1916 (28 page)

to reflect on the degree to which the rebellion was due to the example of ‘Ulster’; its threat to seek the aid of the greatest Protestant power in Europe against the enactment of home rule; its armed demonstrations and parading of machine guns, glorified by the ‘Curragh revolt’; its provisional government, graced by the most favoured officers of State; its Covenant under which ‘the loyal minority’ pledged themselves to resist – if necessary, by force of arms – the British crown and constitution; its landing at Larne of a ship-load of German rifles, ‘patronised’, as a correspondent puts it, ‘by the Duke of Abercorn and the late Marquis of Londonderry, and blessed by his lordship, Dr Crozier.’

J.J. O’Kelly, the editor, prefaced these remarks with a protest that he was ‘writing under direct military censorship’.
⁹⁸

The
Bulletin
then made the point that, until these actions by the unionists had prevented the introduction of home rule, the vast majority of Irish nationalists were committed to a constitutional settlement. The editorial reflected on the relationship that Pearse and MacNeill had once enjoyed with Redmond and the Irish party and concluded that:

it is to be remembered that Mr John MacNeill and the late Mr P.H. Pearse were among the prominent speakers, who, four years ago, assisted at Mr Redmond’s monster home rule demonstration in the beautiful Dublin thoroughfare now bounded by red ruin. Previously Mr Pearse, as editor of the Gaelic League’s official organ, was one of the few men in Ireland to urge the acceptance of the doomed Councils bill, as a step in the direction of Irish liberty.

‘We recall these circumstances,’ O’Kelly declared, ‘to show how men of proven constitutional instincts may be driven from the constitutional path, and to sound a warning of which our public men seem in urgent need.’
⁹⁹

The censorship of these paragraphs by Price reflected the approach adopted by the report of the commission on the Rising, which simply noted that ‘arms were entering the province of Ulster from foreign countries, including Germany’, and that ‘large quantities of arms were surreptitiously imported by night at Larne’.
¹⁰⁰
It was not stated, as Joseph
Brennan, the finance official in Dublin Castle observed, ‘by whom this illegality was committed.’
¹⁰¹
Neither Price nor the royal commission, it would appear, wanted the charge of unionist responsibility for the Rising to be publicised.

One other small, but significant, item was suppressed in the May–June issue of the
Catholic Bulletin
: a poem entitled
Dublin – May 1916
. The title was clearly printed; the poem, however, was not published. The name of the author appeared in small print and was written in Irish as Gobnait ní Bruadhair. The author was, in fact, Albinia Brodrick, the sister of the Earl of Midleton, the leading southern unionist. Brodrick, a Protestant of the wealthy land-owning class, had embraced the social and political ideals of the emerging Irish republic. The last verse of the banned poem read:

Other poets of Protestant background commemorated the Easter Rising in verse. Indeed, it might be said that if the Easter Rising was a rebellion by Catholic poets, it was hailed in verse by their Protestant counterparts. W.B. Yeats was joined by Dora Sigerson Shorter, Alice Milligan, Eva Gore Booth, Dorothy Macardle, and George Russell (‘AE’) in expressing sympathy with those who had died in the Rising. This was finely expressed in the verse of George Russell in his poem
Salutation
:

Press censorship not only silenced a significant Protestant voice in favour of the Rising but also forced O’Kelly to tell the story of those who fought and died with an emphasis on their Catholic background. Writing in the July 1916 number of the
Bulletin
, O’Kelly stated that:

under existing circumstances a magazine like this, in describing the recent insurrection, has little option but to overlook the political and controversial features of the upheaval, and confine comment almost entirely to the Catholic and social aspects of the lives and last moments of those who died either in action or as a result of trial by court martial.
¹⁰⁴

Some historians have suggested that his approach indicated a sectarian dimension to the Rising. It was, in fact, a course forced upon him by the constraints of the press censor.

Within the context of these restraints O’Kelly began, in the July 1916 number, a new feature article entitled ‘Events of Easter Week’, which ran until March 1919. That particular feature, which was typical of others to follow, ran to some fifteen pages and contained some twenty photographs of those who had participated in the Rising. Brief biographical details of their lives were given, which were often accompanied by poems.
¹⁰⁵
The
December 1916 issue, which featured over twenty poignant photographs of the widows and children of those whose husbands had died in the Rising, was particularly striking.

Major Price and the Dublin Castle authorities were not happy with the expression of sentiments such as these and action was taken on 21–2 February 1917. J.J. O’Kelly and some twenty other nationalists, all involved in creating a political movement to embody the ideals of the Rising, were arrested and deported without trial. They were charged under the terms of section 14 of the DORR. Among others deported with him were Darrell Figgis, Seán T. O’Kelly, Terence MacSwiney, Tomás MacCurtain and Dr Patrick McCartan.
¹⁰⁶

The identity of the CMA had changed (General Bryan Mahon now filled the office) but the system was the same. The army, however, could only act on the information from the police and John Dillon, speaking in the House of Commons, was in no doubt from where that intelligence had come. The person responsible, he declared, was Major Price, the ‘chief spy and controller of the secret service in Ireland’.
¹⁰⁷
The centrality of Price to the administration of DORA was also recognised by Hannah Sheehy Skeffington. Reflecting, in 1917, on all the events since the death of her husband, she commented bitterly that ‘Major Price still rules in Dublin Castle’.
¹⁰⁸

Price retained his position of prominence until 1 February 1919, when he re-joined the ranks of the RIC and became assistant inspector general on 1 October 1920. Having been warned in January 1922 that his life might be at risk in the new post-Treaty Ireland, he immediately left his office and Ireland. He died in England in November 1931.
¹⁰⁹

I
NTRODUCTION

The failure of the Cork Brigade of Irish Volunteers to fully participate in the Easter Rising generated considerable resentment amongst those who did, and subsequently resulted in two formal inquiries. Notwithstanding that the leadership was twice exonerated some officers were destined to carry a burden of guilt all the way to their graves.
¹
Why was this the case? What happened in Cork to cause such angst? How did the military chain of command disintegrate at the very moment it was most needed?

This paper examines events in Cork before, during, and after the Easter Rising. It uncovers the operation of parallel chains of command; identifies the mobilisation of over 1,000 Volunteers; examines the legality of the arrest and court martial of Thomas Kent; and evaluates the leadership of the brigade commander, Tomás MacCurtain.

P
LANNING AND PREPARATION

On Sunday, 9 April 1916 Tomás MacCurtain chaired a meeting of the Brigade Council at his headquarters in the Volunteer Hall on Sheares Street in Cork city. Assembled before him were his second in command, Terence MacSwiney, his brigade staff officers, and many of his battalion and company commanders.
²
MacCurtain’s primary task was to finalise plans for his unit’s participation in the forthcoming ‘Mobilisation’ and ‘Easter Concentration’ which were to be held in accordance with a General Order for ‘Manoeuvres’ issued six days previously by Pádraig Pearse, the Volunteers’ director of operations. Under the terms of this order Volunteer units in the south and west of the country would mobilise in order to secure a shipment of German arms and ammunition that was due to arrive off the Kerry coast. Florence O’Donoghue later wrote that:

The Cork Brigade was to occupy positions on a north-south line from New-market to the Boggeragh mountains and thence westward to the Cork-Kerry border, contacting some units of the Kerry Brigade extending eastwards from Tralee. Limerick was to maintain contact with the northern end of the Cork position and extend northwards to the Shannon, [and the] Clare and Galway Brigades were to hold the line of the Shannon to Athlone.
³

Seán Murphy, the brigade quartermaster, also recalled that as part of this operation the Volunteers were planning to obstruct and delay the British army at Millstreet and Rathmore by cutting the railway line. However, the written agenda for the meeting on 9 April, which survives in MacSwiney’s handwriting, clearly indicates that the Cork Brigade were planning for an ‘Easter Concentration’, not widespread offensive action, and that matters pertaining to the organisation of companies and battalions, together with the compilation of inventories of arms, equipment, field kit and communications, were of primary concern.

During the course of the meeting MacCurtain outlined each officer’s respective tasks and nominated the eight different concentration points to which each company would march two weeks hence. He also stressed the importance of carrying out their orders and notified them that there was a distinct possibility that Crown forces might attempt to interfere with their operations. With this in mind he ordered that all available arms and ammunition were to be carried and each Volunteer should bring his overcoat, some blankets, and two days supply of food.
⁴

There had long been expectation within the Cork Brigade that some form of military action might be in the offing, especially if the British authorities attempted to forcibly disarm the Volunteers, if conscription was introduced, or if a shipment of arms arrived from Germany. Seán Murphy later recalled that, during the preceding twelve months:

Officers from Volunteer headquarters [in Dublin] frequently visited [Cork] and informed the brigade staff that Roger Casement had recruited an Irish Brigade in Germany from Irishmen who were prisoners of war there, that the Volunteers would be officered by these men upon their arrival in Ireland, and that ample supplies of arms, ammunition, and light artillery would be made available from Germany.
⁵

Therefore, on 9 April, as far as the Cork Brigade were concerned the purpose of the ‘Easter Concentration’ was to provide security for a German arms landing. What weapons the Volunteers already possessed were to be
used only to fulfil that mission and to prevent themselves, if necessary, from being forcibly disarmed. They had neither planned nor discussed mounting any widespread offensive military action because without the arrival of additional equipment there was no prospect whatever of that happening. In fact Murphy later stated that:

Ammunition was so scarce that not a man [had] fired a round of live ammunition in Cork before Easter 1916. Arms consisted of three different patterns of rifles, with some shotguns. The ammunition varied from ten rounds for some patterns of rifles to thirty rounds for others. Around 75% of the latter ammunition was obtained locally through seizures from British army personnel and such. As the Volunteer headquarters in Dublin were unaware of this list or sources of supply, their estimate of ammunition supplies available in Cork for Easter Sunday was ten rounds per rifles with varying amounts for the shotguns … [therefore] the Cork Volunteers had scarcely enough [ammunition] to last five minutes.
⁶