for their mutual support and benefit. But that was not the case as between England and Ireland. They had been deprived of all the attributes of a kingdom. They were a subject province. They were like Egypt, governed by English Satraps of an inferior kind, but in no sense were they constituents of the British Empire, as Canada and Australia were. Ireland was a nation, and never would be at rest until the center of gravity was within herself.

They might think that prosperity would wean their people from the old cause; that education would turn thoughts into other channels. It was the flattering unction which tyrants were always laying to their souls; but the history of the world was against them. Ireland would never be content as a province. It was that national spirit that would yet vindicate their country, and not the petty intrigues of Parhamentary chicane. And if their representatives in Parliament had relied on it, instead of putting their faith in Asquith and Lloyd George and the Liberals, they would not be where they are to-day.

By way of defense, some of them had been asking recently for an alternative poHcy. It was a rather cool demand. It was as if the captain of a ship, after running her on the rocks, invited the passengers to give their views of how the vessel should have been navigated. It

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would be much more to the purpose for him to tell them how he proposed to get her off the rocks. Although like the mass of the people of this country, on whom the confidence trick had been played so disastrously, he (Dr. O'Dwyer) had no responsibihty for the present deplorable condition of things, he would state liis alternative to trusting the Party, who trusted the Liberals, and were now reduced to the statesmanship of Micawber — waiting for something to turn up.

When war was being declared he would have said to the English Government: "Give us our National rights; set up a genuine Parliament in Dublin, and we are with you; but, if you will not, then fight your own battles.'*