by Dermot Keogh
Opportunity did come his way in the mid-1920s after the closure of a civil war that was low in casualties by comparative international standards but that left a legacy of bitterness with which de Valera had to struggle throughout his political life. One must be grateful to Longford and O’Neill for helping to construct – over forty years after the end of hostilities – Eamon de Valera’s perceived record of the Civil War and of the part that he played in it. Therefore, having read that biography, the historian is equipped with a highly personalised and very subjective account of the origins and development of the Irish Civil War.
When the biographies of de Valera are assembled together, as I have done above, it becomes very clear that much remains to be done in order to address the most basic questions about his life and times. Despite the many tens of thousands of words written about the most important political figure in twentieth century Ireland, a critical mass of scholarship is still missing to explain the role of this enigmatic personality in the development of the history of twentieth century Ireland. De Valera awaits his biographer. The first task facing such a person will be to deconstruct the work of earlier historians, political scientists, journalists and popular writers. I am convinced that the historian must begin work on de Valera and the Civil War by questioning the reliability of every printed source until proved otherwise.
Let me draw attention to the manner in which, for example, the un-footnoted Bromage biography is used to build an historical narrative. The most substantative problem with this work and with other early biographies is the degree to which the narrative is woven from a series of quotations not based on primary sources. This technique has the effect of placing the unsuspecting and uncritical reader close to the events. It is like listening to live radio coverage of the Civil War. The microphone or short-hand taker always appears to have been there at the critical moment to capture the contemporary reaction of Eamon de Valera. Many of those quotations – if they are to continue to be used – require to be sourced with the greatest of care.
There is another problem associated with the study of de Valera and the Civil War. Contemporary anti-Treatyite commentary on de Valera was robust and that remained the case throughout the early decades of the young state. His supporters wrote ‘corrective’ narratives and biographies, helped considerably by his arrival in power in 1932. Now, in the early twenty-first century, over eighty years later, de Valera’s Ireland has become synonymous with social deprivation, economic stagnation, high unemployment, emigration, censorship and sexual repression.
In the wake of the popular success of the Michael Collins film in the 1990s, the climate of prevailing political correctness has become even more unfavourable than before to the personality and the political career of Eamon de Valera. The dashing Michael Collins, after all, was the hero of the hour. De Valera was the villain. Hollywood has spoken, and very powerfully so in Neil Jordan’s fine film. But cinema is not necessarily reliable history. It will be difficult to replace such an emotionally satisfying interpretation of the Civil War. But the task of doing so requires to be tackled in a comprehensive manner.
There is not the space here to review the new historical scholarship based on archival work in Ireland and abroad. Books by Hopkinson, Garvin and Regan among others are providing a range of new questions that throw light on the world of Eamon de Valera in the Civil War years.28Excellent work is being done and usually in less than ideal circumstances, as I found when I went to research this article. Key archival collections remain closed to researchers. In the case of one collection, it was withdrawn without warning and remains closed as this article goes to print.29What follows is an attempt to raise a series of questions about de Valera and the Civil War.
One theme dominated de Valera’s discourse throughout the early months of 1922 – his unshakeable belief that the Treaty was not the best possible settlement on offer to the Irish government. In a private session of Dáil Éireann on 14 December, he used an interesting mixed-metaphor to describe his disappointment at a job only half-completed:
I was captaining a team and I felt that the team should have played with me to the last and that I should have got the last chance which I felt would have put us over and we might have crossed the bar in my opinion at high tide.30
His imagery was more biblical when writing to his close friend and unofficial adviser, the rector of the Irish College, Mgr John Hagan, on 13 January 1922:
A party set out to cross the desert, to reach a certain fertile country beyond – where they intended to settle down. As they were coming to the end of their journey and about to emerge from the desert, they came upon a broad oasis. Those who were weary said: ‘Why go further – let us settle down here and rest, and be content.’ But the hardier spirits would not, and decided to face the further hardships and travel on. Thus they divided – sorrowfully, but without recriminations.31
But there were recriminations aplenty between January and June 1922 and de Valera’s role during those months has been described as ambiguous at best and devious at worst.
Maurice Moynihan, a critical admirer and friend who came to know de Valera very well as a senior civil servant from the mid-1930s to the end of the 1950s, edited the collection of his speeches and statements referred to above. But Moynihan, in his work as editor, also undertook to write an informative personal introduction to each document or collection of documents. His observations on those critical months in early 1922 are particularly interesting.32De Valera’s rhetoric, particularly in March, is very familiar to many informed readers. The words that he spoke in the months following the acceptance of the Treaty on 6 January 1922 by Dáil Éireann returned to haunt him throughout his long political career.
Moynihan has gone to great lengths to trace some of his most controversial speeches to their sources. I have covered this above in another context. But I wish now to address the matters raised in greater detail. Moynihan writes that ‘those historians and commentators who tend to lay on him the major blame for the outbreak of the Civil War tend to place a heavy reliance for their proof on that cluster of speeches from March 1922.’33On 16 March de Valera was quoted as saying in Dungarvan, County Waterford: ‘the Treaty did not make the way to independence easier; it barred the way to independence, so far as one generation can bar another.’ He was opposed to the Treaty ‘because it barred the way to independence with the blood of fellow-Irishmen.’ He was quoted as saying further that ‘it was only by civil war after this that they could get their independence.’ On 17 March, de Valera spoke at three venues – Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir and Thurles. In Carrick-on-Suir, Moynihan quotes him as having said that ‘if the Treaty was accepted, the fight for freedom would still go on, and the Irish people, instead of fighting foreign soldiers, would have to fight the Irish solidiers of an Irish government set up by Irishmen.’ He added, according to what Moynihan quotes, that ‘if the Treaty was not rejected perhaps it was over the bodies of the young men he saw around him that day that the fight for Irish freedom may be fought.’ In Thurles, Moynihan quotes de Valera’s most famous remarks from those months, that if the Volunteers of the future tried to complete the work the Volunteers of the previous four years had been attempting, they ‘would have to wade through Irish blood, through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish government, and through, perhaps, the blood of some of the members of the government in order to get Irish freedom.’
Moynihan took each of the above quotations from the Irish Independent. That paper carried editorials on 18 and 20 March condemning the content of those speeches. The Irish Times spoke of de Valera’s ‘gospel of hatred’. De Valera, in a letter published in the Irish Independent on 22 March, described as ‘villainous’ the interpretation of him as ‘encouraging’ and ‘preaching civil war’ and of engaging ‘in the language of incitement’ and ‘violent threats’. The editor of the paper added a note to the end of the de Valera letter. He vigorously denied that his
newspaper had made an attempt to distort the plain meaning
of Mr De Valera’s speeches, and, taken with certain concurrent circumstances, we believe it is the construction which would be placed on them by thousands of others … We hope that in view of the above letter Mr de Valera will use his best efforts to discountenance any attempt at civil war in the future.34
Extracts from de Valera’s itinerary
While reference will be made to those speeches again later in this article, I wish to point out that historians operate with the gift of hindsight and the knowledge that the Civil War broke out on 28 June 1922. Despite the ominous signs, the inevitability of civil war may not have been that apparent to major actors such as de Valera in March 1922. His rhetoric reveals the confusion, the hurt and the fear of many people as they were turned to face each other in those months which have been described as the ‘ante-chamber of Civil War’.35I don’t feel that it is possible to improve on Professor T. Desmond Williams’ description of the origins of the Irish Civil War:
All wars are the product of indecision, chance, misunderstanding, and personal will. They come from the environment in which people work and the conviction of those in power … Perhaps the extremists on both sides alone knew their own minds and the contingent situation better than those of more moderate opinions. But moderation, reluctance to engage in a war with one’s own countrymen may be of greater value than the confidence and arrogance of those who see right and wrong too clearly. The balance between the forces of liberty and order may have depended upon those who found it hardest to decide between black and white, even if muddle and panic deriving from these decisions greatly contributed to the origins and conduct of this particular war. A full state of war lasted for nearly a year, but its after effects for much longer.36
Given the importance of those speeches delivered around 17 March 1922, it is very important to search the contemporary press accounts in order to determine the extent to which the reports in the Irish Independent were an accurate statement of what de Valera actually said on those occasions. How many journalists covered those events? Is it possible that one might find different versions in the provincial press? Or was it a member of the provincial press who was also filing the copy on the speeches to the Irish Independent? I don’t know the answer to these questions. But a textual analysis of those speeches might reveal that de Valera was more cautious in his fiery rhetoric than was revealed in the national press. That point has been made earlier in this article. But it requires to be restated even if I don’t hold any great expectation that the record would be substantially changed by cross-textual analysis. De Valera appeared to be less than his cautious self in March 1922: nowadays, his condition might be diagnosed as a nervous breakdown.
De Valera was more conscious than most of the polarisation that was taking place in Irish society during those weeks. While two distinctive camps had yet to be formed, many people remained confused in their own minds. However, there was no mythic line in the sand. Yet the march of events propelled even the most reluctant towards having to make a decision. That loss of unity was a source of bitter disappointment for de Valera. His political rhetoric in the United States and at home had stressed the national unity of Irishmen and women determined to achieve independence. The prospect of open division was a source of personal disappointment to de Valera. He had come to symbolise that unity of purpose. He had worked to achieve it. Now, on 14 April 1922, he was not even consulted by the military leaders of the anti-Treatyites when they occupied the Four Courts and other buildings in Dublin. Despite his rhetoric, de Valera did not act as if he believed that civil war was inevitable. The bombardment of the Four Courts by the national army under the leadership of Michael Collins on 28 June had not been preordained. The evidence does not support the claim that de Valera worked to foment civil war. However, his hagiographers also fail to prove that he does not hold any personal responsibility for the outbreak of violence. While working for a political outcome, de Valera failed to break ranks with the ‘anti-Treatyite’ militants even when they repudiated the authority of Dáil Éireann and of the democratic system.
The working out of the details which led to the ‘Pact Election’ on 20 May provided a false hope that de Valera and Collins together could stop the slide towards civil war. The ‘pact’ provided a panel of pro- and anti-Treaty Sinn Féin deputies to contest the 16 June general election. This was yet another attempt to rebuild the national consensus that de Valera believed was central to the success of the struggle during the War of Independence. The electoral outcome was an overwhelming endorsement for the Treaty and for peace. The result weakened de Valera’s capacity to bargain with his own militants and with the Irish Provisional Government.
Two events precipitated the turning of the armed stand-off between Treatyites and anti-Treatyites into civil war. On 22 June, an IRA unit murdered Sir Henry Wilson in London. Responsibility for the killing was correctly laid at the door of the IRA. But the question remains as to whether it was actually Michael Collins who, many months before, had given the order to the unit who carried it out. The background to the killing is not important in this context. But the outcome was to bring British government pressure on the Irish Provisional Government to dislodge the anti-Treatyites from their positions around the capital city of Dublin. The second event to force the Irish government to change policy was the kidnapping on 26 June of General J. J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell by the anti-Treatyite garrison at the Four Courts. That was seen as an act of provocation. The Four Courts were bombarded. Civil war was unavoidable.
De Valera, who said in response to the news of Wilson’s death that it was only necessary for statesmen to have the will to be fearlessly just in order to find peace, found himself taken completely by surprise by the action of the Four Courts garrison. It is clear that the anti-Treatyite military leaders had not kept him informed of their plans. This is of importance as de Valera was the sole surviving commander of the 1916 Rising. It may have been that the military leaders did not think highly of de Valera’s skills as a commander in the field. But more than likely the military leaders saw him as a temporiser and as somebody who did not have the stomach to go through with military action. When the time arose, he found himself isolated by the military people on his own side.
The Provisional Government did not trust him enough to seek him to intervene in a last-minute effort to pre-empt armed combat. De Valera was seen as being an intransigent anti-Treatyite. That was a mistake. But de Valera’s powers of intervention and persuasion were irrelevant once Michael Collins had decided to use force to dislodge the anti-Treatyites from the Four Courts and other vantage-points in the capital. Paradoxically, de Valera’s first instinct was to attempt to halt the fighting. This view is supported by an eye witness, Robert Brennan, who recorded that de Valera’s first response when he got to his headquarters in Suffolk Street was to ask of Stack and Brugha: ‘Well, will we try to stop it? … I was thinking of trying to get hold of the Lord Mayor.’ How reliable is this as a source? According to O’Faoláin, Childers rushed around to de Valera for a message on the new and terrible situation. ‘What shall we do? We must attack them’, Childers said, to which de Valera replied: ‘No! No! No! Don’t say a word. I’ll settle it. I’ll settle it.’ O’Faoláin continues:
Thinking, as always of peace and unity, he may in that moment have gone too far in his efforts to conciliate Rory O’Connor. He confessed almost as much later, and afterwards he had to bear the blame and brunt for Rory O’Connor’s action in hastening, if not originating that awful conflict.37
Returning to the Brennan version, de Valera said to Brugha and Stack that he was going to issue a short statement.38He finally felt obliged to side with ‘the best and the bravest of our nation’ who had been unwilling to abandon Irish independence ‘under the lash of an alien government’.39
De Valera’s influence on the course of events during the following days was negligible. He rejoined the Dublin Brigade’s Third Battalion and was present for a time in the Gresham and Hammam Hotels. With the fall of the
city to the Provisional Government, he went on the run. Dressed as a priest, he hid out in Rathgar.40He left 11 Upper Mount Street and made his way south on 11 July via Wicklow where, according to Bromage, a contingent of Liam Lynch men heard he was in their area, picked him up and brought him to Clonmel.
His personal papers reveal in very great detail his movements during July, August and early September when he returned to Dublin. Two months in the field illustrated how severely he had been marginalised by the militants. The following list, probably a contemporary note in his own hand, shows his itinerary.41
There is a detailed note, probably dictated to his biographer T. P. O’Neill, of his activities during that period:
I left Dublin for the South on July 11th or 12th 1922. I was still in Callan on July 11th and probably reached Clonmel on July 12th. Liam Lynch and others were there. I heard news of how Jerry Ryan had outwitted our people at Thurles and that Major Prout in charge of the Free State troops was advancing from Kilkenny. I had news, also, of some truce arrangement that had been made at Limerick. As a result of news about Prout, Lynch and his officers decided to take the headquarters to Fermoy. I accompanied them to the new barracks. Shortly after my arrival there, it occurred to me that it was most unfair to leave Seamus Robbinson to face the Prout onslaught and I asked permission to go back to be with him. This was granted.
He then goes on to point out:
On the way back I was told that the barracks at Cahir, Tipperary, Carrick, Clonmel had been set on fire. I felt this was a mistake, and rushed to Clonmel where I succeeded in persuading Seamus Robbinson not to go on with the burning. I pointed out that the burning of the barracks would be an indication that we had left these areas and it would be an enemy advance by the Free State troops to take these towns. A substantial portion of the Clonmel barracks was, accordingly, saved, but when I went to Tipperary and Carrick I found the barracks had been destroyed … I stayed for a few nights in Cashel barracks and then went back to the headquarters at Clonmel. From Clonmel some of our men went out to hold Carrick-on-Suir.42