07/12/2021
14 myths about the Treaty and the Civil War to stop reproducing now - part 2
If the history related to the Treaty and the Civil War wasn’t foggy, confused and polemic enough, when we talk about these times, it’s commonplace to reproduce a great number of myths. They are based in misconceptions, reductionism or basic mistakes and contribute only to damage any attempt to evaluate those times without bias. We chased and debunked a number of them. We divided it in two parts - to see the first, click: https://www.facebook.com/1916risingirishcivilwar/posts/1391497114243182:0
7) Liam Lynch was a radical who would never accept any deal with the pro-Treaty side.
Liam Lynch was one of those who did most to avoid a split in the Army and to avert the Civil War. He was ready to accept temporarily the Treaty if it meant to keep the Army together - only to fight the British back later, from a better position. As he wrote to his brother Tom in 12th December 1921: “If the Government accept Treaty we shall not but stick for final victory at most favourable opportunity. [...] It is only a question of the best means to smash her for Ireland’s freedom sake. Even if I must temporarily accept the Treaty there is scarcely another lap to freedom and we certainly will knock her off next time”. He was behind the May 1922 document signed by five anti-Treaty and five pro-Treaty officers - amongst them Dan Breen, Tom Hales, Eoin O’Duffy and Michael Collins - that tried to avert the split by reunifying the Army under an elected Free State government. The proposal was rejected by both sides, and the divergences inside the anti-Treaty side led to an internal fracture between the men who took Four Courts and those who accepted Lynch’s leadership, that only healed when the Free State forces attacked that position in July. From that point on, Lynch fought as if there was no other option but full victory, blind to any attempt to show the opposite.
8) Éamon de Valera was responsible for the Civil War.
Though De Valera can be deemed responsible for creating the environment that led to the split, he had no military position and didn’t influence any IRA decision. In fact, many officers despised him as too much of a politician. He later made serious efforts to avert the split, ending on the Collins-De Valera Pact, that allowed the June 1922 election and was supposed to lead to a coalition government. His work was frustrated by the parallel worsening of the situation on the military side, over which he had no control. For the same reason, it’s very unlikely he had anything to do with the death of Michael Collins.
9) The majority of the population was anti-Treaty.
The majority of the population was war-weary and in the greatest part welcomed the Treaty. This feeling showed for the first time during the Treaty debates after the Christmas break, when several TDs went back to their constituencies and took the pulse of the local support. One of them, Frank Drohan, TD for Waterford-Tipperary East, was instructed by the local Sinn Féin to vote in favour. Being personally against the Treaty, he felt bound to resign. In fact, during the Civil War, the public support to the anti-Treaty side had dropped so much that in certain areas it became impossible to rely only on sympathizers to provide for the fighters. At some point, they felt compelled to commandeer food and to force people to shelter them at gunpoint.
10) The Treaty was democratically endorsed by the Irish people.
On the other hand, the feeling that the majority was in favour of the Treaty was never endorsed by a definitive mandate from the people. Though the Treaty elections in June 1922 gave a clear majority to the pro-Treaty side, there are two factors that could have affected the way people voted: the Collins-De Valera pact, that put all Sinn Féin candidates under the same panel, and the presence of other parties, like the Labour Party and the Farmer’s Party, that didn’t dispute the 1918 and 1921 elections. Only a referendum could give a proper democratic endorsement.
11) The first openly hostile action between the pro- and anti-Treaty sides happened with the attack on Four Courts.
The first hostilities happened in March 1922, when there was a conflict between pro-Treaty men led by Michael Brennan and anti-Treaty men led by Ernie O’Malley over who would take the barracks on Limerick City. After a lot of negotiation, the situation was solved without any shot. But the first shot didn’t wait until the attack on Four Courts in June. By then, the pro-Treaty forces counted six men killed by the anti-Treaty side, the first of them in 25th April, over two months earlier, when a party of Free State officers searching for a missing man near Athlone was surrounded and disarmed. Then one man approached Commandant George Adamson, a veteran IRA man who served as Vice O/C of the Athlone Brigade during the War of Independence, and fired point-blank into his ear, killing him instantly.
12) Atrocities were committed by one side only.
As in the case of the killing of Commandant Adamson, it’s clear that neither side had the monopoly of fair warfare. On the one hand, through the second semester of 1922, the anti-Treaty side was responsible for the murder of innocent civilians that happened to be related to notorious pro-Treaty men, like W. T. Cosgrave’s uncle, Kevin O’Higgins’s elderly father and Seán McGarry’s seven-year-old son. On the other hand, while the pro-Treaty side never targeted civilians on purpose, they treated their opponents in such a brutal way, running amok against unarmed prisoners, killing and mutilating without reproach, that isn’t hard to understand why they got the fame alone.
13) Michael Collins was responsible for the ex*****on of 77 IRA men.
Michael Collins was killed in 22th August 1922. The bill proposing the ex*****ons was presented to the Dáil by the Minister for Defense Richard Mulcahy in 26th September and passed in 18th October. The first ex*****ons happened in 17th November 1922, almost three months after the death of Collins. So it’s chronologically impossible he had something to do with any of the ex*****ons. A few people says he would take the same action had he lived, but it’s mere speculation. None of Collins’s actions supports this line of interpretation.
14) Every family and friendship that disagreed over the Treaty was torn apart.
It happened often enough, but there was a significant number of exceptions to that rule. The most notorious are the relationships of Michael Collins and Harry Boland and of the Hales brothers from West Cork. Collins and Boland’s friendship survived both the political divergence on the Treaty and a personal conflict over the love of Kitty Kiernan and lasted until the very eve of the Civil War, when they met for the last time - some sources hint it’s possible they kept in touch occasionally through intermediaries even afterwards. Seán and Tom Hales led the opposite troops on West Cork during the early stages of the Civil War, and the other siblings divided along their lines - Madge supporting pro-Treaty Seán, William and Robert standing for Tom on the anti-Treaty side. The family never lost affection for each other, however, and there are plenty of evidence the leading brothers kept a line of communication open - most likely through their less known siblings Madge and William. When Tom was captured, Seán personally assured his safety, and they spent a long time chatting. And Tom was devastated when he learned of his brother’s assassination.
Adriana Moura
