1916 (27 page)

The practical planning for the Rising, therefore, marched in tandem with written expositions that not only justified the rejection of Redmond’s policy on home rule and the war but also offered a positive vision of an independent Ireland. In the months before the Rising, Pearse perfected his views on the character of Irish freedom and of Irish nationality. They appeared, in pamphlet form, in the ‘Tracts for the times’ series, between December 1915 and March 1916. The four pamphlets,
Ghosts
,
The separatist idea
,
The spiritual nation
and
The sovereign people
, provided ideological justification for a future Ireland as an independent nation and as sovereign people. They also offered the final confirmation that Pearse’s own private conversion from constitutional home ruler to a physical force separatist had been completed.
⁷⁷

Pearse not only condemned the policy of Redmond as a betrayal of Parnell but also articulated a vision of a future Irish nation that incorporated, to a high degree, the socialist ideals of James Fintan Lalor. With obvious approval, Pearse declared that Lalor held ‘that separation from England would be valueless unless it put the people – the actual people and not merely certain rich men – of Ireland in effectual ownership and possession of the soil of Ireland’. The ideals of Lalor, taken together with the writings of Tone, Davis and Mitchel, formed, in Pearse’s opinion, the four gospels of Irish nationality. In that expression of nationality women were to enjoy the same franchise rights as men.
⁷⁸

The last words of
The sovereign people
were: ‘And we are young. And God has given us strength and courage and counsel. May He give us victory.’
⁷⁹
In his preface to this pamphlet, written at St Enda’s on 31 March
1916, Pearse declared that ‘this pamphlet concludes the examination of the Irish definition of freedom which I promised in
Ghosts
. For my part I have no more to say.’
⁸⁰
Pearse knew that the time had come for action. He did, however, find time to contribute to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and the
Irish War News
. Evidence of these writings were placed before the royal commission by Major Price, which concluded that ‘a number of seditious books called “Tracts for the times” were circulated’ at that time.
⁸¹

While unaware of the significant role of the IRB in the planning of the Rising, it was evident that the Dublin Castle authorities were well aware of the strength of the Volunteers and of the tone of advanced nationalist propaganda in the months prior to the Rising. Not only had Nathan enclosed copies of many of the journals to Dillon on 13 November 1915, but also he had reported to Birrell on 18 December 1915, after consultations with Redmond and Dillon, that ‘the present situation in Ireland is most serious and menacing’. Nathan added that Redmond:

knows or should know that the enrolled strength of the Sinn Féin Volunteers has increased by a couple of thousand active members in the last two months to a total of some 13,500 and each group of these is a centre of revolutionary propaganda. He knows, or should know, that efforts are being made to get arms for the support of this propaganda.
⁸²

It was in this context that Major Price, who was supplying Nathan with information about advanced nationalist propaganda, became involved in the firm measures to suppress it.

Acting under the powers conferred by DORA, Price played an important part in the seizure of thousands of copies of
Spark
,
Honesty
and
The Gael
on 24 March 1916. He was also responsible for removing vital parts of the printing machinery of the Gaelic Press, 30 Upper Liffey Street, where the journals were published. All of these actions were conducted under orders issued by General Friend acting as the CMA. Joseph Stanley, the proprietor of the Gaelic Press, recorded that the military and the DMP had smashed his printing presses and rendered them useless. Major Price, he added, had offered no redress. Stanley himself was in the IRB and a close friend of Clarke and MacDermott. Under the pen-name of ‘Gilbert Galbraith’ Stanley edited
Honesty
, which had a circulation of c.10,000 in 1916. Other journals were seized during the raid, among them
An Claidheamh Soluis
, New Ireland,
Nationality
and the
Catholic Bulletin
.
⁸³
Despite the damage to his printing press, Stanley provided assistance to the three
men, Christopher Brady, Michael Molloy and Bill O’Brien, who, based in Liberty Hall, printed the original copies of the Proclamation of Irish independence.
⁸⁴

M
AJOR
P
RICE AND THE
E
ASTER
R
ISING

Following the Rising, 24–9 April 1916, and the executions, 3–12 May, a ‘Royal Commission on the Rebellion in Ireland’ was immediately appointed. It worked swiftly and had concluded its work by July, when its report appeared. Granted his involvement in the early armed activity on the first day of the Rising, and his role as chief intelligence officer, it was inevitable that Major Price should be summoned to appear before the commission. His evidence, stressing the failings of the Dublin Castle civil authorities, had a significant bearing on its findings. Some of his criticisms of these authorities over their lack of response to his warnings about the contents of the post and of the advanced nationalist press have already been mentioned. Price’s feelings and frustrations about the inadequacies of Dublin Castle were summed up in his reply to a question by the commission about the ‘Tracts for the times’. Faced by this question concerning Pearse’s final statement of his political beliefs, Price bluntly declared: ‘I liken myself to John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness as to taking steps on the subject. The civil authorities did not think it desirable to take steps.’
⁸⁵

The judgement of the commission reflected this final critical observation of Price in regard to Birrell and Nathan. It stated that we are ‘of the opinion that the chief secretary [Birrell] as the administrative head of Your Majesty’s Government in Ireland is primarily responsible for the situation that was allowed to arise and the outbreak that occurred’.
⁸⁶
It concluded that Nathan, although only taking up office in September 1914, ‘did not sufficiently impress upon the chief secretary during the latter’s prolonged absence from Dublin the necessity for more active measures to remedy the situation in Ireland which on 18 December last in a letter to the chief secretary he described as “most serious and threatening.”’
⁸⁷

The report’s damning indictment of the Dublin Castle civil administration, however, should not take away from the fact that it found that the authorities responsible for the implementation of DORA had conducted themselves admirably. The report stated that ‘we do not attach any responsibility to the military authorities in Ireland for the rebellion or its
results’.
⁸⁸
Sir Neville Chamberlain, the inspector general of the RIC, and Colonel Edgeworth-Johnstone, the chief commissioner of the DMP, were commended and the report declared that ‘for the conduct, zeal and loyalty of the RIC and DMP we have nothing but praise’.
⁸⁹

In other words the message from the royal commission was that, although the British civil administration had failed, the army and the police forces were beyond reproach. This finding is endorsed by reflection on the actions of Major Price. Consideration of his role, moreover, places DORA and the associated regulations at the centre of the British military strategy in Ireland. DORA was the weapon chosen to confront dissident protest against recruiting in 1914; to crush Irish rebels in 1916 (they were actually charged with engaging in action ‘prejudicial to the Defence of the Realm’); and to wage the war against Irish independence from 1919–21. Major Price retained his position as chief intelligence officer in the immediate aftermath of the Rising and continued to play a central role in the application of DORA. Indeed, the system of surveillance of individual persons, the post and of the press continued with a heightened severity. A brief consideration of some of the actions associated with Major Price serves to illustrate the manner in which DORA, like a seamless thread, fashioned the character of the British presence in Ireland until 1921.

The first incident involving Price related to his dealings with Eoin MacNeill. MacNeill, who had been arrested on 2 May 1916, made a statement claiming that Major Price, who visited him in his cell at Arbour Hill prison on 5 May:

began a conversation about my getting a death sentence. He then said my life would be spared if I made a statement implicating persons ‘higher up than myself ’. He said it would be enough to make a statement. I was not expected to support it by giving evidence. I asked what persons higher than myself he meant, and he said Mr Dillon and Mr Devlin. I said I could not connect them with the matter in any way. He then told me of Mr Birrell’s resignation, speaking of it with great satisfaction.

Although Price denied the allegation, his known hostility to Dillon and his critical opinion of Birrell lends credibility to MacNeill’s statement. Dillon himself became aware of MacNeill’s statement at the end of May.
⁹⁰

The second incident concerning Price related to his dealings with Francis Sheehy Skeffington, who was shot by a firing squad on the morning of 26 April while a prisoner in Portobello Barracks, Dublin. Captain Bowen
Colthurst had ordered his shooting and that of two other prisoners without any form of judicial process. The two other men shot were both journalists: Thomas Dickson and Patrick McIntyre, editor of
The Searchlight
. When Major Fletcher Vane, second in command at Portobello Barracks, requested Major Price to establish a process of inquiry, he was informed by him that ‘some of us think it was a good thing Sheehy Skeffington was put out of the way anyway’. Following his protest, Vane was demoted from his command and replaced by Colthurst.
⁹¹

The comment of Price could only have been based on the well known pacificism of Sheehy Skeffington and his previous arrest under the terms of DORA. Significantly, there was no reference made to his death in the royal commission on the rebellion, even though there was mention of an article by him that had appeared in the journal
Century
in February 1916. This article had alarmed Sir Matthew Nathan.
⁹²
In the article, ‘A forgotten small nationality’, Sheehy Skeffington had questioned the sincerity of England’s war aims, asking ‘must Irish freedom be gained in blood, or will the comity of nations, led by the United States, shame a weakened England into putting into practice at home the principles which are so loudly trumpeted for the benefit of Germany?’
⁹³
After a court martial trial which found Colthurst ‘guilty but insane’ on 7 June 1916 – a trial of which Tim Healy commented that ‘never since the trial of Christ was there a greater travesty of justice’ – a royal commission was appointed with Sir John Simon presiding. This commission, whose report was published on 16 October 1916, condemned not only the conduct of Colthurst but also that of the British military command. The report stated unequivocally that ‘the shooting of unarmed and unresisting civilians without trial constitutes the offence of murder, whether martial law has been proclaimed or not.’
⁹⁴

John Dillon played a significant part in securing this small consolation for the Sheehy Skeffington family. On 11 June 1916 he had written to Lloyd George complaining, in particular, of the conduct of Major Price and, in general, of the policy of martial law. Dillon maintained that:

the horrible irony of the situation is, that by giving soldiers and Price (Major I.H. Price, director of military intelligence and widely detested in Dublin as Maxwell’s right-hand man) a free hand you are making yourselves the instruments of your own worst enemies to defeat your own policy.
⁹⁵

Dillon then spelled out how British policy after the Rising was destroying not only the Irish party but also Irish ties of loyalty to the British empire
and to the war effort. ‘When the fighting was over and the insurrection crushed,’ Dillon declared:

if there had been no executions, the country would have been solid behind us, and we could have done what we liked with it. The tragedy of the situation – and it is one of the greatest tragedies of all history – is that but for the blunders of your government Ireland would be today as loyal to your government as Canada, and you would have had easily double the number of Irish soldiers fighting at the front.
⁹⁶

The impact of the British military policy and of Major Price, in particular, upon Ireland and the Irish party could not be better illustrated.

Major Price was also involved in censoring the press at the time of the Rising. His actions against the
Catholic Bulletin
, one of the few journals of advanced nationalism to escape a total ban, were especially revealing. The May 1916 issue had not been published and, on 8 June 1916, Patrick Keohane of Gill’s wrote to Price concerning the next issue. He stated that: ‘I send herewith the May–June number of the
Catholic Bulletin
, which, to our and our readers’ disappointment, has had to be issued with many blank spaces owing to your refusal, at the last moment, to read, as promised, the proofs submitted to you.’ Keohane also complained of a recent visit from a detective and an earlier encounter with Price on 25 May.
⁹⁷
The material that Price saw fit to suppress made the case that the actions taken by the unionists, in their opposition to home rule, had contributed to an armed rebellion. ‘Profitless, too, must it seem now,’ the editorial declared: