1916

by Gabriel Doherty

  This charge, however, was difficult to bring home in a legal proceeding with a professionally qualified judge advocate and defence lawyers including a unionist MP, whose verdict was subject to review on legal grounds. Significantly, the military prosecutors did not in the end attempt to do so. On 16 May they brought forward a new charge sheet with twelve counts. Eight were for ‘attempting to cause disaffection amongst the civilian population’, two were for committing an act to the prejudice of recruitment, one for making statements likely to prejudice recruitment and the twelfth was for possession of documents, including a newspaper and Volunteer documents, ‘the publication of such documents being a contravention of the provisions of regulation 27 of the Defence of the Realm regulations’.73

  These charges were in large part simply an embarrassment. MacNeill had certainly been a sustained, provocative and coherent opponent of the government and anyone who paid attention to him would not have been encouraged to join the Crown forces. But he had never done anything directly or indirectly in relation to recruitment and the alleged attempts to cause disaffection had been an embarrassingly long time before his arrest and trial in May 1916. Although Maxwell hated MacNeill and considered that the fact that he had not been actually involved in the rebellion to be pure happenstance, the military lawyers did not even charge him with an offence remotely likely to carry the death penalty. There is evidence that the members of the court martial may have resented this, because in convicting him on all counts they added the unnecessary finding that ‘the accused committed all the offences with the intention of assisting the enemy’.74 But the game was over before it began. Indeed, the most interesting part of MacNeill’s memoir is of his post-arrest interrogation by a Major Price who attempted without success to get MacNeill to implicate the parliamentarians Dillon and Devlin in the rebellion.75

  MacNeill’s circumstances made it particularly difficult to convict him on the gravest charge. But his determined defence also contributed to his survival. His most important tactical victory, however, was to procure an open trial. It is difficult to think that this would not also have benefited some of the executed prisoners, specifically those in whose cases, in General Macready’s words ‘the evidence … was far from conclusive’.76

  THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,

  THE HOLY SEE AND THE 1916 RISING

  _________

  Dermot Keogh

  INTRODUCTION

  What role did the Catholic church in Ireland play in the lead up to the 1916 Rising, and what was its reaction to the armed uprising? There are no simple answers to these two questions. Professor John Whyte set out his view of the response of the church to the event in an essay published in 1967.1 Based almost entirely on secondary sources, the late Professor Whyte provided a very perceptive account that has stood the test of time. But his work has been added to by a new generation of historians privileged with access to primary sources in different ecclesiastical archives. I refer in particular here to the work of Brian P. Murphy, Thomas J. Morrissey and Jérôme aan de Wiel.2 The last-named has worked extensively in ecclesiastical archives in Ireland, London, Rome, the Holy See and Paris. He has found a number of very important sources and has helped to provide a new interpretation of the role of the Catholic church in Ireland during the First World War.

  My essay will build on that published work. In the past two years I have returned, in particular, to the archives of the Irish College in Rome, where I have consulted the O’Riordan, Hagan and Curran papers. By re-reading those sources, I will attempt to provide another interpretation of the role of the church during the period of the Rising and beyond. Episcopal and clerical reaction to the Rising, and in particular to the subsequent repression and deportations, helped to formalise an already implicit understanding in Irish politics between the hierarchy and the emerging Sinn Féin movement, which led ultimately to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement on 6 December 1921 and the establishment of the Irish Free State. I am uneasy about using the term ‘alliance’. It implies too formal a relationship. What existed was both a shared hostility to the British government’s mishandling of Irish affairs over three decades and a strongly held belief that self-determination was the way forward for Ireland – a self-determination that for the Catholic hierarchy did not include partition. As the latter became an inescapable aspect of British policy in Ireland, feelings within the church hardened in favour of going beyond home rule and devolved local government.

  The British reaction to the 1916 Rising resulted in a style of repression that had not been visited upon the country even during the land wars of the 1880s. It was brutal and draconian and showed scant respect for the rule of law or for the rights of the accused rebel leaders. Mass deportations intensified that sense of public outrage. The Catholic hierarchy and clergy were exposed throughout the conflict to the feelings of their communities. This article seeks to show the contradictions, tensions and complexities of a church caught in a revolutionary situation. Without any initial support for the act of revolution, leading churchmen and women appeared to ascribe the Rising to the work of the left and of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). The reaction was hostile, if appreciative of the ideals and courage of the participants. That initial hostility and ambivalence, however, changed in a short time to a marked hostility to the British authorities and a shift in allegiance to an emerging coalition clustered around the name Sinn Féin. David Miller put the process in the following way:

  It is a remarkable story in which the church protected, and indeed augmented, her interests – the fervent devotion of her people and the institutional conditions which, she believed, fostered that devotion – up to the last hours of the old order and yet entered the new order with those interests intact for the future as well.3

  This article provides a partial explanation as to why and how this situation came about.

  THE FOUR ARCHBISHOPS, THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

  AND IRISH POLITICS

  It is best to begin by describing the leading personalities in the Catholic church in Ireland at the time of the 1916 Rising. Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin was born in 1841. He taught on the staff of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, before being made archbishop in 1885. Although seventy five years old and in very poor health, he was the de facto leader of the Irish hierarchy when the violence broke out on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. He was confined to his bedroom on doctor’s orders with instructions that he should not be disturbed for April, May and June, before being sent to Wicklow to recuperate. The Archbishop’s house in Drumcondra was relatively close to the city centre. It was a port of call for many people in the weeks leading up to the Rising. Walsh, therefore, through his secretaries, was kept well informed about political developments and plans for a rising. His intellectual faculties were as sharp as his disillusionment with the Irish party was profound. That attitude of outright hostility to the Irish party and its leadership became more pronounced in the aftermath of the Rising. He remained in charge and in control.

  His position on Irish politics was shared by many of the bishops. He was very well served by his secretary, Michael Curran, a strong nationalist with close ties to radical cultural nationalists such as the future President of Ireland, Seán T. O’Kelly. Curran was an eye witness to most of the major events of 1916 and he has left a very valuable testimony with the Bureau of Military History. Based on his diary, his memoir chronicles his experiences during the critical months from April to December 1916.4 (His account should be read in parallel with the testimony of O’Kelly, also contained in the Bureau of Military History.)5 Curran also corresponded extensively during the Rising with the rector of the Irish College in Rome, Michael O’Riordan, and with its vice rector, John Hagan.6 There is now thus a wealth of new primary source material, which sheds new light on the changing attitude of leading churchmen during those days of revolution and repression.7

  Walsh’s counterpart in Armagh, Cardinal Michael Logue, was a year older. Born in 1840 he had succeeded to the primacy in
1887. Like Walsh, he had been a professor in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth. In contrast to Walsh, however, Logue held on to his faith in the Irish party for much longer. He was a strong critic of direct British rule in Ireland and supported home rule. His mistrust of the ruling Liberal party was summed up in the following quotation, delivered after the publication of ‘the people’s budget’ of 1909: ‘England had not only robbed us but continued to rob us and the heaviest hand laid for years was laid on us at present and by a party about which we were all so enthusiastic – the grand old Liberal party of England.’8 The First World War introduced further tensions into the relationship between the leadership of the Irish Catholic church and the British government. Returning from the conclave that had elected Pope Benedict XV in 1915, Logue had denounced the ‘barbarism of the Germans [in September 1914] in burning Rheims Cathedral’, but was quick to counter propaganda claims in London that he had declared himself a supporter of the British.9

  The Archbishop of Cashel, John Harty, was born in 1867. Between 1895 and 1913 he was on the staff of Maynooth where he held the chair of dogmatic theology and was senior professor of moral theology. He helped found the Irish Theological Quarterly in 1906. He was a strong supporter of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Healy had a keen interest in economic and social matters. Made an archbishop in 1913, he died in 1946 having played a very prominent role in the political life of a country striving for independence.10 John Healy (born in 1841) was archbishop of Tuam from 1903 until 1918. A professor at Maynooth from 1879 to 1884, he was a prolific writer and editor for several years of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record. He was a strong advocate of land reform and was open to political change.11 He said on the occasion of his episcopal jubilee in 1909:

  There are some people now disposed to regard me as a West Briton, if not something worse, because I cannot fit myself into the very rigid mould they have been kind enough to cast for us all; but I do not heed them because I am sure that thinking men, both now and hereafter, will judge me by my acts and writings rather than by these wild statements and I am prepared to abide by that test.

  Although strongly opposed to unconstitutional agitation, he was in 1914 a supporter of the Irish Volunteers.12

  On the eve of 1916, the four Irish archbishops were very different in style and in temperament. All were independent-minded, but strongly disillusioned by the failure of London to introduce home rule. They shared a deepening suspicion of the bona fides of the Liberal government and of their commitment to bring about home rule for the island of Ireland. The other three archbishops usually deferred to William Walsh of Dublin to provide political leadership for the church as a whole. Their disillusionment with the Irish party, and with the leadership of John Redmond, intensified during the early war years. There was a growing admiration for the Irish Volunteers led by Professor Eoin MacNeill and for a progressive nationalist coalition. This point will be developed later.

  There were still a number of strong admirers of Redmond and the Irish party on the bench of bishops, even in the wake of the 1916 Rising. Patrick O’Donnell had been bishop of Raphoe since 1888. He was translated to Armagh in 1922 as coadjutor with right of succession, a position he took over in November 1924. He was made a cardinal in 1925 and died in October 1927. An academic, he had spent his early professional priestly life as professor of dogmatic and moral theology at Maynooth. O’Donnell was the theologian in residence for the hierarchy at the time the Rising broke out. He was supported in his commitment to the Irish party by the Bishop of Ross, Denis Kelly. Both O’Donnell and Kelly remained staunch supporters of the Irish party until 1919. Despite their great integrity, they did not represent the political views of the bulk of the Irish bishops at the outbreak of the Rising.

  THE IRISH COLLEGE, THE IRISH IN ROME

  AND THE 'IRISH QUESTION'

  The actions and archives of the rector of the Irish College in Rome, Mgr Michael O’Riordan, and the vice rector, Fr John Hagan, are central to this study. O’Riordan held his post from 1904 until his death in 1919. Hagan, vice rector since 1904, succeeded him.13 Both men were very strong nationalists and saw it as part of their duty to represent Irish interests (of both church and nation) in Rome.

  Under both O’Riordan and Hagan, the Irish College was known as a centre of strong nationalist views. O’Riordan had come to prominence in the early years of the twentieth century when he published Catholicity and progress in Ireland.14 This first appeared in article format and later as a volume. It was a response to Horace Plunkett’s Ireland in the New Century, which was published first in 1904 and had gone into four editions by 1905. O’Riordan took exception to the thesis that Irish Catholicism was the enemy of modernity. His rejoinder ran to over 500 pages. He retained a strong intellectual interest in the development of Irish politics. He was responsible for producing a number of pamphlets in Italian on that subject.

  John Hagan was also well known in Ireland. He was the author of the long-running series in the Catholic Bulletin, ‘Wine from the royal pope’, a series of historical articles based on his work in the archives of the Holy See.15 He also wrote the ‘Letter from Rome’ in the Bulletin under the pen name ‘Scottus’, and contributed articles on a variety of other topics under a series of different pen names to the same publication. He furthermore produced a four volume Compendium of catechetical instruction. Upon his death in 1930 the Catholic Bulletin devoted a substantial part of one edition to his memory.16 Hagan, more so than O’Riordan, developed very strong and active political interests. His correspondence contains letters from leading political figures of the struggle for Irish independence, including Seán T. O’Kelly and Éamon de Valera. His friendship with O’Kelly dated to the 1916 period, while his friendship with Curran went back to the period when they were seminarians in Clonliffe College, Dublin.

  The two leaders of the Irish College had, by 1916, come to share the scepticism of a number of the most prominent of the Irish bishops about the reliability of Irish nationalist MPs. The judgment was that they appeared to have spent so long in Westminster that they had failed to retain their independence. John Redmond’s commitment to the war effort had ended, in Hagan’s view, the era of independent opposition by the Irish party at Westminster.

  The Irish College served as the conduit between Rome and the bishops at home. O’Riordan was the agent of the Irish bishops in Rome. He also acted in that capacity for the bishops of Australia and New Zealand. The Irish College, therefore, handled the most sensitive of business for dozens of bishops from all over the world. That meant that the rector was the recipient of a large volume of correspondence, which provided a commentary on events in Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Ireland. The letters frequently contained the unpublished thoughts on politics of bishops too cautious to express such views in public. The vice rector was also in receipt of a wide range of correspondence. In this way, their combined correspondence is a very valuable source for the study of the period leading up to and after the 1916 Rising.

  It is important to stress that the rector was far less politically engaged than the vice rector. Nevertheless, both men shared a sense of mutual disappointment with the performance of the Irish party and with the failure of the British government to put home rule for Ireland into practice. The Irish College had the reputation in Rome for being strongly nationalistic. That may also have held true for many of the seminarians. But politics divided the large Irish community in Rome even prior to the Rising. There were many Irish religious houses in Rome. The Dominicans had a community in San Clemente and the Franciscans in St Isadore’s. There were Irish Augustinians, Capuchins and Pallotines in the city. The Irish Christian Brothers had a house at Marc Antonio Colonna. There were many Irish living as members of the Jesuits, Benedictines etc. in Rome, where there were also many houses of Irish women religious. Within that extended Irish diaspora there were many people who had been out of Ireland for a long time. Support for the Irish party and John Redmond was strong. That was not the case in
the Irish College.

  With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 the official British presence in Rome had increased. Besides the mission to the Italian state, London had reached the conclusion that the Holy See was also a priority. Without wishing to have formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican, Sir Henry Howard established a ‘mission’ there. Sent originally in 1914 to represent the king of England at the enthronement of Pope Benedict XV, he had remained in Rome on ‘mission’ to the Vatican. Initial British concern was less with Ireland than with the perceived need to counter the increase in German and Austrian influence over the pope after the outbreak of war.

  O’Riordan and Hagan were aware that the British government had a number of senior curial officials sympathetic to its cause. Cardinal Gasquet, a Benedictine monk, was a staunch British nationalist and an influential member of the curia. Cardinal Merry del Val was in the same camp. An Anglo-Spaniard, he had been decisively defeated in the conclave that followed the death in 1914 of his staunch patron, Pius X.17 Despite being far less of a force than under the previous pope, he continued to wield influence. He was no admirer of Irish nationalism and was perceived by the Irish College leadership to be hostile to Ireland and its political cause.

  There were also a number of English clerical and religious houses in Rome that supported the policies of the government in London on the Irish question. The English College was one such institution. Relations between the English and Irish Colleges were somewhat distant during the war years. Overall, both Hagan and O’Riordan were very much aware of having to confront a formidable pro-British force inside the Holy See, in Rome, and even within a number of Irish religious foundations in the city.

  THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE EVOLUTION OF