Clare and the Great War

by Joe Power

  On Christmas Night the premises occupied by the Sinn Féin club at Clare Castle were broken into at midnight and some tables and chairs taken away and flung into the river. The police are making enquiries, but there is no clue to the perpetrators of the act, which is condemned by the local followers of the Irish Party.

  The paper also recorded in a separate article that ‘a claim had been lodged with the secretary to Clare County Council by Mr James Reilly of Clare Castle, for damage done to his windows and dwelling house there a few nights ago.’ Incidentally, Jim Reilly’s memory of a Scottish Regiment being in the district at the time was correct as the Saturday Record of 5 January 1918 also included the following:

  On December 26th the NCOs and men of the Scottish Rifles stationed at Ennis were entertained under the auspices of the YMCA at Harmony Row Ennis. After supper, various amusements were indulged in, including an impromptu concert in which some distinguished amateurs took part. The guests expressed their thorough appreciation and the singing of the National Anthem, (‘God save the King’), brought a very enjoyable evening to a close.8

  There is some evidence that some Sinn Féin members had orchestrated the cattle drive at Manusmore on Sunday 24 February for political purposes, as the Clare Champion of 19 January 1918 reported that a meeting of the Clare Castle Sinn Féin Club took place on Sunday 13 January, which was chaired by Fr Marcus McGrath, CC. At that meeting two members raised ‘a matter of extreme public importance in connection with the grazing of lands on the eleven month’s system in the Clare Castle district’. The ‘matter of extreme public importance’ may have arisen after an advertisement appeared in the Clare Champion of 12 January 1918, offering the sale of grazing at Manusmore in ten lots averaging 18.5 acres each for eleven months. After some considerable discussion it was decided to call a general meeting of the members for Sunday, 20 January ‘to enter fully into the matter and consider what action may be taken … in this vital question’.

  It is not clear whether all of these outrages were orchestrated by some central body or were spontaneous. Michael Brennan in his memoir of 1980 states: ‘During the middle of January 1918 there was much agrarian discontent in Clare and we decided to cash in on it, Volunteers took part as organised units. They also prevented woods being cut down as props for trenches in France’.9 There was, it seems, a significant link between the agricultural outrages and political agitation fomented by the Irish Volunteers. In several instances, as suggested by witness statements in court cases, the outrages took place under the auspices of the local Volunteers, though this may not have been sanctioned by HQ. In fact the following notice was published in the Clare Champion of 9 February:

  To the Irish Volunteers

  County Clare

  The laws of the Constitution of the Irish Volunteer Organisation do not permit of the use of our forces in Cattle-Driving. Commanders of every rank will note.

  P. Brennan G.O.C.

  Irish Volunteers

  Co. Clare

  One woman, Mrs Kenneally of Calluragh, Ennistymon sued for damages of £70 for the malicious burning of a hayrick containing 7 tons of hay. Mrs Kenneally said that she ‘was told by a respectable farmer’s wife from Kilfenora that it was alleged in the district that she sold her hay to Mr H.V. MacNamara, DL, of Ennistymon House [a landlord and a controversial unionist] who had bought her hay for the British Army.’ Mrs Kenneally denied this allegation.

  In another court case in north Clare, several young men were charged with illegally ploughing lands on Mr H.V. MacNamara’s lands at Killilagh. Sgt Cadogan testified in court that one man named Stephen Hillery was among the illegal party. ‘Mr Hillery denied the right of the court to try him and said that he was a soldier of the Irish Republic’. Sgt Cadogan stated that he had earlier seen Mr Hillery drilling about forty other young men at Toomullen. He challenged Mr Hillery who declared that ‘he was willing to die for his country’. Sgt Cadogan testified that on 26 February he saw over 500 men assemble on Mr MacNamara’s lands at Killilagh. They had fifteen double ploughs, spades and sticks. They were headed by a band and carried republican flags. Mr Hillery was seen ploughing by Sgt Cadogan and was sentenced to two months imprisonment with hard labour, fined £20 and bound to the peace for twelve months. This was clearly a blatant public demonstration harnessing the political and agrarian agitation by illegally ploughing in broad daylight.

  The Clare Sinn Féin executive committee met at Newmarket-on-Fergus on Sunday 3 March and issued a directive to the local cumainn on the ‘land question’. The executive committee recognised that ‘owing to the large monopolies and trusts of land, the vast prairies that raise but cattle and sheep, the utter neglect of the ranchers to till and produce food, and the seeming unwillingness of the Department to enforce the proper percentage of tillage, there exists amongst the labourers and small landholders, disquiet, distrust and anxiety. Men of all shades of political thought are affected and have joined together to end this unproductiveness of so much land’. However, the executive committee became aware that some cattle drives ‘were indefensible and were not in accordance with the moral law.’

  It would seem that the phrase, ‘not in accordance with the moral law’, reflected the influence of the Catholic clergy on Sinn Féin at this time. For instance at the meeting of the East Clare Sinn Féin Executive on Wednesday 24 January, at Ennis, a total of forty-nine delegates attended, representing thirty-two clubs in the district. Among these were seven clergymen: Fr O’Kennedy, president of St Flannan’s College; Fr Crowe, Barefield; Fr Marcus McGrath, Clare Castle; Fr Neylon, Crusheen; Fr Roche, Inch; Fr Hewitt, Oatfield and Cratloe; and Fr Flynn, Kilmore. The Catholic clergy would have had a significant moderating influence upon the deliberations of the delegates.

  In an attempt to control the activities and to prevent actions that might bring Sinn Féin into disrepute, the executive committee directed members of Sinn Féin clubs to take no action on the question of land, without having previously submitted their line of action to the Comhairle Ceanntair.10

  There was also a genuine fear of famine in Ireland at the time. A Clare Champion editorial of 19 January reported that when the price of potatoes was twelve pence a stone and the price of turf was one penny a sod, members of Sinn Féin set up a potato market in Ennis and sold them at six pence a stone and took measures to provide cheap turf for the poor. On Thursday 17 January potatoes were purchased from more than 200 farmers and more than 550 stones of potatoes were distributed among the poor. They even distributed the potatoes to the ‘separation women’, though some Sinn Féin members protested at this. The potatoes were sent in to Ennis by the people of Newmarket-on-Fergus, Barefield, Carrahan and Doora. The Sinn Féin members also distributed cheap turf among the poor.

  At the meeting of the East Clare Chomairle Cheanntair of Sinn Féin in Ennis on 16 January, Revd William O’Kennedy of St Flannan’s College stated that they had fed more than 200 families in Ennis. He said that they had been doing it since before Christmas at a time of critical need in Clare. He said, ‘A lot of big people in the county were fond of calling upon the workers and labourers in fine language, in tones of high patriotism to lay down their lives for John Bull. Within the past month one of those most prominent in recruitment work, a large farmer in a neighbouring parish, sent his potatoes over to feed John Bull and had them guarded by nine policemen between his house and the railway station! Since that event happened the poor people of Clare Castle had been canvassing the Ennis Food Committee to be given potatoes’. Other speakers, including Fr Hewitt, CC, and Fr Crowe, CC, called for measures to avert a famine. Mr Molony mentioned a case in Newmarket-on-Fergus where an attempt to send potatoes out of the country was stopped by the people.

  In a letter to the Clare Champion of 2 September entitled, ‘A plea on behalf of the poor’, Mr F.J. McNamara of Sixmilebridge, stated that bacon, ‘the poor person’s meat’, could not be purchased in any town or village of Clare for less than 2s a pound, which was way beyond the means of the poor fam
ilies. Mr McNamara suggested that a co-operative scheme, similar to the potato scheme organised by Sinn Féin could bring down the price to 1s 3d per pound.

  Besides the agrarian activities of cattle driving and illegal ploughing the Irish Volunteers became more active at this time. While the rural areas were being convulsed by illegal activities, one of the leading republican activists in the county, Michael Brennan of Meelick, was busy organising parades and meetings around the county. After a baton charge on Sunday 24 February, Michael Brennan led the Ennis Volunteers on a parade through the town of Ennis on the following Tuesday night. About 200 Volunteers in military uniforms marched through the principal streets of Ennis in a military procession. At O’Connell Square they were addressed by ‘Commandant’ Michael Brennan, who called upon the Volunteers to continue their nightly parades. In the speech he was heard to say that ‘they could only die once, and they could not die in a better cause!’

  The next day, Michael Brennan, wearing the Volunteer uniform, was arrested at Ennis railway station, after getting off the train from West Clare. Mr Brennan was taken under heavy military escort to the Ennis RIC barracks as troops lined the streets of the town. He went on hunger strike the next morning, one of the first republicans in Ireland to use this powerful weapon.

  That evening the Ennis Volunteers did not parade in Ennis as members of the local constabulary had warned the people during the day to keep off the streets at night because of the military curfew under Martial Law. The founder and deputy leader of Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith, was due to hold a public meeting in Ennis Town Hall that evening, but the meeting was cancelled as the military had commandeered the building and the meeting was banned.11

  Martial Law

  As a result of all these mass movements and illegal activities, whether motivated by political or agricultural agitation, the British authorities introduced martial law in the county, as by the end of February much of the county had become virtually ungovernable. The following communiqué issued by the commander-in-chief of the British Army in Ireland was issued on Tuesday evening 26 February:

  THE OUTBREAK OF LAWLESSNESS WHICH HAS OCCURRED IN COUNTY CLARE RENDERED IT NECESSARY ON SUNDAY TO SEND ADDITIONAL TROOPS INTO THE COUNTY TO ASSIST THE POLICE. THE COUNTY HAS BEEN DECLARED A SPECIAL MILITARY AREA, WITHIN THE MEANING OF THE REALM REGULATION 29B, AND ALL THE POWERS HEREBY CONFERRED ON THE COMMANDANT WILL BE ENFORCED SO LONG AS IT IS NECESSARY FOR THE RESTORATION OF ORDER.

  Maj. Gen. Burnett, the new Competent Military Authority in Clare, issued an Order proclaiming ‘Special Measures’ for the preservation of law and order in Clare. Restrictions were placed on entry into the county and movements within the county. Drilling and wearing of uniforms was prohibited, along with all meetings, assemblies and processions. Censorship was established over written and printed matter. Another Order directed the closing of all licensed premises save between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. in areas within one and a half miles radius of Scariff Post Office and within a similar radius of the post offices of Bodyke and Tuamgraney. All persons are also required to be within doors from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. within the same areas, except those having permits.12

  Besides the introduction of martial law, a huge burden of compensation claims was charged to the county rates. Compensation was sought for a variety of offences including, cattle being driven off the lands and going missing and being maimed, tree felling, ploughing up land, knocking down of walls, breaking windows, cutting telegraph wires, burning hay, destruction of policemen’s bicycles and theft of valuables such as watches. The total claims by the end of February amounted to almost £9,500.13

  DAY PASSES

  To enter County Clare will be issued to persons desiring to enter the county, by the Military Commandant, Courthouse, Ennis. All applications to be made through the local police.

  Official hours in COURTHOUSE

  WEEK DAYS

  9.30 am to 12. 30 pm

  2.30 pm to 4 pm

  6 pm to 7 pm.

  SUNDAYS

  10.30 am to 12.30 pm

  LOCAL PASSES:

  To residents in the county will be issued by the District Inspector of the district where the person resides.12

  Saturday Record, 3 March 1918.

  The Conscription Crisis

  Meanwhile, the ceasefire on the Eastern Front caused by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia during 1917, followed by the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in March 1918, which took communist Russia out of the war, gave an opportunity to the German High Command to concentrate almost all of their forces on the Western Front. They made one last desperate effort to win the war before large numbers of American troops began to pour into France. This massive German onslaught necessitated a huge demand for more Allied soldiers. Consequently, the British Government decided to introduce conscription into Ireland.

  Naturally, this policy united almost all the people of Ireland, except the unionists, to vehemently oppose the new Bill. In April a mass petition opposing conscription was signed all over the country, including County Clare. The Catholic bishops of Ireland issued an anti-conscription pledge, which was drafted by Dr O’Dea, Bishop of Galway and seven others, ‘To enforce conscription would be perfectly unwarrantable, with all the responsibility that attaches to our pastoral office, we feel bound to warn the government against entering upon a policy so disastrous to the public interest and to all order, public and private’. Because of martial law, banning public meetings, the anti-conscription pledge was signed in churches all over the county. In an impressive ceremony at the crowded cathedral in Ennis, Dr Fogarty was the first to sign the pledge after denouncing the policy of conscription in a passionate speech after Mass:

  Not since the foundation of this building had such a large congregation assembled within its walls and never did the people assemble in the church with such terrible issues before them. Ireland was now faced with one of the most unlawful and brutal exercises of tyranny known to history … It was assumed that they were a nation of slaves and to have no voice in the disposal of their own lives … This Act was oppressive and unjust and they called on the people to resist it by every means at their disposal … If the people stood behind their leaders and behind Labour, no power on earth could conscript the people … Should they attempt to enforce it, it would be the right of the people to resist … They had their bishops, priests and a country united as it never was before, standing together under God against this most horrible, inhuman and atrocious act of tyranny, and whatsoever befell them in the struggle, let them bow their heads before God and face it like men and with unflinching hearts.

  Dr Fogarty also thanked the labour leaders and trade unionists in Dublin for passing a resolution in favour of a national general strike on Tuesday 23 April. He also sent a letter to the Ennis Sinn Féin club in which he declared that ‘England had no moral right to enforce conscription’.

  Anti-conscription pledge:

  Denying the right of the British Government to enforce compulsory conscription in this country, we pledge ourselves solemnly to one another to resist conscription by the most effective means at our disposal.

  After Bishop Fogarty signed, he was followed by seven other priests, including three Franciscan friars and Fr W. O’Kennedy, President of St Flannan’s College. Then the adult male parishioners in the cathedral signed the solemn pledge.14

  Conscription was also denounced by local councils such as Kilrush, Ennis, Tulla and Clare County Council. One peace commissioner, Mr Hugh Hennessy of Lissycasey, resigned his commission as a magistrate in protest against the proposed introduction of conscription into Ireland.

  The national protest strike against conscription, organised by the Irish Council of Trade Unions, was well observed in Ennis on Tuesday 23 April, two days after the pledge was signed throughout the country.

  All the business establishments, without exception, were closed and all the public offices, with the exception of the banks and Ennis Post Office, were also shut for the day. There was no public demonstration
on the day due to the ban on parades and meetings because of martial law. Owing to the stoppage of the trains at midnight on Monday, no papers or mails arrived in Ennis, and except for telegraphic communications, Ennis was cut off from the world.

  Col Arthur Lynch, MP, arrived in Clare in April and gave an interview to the Clare Journal in which he also denounced conscription, ‘It was important in this great crisis of national affairs for all members of the Home Rule Party to show themselves solid with the people … The country is more unanimous than it has been for a great number of years.’ He advised against any precipitate actions which might play into the hands of their enemies. He also cautioned against offending the Americans, ‘the great trump card of the Irish people’. ‘America’, he said, ‘would support Ireland in all her just and reasonable claims and it behoves us … to avoid doing anything that shows unfriendliness to America, or opposition to her actions in the war … ’. Finally, he warned against rushing into any ill-considered acts of rebellion, which in the circumstances ‘would be utterly hopeless …’15

  Dr Fogarty, who seemed to be taking up the nationalist mantle of the late Bishop O’Dwyer, published a letter in the Freeman’s Journal denouncing conscription. His tone became more militant. He wrote, ‘the people are entitled to resist it, what form that resistance is to take in order to be effective is for the nation in its wisdom to decide.’ He also wrote a letter to the Ennis Sinn Féin Club on 5 April condemning conscription. This letter was widely circulated in pamphlet form. Bishop Fogarty also gave a powerful concluding sermon at the golden jubilee of the Limerick Confraternity in June, denouncing conscription and condemning the war before a congregation attended by nine bishops and over 7,000 people: