1916

by Gabriel Doherty

  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

  EASTER 1916 IN CORK – ORDER,

  COUNTER-ORDER, AND DISORDER

  _________________________

  Gerry White and Brendan O’shea

  INTRODUCTION

  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.

  PLANNING 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

  While there appears to be some conflict between the accounts given by Murphy and Florence O’Donoghue in relation to exactly how many weapons the Cork Brigade possessed at this time, it is nonetheless clear that not all Volunteers were armed with firearms. Less than 200 men had good quality rifles. The bulk of the remainder were armed with an assortment of old shotguns and revolvers, and at least 100 Volunteers were armed only with pikes. These statistics indicate the real military capability of the Cork Brigade at this time.7

  However, unknown to both MacCurtain and the Volunteers’ Chief of Staff, Eoin MacNeill, the shipment of German weapons was part of a plan for the establishment of an independent Irish Republic that was already at an advanced stage. Immediately after the outbreak of the First World War the Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) decided that an armed rebellion should be mounted in Ireland before the end of
the conflict. That decision was copper-fastened in May 1915 when, with the British army locked in stalemate on the western front, a secret IRB Military Council was established comprising Pearse, Joseph Plunkett and Éamonn Ceannt.8

  This small group immediately began working on a plan for rebellion which envisaged mobilisation on Easter Sunday 1916 of over 10,000 Irish Volunteers, armed by Germany and augmented by a German expeditionary force. The Dublin Brigade of Volunteers would seize the General Post Office in Dublin and other strategic buildings and establish a series of outposts in the suburbs. Volunteer units throughout the country would establish a line along the river Shannon in order to cover the landing of the German arms shipment and, once the new weapons had been distributed, the Volunteers and their German allies would then advance on Dublin capturing or destroying Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks along the way. The essential elements of this outline plan were basically sound. In fact it might well have stood some chance of success if the Volunteers nationally had been adequately trained and properly prepared; if Volunteer brigades when mobilised were in possession of clear military orders and specific objectives; if an adequate quantity of arms and equipment had been supplied: and if an integrated all-arms German expeditionary force had actually materialised.9

  But none of this happened. The Military Council was so obsessed with secrecy that the essential elements of the plan, and its real objectives, were not communicated to the personnel upon whom the success of the operation would ultimately depend – the brigade commanders – until it was far too late. At brigade level, therefore, no military briefings for an armed uprising were held; no mission was analysed in that context; no offensive courses of action were developed; no contingencies were planned; no reserve was identified; no best and worst case scenarios were either identified, developed or ‘war-gamed’; and no higher commander’s intent or planning guidance was communicated.

  Instead, a small group of people, with virtually no military experience between them, developed an outline plan for rebellion, kept it shrouded in secrecy until literally the very last minute, and then expected the entire Volunteer movement to follow them into what would effectively have amounted to a military coup. It was never going to work and the longer the operational units in the country were kept in the dark the worse the eventual outcome was destined to be.

  CONFLICTING ORDERS

  As the date for the planned rebellion grew closer it finally became necessary to inform the brigade commanders of the Military Council’s true intentions. On Monday 17 April, Brigid Foley, a member of Dublin Cumann na mBan, was tasked by Seán MacDermott with delivering a sealed dispatch to the brigade commander in Cork.10 While the specific contents of this dispatch remain unknown, it is reasonable to conclude that it contained new information which expanded the role the Cork Brigade would be expected to play during the ‘Easter Manoeuvres’. Seán Murphy clearly recalled that upon reading the dispatch MacCurtain became so concerned that he decided to send Eithne MacSwiney to Dublin on Wednesday in order to meet with Thomas Clarke, James Connolly and MacDermott, and to arrange a meeting between them and Terence MacSwiney who was prepared to travel to Dublin the following day.11 If possible she was also to meet with Eoin MacNeill and give him the same message. She left Cork on the 12.45pm train on Wednesday 19 April, the same day that the ‘Castle document’ was put into circulation in Dublin.12

  Purporting to have been drafted by the British authorities in Dublin Castle, this document outlined detailed instructions for suppression of the Volunteer movement, and was received with outrage by the leadership, including its more moderate members such as MacNeill. In reality the document had been forged by members of the Military Council in order to encourage the Volunteer movement to support the rebellion – and initially it achieved its objective. Following a meeting of the Volunteer Executive Council that same day MacNeill sent the following order to all brigade commanders, including MacCurtain:

  2 Dawson Street, Dublin

  April 19 1916

  A plan on the part of the Government for the suppression and disarming of the Irish Volunteers has become known. The date of putting it into operation depends only on Government orders to be given.

  In the event of definite information not reaching you from headquarters, you will be on the look out for any attempt to put this plan into operation. Should you be satisfied that such action is imminent you will be prepared with defensive measures.

  Your object will be to preserve the arms and the organisation of the Irish Volunteers, and the measures taken by you will be directed to that purpose.

  In general you will arrange that your men defend themselves and each other in small groups, so placed that they may best be able to hold out.

  Each group must be supplied with sufficient supplies of food or be certain of access to such supplies.

  This order is to be passed on to your subordinate officers and to officers of neighbouring commands.

  [Signed] Eoin MacNeill, Chief of Staff.13

  This was the scenario that awaited Eithne MacSwiney when she alighted from the train at Kingsbridge station, although initially she had no idea what was going on. MacDermott was at the station to meet her:

  He did not speak to me, but let me know he had seen me. We travelled on the same tram to O’Connell Bridge, but sat at different ends of the tram and, on alighting, Seán told me to go to Tom Clarke’s shop in Parnell Square at 7pm that evening. At the shop, at the hour, I saw Mrs Tom Clarke. She showed me a copy of the ‘Castle Document’ that was causing such excitement at the time. She told me to go to Ballybough – their home – and there, for the first and last time, I saw Tom Clarke. I gave him the message I had brought. ‘Impossible’, he said, ‘altogether impossible. He must not come to Dublin. Everyone is being watched closely; the first attempt to board a train and he would be arrested; everyone must remain at his post.’14

  When the meeting with Clarke was finished Eithne MacSwiney sent a telegram to MacCurtain informing him of the outcome. She then proceeded to Volunteer headquarters at Dawson Street where Bulmer Hobson, the quartermaster general, told her that the chief of staff would be available to see her brother if he came to Dublin the following day. Mac-Curtain quickly decided, however, there was little point risking his deputy and decided to keep him in Cork where events were now beginning to conspire against him.

  In the meantime Brigid Foley arrived in Cork with yet another dispatch from MacDermott and the following morning MacNeill’s order of 19 April was also received by the brigade commander. The situation was now very confused. MacCurtain’s own orders for the Easter ‘Manoeuvres’ had already been issued on 9 April and were now at variance with Mac-Dermott’s dispatches and MacNeill’s latest instruction. In short, MacCurtain had been planning for manoeuvres designed to provide security for an arms landing, he was then ordered to prepare for offensive operations, and he now found himself instructed to only take defensive measures.

  At national level the Military Council’s plan was also beginning to unravel. The previous weekend they deemed it necessary to inform two senior Volunteer officers, Commandant J.J. O’Connell, the chief of inspection, and Seán Fitzgibbon, the director of recruiting, that a supply of arms was then en route to Ireland on board the Aud , a German vessel disguised as a Norwegian trawler. Both men were assured that MacNeill was fully briefed on this development and they were then tasked with specific duties in relation to the operation. Due to his previous involvement in landing German arms at Kilcoole in August 1914 Fitzgibbon was ordered to travel to the south west and liaise with the commanding officers of the Kerry and Limerick Brigades, while O’Connell was ordered to take charge of operations in Leinster.15

  Fitzgibbon duly set off for Kerry and Limerick but O’Connell had doubts as to the authenticity of his orders, and on Thursday night, 20 April, he went to Volunteer headquarters in order to verify them. There he met with Bulmer Hobson. The quartermaster general had earlier attended an IRB meeting and became alarmed when one
Volunteer informed him that he had received orders to sabotage a railway line on Easter Sunday. When O’Connell told him of his orders, both men realised there was something seriously wrong. They immediately drove to MacNeill’s home at Woodtown Park in Rathfarnham and informed their chief of staff of what they knew.

  Furious at having been deceived, and convinced now that an armed rebellion was indeed planned for Easter Sunday, MacNeill, Hobson and O’Connell went directly to confront Pearse at St Enda’s College. When Pearse admitted the truth MacNeill declared that, short of informing the British authorities in Dublin Castle, he would do everything in his power to stop the rebellion. To this end, in the early hours of Friday morning (21 April), he drafted the following order for O’Connell in respect of the Volunteers in Munster:

  Commandant O’Connell will go to Cork by the first available train today. He will instruct Commandant MacCurtain, or, in his absence, will select an officer to accompany him to Kerry. Commandant O’Connell will immediately take chief command of the Irish Volunteers, and will be in complete control over all Volunteers in Munster. Any orders issued by Commandant Pearse, or any person heretofore are hereby cancelled or recalled, and only the orders issued by Commandant O’Connell and under his authority will have force. Commandant O’Connell will have full powers to appoint officers of any rank, to supersede officers of any rank, and to delegate his own authority or any part of it to any person in respect of the Irish Volunteers in Munster.

  [Signed] Eoin MacNeill

  Chief of Staff

  PS Officers in Munster will report to Commandant O’Connell as required by him on the subject of any special orders they have received and any arrangements made or to be made by them as a consequence.