Irish independence if that is what they want to call it, was a terribly
messy affair and not because the British put up much of a fight. By that
standard, after realizing that they really wanted no part of it, they simply
packed it all up and left. What they
left was a nasty civil war behind that dragged on for some time. Worse, hotheads renewed that civil war in
Northern Ireland for another three decades for negligible advantage. It really was the politics of communal hatred
taken to an absurd extreme.
An egalitarian Ireland and Scotland for that matter is naturally best
served by having representatives in Westminster. No representation means no massive investment
or a broad economic standard for the totality.
It also means a problematic border forever that will be gamed by the
stronger for economic advantage no matter the treaties.
The best deal Scotland ever made was political union with England. Those that think otherwise need to shake
their heads.
We are transitioning to a far different life way that will slowly
eliminate state building ethnic agglomerations.
All this is actually on the wrong side of history. Ireland needs a well-tended union with
England on completely equal terms in which ethnic aspects are prohibited. This allows free movement and free investment
and a largely common culture which is already the case.
Better still build a proper land link to the island that eliminates the
need for sea movement except as an occasional time saver for tourists.
Enough time has already passed for ethnic animosities to be substantially
downgraded.
Michael Collins and the Eight Hundred Year Occupation:
Did A Non-State Soldier Defeat a Global Empire on Bloody Sunday on 21 November
1920?
by Bill Buppert
In
this celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day, we should reflect on the liberation of
Ireland at the beginning of the twentieth century as a demonstration project of
how it is done. Michael Collins would play a larger than life role in bringing
this divorce in the court of world opinion and rubbing the English nose in it.
He would be an unknown contemporary of other giants like T.E. Lawrence and Paul
Emil von Leetow-Vorbeck at the turn of the collectivist century. He would stare down one of the other giants, the
statist and war-loving Winston Churchill and win. –BB
“Realists
appealed to Collins. There would be no more glorious protests in arms, he
decided. He built a cadre of realists around him, first in the IRB, then at
Volunteer headquarters, where he took over Pearse’s old post as Director of
Organization before becoming Director of Intelligence, finally in Dáil Eireann,
as the underground government’s very effective Minister for Finance. Collins
was a doer. Essentially a well-informed opportunist with very few scruples, his
entire ideology could be stated in five words: ‘The Irish should govern
themselves.’” - Sean Cronin, “Irish Nationalism: A History of its
Roots and Ideology”
“The
characteristics which mark Collins out as a remarkably successful Director of
Intelligence during the War of Independence include his evident appreciation of
the importance of the collection and assessment of information as primary
elements of intelligence operations which should precede action; his partial
penetration of his adversary’s own intelligence system; the efficiency and ruthlessness
with which action based on good intelligence was taken; and his success in
preserving the security and efficiency of his own organization both in Dublin
and in Britain despite the pressures it operated under because of the constant
threat of raids, arrests and the capture of documents.” -
Eunan O’Halpin, “Collins and Intelligence: 1919-1923 From Brotherhood to
Bureaucracy” (in the anthology Michael
Collins and the Making of the Irish State)
Introduction
Michael Collins was a tough young Irish operative during the
seminal years of Eire’s final divorce from the United Kingdom at the beginning
of the twentieth century. This essay will attempt to discover if Collins
was the culminating point that brought Number Ten Downing Street to the negotiation
table, stared down Winston Churchill and came home with the solution for Irish
independence from the British Crown.
Ireland was invaded and occupied the
British crown in 1169 and suffered a brutal occupation punctuated by indigenous
risings, rebellions and pockets of resistance. Sinn Féin emerged in 1905 to
formalize a political vehicle to liberate the Irish from the British
occupation. These sophisticated rebel organizations started to emerge in
the 19thand 20th century,
culminating in the 1916 Easter Rising which led to the mismatch and overreach
that would be the undoing of English rule over the Irish.
Michael Collins would emerge as the premier guerrilla leader
during the crucial struggle between 1916 and 1922. He
embodied the early germination of the non-state soldier as a twentieth century
variation on the age-old warrior in history and fought in Ireland under a
variety of covers and positions within the political hierarchy of the Irish
Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Collins would fight for the next four years
culminating on Bloody Sunday on 21 November 1920.
The
Rising in 1916
During the Easter week of 24-30 April 1916, the IRB fielded
the Irish Volunteers and smaller elements of Irish nationalists rose in armed
rebellion in Dublin against the British crown. The violence was a
tremendous shock to the authorities in London and they reacted with enormous
disproportionate use of military and constabulary forces to quell the
rebellion. “The British Army reported casualties of 116 dead, 368
wounded and nine missing. Sixteen policemen died, and 29 were wounded.
Rebel and civilian casualties were 318 dead and 2,217 wounded. The Volunteers
and ICA recorded 64 killed in action, but otherwise Irish casualties were not
divided into rebels and civilians.” [1] Executions and reprisals followed and
Collins started to rise in the ranks to prominence in the aftermath of the Fort
Sumter of the twentieth century Irish revolution against the Crown and
eventually a bloody civil war that would pit Irishman against Irishman.
An increased colonial imperial presence started to expand
its reach on the southern island that was the heart of the rebellion.
England was on a war footing in her third year of fighting in the First World
War and troop movements and weapons availability were quite abundant for the
forces deployed. The British had to invest in a counterinsurgency
campaign and still had upper tier members of the military high command with
bitter memories of the COIN difficulties in the two Boer conflicts fought less
than a generation before.
The Rebellion in Earnest
The IRB and the other militant organizations started to
realize that the war would have to be one of the classic insurgent and
conducted in “suit and tie” as it were, assuming aliases and slipping through
the mass base undetected. Collins would for three years hide in plain
sight in Dublin and its environs posing as a businessman named “John
Grace”. Great Britain would respond with one of the most slipshod and
misinformed counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns in recent history with a number
of missteps that would eventually cost them the conflict and the island of Eire
would eventually float out of the Dominion orbit. Some suppose that if that had
not occurred during wartime, that the COIN may have had an even chance of
success but the “modus operandi and outlook…had been shaped during wartime for
the intelligence apparatus which required intelligence officers to cut corners,
dispense with vetting procedures and cold pitch informers.” [2] The British
also severely underestimated the IRB/IRA counterintelligence operations being
conducted against them.
Once the British introduced the Blacks and Tans, a
paramilitary police unit in concert with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC),
the atrocities started to even gain attention in England and some Members of
Parliament warned that the harsh treatment would lead to a deepening
resistance and compel the populace to close ranks with the rebellion.
Contrary to the popular media, the massacre at Croke Park in 1920 where 13
civilians died was at the hands of the RIC and some auxiliaries. Nonetheless, a
critical mass of English brutality was having a measured effect on the Irish
mood that the IRA took full advantage of and Collins hatched a plan to assassinate
members of the intelligence organization known as the Cairo Gang headquartered
in the Castle.
Bloody
Sunday
The propaganda war on both sides was quite effective
although one can say the Irish rebellion had an advantage between a sympathetic
USA and British public becoming exhausted with the expense and the apparent
atrocities starting to percolate for the unintended conflict that Great Britain
had been escalating since 1919. Even Churchill grew weary in 1920: “What
was the alternative? It was to plunge one small corner of the empire into an
iron repression, which could not be carried out without an admixture of murder
and counter-murder…. Only national self-preservation could have excused such a
policy, and no reasonable man could allege that self-preservation was
involved.” One can bookend this speech with one of the greatest speeches
Churchill even made on 8 July 1920 concerning the British military massacres of
Indians at Amristar on 13 April 1919 (also known as the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre)
and his condemnation of British military excesses in the Raj, one cannot help
but think he was conflating some of that brutality with what was transpiring in
Ireland during the war.[3] Churchill’s reputation as one of the finest speakers
in the English-speaking world gave him a platform which enthralled millions in
the British public whether broadcast or read transcripted in the daily
newspapers. The daily mauling of Irish civilians by British occupation
forces may have started to gain more traction.
On 19 June, 1920 the commanding officer of the RIC in
Listowel informed his ranks:
“Now,
men, Sinn Fein have had all the sport up to the present, and we are going to
have the sport now. The police are not in sufficient strength to do anything to
hold their barracks. This is not enough for as long as we remain on the
defensive, so long will Sinn Fein have the whip hand. We must take the
offensive and beat Sinn Fein at its own tactics…If a police barracks is burned
or if the barracks already occupied is not suitable, then the best house in the
locality is to be commandeered, the occupants thrown into the gutter. Let them
die there—the more the merrier.
Should
the order (“Hands Up”) not be immediately obeyed, shoot and shoot with effect.
If the persons approaching (a patrol) carry their hands in their pockets, or
are in any way suspicious-looking, shoot them down. You may make mistakes
occasionally and innocent persons may be shot, but that cannot be helped, and
you are bound to get the right parties some time. The more you shoot, the
better I will like you, and I assure you no policeman will get into trouble for
shooting any man.” [4]
The perfect storm was emerging that would lead to the
operation that would change the course of the conflict and eventually draw the
British to the negotiating table to parley for a conditional settlement and
peace that may free the Irish from English dominion.
Collins would strike the match that would put the British in
the hazard. His “Squad” was comprised of volunteer gunmen and supporting
elements that would target the Cairo Gang at Dublin Castle who were a key
component of the intelligence complex the English had deployed into Ireland to
quell the rebellion. The popular media has greatly exaggerated the
importance of the Cairo Gang in the vast network of intelligence assets the
Crown had deployed but the propaganda impact coupled with what would happen
within hours of the assassination would force the British government to find a
solution the IRB and indigenous Irishmen would agree to.
“Shortly after eight in the morning, [Collins’ men]
converged on eight different addresses in Dublin. Nineteen soldiers, one
or two of them probably not agents, were roused from their sleep and shot.” [5]
Of these, thirteen were killed and six wounded according to
official reports. When Collins would hear the news, he would say: “Good God.
We’re finished now. It’s all up.” [6] This was not the blow the popular media
makes it out it to be ands tends to be exaggerated. This was a propaganda
blow but had a relatively minor operational impact from an intelligence
perspective.
“In hindsight, Collins’ operation, although executed with
imprecision was a shock to British intelligence but quite limited in
scope. The IRA succeeded in eliminating only a small fraction of the
legion of British intelligence operatives, although there is no question that a
few of those assassinated were among the more experienced and aggressive
operators. At the end of the day IRA gunmen killed seven confirmed intelligence
officers, two legal officers, one informer, and two Auxiliary temporary cadets,
while wounding four more suspected spies.” [7] Collins blow would nonetheless
have far-reaching effects that would happen just that afternoon.
The day was not over as the bloody-minded British Blacks and
Tans and some associated constabulary possibly seeking revenge opened fire at
the football pitch in Croke Park that afternoon by killing 12 civilians and
maiming hundreds of other players and spectators in what would become the Croke
Park massacre that would even upset the British government at the ferocity and
brutality of the attack after the stinging rebuke Churchill had spoke against
mere months before in the Parliament during General Dyer’s trial for the Indian
massacre.
Conclusion
A mere two years later in December 1921, the Irish would get
their independence after almost eight hundred years as a mostly unwilling
vassal of the United Kingdom. This would spark a vicious civil war
between two competing factions that would be long and bloody. Collins
would be assassinated himself in his personage as the military commander of
free Ireland by a rival Republican faction in August 1922.
Collins was an able commander and essentially one of the
first successful non-state soldiers of the twentieth century although T.E.
Lawrence may tangentially take the laurel for being a state soldier commanding
an entire army of non-state soldiers in WWI during the British fight against
Turkey in the Middle East. One must entertain the counterfactual that had
Collins not struck such a blow and reaped the unintended windfall of English
brutality and callous disregard for human life at Croke Park that same
afternoon if the Commonwealth may have remained intact.
“… [G]iven time, strength and public support, the British
forces could have reduced rebel operations to negligible proportions.
Nevertheless, these quintessential conditions were missing.
While the IRA survived, political pressure on the British
government increased and though the balance was tantalizingly fine, the IRAS
held out longer than the government’s nerve. That was what mattered.” [8]
Collins survived and went toe to toe.
Collins was at the right time and right place to take full
advantage of English missteps and capitalize on the unintended profit from
Churchill damning the military brutality by Raj forces in India resulting in
thousands of civilian deaths and maiming. Many forces were starting to
coalesce to include the post-WWI exhaustion of Britain, British financial woes
and the consolidation of Irish guerrilla forces under a capable and effective
leadership. The combination of ruthless efficiency, political stellar
alignments and the sheer exhaustion of the British public with the conflict
most likely tipped the balance for Collins and his confreres.
A single day in which both the protagonists swung at each
other may very well have set the conditions for Irish freedom.
Bibliography
[1] Foy, Michael, and Brian
Barton. The Easter Rising. Chicago: The
History Press, 2011.
[2] Hittle, J.B.E. Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish
War: Britain’s Counterinsurgency Failure. Washington DC: Potomac, 2011.
[3] Herman, Arthur. Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic
Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age. New York: Bantam,
2009.
[4] Wilson, A.N. After the Victorians: The Decline of
Britain in the World. New York: Farar, 2005.
[5] Coogan, Tim Pat. Michael Collins: The Man Who Made
Ireland. Boulder: Roberts Rhinehart, 1992.
[6] Ibid.[7] Hittle, J.B.E. Michael
Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain’s Counterinsurgency Failure.
Washington DC: Potomac, 2011.
[8] Doherty, Gabriel, ed. Michael
Collins and the Making of the Irish State. Dublin: Mercier, 1998.
Recommended
Reading
Barry, Tom. Guerilla Days in Ireland. Cork,
Ireland: Mercier, 1995.
Cronin, Sean. Irish Nationalism: A History of Its
Roots and Ideology. New York: Continuum, 1982.
Dwyer, T. The Squad: and the Intelligence
Operations of Michael Collins. Cork, Ireland: Mercier, 2005.
Foy, Michael. Michael Collins’s Intelligence War: The
Struggle Between the British and the IRA 1919-1921. Charleston: The
History Press, 2006.
Gleeson, James. Bloody Sunday: How Michael Collins’s
Agents Assassinated Britain’s Secret Service in Dublin on November 21, 1920.
Guilford: Lyons Press, 2004.
Hart, Peter. The I.R.A. at War 1916-1923. New
York: Oxford USA, 2005.
Schneider, James. Guerrilla Leader: T. E. Lawrence and
the Arab Revolt. New York: Bantam, 2011.
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