Riotous Assemblies

by William Sheehan

  A study of rioting in Limerick suggests that local identity sometimes fused with occupational identity and sometimes competed with it. One occupation that attracted particularly intense loyalty and served to bind communities together was fishing, and the loyalties inspired by this shared occupation became linked with political and local rivalries. This is evident in the Parnellite riots, particularly in the clashes between rival bands during those riots. Marching bands were the totemic fronts for communities by the 1890s – a phenomenon that was not confined to Limerick.56 St Mary’s Band represented the parish of that name, reported as being overwhelmingly anti-Parnellite in 1892 but fractured politically by 1894–5. This parish split produced two rival bands, the St Mary’s Band (anti-Parnellite) and the No. 9 Band (Parnellite), which frequently clashed in the street riots of the following years. A social analysis of band membership suggests at first glance that the two bands were very similar in social composition, consisting primarily of unskilled workers along with some fishermen. The political split alone does not, however, fully explain how two bands grew from one: an equally important factor was that the bands drew their support from opposite sides of the island parish of St Mary’s and, though both communities contained many fishing families, they belonged to different fishing cultures. The Crosby Row fishermen faced onto the main branch of the Shannon and fished downriver, whereas the Abbey fishermen faced onto the branch of the Shannon known as the Abbey River and they fished upriver. The differences did not stop there for, when the fishing season finished, the Abbey fishermen mainly worked as casual labourers in bacon factories, whereas the Crosby Row fishermen usually worked as dock labourers. They occupied the same social class but had limited opportunities to socialise with one another apart from at church; the Parnellite riots gave them added cause for division, with the two communities choosing different sides politically.

  For most of the nineteenth century, Limerick city’s population was between 40,000 and 50,000, with an electorate that rose from 1,500 to 4,000.57 This, along with the absence of a secret ballot until the early 1870s, meant that mass assembly was a vital means of coercing or influencing voters. Candidates for election paid lip service to voters’ independence, but most realised that control of the mob was a very powerful tool to ensure political domination. For instance, Thomas Spring Rice in the 1820s was privately opposed to engaging the masses in elections, but his political campaign was often aided by the crowd.58 A large political meeting in 1828 featured an extremely large and intimidating crowd, most of whom seemed to be tenants of Rice’s political allies. The 1830 election saw another pro-Rice mob – most of them workers on the Wellesley Bridge project, who had been purposely released for the day by their employers, the Bridge Commissioners (allies of Rice) – who congregated in the vicinity of some of the polling booths.59

  The repeal interest enjoyed the support of a potentially threatening crowd throughout the 1830s and most of the 1840s until the split between Young and Old Ireland manifested itself in 1847–8. The 1848 attack on the Young Irelanders showed that a riot was likely if there was any political division among the working classes of the city. The riots of 1858–9 and 1892–5 also bear this out, when the disruptive role of the non-voting public was clearly valued by local political interests. Indeed, William Spaight – brother to James the political candidate – attested that John O’Donnell, who acted as their agent in May 1858, urged them to hire a large mob and declared that there was little hope of winning the election without one.60 When further questioned, William Spaight protested that he was never in favour of bringing in the mob, but then appeared to forget himself, agreeing that their mob had got the better of their opponents and had ‘thrashed the other well’.61

  The riots of 1869 and 1876, again precipitated by conflicting political loyalties, were a little different in that they featured a striking numerical imbalance, with a small section of the population (the Fenians) seeking to dominate city politics in spite of the political will of the majority. In this regard these riots do not demonstrate a split in the working-class community, but rather the ability of a fringe party to push itself forward. At first glance the 1858 riots seem to bear comparison with those of 1892–5, but whereas the 1892–5 riots can be used as evidence of a citizenry strongly engaged with the political ideologies of the time, the riots of 1858 are an example of what can happen when the prevailing political ideology fails to interest the population at large. In the 1850s religious identity entered the void left by the collapse of repeal and reform, and the populace became politically apathetic, as was shown in 1851 when the Earl of Arundel was returned in the city, largely due to the fact that he was Catholic.62

  The 1848 riot, in which Smith O’Brien was manhandled by the crowd, is extremely useful in uncovering the attitudes of that sizeable percentage of the population that the local media had largely ignored. Had the riot not occurred, an observer could have been forgiven for assuming there was no serious opposition to Smith O’Brien and the Confederation from the Catholic populace in Limerick, apart from that outspoken priest Fr Richard Baptist O’Brien. The riot served as a crucial barometer of local political allegiance, though we must not read too much into the disturbance and politics was certainly not the only factor motivating the rioters, with the provocative role of Fr O’Brien clearly significant, since he had deliberately circulated one of John Mitchel’s United Irishman articles that was particularly condemnatory of O’Connell.63

  Limerick was politically mobilised in the late 1890s by the release from prison of the Fenian John Daly, whose popularity seems to have been largely based on his image as a gaoled patriot. This image was reinforced by the enthusiasm generated by the 1798 centenary celebrations and by the expansion of the electorate following the 1898 Local Government Act. The trades council, working closely with John Daly from its headquarters in the Mechanic’s Institute, set up a local ‘Labour Party’ to prepare for the 1899 municipal election, successfully achieving a large majority in the city corporation and installing Daly as mayor. This triumph soon gave way to divisions, which led to predictable rioting. There was a backlash against Daly and the Labour Party, much of it based on local rivalry. St Mary’s Band nominated their own bandmaster as a candidate for the District Council elections in opposition to the Labour Party candidate, the challenge showing the importance of social and class divisions. Patsy McNamara, the St Mary’s bandmaster candidate, was a general labourer living in one-room accommodation in one of the lanes in the Abbey, whereas his opponent, the Labour Party candidate Patrick Keane, was a prosperous baker living in a six-bedroom house in one of the area’s main streets. In retaliation for this challenge, the Labour Party supporters launched an attack on the St Mary’s band room. The attackers were repulsed by the band members, who then pursued the attackers out of the area, leading to a major riot in that part of the city.

  The ingredients in this riot reveal the composition and motivation of rioting crowds in Limerick not only in 1898 but over the preceding seventy years: loyalty to one’s occupation, loyalty to one’s club, identification with one’s area, frustration with lack of political representation and animosity between skilled and unskilled workers.

  9

  ‘A CENTRE OF TURBULENCE AND RIOTING’

  The republican movement in Limerick, 1917–18

  JOHN O’CALLAGHAN

  The inactivity of the Irish Volunteers in Limerick during the 1916 Rising meant that the reaction of the local authorities was restrained. While the Volunteers were rendered largely impotent by their surrender of arms, most of the leading republicans in Limerick escaped police attention. Volunteer structures remained in place and reorganisation began promptly. Republicans capitalised on indecision among the police and military in Limerick about how to react to the Volunteer renaissance, and to the orchestrated public disorder which was central to that revival. Even as the Limerick Volunteers became entangled in divisive and debilitating internal splits after the Easter Rising, they demonstrated unity of purpose
in bringing violence to the streets of the city and, to a lesser degree, the towns and villages of the county. Until 1920 violence between republicans and crown forces rarely involved shooting and usually took the form of rioting. Anti-police and anti-military riots were a central tactic in what, by the end of 1917, was the successful rejuvenation of the Volunteers before vigorous anti-conscription activity in Limerick in 1918 facilitated the further expansion of militant republicanism.

  In the wake of the Rising the police were aware of almost immediate efforts on the part of republicans in Limerick to restore subversive momentum at frequent underground meetings and through cover organisations such as the Irish Volunteers Dependants’ Fund, but they had no power to interfere with private gatherings on mere suspicion that they were held for seditious purposes. Attempts to revive most Volunteer units around the country did not begin until early 1917, whereas the Limerick City Battalion mobilised on 3 September 1916.1 The Limerick county inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) suggested that ‘but for martial law they would be more active than before the Rising’ and he found it necessary to request the cancellation of special trains from Dublin and other counties to Limerick ‘to avert the danger apprehended from a monster Gaelic Athletic Association meeting’ on 24 September. There was still a large parade through the city after the GAA games, however, and a ‘seditious demonstration’ was held close to the main RIC barracks. The marchers flew the flag of the Irish Republic and sang rebel songs, but the police did not have sufficient numbers to disperse them.2

  The Manchester Martyrs commemoration in Limerick on 26 November 1916 was attended by 350 people. Eighteen of the twenty-one marches held around the country were ‘orderly and rather poorly attended’; Limerick was one of the three that were not.3 The occasion marked the first public display of the City Battalion since Easter, but the Volunteers were dispersed by a police baton charge.4 Drilling continued despite this setback and developments in Limerick replicated the national pattern. The regard in which a handful of prominent separatists (who returned to the region on their release from internment) were held gave them the authority to lead the republican campaign. Michael Brennan contrasted his departure, when the wives of British soldiers hurled insults at him, with his homecoming in early 1917, which was marked by a crowd ‘numbering several thousands who cheered themselves hoarse and embarrassed me terribly by carrying me on their shoulders through the streets. It was all very bewildering, but it made it clear that the Rising had already changed the people.’5

  At a Town Tenants meeting on 21 January 1917, between forty and fifty Sinn Féiners disrupted the proceedings by singing republican songs. About ten or twelve of this group then rushed the platform. Thomas Lundon MP received injuries that necessitated eight days in hospital. He was specifically targeted because of a speech he had made criticising the Volunteers.6 Five men were prosecuted and imprisoned for their roles in the assault.7 In January a Limerick solicitor, Hugh O’Brien-Moran (president of the Tom Clarke Sinn Féin club), successfully defended James Ryan, secretary of the Limerick GAA county board, on a charge of refusing police admission to a hurling match without payment. General Sir Bryan Mahon, commander-in-chief of the British forces in Ireland, subsequently ordered O’Brien-Moran and Ryan to reveal the origin of the documents that had formed the basis of the defence case. Both refused and were detained in Arbour Hill barracks under the Defence of the Realm Act. They were court-martialled and imprisoned. This case inspired much criticism of the Defence of the Realm Act in the local press and among the legal profession in Limerick and Dublin. O’Brien-Moran protested that, though the legislation ‘had a very high sounding name’, it was actually applied to:

  Every two pence ha’penny case. At the present time if a policeman heard the word Kaiser, Kingdom, Dublin, Rebels or Volunteers uttered his feathers immediately became ruffled and he brought a case under the Defence of the Realm Act.8

  There were frequent arrests for petty offences such as shouting ‘Up the rebels’ or ‘To hell with the king’.9 When Limerick men were court-martialled for wearing a uniform of a military character, carrying a sword or taking part in movements of a military nature, public admiration for them increased.

  Police and military correspondence reveals a great deal of uncertainty among the authorities about how to react to the republican resurgence so soon after the apparently terminal defeat of Easter week. However, reports written by the senior British army officers in Limerick, Lt Col N. B. Grandage and Col Anthony Weldon, indicate that during a personal conversation on 11 January Michael Colivet, commandant of the Limerick Volunteers, had assured Weldon there would be no further drilling. When County Inspector Yates pressed for Madge Daly, whose brother Edward had been executed after the Rising, to be court-martialled for allowing her premises to be used by the Volunteers, Weldon – under the impression that Colivet did not approve of the resumption of Volunteer activities and would try to curtail drilling – recommended restraint. Colivet had apparently issued ‘definite orders’ that drilling was to be discontinued because it was ‘only likely to cause unnecessary trouble’. Weldon was satisfied by Colivet’s assurances because this was not the first such unofficial deal that they had struck:

  I have no reason to disbelieve this gentleman’s assurances as he has consistently kept his undertakings with me, as indeed have the other leaders of the Sinn Féin body here (note that he was mainly instrumental in getting in arms last May without my having unnecessarily to employ the military to seize them).10

  Colivet’s apparently conciliatory attitude, however, soon gave way to a more aggressive approach among Limerick Volunteers. On 22 February 1917, Colivet himself was found in possession of reconnaissance reports dated 5 December 1916 about the military defences of Limerick, showing the position of police and soldiers and making recommendations on how to attack the military barracks. Seán Ó Muirthile, another Volunteer, was found in possession of six detonators.11 On the night of 22 March a party of Volunteers that went to the railway station, to meet three prisoners sent from Foynes to Limerick prison for offences against the Defence of the Realm Act, mobbed the police escort and pelted them with stones and bottles until they reached the barracks. On the night of 23 March the return to Limerick of Hugh O’Brien-Moran after his prison sentence was the occasion of further disturbances. A ‘Sinn Féin mob’ escorted Moran from the railway station to his home, where he made a speech. The crowd then marched through the main streets singing seditious songs and attacked two RIC patrols. A number of revolver shots were discharged but the second police patrol dispersed the crowd with batons. Two policemen were injured by stones.12 This incident marked a significant escalation in activity, because it was the first time the Volunteers had fired at the RIC in Limerick. At the end of March Volunteer organiser Ernest Blythe, at that time incarcerated in Magherall Prison in Lisburn, was happy to hear that ‘Limerick is becoming a centre of turbulence and rioting’. ‘Was it true that some people in the crowd fired at the police the other night?’ wondered Blythe.13 Captain J. H. M. Staniforth certainly felt intimidated:

  This city has a population of 32,000 and about a third of them are brawny young hooligans parading the streets shouting ‘Hoch der Kaiser!’, ‘To hell with King George!’, ‘Down with the Army!’, ‘Up the Germans!’, and other such pleasantries, and throwing half-bricks when they see a soldier by himself. And the women are worse.14

  Some weeks later, he elaborated:

  There’s a lot of ‘dark doings’ over here ... This town in particular is a nest of Sinn Féinery, and our men won’t go through the riverside streets after dark unless there are two or three of them together ... the town is swarming with men of all ages sporting the Sinn Féin rosettes or buttons.15

  Nevertheless, this rampant ‘Sinn Féinery’ did not seem to have inspired any great sense of urgency in Staniforth’s company, for as far as he could see ‘nobody ever dreams of doing any work or attending any parades whatever ... One subaltern hasn’t been on parade yet,
and he arrived over six months ago.’16

  The tension continued through March and April 1917. On 5 April eighteen men were arrested in Limerick and charged with unlawful assembly and riot on the nights of 22 or 23 March.17 Towards the end of the month, however, an ‘unlawful assembly’ of republicans in the city resulted in a confrontation with the RIC and rioting.18 On 23 April fourteen of them were convicted and sentenced to two- and three-month terms of imprisonment. The Volunteers were not as active in April as before, possibly due to the presence of extra police in the city. Their organisation had declined somewhat since the arrest of prominent leaders in February. Some republican flags and copies of the Proclamation were displayed in the city and county around the anniversary of the Rising.19 A republican flag flew over town hall on the morning of 25 April until it was removed by the police.20

  While Limerick was not the scene of any of Sinn Féin’s by-election victories in 1917, successes elsewhere acted as a stimulus for republican efforts in the county. The victory of Sinn Féin’s Joe McGuinness in the South Longford by-election in May was celebrated in Limerick by ‘seditious and turbulent demonstrations’. Sinn Féin supporters clashed with the RIC in the city, throwing stones – and in one instance an open razor – at the police. On 6 June, when three Volunteers were convicted at Galbally of unlawful assembly at Ballylanders on the night the result of the South Longford election was announced, over 100 policemen were on duty in the town, armed with rifles. While escorting the prisoners from the courthouse to the barracks, several policemen received head wounds from stones and bottles that were thrown at them. Volunteer Simon Scanlon of Galbally Company fired revolver shots from the crowd before it dispersed after two baton charges.21 The county inspector described the Galbally incident as a ‘savage attack’ on the RIC. In response the police ‘inflicted severe punishment’ on the attackers.