John Bruton looks into his own ‘Hart’ - to see what the Irish people should be thinking

by Ger Robinson Wed Jul 20, 2005 18:52

I read with interest the comments made about Dr. Peter Hart's distasteful and unwarranted comments in relation to the conduct of Tom Barry at the Kilmichael Ambush.

Having discussed this matter with scholars of the period I was struck by the simplicity of one comment. My associate replied, " Who cares what they say? Who cares where it comes from? The fact of the matter is that the British had sent their best, battled-hardened troops out and when challenged by mere boys, (Pat Deasy was only 16 and Barry himself was only 22) they were found wanting. Kilmichael was a turning point. It proved that their invincible super-fighters could be destroyed, and the IRA proved that they had the willingness and capabilities to do it. Kilmichael proved that the IRA could deliver victory."

One only has to look at the names of the people who have made these comments. Dr. Hart, an Englishman, Meyers, an apologist for British mis-rule and Harris an advisor to the Ulster Unionist Party. It would be difficult for one to accept that such commentators are capable of offering a balanced view on events relating to this period of Ireland's history.

For my part I'm proud of the IRA's success at Kilmichael and I aplogise to nobody for having that sense of pride.

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Wed Apr 06, 2005 09:04 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

On the 21st October 2004 Peter Hart, in response to this debate initiated by Niall Meehan, promised to reply to the criticisms of his book on the IRA in Cork (see also Irish Political Review, November 2004). He was presented with a perfect opportunity to do this in an interview with Brian Hanley in the current edition of History Ireland (March/April 2005). But the opportunity was not taken. Instead, he goes into total denial. Tom Barry - “He’s really a very minor character” - we are told. How convenient to dismiss the most successful military leader of the War of Independence and the central figure in Hart’s original book – in which Hart ‘disproves’ Barry’s account of the military encounter at Kilmichael and in particular the report of the ‘false surrender’ by the defeated Auxiliaries which fooled some of the his men and led to the unnecessary deaths of volunteers. Denying the ‘false surrender’ enables Hart to criticise Barry’s subsequent decision to fight the battle to a finish. Hart’s whitewashing of British actions earned him the Ewart Biggs Memorial prize and an honourable place in the pantheon of revisionist historians.

But now that Hart’s thesis has been taken apart, the Kilmichael ambush suddenly becomes a very unimportant part of his book, “only six per cent of my book”, even though that was the part that all his admirers highlighted as the valuable core of his book. Despite all that, the historian is able to claim, “I have yet to see any convincing refutation of anything I have written” which is a joke to anyone who has followed this debate.

‘Honestly – when you are reduced to claiming that documents are forgeries because you can’t deal with the contents….” he declares in exasperation after Meda Ryan has shown that his central documentary source of evidence against Barry was not Barry’s work. This is a new departure in history writing that Hart has created. It is an attempt to apply to the writing of history the recently created legal concept of a ‘Reynolds defence’ used by newspapers to justify libelling people. The most recent example being that of George Galloway MP by the Daily Telegraph using forged documents to discredit him - and failing - but arguing that they were providing a public service in publishing them even if they were forgeries. This type of defence has had no success in law so far. Imagine Mr Hart dealing with Dreyfus or Parnell. He would no doubt be saying something to them along the lines of ‘would you please stop claiming that these are forgeries and instead deal with the contents of the documents – honestly!’ Hart’s argument is the pathetic one that the contents of forgeries are valid despite being forgeries!

When asked how he responds to the specific criticism by Meda Ryan and Brian Murphy he says: “I recently gave a paper at Maynooth rebutting their statements about Kilmichael, but the question is so dependent on factual details that I don't have the space to really say much here.”

So the rebuttal exists and was provided at Maynooth but readers of History Ireland are denied it for reasons of space! Not even a summary of the details for History Ireland? This is what normally historians do. Why not Hart? In his item on the Web he also claimed, “apart from anything else, there isn’t space here”. Not enough space on the World Wide Web either? Where will sufficient space ever be found then? Will it fill to overflowing the known universe when it appears? Then we are told he “…will be going into all that in a full reply to my critics.” So he has rebutted his critics already and he will be rebutting them in the future but will not do so just now in the present. He is like a three card trick man – now you see it, now you don’t.

Meda Ryan’s book, teeming with evidence that contradicts and refutes Hart’s entire case, is dismissed as follows: “Meda Ryan's book contains almost no new evidence but rather attempts to dismiss the witnesses I quote (most of whom were interviewed by someone else) and the report I use to query Barry's later published account. She isn't interested in dealing with the substance of this evidence in a rational way.”

Meda Ryan’s book is chock full of new evidence and detailed analysis. She does not dismiss anyone’s account but simply asked Hart to name the two ambush witnesses he is supposed to have interviewed and she details all the possible witnesses - all now long dead. That is the normal way to help verify such an account. And he still will not do so. Why not? Of course the evidence of all witnesses, including Hart’s anonymous witnesses, as quoted by him, do not deny a false surrender despite Hart’s best effort to insinuate that they do.

So, the story so far is that not a single participant or witness to the ambush, in writing, in statements, in interviews, in sign language or in any other means of human communication has ever denied a false surrender at Kilmichael. As if that was not enough, the leader of the Auxiliaries, General Crozier and Lloyd George’s top adviser, Lionel Curtis agreed on the false surrender. Who, apart from Hart, now says there was no false surrender? All his original supporters and cheerleaders have long since gone mute on the issue, even the voluble Mr. Myers sings dumb about it nowadays. The controversy started by Hart has been useful in establishing the facts once and for all and we must be eternally grateful to him for that. He has in fact created a whole new interest in the War of Independence just when it was fading from memory. The war in Cork has become a new industry for many.

One of Hart’s main props for rebutting the ‘false surrender’ was the fact that Barry made no mention of it in an article he wrote for the Irish Press. Neither of course does Meda Ryan dismiss Barry’s published account. Quite the contrary. She deals with it thoroughly and proves with new documentary evidence that Barry’s full account was not published in the Irish Press and this ruined yet another plank of Hart’s evidence and his accusations of Barry’s ‘lies and evasions’ over the false surrender.

How convenient and outrageous that we have the slur of an irrational woman introduced by Hart in order to evade the forensic and most rational evidence ever published about the issues raised by him. How low will Hart stoop to defend the indefensible? Is there not more than a hint of misogyny here? In nay case he says a lot more about himself than he does about Meda Ryan with this scurrilous comment.

In the interview there is a very noticeable shift away from the claim that the war of independence was a sectarian conflict. The killing of the 10 Protestants in Dunmanway is not even mentioned despite its prominent part in his original book with its arresting chapter heading “Taking it out on the Protestants” and its use as absolute proof that the war was sectarian. This was proof positive, was it not, that the war was sectarian? Here was the absolutely convincing evidence for his case. Here were ten smoking guns. And it’s not mentioned in this interview! And it’s not mentioned because Brian Murphy and Meda Ryan established that they were killed because they were informers and not because they were Protestants and she produced the clear documentary proof of this and far from Barry and the IRA condoning it, he and they rushed to protect other Protestants (informers and otherwise) from being killed. Some sectarians eh! She also pointed out, with exact figures, that Barry executed more Catholics as informers than he did Protestants. As a man who was excommunicated five times there is a much better case for making him an anti-Catholic rather than an anti-Protestant. Barry simply did not give a damn about a person’s religion and was typical of all Republicans in that respect.

So Hart moves sharply on. Now his emphasis is on the ‘ethnicity’ of the conflict. Ethnicity is a polite word for race. And not only was the War of Independence an ethnic affair but all before it was an ethnic conflict as well. He says:
“I think it's blindingly obvious that violence had an ethnic basis. The Irish political system before partition was based on ethnic solidarity and division, so how could popular violence derived from rival Unionist and Nationalist mobilisations not be?”

Irish nationalism was in conflict with British rule in Ireland and always had been as it evolved during the 19th century. British rule was its raison d’etre. Like all valid and successful nationalisms Irish nationalism was a force that had superseded and incorporated ethnic and religious differences in its own area of society while naturally consisting mostly of people who were Catholic in religion. British rule had supporters among all the same ethnic and religious groups as well and Britain was predominantly Protestant in religion. There were plenty Castle Catholics, generation after generation, and there were even a fair number of Irish Catholics in the Black and Tans. So ‘ethnicity’ and religion was not the divide in the conflict between the forces of Irish nationalism and British rule. If it was a racial conflict the evidence of such racial conflicts should indeed be ‘blindingly obvious’ and the evidence of massacres, etc., should be all around us. They are part and parcel of racial wars.

And just like his claim to have evidence to rebut his critics on Barry and Kilmichael the evidence for this racial war is very difficult to pin down and in fact it disappears as quickly as it appears. He says:
“But it's important to stress that I don't argue that this was ethnic cleansing. There was no ethnic cleansing in the Irish revolution (although the attacks on Catholics in Belfast came close) but there was ethnically targeted violence. Not that this was the only thing going on, mind you”

So the only element of real ethnic conflict that makes any sense was that used against Irish nationalists in Belfast! The latter can hardly be blamed for that unless of course there is no distinction between perpetrators and victims in Hart’s world – the violence of one equated with that of the other. And that is precisely what he says over and over again: “I argue that the two sides became very much like each other – dirty- as the struggle escalated but I do have the statistics to prove my case.”, “..there were serial killers on both sides; not necessary psychopaths, but individuals and small groups who did the dirty work..” and “the main interpretative reason I included the Kilmichael chapter was to illustrate my general point about how similar the IRA and government forces really became once the struggle got going - they behaved in much the same way and used the same labels and excuses for killing. ” This is reducing history to a meaningless and absurd tit for tat and pretending there is no wood for the trees. One side does something nasty and the other side does something similar so there is no difference between them. The little matter of cause and effect, never mind the right and wrong of the war, does not enter the equation for him.

But of course even if the war was a meaningless cycle of violence Hart is quite clear on which side the blame lies. He says “..the IRA was the single most violent organisation involved - probably responsible for the majority of deaths on its own.” What does this mean? There were approximately 1,000 Irish casualties and approximately 300 British casualties so how was the IRA the most violent organisation? It is very odd that Mr Hanley did not ask him to elaborate. It is another typical piece of Hart’s trickery of the ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ variety at work here. There were a number of ‘single’ armed organisations on the British side fighting the IRA – the RIC, the Auxiliaries, the Black and Tans, the Regular Army and numerous Loyalist vigilante groups numbering a total of 100,000 at the very minimum. The IRA was the only armed force on the Republican side so it is ‘probably’ true (though not at all certain) that it may have killed more than any one of the other ‘single’ forces ranged against it in the field but it is a deceptive and meaningless statistic as all the Crown forces acted as one. Of course, there is no ‘probably’ whatsoever about who caused the war and all the deaths in the first place – the refusal by the Government to accept the result of the 1918 General Election. But this is a non-event for Hart so it’s all violence for violence’s sake on the Irish side and any explanation apart from the obvious will be tried on with his readers, i.e., sectarianism, ethnicity, etc.

He remarks, for example, that ‘If Tom Barry or anybody else takes it upon himself to kill other people then they’d better expect to have their behaviour scrutinised.” giving the impression that this was the way the War of Independence started. But this is exactly what Tom Barry did in another war - the First World War -as he explained very honestly himself in his famous book but his numerous actions in that war are never, ever, scrutinised by Hart or his colleagues. But Barry ‘scrutinised’ himself about them and in the War of Independence decided to fight instead for the elected government of his country because it was attacked and needed to defend itself to survive. But his offensive, reckless, unjustified war record over four years for the British Empire against various peoples across the world is accepted without question by Hart and co. and Barry’s short, limited and fully justified defensive war record in West Cork is endlessly scrutinised in the most minute detail by these people. But Barry only grows in stature under the scrutiny.

This interview shows us the Professor twisting and turning like a pathetic trickster who has been caught out. I doubt if his peers will take him seriously after this. We can only pray for his students.

Jack Lane
Irish Politcal Review, April 2005

by Seamus Fox Thu Mar 03, 2005 23:34

Hi all,

I have found the on-going debate about Kilmichael in these pages to be very intertesting. I would like to draw readers attention to my own contribution. It is available on the webpage given below - please scroll down to November 28th and click on the 'More Detail' link. I have not included the full contribution here as it over thirty pages.

I look forward to feedback from readers of this site.

Best regards

Seamus

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Thu Mar 03, 2005 16:13 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

Book Launch, Film, Meeting and Discussion

Book Launch: “The Catholic Bulletin and Republican Ireland with special reference to J. J. O’Kelly (‘Sceilg’) 1898-1926.”

by Dr. Brian P Murphy osb

Short Film: “Michael Collins promoting the Dáil Loan, August 1919.”

Meeting and
discussion:
“A defence of Cork Political Culture in the War of Independence 1919-22.”

by Dr. Murphy


Time: Friday, 15th April, 2005, 8pm


Venue: Imperial Hotel, South Mall, Cork



Sponsors: Aubane Historical Society
and Athol Books
www.aubane.org

All WELCOME

Background and further information

The book

Brian Murphy’s new book analyses the development of different strands in the Irish national and cultural movements of the early years of the 20th century. From extensive and meticulous research Dr. Murphy provides new insights on the relationship between these tendencies and their evolution.
Dr Murphy sets the record straight and challenges assumptions made by a number of the early revisionist historians.
He focuses on the role of a key, but underrated, figure in that movement, J. J. O’Kelly, known as ‘Sceilg’, and in particular on his role as editor of ‘The Catholic Bulletin’ in the crucial post-1916 period. O’Kelly was also President of the Gaelic League (1919-22) and Acting Chairman of Dáil Eireann (1919-21)
For its trenchant and well-argued justification of the Rising and the case it made for Independence to people at home and abroad the Bulletin was once described as “Ireland’s heavy artillery.”
This seems a very apt description of it.

The film

This short historic film, c.10 minutes, of Michael Collins, made in August 1919, showing him acting as Minister of Finance and starting the Dail Eireann internal loan, will be shown. This is rarely seen in full. It also shows some of the major figures of the period.

The meeting and discussion

Cork is celebrating the European City of Culture this year. This meeting is a celebration and defence of Cork’s unique contribution to the political culture of Ireland and the world.

The author

Dr. Brian P. Murphy is a member of the Benedictine Community at Glenstal Abbey, County Limerick. He is a graduate of Oxford University, Trinity College, Dublin, and the National University of Ireland (UCD). He is the author of “Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal” (1991), “John Chartres: the Mystery Man of the Treaty” (1995), “St Gerard's School, Bray, an Educational Initiative” (1999), “Michael Collins – some original documents in his own hand” (2004) and various articles. Dr Murphy is currently researching British Propaganda output during the War of Independence.

The venue

The Imperial Hotel in the South Mall is a very fitting venue because it was the last place that Collins stayed in Cork before he was killed.

by Barry Wed Jan 26, 2005 14:13

An absolute treat to read such properly researched material.

by Manus O'Riordan - Ballingeary Historical Society Journal Wed Jan 26, 2005 11:58

Ballingeary Historical Society Journal 2004-2005



FORGET NOT THE BOYS OF KILMICHAEL!

By

Manus O’Riordan

[ Note: The following commemorative article by this “grandson of Ballingeary” was first published in the “Northern Star”, March 2001. It set out to challenge the revisionist attacks on “The Boys of Kilmichael” that had once again surfaced the previous November, on the 80th anniversary of that momentous ambush in this neighbourhood of ours that was of such critical importance to the War of Independence and the course of Irish history itself. Since then, the Kilmichael controversy has also been dealt with in considerable detail in Meda Ryan’s 2003 biography,”Tom Barry – IRA Freedom Fighter”. ]

Phil Kelleher of Macroom, Co. Cork, a top- class rugby player due to be selected as an Irish international, was aged 23 when shot in the back by two IRA gunmen on the night of October 31, 1920. He had served with distinction as a Captain in Britain's War against Germany, and was awarded a Military Cross. He was now serving in Britain’s War against Ireland as a District Inspector of the RIC and had in fact boasted that he would “clean up” his area. He was accordingly targeted by the local IRA unit for assassination whenever a reprisal might be needed. The occasion finally arose in response to the death in Brixton Prison of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence Mac Swiney, on October 25, 1920. Kelleher’s death had been ordered by GHQ in Dublin and conveyed to the local unit by that area’s Flying Column Commander, who in turn was held responsible for its effective execution. The Captain of the local unit that actually carried out that execution was subsequently forced to go on the run, although he was never caught. Two young Protestants, Elliot and Chartres, were, however, shot by the IRA, having been accused of informing the Auxiliaries of the Captain’s original whereabouts. The area’s Flying Column Commander was again ultimately responsible for such killings. Two newspaper columnists, Kevin Myers and Eoghan Harris, have, of course, been waging a long campaign against the reputation of West Cork’s Tom Barry, charging him with full responsibility as Flying Column Commander for any deed of this character perpetrated in his area during the War of Independence. And they have damned him accordingly.
Kilmichael Ambush in The Irish Times
The arguments concerning the Kilmichael ambush of November 28, 1920, for which Barry was indeed both fully responsible and directly involved, have raged fast and furious, and those of an earlier controversy were brought together by the Aubane Historical Society in Millstreet and published as a pamphlet entitled “Kilmichael – The False Surrender”. November 28, 2000 marked the 80th anniversary of that ambush and it was commemorated by two significant media events. The “Irish Times” column, “An Irishman’s Diary”, so long the preserve and repository of Shoneen invective on the part of Kevin Myers, and so often devoted to character assassination of Barry, was on that date vacated by its usual occupant. In place of, and by welcome contrast with, the diatribe which we might have expected would otherwise have marked such an anniversary, the slot was instead occupied by a guest columnist, Pádraig Ó Cuanacháin, who celebrated Kilmichael for the foremost historical event that it indeed was. And that evening RTE transmitted a well-researched TV documentary by the Léargas team which pulled no punches in exploring all facets of the Kilmichael ambush, including the pros and cons of Barry’s own role.

Sleeping dogs, however, did not lie still for very long. Four days later, the “Irish Times” of December 2 saw a two pronged counter-offensive launched against Barry’s character – the first in the form of a TV review by Eamon Delaney and the second by Kevin Myers, safely back in his “Irishman’s Diary” spot, and apoplectic that it had been occupied for even a day by the likes of Ó Cuanacháin. Delaney-Myers evoked (or, should I say, provoked) a reply from myself on December 5, which a fortnight later had still not seen the light of day. I continued to pressurise the “Irish Times” with the argument that while they might sometimes publish letters critical of Myers’ style, they were carefully censoring any correspondence that highlighted how Myers persistently got his facts wrong. I pointed out that this would be the third such letter from myself that they were suppressing. On this occasion the pressure worked and the letter was finally published on St. Stephen’s Day 2000, three weeks after submission, although missed by many because of the Christmas holidays. In that letter I argued:

In his review of the Léargas documentary on the Kilmichael ambush (December 2) Eamon Delaney charges that Tom Barry derisively said of the dead Auxiliaries: “We threw them their money and their brandy hip flasks”. Lest such an attributed quotation should now enter the history books and leave Barry damned for gratuitously abusing the corpses of his enemies, it is necessary to set the record straight. Barry in fact took active measures to safeguard the corpses for subsequent identification and Christian burial. His actual words recorded in the documentary were: “We took their arms, took their ammunition, took their notes, notebooks. We left them their money and their brandy flasks and we pulled them away from the lorries – the dead bodies - and we set fire to their two lorries”.

In the same issue (December 2) Kevin Myers objects to Pádraig Ó Cuanacháin’s use of words in saying (November 28) that the totally uninvolved civilian Séamus Ó Liatháin was “murdered in cold blood” but that the Auxie storm-trooper Cecil Guthrie was “executed”. Yet in what Myers refers to as “Peter Hart’s outstanding study” Guthrie is also described as “executed”. What Hart nonetheless fails to mention is that in one of the reference works which he himself cites, Father Pat Twohig’s “Green Tears for Hecuba”, Guthrie was identified as the actual Auxie who had murdered Ó Liatháin in Ballymakeera.

Myers proceeds to re-echo Hart’s incorrect claim that Ó Liatháin was “the only person killed by the Macroom Auxiliaries before Kilmichael”. They were in fact in the process of establishing a reign of terror over what they regarded as the untermenschen of the West Cork Gaeltacht.
(Note: “Untermenschen”, literally “less than men”, was the term used by the German Nazis to describe those whom they regarded as “lesser breeds”, the indigenous inhabitants of Eastern Europe whose countries they had invaded and occupied). Sunday after Sunday the Auxies systematically descended on Ballingeary at Mass-time in order to corral and abuse the villagers as they emerged from worship. And in a “shoot-to-kill” mission on November 10, 1920 they murdered the unarmed Volunteer Criostóir Ó Luasa in the neighbouring townland of Túirín Dubh. Hart chose to make no reference whatsoever to this murder, nor to the subsequent encounter between the gloating Auxies and the local parish priest and Gaelic scholar, an t-Athair Donncha Ó Donnchú, at whom they gleefully roared “There’s work for you back there!”.

By way of contrast with the vendetta pursued against Barry’s reputation, the Gaeltacht Volunteer leader Micheál Ó Súilleabháin was one IRA commander about whom Hart could not find a bad word to say. He referred to Ó Súilleabháin’s annoyance at having to cancel his own plans to attack Macroom Castle after Kilmichael. But he avoided quoting what Ó Súilleabháin actually wrote of Kilmichael in the latter’s own memoirs, “Where Mountainy Men Have Sown”. For Ó Súilleabháin clearly set the ambush in the context of what proved to be unmentionable for Hart, the murder of Criostóir Ó Luasa:

“He was not armed. It was a pity, for it was a remarkable fact that even a shot or two exchanged with these warriors disturbed their aim unduly. A few weeks later these marauding Auxiliaries were trapped at Kilmichael, a few miles to the south of our area. Seventeen of them were killed”.

Indeed they were, and the course of the War of Independence was altered

Auxies – Marauding or Diciplined
So much for my reply to the “Irish Times” attacks. On November 26, both Eoghan Harris in the “Sunday Times” and John A. Murphy in the “Sunday Independent” had also previewed the TV documentary at length under their respective headings of “Kilmichael Gives up its Secrets” and “Bloody Fable of Kilmichael’s Dead”. Harris went out of his way to pay homage to “Peter Hart in his classic book ‘The IRA and its Enemies’ “. But then he appeared to pull back somewhat from such a wholehearted commitment: “I do not fully accept Hart’s version”. Harris nonetheless presented the marauding Auxies of Macroom as being guilty of no more than going on “a routine patrol” through Kilmichael. He went on to lay great emphasis on the fact that they were “mostly junior officers in their twenties” who had an OBE, three Military Crosses and a distinguished Flying Medal between them from the First World War and were now serving in Ireland “to taste again the comradeship of campaigning in arms”. He also argued the following on their behalf:

“My account does not depict the Auxiliary Officers – as Cork Republican folklore does – as faceless digits who got their just deserts. If that were true, the comrades of the dead men would have taken a savage revenge. Far from doing so, the Auxiliaries around Macroom remained disciplined”.

No revenge? Within a fortnight of Kilmichael, on December 11, 1920, the centre of Cork City was destroyed by fire in an Auxie-led pogrom.
( During the course of that night they effectively murdered an elderly Jewish lady who had come to Cork as a refugee in order to escape from the pogroms of Tsarist Russia,but who now suffered a heart attack and died as the Auxies ransacked her Tuckey Street home. In the early hours of the morning they went on to break into a house in Dublin Hill where they murdered out of hand two unarmed Republicans asleep in their beds, the brothers Cornelius and Jeremiah Delaney. ) Days later, on December 15, the Macroom Auxies also murdered the parish priest of Dunmanway, Canon Magner, shooting him dead by the side of the road. The Auxie murderer in question was, by ironic coincidence, also named Hart.

Harris’s own modified version of Peter Hart went as follows:
“Barry was determined to take no prisoners so as to build a personal legend … At no stage of my life did I believe in the fake surrender. I believe that Barry used a wounded Auxiliary’s dying shot to coerce his shocked men into murdering the survivors – and did most of the dirty work himself … Professor John A. Murphy, a local man who has heard the folklore, does not swallow the story (of the fake surrender) either”.
John A. Murphy And Bishop Buckley
The problem for Harris, however, is that it is not at all clear any longer what it is that Murphy believes on the matter. Previewing the TV documentary to be shown two nights later, Harris prepared his loyal readership for disappointment in the Professor:

“Murphy and Dr. Buckley, The Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and Ross, will be among those taking part. But in view of the prevailing pietas I shall be surprised if they dance on Barry’s grave”.

Inchigeela’s own Bishop Buckley, of course, proved to be as much an irritant to the “Irish Times” as he was to Harris. Eamon Delaney snidely commented:

“At the end, Bishop Buckley, a ‘local man’, said that ‘The Boys of Kilmichael’ was a great song: ‘I’d sing it for you, only I’ve no great voice’ No Bishop, please don’t. I’m sure you’ve got other things to be doing”.
And in the same issue Myers opined:

“Now what happened in Kilmichael – whatever it was – should not be the subject of pride, or boastfulness, or vainglorious satisfaction, and least of all song … It is an obscenity to carol joyfully at such things, as does the song with which the (Ó Cuanacháin) diary began”.


The double think here is quite amazing. Which Bishops are to be told by the “Irish Times” what songs they should or should not sing? Just like any other subject he touches, Myers is also dogmatically opinionated on questions of Church music – whether Catholic or Protestant. Yet he has never once addressed the subject- matter of one of the most powerful Anglican hymns sung by both the Church of Ireland and the Church of England, “ See The Conquering Hero”. This anthem was composed by George Frederick Handel in 1746 in honour of the Duke of Cumberland – already known in England itself as the “Bloody Butcher” because of his conduct at the Battle of Culloden and his follow-up “ethnic cleansing” campaign of massacre, famine and clearances against the Highland clans of the Scottish Gaeltacht. By comparison with the dark reality of genocide that lies behind “The Conquering Hero”, the sentiments of “The Boys of Kilmichael” are positively angelic. Yet the latter song induced a schizophrenic response on the part of John A. Murphy who wrote of his own parents:
‘The Boys of Kilmichael’
“Whenever they sang ‘The Boys of Kilmichael’ (which they rarely did because they found its braggadocio unpleasant and because in any case their nationalist repertoire was too wide and rich) they used the more genteel punch-line about ‘the boys of the column’ making ‘a clean sweep of them all’. However, the no-holds-barred reality of the encounter is more truthfully and more terribly depicted in the vulgarly robust version: ‘the Irish Republican Army made s**t of the whole f***ing lot’.”

But at this point Murphy went a step too far. Perhaps a crudity-for-its-own sake version has now become more popular. But in my own parents’ generation, not to mind Barry’s , such use in company of the “f” word would not have been tolerated. Indeed, in the wider Republican movement nationalist arguments were advanced in an attempt to hold such words at bay by referring to them as “British army language”. Barry would not have countenanced such a performance for a minute. As a 12 year old boy in September 1961 I was privileged to participate in an extensive tour of Kilmichael, Crossbarry and other West Cork battle sites that was conducted by Barry himself and other veterans of his Flying Column, including Battalion Commandant Jim Hurley (a distant relative of mine), Tom Kelleher, Pete Kearney and Jack Hennessy. And when at the end of the day that song was once again sung in honour of these heroes, the words were as I had always heard them sung, describing the Auxies only too accurately in every sense of the word as “the whole bloody lot”.

Murphy became even more schizophrenic when referring to Hart’s arguments:

“The ‘false surrender’ incident has been much disputed, most recently in a detailed analysis by historian Peter Hart in his admirable book, ‘The IRA and Its Enemies’…”
Dr. Jeremiah Kelleher
Having expressed such admiration for Hart and gone on to nit-pick Barry’s accounts, Murphy then proceeded to sit on the fence. His most coherent contribution as Harris’s “local man” was to recall the role of his family GP, the Macroom coroner Dr. Jeremiah Kelleher. He did indeed testify to the personal integrity of that Catholic loyalist:

“Kelleher had been personally affected in the course of the Troubles when his son, a RIC Officer, had been shot dead by the IRA … Though he made no secret of his anti-nationalist views, it is said that he won the respect of his enemies for unfailingly answering the call of duty in tending confidentially to wounded volunteers.”

In highlighting how it had been Kelleher who had conducted the autopsy on the bodies of the dead Auxies, Murphy went on:

“His bristling integrity commands respect for his Kilmichael evidence. While not corroborating the wilder British charges of ‘hideous mutilation’, the doctor testified that the Auxies had been riddled with bullets, three had been shot at point-blank range, several had been shot after death, and another’s head had been smashed open”.

But all that this was evidence of was the ferocity of the battle, and told us nothing about the circumstances of surrender, whether false or true. In the end Murphy climbed back up on the fence concerning that particular issue:
“No Room For Sentimentality……..”
“There is no room for Thomas Davis parlour-sentimentality in guerrilla warfare, any more than there is for the Queensberry Rules or the Geneva Convention. That is why the ‘false surrender’ controversy is irrelevant … At Kilmichael, Tom Barry’s guerrillas did what guerrillas do”.

But the controversy is not at all irrelevant since it constituted a central thesis of what Murphy himself referred to as Hart’s “admirable book”. Harris was obviously quite annoyed that Murphy’s backsliding on that issue had gone further than his own. Even less palatable was the fact that in both the TV documentary and his own newspaper article Murphy made it clear that the Kilmichael ambush took place in the context of a War of Independence being waged in the face of Britain’s bloody denial of the right of national self-determination. As Murphy put it:

“There were many factors at work during the Winter/Spring of 1920-21 which must be considered in explaining the radical change in British offers to nationalist Ireland over that period, from modest devolution to the substance of independence. But the role of the guerrilla struggle cannot be gainsaid … There is more than an element of truth (making due allowances for local boasting) in the claim made by that other ballad that ‘The boys who beat the Black and Tans were the boys of the County Cork’.”

Harris exited with a rather different conclusion, having berated both Murphy and Bishop Buckley for not dancing on Barry’s grave:
“Let me leave you with a question. After the ambush at Clonfin on February 2, 1921, Seán Mac Eoin bandaged the wounded Auxilaries and sent them home. Which man do we respect most – Barry or Mac Eoin? No need to phone a friend”.
Mouth Of The Glen 1918
Such an example of caring for the enemy wounded had not, however, been the prerogative of Mac Eoin’s Longford. It had also been practised as a matter of principle in West Cork for over two years. It was there that the first post-1916 ambush of armed police took place, and not in Tipperary as is commonly assumed with reference to Dan Breen’s Soloheadbeg ambush on January 21, 1919. Six months previously, Micheál Ó Súilleabháin had led the Béal a’ Ghleanna (Mouth Of The Glen) ambush on July 7, 1918, near the West Cork Gaeltacht village of Ballingeary. It was recounted in his 1965 book “Where Mountainy Men Have Sown”, concerning which Daniel Corkery wrote in his Foreword:

“The book is nothing else than the people’s mind. One might almost say the mind of this rock-built, meagre, sparsely populated terrain – the mind of the Gaeltacht … It tells us of a small enough band of young men – the writer himself was hardly out of his teens – from Coolea, Ballyvourney, Kilnamartyra, Inchigeela, Ballingeary who did not wait to be attacked. Usually they went out to find the enemy”.

And how they engaged with that enemy in their first ambush was described by Ó Súilleabháin thus:

“Dan Mac Sweeney and Liam Twomey presented their revolvers. Their opponent reached for his rifle which lay on the seat inside him. As he grasped it a bullet scarred his neck deeply. He fell from his seat and lay bleeding on the road … Johnny Lynch’s opponent still clung to his rifle. He shouted for mercy, and said he was a married man with a wife and family depending on him; yet he would not relinquish the rifle. Johnny, for a reasonable time, had taken him as easily as he possibly could. He had risked life and liberty to spare him, even after hearing him boast of how the (Crown forces’) machine-gun had frightened the people at Coolea. Now he had to treat him roughly, and when Johnny straightened himself up holding the captured rifle, the RIC man lay on the ground bruised and vanquished … The man scarred by the bullet said nothing. Indeed it was a matter of regret with the Volunteers who knew him, and especially with Johnny who had experience of his courtesy during a raid on his house, that he should have been hurt. They rejoiced when they learned that his wound was not serious”.

Ó Súilleabháin’s instincts were to be no less chivalrous to British Army opponents. Two years later he led the ambush and capture of two heavily-armed military lorries outside Ballingeary on July 27, 1920. In the face of “a long line of men, with guns pointing ominously”, the troops in the first lorry surrendered immediately at Keimaneigh. But it was different with the second lorry at Túirín Dubh:
Ballingeary Lorries
“The order to surrender was not in this case complied with. Throwing themselves flat, they took the best cover available around and under the lorry. A volley from the lads tore splinters from the woodwork over their heads and rattled on the ironwork. That helped them to decide otherwise. A white flag was raised on a rifle … Always, when Tommy was reasonable, we gave him the benefit of the doubt. The Tommies from Keimaneigh were now brought over, and the thirteen were taken to a nearby disused house. A fire was lighted, kettles were boiled and tea was made for them. After the tea, which they much appreciated, three men marched them, two deep, down the road through the village. Showing them the road to Macroom, they told them that they were free to go in that direction”.
Events in Ballyvourney
The following month, at the Slippery Rock ambush on August 17, 1920, the British soldiers had not obeyed the call to surrender. In the ensuing exchange of fire their officer, Lieutenant Sharman, had been killed outright and four of his men wounded, though not badly. Ó Súilleabháin tended to their wounds and sent them on their way.

Within a few weeks, however, the character of warfare in the area dramatically altered, and it was Britain itself that brought about such a transformation. On Sunday, September 5, 1920, as people emerged from mid-day Mass at Ballyvourney Church, a covered British army lorry seemed to break down and apparently could not be repaired either by its own crew or by the soldiers from an accompanying open lorry. Having finally said to “let it there to hell”, all of these soldiers mounted the open lorry and drove away. Sometime later a number of unarmed Volunteers were brought over by the local children and lifted a corner of the lorry’s body covering to investigate. Ó Súilleabháin related:

“From within came a fusillade of rifle shots. Liam Hegarty, whether hit or not, managed to cross a low bank which served as the road fence on his side. Then turning left he travelled in its small shelter for a short distance before he fell. The other Volunteers and the children all escaped injury. However, a young man, Michael Lynch, lived a few hundred yards down the road to Macroom. Hearing the shooting he ran on to the roadway. He was mortally wounded by a rifle bullet. Whether the killers in the lorry aimed at him or not is not certain. But it is certain that one of the miscreants crossed the fence and shot Liam Hegarty again as he lay wounded”.

Ó Súilleabháin’s book, like many another that could give the lie to Hart, is long out of print. His summation of this critical turning point is as follows:

“What was the motive for this killing? The enemy did not mention any, but we came to the conclusion that it must have been a reprisal for recent attacks on them. The last action had taken place less than three weeks previously, at the Slippery Rock. Here one officer and ten men, fully armed, had been opposed to a fewer number of the IRA, only two of whom were armed with rifles. The British soldiers had been invited to surrender before fire was opened on them. The officer in charge had been killed and four men wounded, but there had been no unnecessary shooting … We had taken them as easily as we could possibly have done, and had helped the wounded to the best of our ability. The treacherous killing of an unarmed IRA man and a civilian, and the attempted massacre of others, including children, was not far off the Cromwell standard. Whether the motive was just a vengeful one, or calculated to inspire terror, its result fell very short of the mark. At that time the people of Ballyvourney, and indeed of all our area, would not yield an inch to tyranny or terror”.
“Bandage” Test
In spite of such murders and a further one in his own area of West Cork, none other than Tom Barry himself was also passing Harris’s “bandage” test with flying colours, in the hope that such murders would be the exception that proved the rule. In “Guerrilla Days in Ireland” Barry described as follows the outcome of the fight at Toureen on October 22, 1920:

“Five of the enemy were dead, including Captain Dickson, four were wounded and six unhurt, except for shock … Not one of the IRA was hit. The members of the Column helped to make the wounded Essex comfortable and supplied bandages to the unwounded for their comrades. The dead were pulled away from the vicinity of the lorry and it was sprinkled with petrol. The unwounded Essex were then lined up and told that their ruffianism during raids, their beatings of helpless prisoners and their terrorism of the civilian population were well noted, that their torturing of prisoners, as in the case of Hales and Harte, were not forgotten. They were also reminded that, in September, they had arrested Lieutenant John Connolly, Bandon, an unarmed man, and after holding him for a week in the barracks had taken him out to Bandon Park and had foully murdered him there. It was pointed out to them that on that day (at Toureen) they had been treated as soldiers, but if they continued to torture and murder they could expect to be treated only as murderers. An Essex sergeant, who was now in charge, then thanked the IRA for their fair treatment and protested his innocence of murder and torture, stating he would carry the message to his officers and comrades”.

To no avail. Britain had now unleashed the Auxies on the scene. Their false surrender would cost Barry the lives of two of his men at Kilmichael. But there would also be two Auxie murders in the weeks beforehand. To return to Ó Súilleabháin’s narrative:

“The next shooting, the cold-blooded and deliberate murder of a civilian, took place in the village of Ballymakeera on the evening of November 1, 1920 … The Auxies from Macroom, in the twilight, appeared in the village. One of their number entered a house, called out a married man named Jim Lehane (Séamus Ó Liatháin), a man who would not hurt a fly, and taking him across the road, shot him dead. Nine days later we lost Christy Lucey (Críostóir Ó Luasa) at Túirín Dubh, Ballingeary … He was not armed … A few weeks later these marauding Auxiliaries were trapped at Kilmichael … “.

So much for Hart’s false claim that “their first and only victim before Kilmichael was James Lehane”. Britain had indeed altered the character of warfare prior to Kilmichael but Kilmichael in turn altered the course of the war itself. And Ó Súilleabháin, who had all of the noble attributes that Harris would seek to personify in Mac Eoin, exulted in Barry’s victory. Moreover, Harris’s attempt to canonise Mac Eoin in order to demonise Barry is a non-starter. For there can be little doubt that the Flying Column Commander leader in Mac Eoin himself would also have led him to exult in his fellow-Commander’s victory.

Harris’s portrait of Seán Mac Eoin as a plaster saint was a smart alec stunt that carefully avoided any serious examination of the man’s own fighting record. But why, when he damned Barry for Kilmichael, did Harris make no mention at all of Dr. Kelleher, the Macroom coroner who had performed the autopsy on the Auxies’ corpses, and still less of his RIC son Phil whose Military Cross from the First World War was at least as significant as those listed by Harris in respect of the dead Auxies?

The problem for Harris is that Tom Barry was in no way responsible for the shooting of Phil Kelleher, nor for the follow-up killings of the two young Protestants charged with informing. That was the responsibility of quite a different Flying Column Commander – Harris’s own momentary hero, no less. For District Inspector Kelleher had been shot far from his native Macroom, in the bar of the Granard, Co. Longford hotel where he had taken up residence, the Greville Arms of Michael Collin’s fiancée Kitty Kiernan. In “Green Tears for Hecuba”, Pat Twohig puts it thus:

“Kelleher had been ‘unguarded’ in his remarks about the IRA in the wrong place, General Seán Mac Eoin’s home ground”.

With Kitty Kiernan herself serving in the bar, Kelleher had been drinking sherry and talking about the fine inexpensive wine to be got in France. Kitty had made her excuses to go upstairs and the piano started playing. Whereupon two men came to the door and shot Kelleher in the back. He immediately fell to the floor in a pool of blood. And in Seán Mac Eoin’s own memoirs, “With the IRA in the Fight for Freedom”, he dismissed Kelleher as “a young ex-army officer who was given orders to take action against the IRA and clean up the area”.

To borrow the language of what John A. Murphy said of Barry at Kilmichael, we might therefore conclude:

“At Granard, Seán Mac Eoin’s guerrillas did what guerrillas do”.

And the attempt by assorted revisionist scribes to denigrate the Kilmichael ambush, which struck such a mortal blow against the most powerful Empire in the world, is seen to be incapable of withstanding the light of day.

END

by Seán Ó Céilleachair - Kilmichael and Crossbarry Commemoration Committee Fri Jan 14, 2005 09:36

LETTER PUBLISHED IN IRISH EXAMINER 8 DECEMBER, 2004


A chara,

The unfounded and inaccurate allegations made by Peter Hart regarding the manner in which Tom Barry conducted the Ambush at Kilmichael on 28th November, 1920, were again challenged by Meda Ryan, Author of ‘Tom Barry IRA Freedom Fighter’, at ceremonies marking the 84th Anniversary of the historic ambush on Sunday the 28th November 2004. At the event which attracted much media attention, a large attendance listened attentively as Ms. Ryan outlined in detail the happenings of 84 years ago.

Turning to Peter Hart’s description of the ambush, she exposed the inaccuracies in his account with research findings from her publication showing that he relied to a great extent on British sources that have been found to be flawed and merely wartime propaganda.

Regarding Hart’s alleged interviews with two men whom he claims participated in the ambush, Meda Ryan questioned why such men would wish to remain anonymous and why does Peter Hart not name them? He claims to have carried out one interview in 1988 and the second one with a scout on 19th November, 1989. It is an established fact that the last survivor of the ambush at Kilmichael died on 13th November, 1989.

Evidence from many sources show that the British auxiliaries called a false surrender in the course of the ambush and then renewed their firing by shooting three of Barry’s riflemen.

In the interest of historical accuracy and in justice and fairness to the memory of Tom Barry and his comrades, I call again on Peter Hart to name the men whom he claims to have interviewed, so that the long established facts relating to the ambush can be upheld.

Is mise,

Seán Ó Céilleachair
Runai
Kilmichael and Crossbarry Commemoration Committee

by CAPTAIN ROCK Thu Jan 06, 2005 11:19

St. John's Telegram (Newfoundland) November 28, 2004 Sunday

HEADLINE: MUN professor disputes both versions of massacre pam frampton

Hilliard, Will M. (whill@thetelegram.com)

The 84th anniversary today of one of the bloodiest battles in Ireland's war of
independence - the ambush at Kilmichael in Co. Cork - arrives amid ongoing
debate over a book written by a Newfoundlander.

In his acclaimed book, The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork,
1916-1923 (Oxford University Press, 1998), Peter Hart disputes claims by a late
IRA leader that a band of British auxiliary soldiers opened fire on three of his
men after they stood up to take their surrender.

The ambush by an IRA column led by Tom Barry on Nov. 28, 1920, is still precious
in the hearts of Irish nationalists and has long been seen as a turning point in
the republicans' fight against British rule, which eventually led to the
founding of the Irish state in 1921.

Hart, a MUN history professor and a former academic with Queen's University in
Belfast, contends that Barry's account of a "false surrender" was made up to
excuse the cold-blooded execution at Kilmichael of 17 defeated Black and Tans,
or "Auxies," as they were called.

To support his conclusions, Hart cites a report said to be captured by the
British from Barry to his IRA commanders - a document which some dispute as a
British forgery - and seven unpublished accounts, including two from anonymous
eye witnesses he interviewed.

"Nobody disagrees with the fact that some of the auxiliary surrendered and were
then shot down and killed," said Hart. "The big question is what happened before
that - did the auxiliaries previously try to surrender and when the IRA came
forward, did they pull out guns and shoot them.

"The IRA version was designed to refute that there was a massacre, at the end
which involved mutilating bodies using axes. The British version (that bodies
were mutilated) was probably even more wrong.

"My basic point was that when you look closely both (sides) were lying. But the
version that has become accepted is the IRA's version, which said there was a
false surrender. Of course, the winners get to write the history."

British furor over the ambush was reflected in newspaper articles which
concocted allegations that the bodies of the dead auxiliaries were mutilated
with axes.

Hart's book, winner of the Christopher Ewart Biggs Memorial prize for 1998,
raised the issue of the morality of IRA operations.

"Kilmichael is really a microcosm of the war as a whole because both versions
are lies - both sides were constantly trying to put themselves in the best light
and to depict their enemies as evil terrorists," Hart said.

"People have been attacking me ever since (the book came out) - typically very
political people who are active nationalists or republicans.

"But it's not an anti-IRA book.

"I think my research agrees with their version of events, including their
version of who they were in terms of the kind of people who joined the IRA.
These weren't evil people, they were idealistic."

The ambush was a result of a string of retaliations. The IRA killed 11 British
agents Nov. 21, 1920. The British in turn killed 13 people and wounded 60 people
by shooting randomly in the audience of a Gaelic football match in Dublin. The
retaliation for that fell upon Barry's fighters of the famous and notorious
Third West Cork Brigade.

The ballads Barry's Column and The Boys of Kilmichael about the column's triumph
over the Auxies gave Barry a near-mythical status. The site is marked by a
monument today in memory of the killed IRA men.

Only one of the 18 Auxies survived the ambush. He is said to have suffered brain
damage.

Barry went to his grave in 1980 maintaining that the British faked their
surrender as a ruse to get a clear shot at his men, then opened fire with
revolvers. He claimed that two of the three men who stood up were killed.

Speaking on film before his death in 1980, Barry said: "I shouted at the same
time to the section, 'Keep firing and don't stop until I tell ye.' They tried to
surrender again and I said, 'Don't take any surrender.' ... We wouldn't take
prisoners after their false surrender and after killing two of our men."

Hart says his witnesses either explicitly denied Barry's version of what
happened or they make no mention of it at all in their accounts.

However, Barry's biographer, Meda Ryan, disputes Hart's claims. She told the BBC
last week that her own interviews with Barry and Kilmichael survivors, including
her uncle who was beside one of the IRA men when he was shot, do not corroborate
Hart's conclusions.

"Admittedly it was years later, but it was so vivid in their minds. ... In fact,
they were really adamant about the 'false surrender,' " she said.

Hart's book was published before evidence was uncovered by another historian,
Brian Murphy, that a British propaganda office at the time often ran fictitious
"official" accounts in the news to counter propaganda published by the
underground Irish parliament, Dail Eireann.

Murphy has said he believes the document cited in Hart's book represents British
"spin."

Hart is now finalizing a biography of Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, to be
published next year.

by Barry Wed Dec 22, 2004 17:38

Enjoyed reading the above piece. We also need to bear in mind the recent statement by British secretary of state Paul Murphy. Murphy (and Im sure this is the govt line) now claims that in light of the Stormont Agreements acceptance by nationalists, there was never a liberation struggle of the last 30 years, just a "prolonged sectarian riot".

From Dunmanway to Narrow water, the official British line seems to be remarkably consistent.

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:35 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

England has during the past four hundred years had the strong conviction that it is the agency through which Providence acts in the world. So why not describe what happened between 1914 and 1921 as Providential action which, against all that seemed probable in 1914, set Ireland on the road to independence? If England had not acted as it did, Irish Republicanism would not have had its opportunity and Ireland might well have been on the road to West Britain.

The North
The falsification of the past that goes under the name of "revisionism" is sometimes defended as a benevolent activity, inspired by a desire to end the conflict in the Six Counties. The suggestion is that Republican activity in the North has its source in the memory of the great injustice done by Britain in 1919-21, and that removal of the memory of that injustice would be an important contribution to peace in the North. But that is an excuse for Œrevisionism¹, not its reason or purpose.
Roy Foster hailed Hart¹s book as "a classic" in an Irish Times review (21st May, 1998) entitled Things Change; But Not Violence. It is, of course, only Irish violence that is always the same and is always bad. A move is currently afoot to make Remembrance Day--the annual sanctification of all British acts of violence since 1914 (seventy "military actions", according to the official count)--an event in Irish public life.
Hart says (Letter 5), "As I write, from Belfast, the terrible cost of hypocrisy and double standards is clear. Surely murder was murder in 1920, no matter who committed it, and surely it is time we can say so, and be governed simply by what the facts--and simple morality--tell us."
Alas! British morality is never simple. As befits a world-conquering state, its morality is always forensic.
The men who raised and armed an illegal Protestant Army in Ulster to defy the law in 1914 became Cabinet Ministers in 1915. Carson and Birkenhead were given the highest law offices in the state. And the officers at the Curragh, who mutineed in sympathy with the "Ulster" defiance of the law in 1914, were promoted to the heights of the British military profession during the following year. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the Curragh Mutiny became the High Command of the British Army.
That was the first round of breathtakingly brazen double standards. The second was the over-ruling of the 1918 Election after four years of "democracy" propaganda. The third was the decision, taken when it was becoming evident that Ireland as a whole had become ungovernable by Britain, to divide the country and hold as much as possible within the UK. And the fourth was the decision that the 6 Counties should not be governed within the democracy of Britain, but should have a separate governing system of its own. That separate system of government consisted in substance of the policing of the Catholic third of the population by organised force of the Protestant-Unionist two-thirds.
The Catholic discontent in the North, which broke out into warfare in 1970, had its source in the way the North was governed after Partition, not in nostalgia for things that happened fifty years earlier.
"Northern Ireland" was farmed out to the Ulster Unionist movement. The large Catholic minority--which was the majority in a large part of the mutilated "Province"--was cut off politically from the rest of Ireland. It was also cut off from the politics by which Britain was governed. It was subjected to a regime in which it could play no part and which was a travesty of the democratic system. It was subjected to two generations of humiliation by a domineering regime. But it was too big, too spirited, and too resourceful to be crushed by that regime.
That was the cause of the conflict that erupted in the North in 1969.
The writers of this article, after active participation in the defence of Catholic areas in Belfast in August 1969, devoted many years, from 1969 onwards, to an attempt to democratise the system by which the Six Counties was governed within the UK. The solution we proposed was the obvious one--that the North should be included within the democratic system of the British state. We thought it was no use expecting the IRA to wither away while the Catholic community was subjected to ritual humiliation by the Orange/Unionist system and deprived of an outlet for its political energy into the democratic politics of the state in which it had been compelled to live.
None of the "revisionist" writers supported us in that project. Not one of them. And British Governments of both parties rejected it utterly, as did the Ulster Unionists.
We conclude from this that the project of falsifying the history of the independence movement of 1918-21 has nothing whatever to do with helping to get peace in the North since it does not address the actual cause of the trouble in the North.
The systematic misgovernment of the North under Partition has been a continuously operative cause of conflict there.
The revisionists have never addressed that obvious cause of conflict in the North. Their purpose lies elsewhere. Their object in referring to the conflict in the North is to try to frighten the people of the Republic away from the history of the conflict through which the independence of the 26 Counties was achieved.
Ewan Butler, in the course of writing his book, Barry¹s Flying Column, corresponded with Lord Russell of Liverpool, who had been a British officer in County Cork in 1920-21. Russell later (in the 1950s) wrote very popular books about German and Japanese atrocities. He chose not to expose British atrocities in Ireland and his autobiography is conventionally anti-Irish. What Britain did was right. Nevertheless, he did not care to remember it forty years later:
"In a letter to the author, Lord Russell dismisses the sorrowful Anglo-Irish war with the words--¹Judgment for the plaintiff!Š Next case¹. Like many British officers who served in Ireland at this time he prefers not to remember that period in his career" (Butler, p82).
Many states would like certain things they did not to be remembered. Where memory of what other states did is advantageous to the British state, it ensures that nothing is forgotten. But, as the victor in a great many wars, it ensures that much of what is indefensible in its own conduct is effectively forgotten.
It was not the victor in its Black And Tan War. But, during the past generation, there has been in Ireland a naive willingness to facilitate Britain by forgetting the Black And Tans.
But, when Ireland forgets, Britain inserts a false memory. That is the lesson we have been taught by Adjunct Professor Hart. It is a useful lesson.
Jack Lane and Brendan Clifford

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Mon Dec 20, 2004 10:59 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

Why The Ballot Was Followed By The Bullet
A Comment On Revisionist Methodology

We do not pretend to have an expert knowledge of the Kilmichael Ambush and the circumstances surrounding it. But expert knowledge is not needed for seeing that Adjunct Professor Hart does not present evidence which warrants the certainty which he professes. He knows it to be a fact that there was no false surrender. But that is only part of what he knows. He also knows that there was a genuine surrender offer which was accepted by Barry and that Barry then ordered those who had surrendered to be shot out of hand.
These are clearly two distinction facts. But he treats them as one and the same fact. While affecting to subject the evidence to a process of logical deduction, he actually enters a mental haze in which the idea that there was no false surrender somehow includes the idea that there was an actual surrender which was accepted but not honoured.
In a book of 350 pages he had ample space to set out the full body of evidence, to draw out the various possibilities that it suggested, and to show the rigorous process of deduction which led him to conclude with certainty that there had been an actual and genuine surrender, followed by the killing of the prisoners. He does not do any of these things.
The possibility that there was no surrender at all is not even mentioned by him. But it seems to us that, if Barry¹s account is to be doubted, the strongest alternative case that could be made from the evidence presented by Hart is that there was a fight to a finish with no surrender at all.
All that would follow from that with regard to Barry is that, when he came to write his book, more than a quarter of a century after the event, he engaged in a bit of embroidery by including the false surrender story which (according to Hart himself) had been in general circulation by word of mouth since the time of the ambush, and which had in the 1930s been twice stated in print by others without contradiction. (Bro. Murphy showed that there had been three published statements of the false surrender before Barry¹s (Letter 6), but we are only commenting on the implications of what Hart presented.)
We are not suggesting that this was the case, only that Hart¹s credibility would be much greater than it is if, on the strength of his own evidence, he had opted for it. We can only suppose that he did not opt for it because it lacked the emotive force required for his propaganda purpose.
There are undoubtedly inaccuracies in Barry¹s account. For example, Meda Ryan discovered that the Auxiliary who was found alive when the British came to the ambush site the following day did survive. He was H.F. Forde, ex-RAF. He was awarded £10,000 compensation and he died in the 1970s (The Tom Barry Story, p198). And the Auxiliary who escaped was C.J. Guthrie, ex-RAF. He tried to make his way to Macroom across the fields; couldn¹t cross the Lee; went to a house where he asked to be driven in a pony and trap; was recognised by two Volunteers, who followed him, shot him and buried him in a bog. His body was later retrieved and buried in the graveyard at Inchegeela.
One feels when reading her biography that Meda Ryan is driven by a genuine heuristic urge--to put it philosophically--by a desire to find out. She would be entitled at the end of her investigations to say, Eureka! One does not feel that with Hart. His approach is best described by a word that everybody knew a generation ago, but that has fallen out of use: apologetics. What he searches for is fragments suitable for attaching to a conclusion decided in advance. He might have exclaimed as he finished his book: I have cobbled it together!
Meda Ryan considered the matter of the false surrender when writing her biography because she dealt with Barry¹s bad-tempered, but nevertheless intellectually capable and well written, reply to Deasy¹s book, The Reality Of The Anglo-Irish War 1920-21 In West Cork: Refutations, Corrections And Comments On Liam Deasy¹s "Towards Ireland Free" (1974). She concludes from her investigations that "there appears to have been a false surrender". And she says in her letter that she interviewed the two last survivors of the ambush and both said there had been a false surrender. One of these was Paddy O¹Brien, who did not mention it in his account as published by Deasy.
She quotes Barry:
"We advanced into them still firing making sure they were all dead. Now for that I take full responsibility. The only blame I have to myself is that I didn¹t warn those young lads about the old war trick of a false surrender" (p35).
And she relates this incident:
"One Volunteer told me that he had come behind a man and ordered him to drop the gun which he did. He was walking him up the road as a prisoner when a shot dropped him to his feet. At this stage Barry didn¹t want prisoners--especially men who used deceptive tactics" (p35).
A month before Kilmichael thee had been an ambush of two lorries at Toureen. Due to the failure of a mine to explode, the first lorry escaped. The second lorry ran into a ditch. A few soldiers were killed. The rest surrendered, were subjected to moral exhortation, and were sent on their way. That night the Black and Tans went on the rampage in Bandon led by a Sergeant who had been set free after surrender.
The Republicans did not have a secure territorial base for a POW Camp. Releasing surrendered Black-and-Tans on their parole not to engage in further hostilities was not a practical option. The Black And Tans were not bound by obligations of honour towards the enemy. They were officially encouraged into a very different kind of conduct. If it were open to any group of Black And Tans that was not winning a fire-fight and was on the way to extermination by the enemy to say, "We surrender", give up their weapons, and return to barracks for new ones, the Republican war would have become farcical.
Barry, according to his own account, went to war in 1915 because he wanted to see what war was like. He had a vocation for soldiering and acquired a professional sense of honour. We take it that Paddy O¹Brien went to war because the British Government continued governing Ireland after its right to do so had been categorically rejected by the democracy of Ireland in the 1918 Election. He engaged in shooting British soldiers because they wouldn¹t go away. Given the conduct of the British administration, and the kind of activity it encouraged in the Black And Tans, and given the circumstances under which the IRA had to fight, it seems reasonable to us to suppose that Paddy O¹Brien just forgot to mention the false surrender when he wrote the account of Kilmichael for Deasy. They understood at the start that it was to be a fight to the finish and that those left standing would walk away. The IRA certainly did not have the option of surrender. And why should yet another dirty trick by the Black And Tans and Auxiliaries loom large in his mind? British dirty tricks were ten a penny in those years, so why make a great fuss about this particular one?
In any case what O¹Brien describes is a fight to a finish which ended when one side was all dead, or appeared to be. He most definitely does not describe an accep-ted surrender and a subsequent execution of the prisoners.

A book entitled, Barry¹s Flying Column, was published in London in 1971. Its author, Ewan Butler, was an English gentleman, who served in the Special Operations Executive of the British Army (or at least, of the British state) during the Second World War. The SOE was an official Œdirty tricks¹ operation. Butler did not seem to find it at all hard to believe that the Auxiliaries could have tried the false surrender tactic.

General Crozier likewise was not incredulous. Hart disparages him and suggests that he was biased, but neglects to mention that Crozier was the General commanding the Auxiliary Division. He also neglects to mention that in 1913-14 Crozier joined the Ulster Unionists and took an active part in training the Ulster Volunteer Force. (He was himself retired from active service at the time, but he conspired with senior officers who were on active service.)
Crozier was involved in a road accident about a week before Kilmichael, which put him in hospital for a month, and in a convalescent home for a further three weeks:
"Unconscious for days, my eyes opened in the glare caused by the burning of Cork, one of the most disgraceful affairs in the history of the British ArmyŠ A soldier may be Œgood¹ and serve on Œhumdrum¹ for years and years unnoticed till suddenly confronted with some Œfive minutes of emergency¹ in the solution of which he may show his worth or fail. ŒCork¹ was one of those occasions" (p109).
He tried to impose discipline on the Auxiliaries and, without questioning Britain¹s right to continue governing Ireland even though it lost the election, tried to get his Division to act according to the law which Britain was professing to uphold. He found that his disciplinary measures were being set aside by a higher authority. In the Summer of 1921 he brought murder charges against one group and dismissed another and sent them back to England, resisting political pressure to turn a blind eye to things. When he found that the group he dismissed had been reinstated, he resigned his commission. His resignation was debated in Parliament, and that debate set a precedent for "democratic finesse and graft" (p134).

Hart takes issue with Barry¹s statement that the Column that fought at Kilmichael "Šwas composed of new men, only one of whom had fought previously" etc. He comments:
"they were not strangers and they had a great deal in common. Most had joined the movement in 1917Š They were wanted men even before the ambush, Šon the run for months or even years. A good number had arrest records and had spent time in gaol. NineŠ had taken part in the great hunger strike in Wormwood Scrubs prisonŠ There were not quite the Œnew men¹ depicted by Tom BarryŠ They were, rather, experienced local leaders and activists--¹hard men¹--with years of organizing experience behind them, and many battles ahead of them. Two had been wounded in previous fights. Another died and seven more were interned in 1921. Five were still with the Column at CrossbarryŠ It was Barry who was the new man, the outsider" (p132).
Hart was very industrious in the cobbling together of this book, but his industry was beside the point. In this instance, the trouble is that Barry did not say that the men in the Column were new to the Republican movement, or that he was himself a Republican old hand. Anybody reading his book without being on the lookout for a phrase to wrench out of context would understand Barry to be saying that the most of the men in the Column were without either battle experience or extensive training for battle. We cannot judge whether that statement was accurate. We only say that what Hart criticises is a statement that Barry did not make.
Political ability and military ability are not interchangeable. And a "hard man" in one context is not necessarily a hard man in another context. Civilian wimps may flourish in battle conditions and civilian hard men may crumble. Meda Ryan found that one of the Volunteers at Kilmichael suffered extreme culture shock, his hair turned white within six months, and he became a physical wreck. He was presumably what Hart calls a Œhard man¹ before that event. But it turned out that the environment in which he was functional was not that of battle.
A reverse case was C.E. Montague, Deputy Editor of the Manchester Guardian, son of an unfrocked Irish priest, a Home Ruler, who wrote the bloodthirsty war propaganda against the Hun in August 1914 when the Editor, C.P. Scott, recoiled from the task. Montague eventually propagandised himself into enlisting. He was on the surface an immensely cultured and aesthetic person, but he found that he loved being in battle and under fire and he didn¹t want to leave the front line.
Barry knew from his own extensive battle experience that, until the moment of battle, everyone is a Œnew man¹ in that line of business, and that you never can tell in advance who has the qualities to be a soldier. Hart may not be able to understand this. But he really should have been able to understand that battle experience gained on or after November 28th did not exist before November 28th.
Hart¹s book is shot through with carping of this kind. The cumulative effect is not to undermine Barry¹s reputation, but to bring out his qualities into sharper relief, and to reduce Hart¹s own credibility to shreds.
There is, for example, the paragraph about the scouts used at Kilmichael:
"These were local men, the Œsmall fry¹, the ones without guns whose names are rarely mentioned in the chronicles. Kilmichael was their territory--they and their neighbours would probably be blamed by the police--but it was the gunmen who were in charge" (p131).
There was to be a battle and it was the people with guns who were in charge of it! How unusual! Wellington no doubt gave charge of his famous battle to the villagers and farmers of Waterloo?
"The events of 28 November may have made them heroes of songs, but it did not make them revolutionaries. Tom Barry may have made them victors and killers, but years of hardship and struggle brought them togetherŠ
"What the ambush did produce was ŒBarry¹s flying column¹Š ŒBarry¹s column¹ contained only those who were loyal to him personallyŠ These were Barry¹s men, just as other Œbig fellas¹ in West Cork and elsewhere ha their followers" (p133).
Certainly Kilmichael did not make them revolutionaries. But, if revolutionaries do not become "victors", what happens to the revolution?
And certainly Barry wanted a cohesive fighting unit that was responsive to his will. Armies are not democratic. Even democratic armies are not democratic. Authoritative command is indispensable in battle.
Britain was the dominant state in the world in 1920. It had just become a democracy in its homeland in 1918. Its Army had an extensive infrastructure and a book of rules along with a vastly experienced body of officers and NCOs. And yet the personal element in command was still thought to be necessary. (If Crozier found he was not in effective command of the Auxiliary Division, that was because he tried to act the part of a regular soldier in a Special Force and refused to take heed of the special instructions the Government gave him by nods and winks.)
The British Army in North Africa greatly outnumbered and outgunned the German forces when Montgomery took command, and yet Montgomery took some trouble to develop an esprit de corps of "Monty¹s Army".
In Ireland in 1920, effective fighting units had to be built from scratch under constant harassment by the British forces that saturated the country, and in those circumstances the personal element acquired maximum importance.
As for "the other Œbig fellas¹ and their followers"--we did not know that there were many other Kilmichaels or that there was anything else comparable to Crossbarry.
Britain decided to put the 1918 Election result to the test of war. Everything then came to depend on the war. And the major actions in the war--the actions which made a major impact on the imagination of the enemy command--were the ruthlessly executed ambush of an elite Special squad at Kilmichael and the complex manoeuvres successfully implemented at Crossbarry.
Hart refers in one of his letters to Barry¹s "self-constructed reputation", a use of words which suggests self-publicity. But Barry¹s reputation grew out of the quality of his military actions.

A final example of Hart¹s method:
"In retrospect, participants on both sides claimed the upper hand in the months approaching the TruceŠ
"When Winston Churchill¹s military secretary talked to staffs around the country, Œthey all without exception, said the rebels were beaten, and that, if instead of agreeing to an armistice, the Government had stuck it out for another fortnight, they would have been glad to surrender¹Š
"A similar chorus of frustration issued from IRA men opposed to the Irish Treaty after 7 December. Sean Moylan, a TD for North Cork as well as its brigade leader, argued furiously in the Dail that Œwe have driven the British garrison into the Sea¹. Florence O¹Donoghue, a city staff officer, maintained thatŠ the south Munster brigades Œheld the initiative and were confident of being able to retain it. For Liam Deasy, commander of the West Cork Brigade at the time of the truce, Œit seemed to me that our struggle had brought us to a pos-i-tion of strength which warranted high expectations.¹ Tom Barry felt that the IRA Œwas capable, not alone of fighting back, but of actually threatening to smash their military power in Ireland in the not too distant future¹." (p104-5.)
Barry was against the Treaty. He was not against the Truce. And he comments, unkindly but not unfairly, on Deasy¹s "fatuous optimism" about the military position of the IRA at the time of the Truce (Reality Of Anglo-Irish War, p50). He saw Deasy as being essentially a staff officer who believed too much in the impressive structure of the IRA, as established on Divisional paper. Barry himself believed in the military existence of actual fighting units, of which there were not many, and he saw the formation of Divisions which combined active and inactive Brigades as delusory.
The idea underlying the formations of Divisions was that the active Brigades would operate throughout the Divisional area and thus activate the inactive Brigades. Barry did not think the active Brigades would be effective outside their own areas, or that many of the Volunteers would agree to try it. And he was scathing about the ideas that Deasy¹s Divisional enthusiasm gave rise to:
"DeasyŠ writes: ŒFortunately the dark nights had passedŠ the tide of battle was definitely turning in our favour.¹ How any responsible man could write such trash about April 1921 I do not know. Here we were, coming to a darker night of a brighter summer, far more favourable to the enemy¹s huge round-ups; with the British Prime Minister publicly threatening to send in, if necessary, a quarter of million troops and Black-and-Tans; with the British army staffs planning the Œblockhouse system¹ of cutting off area by area, with massive internment--and our chronic shortage of ammunition. No doubt, some of us might survive it, and in some way harass them, but the solution would not have been found in Deasy¹s council meetings and highfalutin¹ words of victory" (The Reality etc., p42. The blockhouse system was an element in the system of area sweeps and Concentration Camps by means of which Britain won the Boer War.)
Barry concludes Guerilla Days with a chapter on the Truce, in which he quotes from the Diaries of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, about his plans for Ireland in May 1921. And this is his comment on the Truce, in the paragraph from which Hart extracts two lines suitable for his purpose:
"Had the enemy felt capable of doing so different terms would have been offered, terms similar to those at the close of all the many armed efforts of previous generations of Irishmen. Since the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 down to and including 1916 the British terms to defeated Irish soldiers had always been unconditional surrender followed by a massacre of the Irish leaders. But now they had an army that was capable, not alone of fighting back but of actually threatening to smash their military power in Ireland in the not far distant future. While the Army survived and fought on, nothing under God could have broken the nation¹s will to victory. Patriotic and brave men might die on the scaffold, on hunger strike or endure British jails; mass meetings might demand our freedom; electors vote for a Republic, writers and poets cry aloud of British tyranny and of Ireland¹s sufferings, but none of those would have induced the lords of the Conquest to undo their grip or even discuss our liberation. The only language they listened to or could understand was that of the rifle, the revolver, the bomb and the crackling of flames which cost them so dearly in blood and treasure."
So the words wrenched out of context by Hart do not express a condemnation of the Truce as a device by which imminent victory was thrown away, but a conviction that the IRA would have survived the blockhouse system and would have won in the end.
"Gradually it dawned on me that the forcing of the enemy to offer such terms was a signal victory", he wrote in Guerilla Days. And in The Reality Of The Anglo-Irish War: "There was nothing wrong in the terms of the Truce from an Irish viewpoint, but it was the six long-drawn-out months during which the army of the republic deteriorated, with the resultant Treaty and the civil war, which were a curse to our nation. Had we all had the gift to foresee the future, very few of the active service leaders would have favoured the Truce, but who had that gift" (p56).

Why The IRA Was Formed
Tom Barry was probably right when he wrote that "when the people voted at the end of 1918 for the Republic, very few visualised then that a guerilla war was in the offing" (The Reality, p52). For four years the world had been deluged by Britain with propaganda about democracy and the rights of small nations, and it might be that large numbers of Irish electors believed that Irish independence was to be had by voting for it.
But the British Parliament did not see itself as being bound, after victory had been gained, by the impressive democratic aims stated by the British Government when declaring war and recruiting Irishmen to fight it. It ignored the Irish election result and continued governing the country. And it did not even explain why it did not see the Irish election result as falling within the terms it had proclaimed to the world when it declared war on Germany. It just carried on governing Ireland as if there had been no election.
That is why the IRA was formed.
If Britain had accepted the verdict of the ballot in Ireland, there would have been no need for the Irish to have recourse to the bullet. But, when Britain rejected the verdict of the ballot, the Irish had a straightforward choice between taking by force what they had already voted for, or writing themselves off as a bad joke.
The British authorities did not believe that the Irish would be able to take themselves in earnest as a national democracy. They did not believe that the Irish would be able to summon up the sustained force that would be needed to give effect to the election result. Their conviction was that, if British authority stood firm, the will of the Irish would crumble. Irish agitations would always break on the solid rock of the British Empire--that was the conclusion which they drew from the history of the previous hundred years.
The power of the British Empire had never appeared greater than it did in that winter of 1918-19. Britain had just won the greatest war ever fought. The British Empire was in 1914 already the greatest Empire the world had ever seen, and it had been made still greater by the conquest of Mesopotamia, Jordan and Palestine, and by the seizure of German colonies in Africa.
And what, after all, was this democratic election in Ireland but another agitation? Peoples were inclined to use their votes frivolously when they were first given the vote. It was natural that the first flush of democracy should have the character of an agitation. The agitator can cry for the moon, but the democratic elector must learn by experience that not everything can be had by wanting it, and that votes for unachievable aims don¹t count.
What the Irish democracy voted for on its first outing was unachievable. Pursuit of the unachievable leads to chaos. The Irish would learn that through experience, and the next time out they would vote for something else--something more modest and reasonable--in fact, something very close to what they already had.
That is the best construction that can be put on British policy between 1918 and 1921. And it is very close to the position stated by Major C.J.C. Street, official propagandist of the British administration, in his book, The Administration Of Ireland 1920, which was published in April 1921. Major Street knew that: "The history of Ireland teaches that firmness on the part of its rulers is the first step towards winning the trust of the population".

Major Street
Modern "revisionist" writing about Irish affairs in that period is little more than an amplified echo of what Major Street published almost eighty years ago. He is not often referred to by the revisionists, who are cute in their generation. It would not be advantageous to their cause to let it be seen that they have taken their line from a Castle propagandist at the height of the Black-and-Tan terror. Major Street is therefore not given his due. But if you have read his book (which is to be found only in a few libraries) then all you can see in the books of the pioneers of revisionism (Professor Charles Townshend and Professor David Fitzpatrick) and of their followers (Professor Garvin, Professor Bew, Professor Patterson, Professor Murphy, Professor Foster, Adjunct Professor Hart, etc.) is a filling out of the concepts and arguments first used by Major Street.
There is nothing unusual in the victor in war writing its history and imposing his ideas on the losers. But the British did not win the Black-and-Tan War. Major Street was a propagandist of the losing side. So how does it happen that Irish academic historians are regurgitating Street¹s British propaganda as Irish history eighty years later?
Tom Barry would not be surprised by it. He was well acquainted with "Irish sycophancy"--the mental subservience of a certain stratum in Ireland towards the greater power of Britain.
British power acting on weakmindedness in Irish academic produces Irish revisionism.
*
Major Street¹s assertion that British "firmness" won the "trust" of the Irish did seem in 1920 to be the lesson that history taught. Of course "trust" is the wrong word for what was won. ŒAcquiescence¹ is about the strongest word warranted by the facts. But, when a population is effectively intimidated into acquiescence by the authority of a masterful power, that power will put what word it pleases on it.
Major Street¹s view was that the Irish democracy voted for an impossible object in 1918, and that Britain therefore had the duty of bringing it back to its senses. More recently, the object for which the Irish democracy voted in 1918 has been described as "visionary" by Roy Foster. As we understand that word, when something is visionary, it is a wild and unrealisable imagining.
Roy Foster does not spell out why the aim of establishing an independent Irish state was visionary. But Major Street does not conceal why it was impossible.
It was impossible because Britain, the greatest Empire the world had ever seen, had just won the greatest war in history, and it did not intend to let Ireland secede from the Empire.
Impossibility usually means inconsistent with nature. A vote to secede from the law of gravity would be a vote for an impossibility--for a visionary project. But the British Empire loomed so large in certain minds--and still does in some, judging by Roy Foster--that it took on the character of a force of nature.
Impossibility has a way of forcing itself on the attention of those who are attempting to do the impossible, and Major Street thought that was happening in Ireland at the end of 1920:
"There can be no doubt that at the end of the year the outlook in Ireland was considerably brighter than could have been anticipated some months earlier" (p60). "It is believed that if a General Election were held to-morrow Sinn Fein would not sweep the polls as it did in 1918" (This is from a police report in Co. Kildare, p63). "There is no doubt that, even apart from the obvious impossibility of allowing the establishment of an admittedly hostile Irish Republic at the gateway of Europe, the majority of the Irish people would not welcome a solution of the Irish Question which involved the detachment of Ireland from the British Empire. The status of an Independent nation would undoubtedly appeal to Irish sentiment, but nations cannot exist upon sentiment alone, and the material advantages of partnership in the Empire make a stronger appeal to the mind of an agricultural community than even sentiment. The problem before the Government was therefore the restoration of law and order, and particularly the suppression of the campaign of murder and terrorism, while at the same time proceeding with a measure of Home Rule which would satisfy the inarticulate majority, whose existence was screened by the conspicuous activities of the extremists" (p69).
What else could Britain do in 1919--Britain being what Britain is--but over-rule this popular Irish agitation by firm government? It knew from experience that the "inarticulate majority", though united by sentiment with the "extremist minority", would fall back into subservience when the hopelessness of the attempt to get what they had voted for sank in.
The British Government stood firm when O¹Connell assembled a million men at Tara in a demonstration in support of Repeal of the Act of Union, and the Repeal movement withered. Sinn Fein only got about that many votes in 1918, and it is much easier to put a mark on a piece of paper in the privacy of a polling booth than to come out in a demonstration under the eyes of a hostile police and a hostile army. Was it conceivable that Sinn Fein would hold firm--Sinn Fein, which was only a grouping of tradesmen and "peasants"--where the Repealers led by the charismatic Liberator had melted away?
But Sinn Fein did hold firm. And whatever doubts--or pretended doubts--there may have been about the validity of the 1918 General Election result were dissolved by the local elections of 1920. The new local Councils transferred their allegiance--and their dues--from the unelected British administration to the Dail.
Westminster, however, over-rode the local election ballot just as contemptuously as it had over-ridden the Parliamentary ballot. It could no longer be doubted that the only power it would submit to in Ireland was the power of the gun. The war to give effect to the democratic mandate therefore intensified in 1920 and 1921.

But how did it happen that an Irish Republican Army appeared in 1919 to give effect to the democratic electoral mandate for independence?
The need for such an Army was obvious. The lack of it would make voting a futile activity in Ireland. But needs do not always create the things that are needed. The need for an Irish Army was very much greater in 1847--when the British Army was guarding the export of food in the midst of Famine--than it was in 1919. And yet no Irish military force emerged in 1847. And the attempt at armed rebellion in 1848 was a fiasco.

The Irish Incapacity For Political Violence
A book was published in 1983 with the title, Political Violence In Ireland. It was published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford University, which has the most distinguished lineage of all English publishers. It says in its opening sentence: "The Irish propensity for violence is well known; at least to the English". Books may have begun with statements that are less true than that, but there can¹t be many of them.
English propaganda publicised a caricature of the Irish as having a propensity for violence. But English rule was conducted on the assumption that the Irish had very little capacity for violence--for political violence, that is: violence applied in affairs of state.
The writer of that book is Professor Charles Townshend. In 1975 Townshend published The British Campaign In Ireland, 1919-1921 (Oxford University Press). These books echo Major Street¹s books on Ireland in 1920 and 1921, and they set the pattern for the Œrevisionist¹ writing of recent years, including Adjunct Professor Peter Hart¹s book (also published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford).
The truth is that the Irish capacity for political violence was broken in the Williamite Conquest of 1690-91, and any remnants of it were scotched during the long age of the Penal Laws and the rack-renting.
The extremes of landlordism were occasionally curbed, or punished, by direct action at local level. And there was extensive direct action of this kind, sustained over a long period, in the region from North Kerry, along the Cork/Limerick borderland, to Tipperary. But the degree of Whiteboy action in this region was exceptional. And even here it can hardly be said to have reached the level of politics. It did not have some purpose of state as its object.
People who are being tormented will sometimes hit back. Where England is concerned, the tormenting has always been done through the medium of law--or at least under the ideology of law. The Penal Laws, like the Nuremberg Laws, were laws. Fr. Peter Walsh expressed the opinion three hundred years ago that oppression conducted under the form of law was no better than lawless oppression--and he was in many respects a conciliator or appeaser of the English state. But oppression conducted systematically under the ideology of law is obliged by its own pretences to put high-sounding names on actions which are a blind retaliation by essentially helpless victims against the immediate instruments of their torment. The victims may be accused of sedition or treason, even though the state may be beyond their comprehension, and their power of political action may be nil.
The English authorities were well aware in 1919 of the actual history of English rule in Ireland. They knew that the Irish capacity for political violence--violence conducted for a purpose of state--was very slight. The British state was always engaged in political violence. It had been at war almost permanently since 1690. The Irish capacity for sustained political violence was broken in the early 1690s.
Although the major engagements in 1798 were in the Wexford region, they were in great part a spirited response to intense provocation by the state. The organising of the United Irish movement, both political and military, was the work of elements in the Anglo-Irish gentry and the Ulster Presbyterians. And, after the suppression of the Rebellion and the passing of the Act of Union, these elements were quickly drawn into the service of the Empire in politics and war.
The "Cabbage Patch Rebellion" of 1848 was the first serious attempt at a native act of political violence. It was followed in the 1850s by the organising of the Fenian conspiracy. But conspiracy was something that the English state--the arch-conspirator of modern times--was very capable of dealing with. The Fenian Rising of 1867 was put down with impressive efficiency.
After 1691, the Irish capacity for political violence was exported to the Continent. The English state encouraged this in the first instance and connived at it later, even though it meant that it sometimes encountered Irish Brigades in its wars on the Continent.
The totalitarian mode of Irish Government under the Penal Laws ensured that there was no military feed-back to Ireland from the Irish Brigades in the Continental Armies. The energetic and adventurous young men were siphoned off. They were lost to Ireland. But they had at least the satisfaction of sometimes fighting the enemy, even though they did so in wars that were of no benefit to Ireland.
Later in the 18th century there was extensive Irish recruitment into the British Army. The demoralising effect of the Penal Laws was so great that their victims became instruments of the Army that upheld them.
(The Minstrel Boy is still played every year as part of the militaristic ceremonies at the Whitehall Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. So is Flowers Of The Forest--the lament for the Scottish dead, massacred at Culloden in 1746. The spirit of the Highlands was broken by a regime of terror during the years after Culloden, and when the terror had done its work, Highland Regiments were formed in the British Army, and they helped Britain to do to others what it had done so effectively to the Highlands. That is called reconciliation.)
The state of affairs with regard to Political Violence In Ireland before the Great War was that the only bodies of Irishmen that were organised and armed and ready to commit acts of violence for political purposes were in the British Army and the illegal but tolerated Loyalist army in Ulster. The only Irish military tradition that existed was a shadowy survival of a remnant of the Fenian conspiracy--the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The IRB was a kind of headquarters staff without an Army. In its American base it kept alive the ideas and ideals of the Fenian move-ment amongst a handful of people. In Ireland it was immersed in cultural activities.

How The IRA Was Made Possible
Tom Barry contributed a Foreword to a book published in London in 1971, Barry¹s Flying Column by Ewan Butler. He wrote:
"Shortly after the American Civil War, in which thousands of Irishmen fought on both sides, General Richard Taylor of Louisiana, lately a General of the Army of the Confederation, said: ŒStrange people, these Irish! Fighting in every one¹s battles and cheerfully taking the hot end of the poker, they are only found wanting when engaged in what they believe to be their national cause¹.
"Half a century ago the old Irish Republican Army took the hot end of the poker in Ireland¹s cause".
How did it happen?
Britain over-ruled the 1918 Election result, confident that this act of political violence would succeed. All its political violence over the centuries had succeeded, when its regime of oppression was much more tangible than was the case in 1919. Why should the Irish strain at the gnat after they had swallowed numerous elephants?
It was the destiny of the Irish to fight every one¹s battles but their own. The most recent battles they had fought were Britain¹s. The British state was expert at subverting the development of an Irish political will and harnessing Irish energy to British purposes. The Irish--the nationalist Irish--had just helped to add millions of square miles to the British Empire. Was it likely that now, at the eleventh hour, they would turn around and make war on the British Empire in support of a foolish vote?
It was not likely. But it is what happened.

In 1919 Ireland went to war for the first tie since 1691.

The combination of influences that brought about that startling change in Irish behaviour included the participation of the nationalist middle class in Britain¹s Great War on Germany and its war of conquest in Arabia; the Easter Rising; the suspension of the electoral basis of British government in 1915; the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force; the IRB; the Conscription crisis; the democratisation of the electorate in 1918; the Election result; and the glaring contrast between the principles asserted in the British war propaganda against Germany and British conduct with relation to Ireland after the Election.
We will not attempt to say which was the determining influence. Each of them was a necessary condition of what happened.

Unelected Government: 1915-1918
The electoral mandate of the Government, given in 1910, ran out in 1915. Parliament, which was "sovereign", decided to maintain a Government without the distraction of an election until the end of the war. So there was unelected government for three years. That was all very well in England, where the population had been moulded over the generations to the requirements of imperialist war and found spiritual satisfaction in the membership of a Great Empire at war. A mandate for war could always be taken as being implicit in British Election results. But the last thing most voters for John Redmond¹s Home Rule Party had in mind in 1910 was going to war in support of a British Imperialist venture.
Nothing much happened in the internal political life of Britain between 1915 and 1918--except the collapse of the Liberal Party under the stress of the war it had started, and the formation of a Coalition under the Liberal defector, Lloyd George. But that change was of great consequence to Ireland. It brought the Unionists into govern-ment, and the extremists, Carson and Birkenhead, into the Cabinet. Home Rule was on the Statute Book, but those who had sworn a Covenant against it were in power.
Carson was already in the Cabinet (in Asquith¹s Coalition) when the 1910 electoral mandate ran out in December 1915. An election held in December 1915 would undoubtedly have been influenced by Carson¹s presence in the Government.
Unionist influence increased in Lloyd George¹s Coalition, 1916-18. And major changes occurred in Ireland which could not be registered in electoral representation.
The suspension of elected government during three eventful years was a condition of the startling election result of 1918. And that election result was a powerful moral stimulus guiding subsequent events.

Democratisation Of The Franchise
It was a maxim of British statesmanship over the centuries that major reforms of the state should not be enacted under pressure of wartime emergency. But a major extension of the franchise was undertaken during the Great War. In 1914 the electorate was a minority of the adult population, and Government and Opposition were united against the demand for women¹s suffrage. In 1918 there was general adult male suffrage and women had the vote on a more restricted franchise. The electorate was doubled at a stroke. This had to be done because the easy victory expected in 1914 did not materialise, because Conscription--that alien device of "lesser breeds without the law"--had to be introduced in 1916 to keep the war effort going, and because women were needed for the production of war material.
This great increase in the electorate was of little immediate political consequence in England. It did not affect the outcome of the Election. All classes participated in the Imperialist triumphalism of the moment and the Lloyd George Coalition--"the men who won the war"--was elected with a sweeping majority. (It would not be accurate to say that it was re-elected, because it was not an elected Government in the first place.)
But it seems probable that the democratisation of the franchise made a significant difference to the election result in Ireland. It is unlikely that, if the 1918 Election had been held on the minority franchise of the 1910 Election, Sinn Fein would have gained such a conclusive victory.
The newly enfranchised elements of the population helped to make the Election a watershed event in Irish Constitutional history. But the revisionist historians attempt to use this very fact to invalidate the Election. They represent it as a revolt of the young men against their more mature and experienced elders, rather than against Britain.
It was certainly the case that the acquisition of voting power by the young men and the women helped to blow away the attitudes of subservience towards Britain held by many of the Œmature¹ Redmondites. But it is a strange kind of democratic argument--and the revisionists would have us believe that they are all ultra-democrats--which holds that an Election result is invalidated by the fact that the Election was held on a democratic franchise!

The War Propaganda And The Vote For Independence
The nature of the British war propaganda, and the decision of the Irish MPs elected in 1910 to commit Ireland to the British war on Germany and Turkey, were important ingredients in the mixture that brought about the Sinn Fein Election victory and the war to make it effective.
Ireland had never voted to be independent of Britain until 1918. The reason for that is that until 1914 Britain had always made it clear that the independence of Ireland was not something that was to be had by voting for it.
The electoral history of Ireland--as distinct from the colonial stratum in Ireland--began with the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 and the Reform Act of 1832. During the eighty years that followed, the conclusive argument against Irish independence was the argument of brute force. Britain would not permit it, and Britain was the most powerful state in the world, and was growing more powerful every year. Ireland was told that it would remain part of the Empire, even though the Empire was "gall and wormwood" to it. Britain had a great Imperial destiny to accomplish in the world, and the independence of Ireland was incompatible with that destiny. A vote for independence would be a wasted vote.
More than that--the advocacy of Irish separation from Britain was treason.
O¹Connell spent his life tacking against the political realities of brute force. He was an ingenious lawyer and he devised schemes to outmanoeuvre the Constitution. But in the end it always came down to brute force. And he shrank from putting the issue to the test of force at Clontarf.
Independence was not to be had by voting for it--that was a fact of life known to everyone in politics. And that is sufficient explanation of why Ireland never voted for independence until 1918--it voted under duress.
When Ireland did vote for independence in 1918, the Unionist press--and some of the Redmondite press--said that the vote was an act of war. The distinction between the ballot and the bullet was not then very meaningful to them.
But the British war propaganda against Germany, by means of which a couple of hundred thousand Irish had been recruited into the British Army, was absolutely incompatible with the rules of the Parliamentary game as applied to Irish affairs by Britain. What sense did it make for the Irish to join the British Army in order to fight for democracy and the rights of small nations, and then come home and accept that none of this applied to Ireland?
To argue that Ireland ought to remain in the Empire--having just helped to add a million square miles to it--was one thing. But to argue, in the light of the propaganda by which the Irish were recruited for the Great War, that Ireland did not have the right to become independent by voting for it--that was schizophrenic.
Irish participation in the British Army in the Great War was different in kind from anything that preceded it.
The large numbers of Irish in the British Army prior to 1914 were recruited from the poor and demoralised layers of Irish society. And the Anglo-Irish were heavily represented in the British officer class. But in 1914 the Œrespectable¹ classes of nationalist Ireland flocked into the British Army at the urging of John Redmond an his colleagues. They imagined that they were somehow advancing the Irish national interest and the general cause of democracy by enlisting to "fight the Hun". They took commissions from the Crown. And they contributed to the ideology of the War, not understanding that it was mere recruiting propaganda to mobilise the human resources of the Empire for further conquests.
These were not ŒWild Geese¹, or demoralised slum-dwellers, or people who had been swept off the land by the Anglo-Irish rack-renters. These were in great part the resurgent people of Ireland, doing what they thought was their moral duty, and intending to come back home again and tend to domestic affairs when the world had been made safe for democracy, and the rights of small nations had been guaranteed.
The successful military recruitment of the respectable classes for a foreign war in 1914 was an event from which there would be feedback into Irish political affairs. The kind of feedback it would be depended largely on whether British conduct was guided by the principles asserted in the recruiting propaganda. It wasn¹t. And there was never any realistic possibility that it would be.
As British purposes were revealed in British actions, the war was seen to be another war of Imperialist expansion. In principle it was of a kind with all the other British wars since 1690. It differed only in that the practice of it was raised to catastrophic proportions.

Conscription
When the war effort could no longer be sustained by Œvoluntary¹ recruitment, Conscription was introduced. The voluntary recruitment included a strong element of informal coercion. Nevertheless, it could be pretended until 1916 that the war effort was the spontaneous response of the free people of the United Kingdom to a worthy cause. Conscription ended all of that.
Over the centuries the British state had prided itself on the fact that, unlike the Continental states, it did not conscript its subjects for military service and that all its soldiers had volunteered for the job.
The Continental states had compulsory military service because they did not have easily defensible natural frontiers. And it was the object of British Œbalance-of-power¹ strategy to keep the Continent simmering.
France had the Pyrenees as a natural defence on one side. It attempted to gain the Rhine as a natural defence on the other side. Britain fought wars to stop it from achieving this. France therefore had to cope with an eastern border which was a mere line on a map.
With the final subjugation of Ireland in the 1690s and the Parliamentary Union with Scotland in 1707, England freed itself from the problem of land frontiers.
Oliver St. John Gogarty made a joke that was much more than a joke. He said that an island was a country surrounded by a Navy. Britain as a state was a combination of islands surrounded by the most powerful Navy in the world. The Navy was manned by the system of random conscription called the "press gang". Britain therefore had no need of a land army for defensive purposes, and therefore no defensive justification of Conscription.
The situation in 1916 was that England, overcome by hubris in 1914, had overreached itself to such an extent that it was in a military predicament from which it could hope to extricate itself only through a compulsory mobilisation of all the resources of the state.
It had gone to war unnecessarily for purposes of Imperial expansion, but had put moral spin on it because that is its way of doing things. By 1916 it had become fairly obvious that this was just another in the long line of Britain¹s imperialist wars, differing from its precursors only in its catastrophic scale and the distinct possibility that Britain could lose. The loss of the moral dimension did not greatly matter in England, where the operative principle has always been "my country, right or wrong". In the last analysis, English society took itself to be the ultimate moral force in the world. Its moral quality lay in its existence rather than in its action, and therefore it was no less moral when it was attempting to monopolise the slave trade than when it set out to abolish it , or when it established vast industrial slave-labour camps in the Caribbean, no less than when it was berating the United States for maintaining slavery for twenty years after Britain itself had abolished it as having outlived its usefulness, or when it made war on China to compel the Emperor to allow British merchants to sell opium to his subjects, than when it declared war on drug barons.
Its moral conviction is existential and there is no kind of action that is incompatible with it. And this attitude is entirely consistent with the theology which it produced in gigantic quantities for more than three hundred years, and which told it that salvation was predestined to the Elect through grace and that good works had nothing to do with it.
And so the population of England accepted Conscription as being necessary to keep England top dog in the world.
But in Ireland it was the particular moral spin put on the declaration of war in 1914--democracy and the rights of small nations--that elicited popular support. By 1916 only the gullible could believe in the moral crusade. And the existential imperative did not come into play in Ireland as the moral spin was lost. That is why the attempt to recruit the Irish by compulsion for what had fairly obviously become an Imperial war exerted such a profound influence on the population at large, deploying it morally against Britain.
Some of the Redmondite leaders had committed themselves existentially to the British war effort. T.M. Kettle had taken the lead in the war propaganda of the London press in August 1914 and disillusionment made him mystical. In his last poem, which he wrote as an officer with the big battalions in France in the Autumn of 1916, he said that "The secret Scriptures of the poor" was what it was all about. But most people saw by then that it was all about Empire.

Tom Barry: Imperialist Patriot?!
Tom Barry was with the British Army of conquest in Mesopotamia in 1916. News of the Easter Rising jolted him into moral reflection. But reflection did not lead him into hasty action:
"ŒI was under oath¹, General Barry now says, Œto serve in the British Army for the duration of hostilities, and I couldn¹t go against that, could I? So serve I did, but after demobilization it was a very different matter¹." (Barry¹s Flying Column by Ewan Butler, London, 1971, p21.)
Barry found himself under a conflict of obligations and he complied with the first before tending to the second. He handled his dilemma competently and with-out mystification, and did so at an age which today would have him still a schoolboy.
He joined the British Army in 1915 while still under-age. Why did he join?
Adjunct Professor Hart writes:
"When war came in 1914, Barry was as carried away with excitement and patriotism as any other young man of Bandon. He joined up in 1915" (P30).
This conflicts with Barry¹s own account:
"In June, 1915, in my seventeenth year, I had decided to see what this Great War was like. I cannot plead that I went on the advice of John Redmond or any other politician, that if we fought for the British we would secure Home Rule for Ireland, nor can I say that I understood what Home Rule meant. I was not influenced by the lurid appeal to save Belgium or small nations. I knew nothing about nations, large or small. I went to war for no other reason than that I wanted to see what war was like, to get a gun, to see new countries and feel a grown man. Above all I went because I knew no Irish history and had no national consciousness" (Guerrilla Days p2).
When he enlisted in the British Army, the beginnings of "patriotism" for him lay far in the future in a distant country:
"For me it began in far-off Mesopotamia, now called Iraq, that land of Biblical names and history, of vast deserts and date groves, scorching suns and hot winds, the land of Babylon, Baghdad and the Garden of Eden, where the rushing Euphrates and the mighty Tigris converge and flow down to the Persian Gulf.
"It was there in that land of Arabs, then a battle-ground for the two contending Imperialistic armies of Britain and Turkey, that I awoke to the echoes of guns being fired in the capital of my own country, Ireland. It was a rude awakening" (ibid, p1).
Hart provides no evidence that Barry falsified his motives for joining the British Army. Nor does he condemn Barry, in this connection, for being motivated by purely militarist inclinations, though he grows very moral on the subject of militarism when it comes to Barry¹s activity in the IRA. We can only conclude from this that he thinks that militarism is honourable in the service of the British Empire but is dishonourable otherwise.

1914: Patriotism Or General Principle?
What exactly is the "patriotism" that Hart attributes to Barry?
He writes in another place:
"Then came the Great War. Cork, like the rest of Britain and Ireland, was at once possessed by a spirit of patriotic endeavourŠ The Kaiser was denounced in pubs and street corners. A thrill of suspicion gripped the coast, and German spies were discovered everywhere" (p46).
In England it was enough that the Kaiser was the head of a state on which Britain had declared war to make the war Œpatriotic¹. The Œpatria¹ was imperialistic and was intent on ruling the world. That purpose was made abundantly clear in the pol-itical literature of England in the generation before 1914, both popular and specialist.
The British "patria" was a state rather than a nation. It was the most powerful state in the world. It had extensive possessions in all Continents, but was not yet satisfied. It wanted more.
How did Home Rule nationalism devise a kind of patriotism that enabled it to participate enthusiastically in 1914 in England¹s latest war of imperialist expansion? Did it declare that it had been fundamentally mistaken about the character of Britain and its Empire? Did it adopt the expansionist Empire as its "patria"? Did it accept baptism into "Greater Britain"? ("Greater Britain" was a term widely used from about 1880 until the Great War to describe the white race, established in positions of dominance around the world as agents of the Empire.)
That would have been a strange "patriotism" for Ireland to have become infected with in 1914. But, if Britain had won the easy victories over Germany and Turkey that it anticipated when declaring war on them, it seems distinctly possible that Redmondite Ireland could have been moulded into the Greater Britain scheme, and would have helped to shoulder the "white man¹s burden" of Empire.
But Britain did not win that easy victory. Even with the help of Tom Barry, it took four years of hard fighting to conquer Mesopotamia from Johnny Turk. And "the Hun" damaged it so severely during the four and a quarter years it took to conquer him, that Great Britain was never the same again, and "Greater Britain" fell off the agenda. So the possibility of the Redmondites adopting expansionary British Imperialism as its "patriotism" was never put to the test of realisation.
Barry¹s suggestion that Redmondism supported the British war effort against Germany and Turkey in order to gain Home Rule for itself is nearer the mark. There was certainly something of that in it. But can such a motive be called patriotic? Making war on Germans and Turks because, if you do not do so, Britain will refuse minimal national rights to yourself is a bizarre kind of patriotism.
There was also a hazy notion that, if the Home Rule majority joined forces in killing Germans and Turks with the Ulster Unionist minority, all would be well in Ireland. It was a groundless notion, because the British Government gave the Ulster Unionists a guarantee against Home Rule at the outset of the war. Nevertheless, it was a notion that was held by many of the Redmondite activists.
Political leaders who constructed these ideas into "patriotism" lost the ability to think straight.
ŒPatriotism¹ which involves making war on third parties is problematical as a concept and it leads to twisted thinking.
Nationalist Ireland did not go to war in defence of the homeland--the "patria"--in 1914. It went to war as a crusade, to establish a principle as part of the international order of the world. It believed the propaganda that was directed at it, and it went to war for democracy and the rights of small nations.
In order that the word, Œpatriotism¹, should retain its sensible meaning, the best way of putting it would be that nationalist Ireland suspended its own patriotic endeavours in August 1914 and took part in a World War to establish a general principle favourable to patriotism as part of the international world order.

A Swindle Too Many
But the crusade for democracy and the rights of small nations turned out to be a swindle. Britain proclaimed the principle as recruiting propaganda , without any intention of allowing it to be availed of by the subjugated peoples of the British Empire.
When Ireland voted to be independent in 1918, the British Parliament treated that vote as being of no effect. In order to make its vote effective, Ireland had to engage in warfare against Britain, just as if the Great War to establish democracy and the rights of small nations had never been fought.
Britain denied at the end of the Great War the principle that it had proclaimed at the start of it. Ireland did not gain its independence under the principle for which it went to war in 1914. It was swindled.
But the scale and thoroughness of the swindle ensured that there would be no return to the old relationship of pseudo-voluntary subordination to Britain. The deception was too successful for its own good. It raised many battalions of cannonfodder, but in the course of doing so, it altered the prevailing state of mind in Ireland.
Having immersed itself in a catastrophic British war in Europe and Asia, Ireland voted to be independent in 1918. It is a virtual certainty that it would not have done so but for the war. The experience of being simultaneously militarised and swindled wrought a great change in Ireland.
What should they have done when they found they had been swindled? Shrugged their shoulders and put their tails between their legs? Adjunct Professor Hart appears to think that would have been the right thing for them to do. But it is not what they did.
In the olden days, before 1914, when they knew that a Republic was only to be had through warfare with Britain, and when war was alien to them, they did not vote for it. But now they had voted for it--perhaps in many instances under the misapprehension that Britain had agreed to a change of rules in 1914--and they were not going to slink back into the old subordination.
There was a substantial minority, including the IRB, that had never believed a word of the British war propaganda. That minority launched the Insurrection of 1916. The revisionists condemn them for launching the Insurrection without an electoral mandate--ignoring the fact that there was no operative electoral mandate for government in 1916.
The force of the revisionists¹ condemnation of the 1916 Insurrection is subverted by their condemnation of the war that was launched in 1919 to give effect to the Sinn Fein electoral mandate of 1918. Since they deny that the 1918 vote legitimises the Republican war effort of 1919-21 to give effect to it, it is reasonable to assume that the absence of a vote prior to the 1916 Insurrection is not their reason for condemning it.
The 1916 Insurrectionists acted in an electoral vacuum that had been deliberately created by Britain. The first opportunity given to the Irish electorate to pass judgment on 1916 was in December 1918. A number of different influences that had come into play during the electoral hiatus combined in 1918 to produce a resounding electoral justification of 1916.
Barry wrote:
"Without 1916 there would have been no Dail Eireann; without Dail Eireann there would, most likely, have been no sustained fight, with moral force behind it, in 1920-21, and without the guerilla warfare of 1921-21 Dail Eireann would have been destroyed and the sacrifice of 1916 vain. Looking back it seemed to me that the Master, moved to pity by the centuries of failure and oppression which Ireland had suffered, guided the footsteps of our leaders on the only road to success" (Guerilla Days).
England has during the past four hundred years had the strong conviction that it is the agency through which Providence acts in the world. So why not describe what happened between 1914 and 1921 as Providential action which, against all that seemed probable in 1914, set Ireland on the road to independence? If England had not acted as it did, Irish

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Mon Dec 20, 2004 09:37 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

An article from the Irsh Political Review Dec. 2004.
KILMICHAEL – BEATING THE RETREAT

‘Books Ireland’ for November 2004 carried a rare review of Meda Ryan’s new book on Tom Barry by Rory Brennan. Rare because this must be one of the most ignored books ever published. However, its influence is very pervasive because it is a polemic that counters and destroys the central thesis of the most recent guru of the revisionist historians – Peter Hart and his claim that there was no false surrender at the Kilmichael ambush. All interested parties know this very well.
This review makes no mention of why this book was written. We are invited to simply believe that “Ryan revisits the controversies of Barry’s military leadership, notably the question of a false surrender by the British at the Kilmichael ambush. Brennan’s view is that ‘Though much can be reconstructed, this seems to me to be lost in the fog of war” despite the fact that Ryan reconstructs practically every blow of the ambush and any reader of her book would wonder what she could possibly have omitted and of course she deals with the false surrender at length.
Then we are told, “It is quite easy for a man who has honourably surrendered to think he is going to be shot anyway, and so to resume firing.” So a false surrender is admitted by someone who on reflection decides to start firing again – not it should be noted because his surrender has not been accepted but who has second thoughts and decides to change his mind. And shoots a couple of people in the process, it should be noted, if we want to put some reality on this supposition about what happened at Kilmichael. Is it not oxymoronic to call such a person honourable?
‘Or he may never have grasped that his comrades had already surrendered’ and so he presumably continues firing on his own. Again a surrender is definitely broken by this freelancer who also appears to be a little deaf and a deadly danger to all his fellow soldiers who if this was for real would be entitled to shoot him dead on the spot. It is not clear if Brennan means that he was one and the same as the ‘honourable’ tergiversator envisaged earlier or if they were possibly different individuals. In any case, two reasons are given for a false surrender and this behaviour suddenly becomes the most natural thing in the world for our reviewer. In fact, one is left with the definite impression that false surrenders were the order of the day at Kilmichael!
“The one thing that is certain in combat is that it is chaotic and the Barry that emerges from this study was certainly a killer in wartime, no offhand murderer.” There is nothing whatever chaotic about carrying out a successful ambush of professional soldiers, all commissioned officers who had served in WWI which is what the Auxiliaries were at Kilmichael. Any chaos is planned for very carefully. These were no rag tag band of Black and Tans. These guys knew what they were about and they knew when they should fire and not fire and whether they should surrender or not and when they should try the false surrender trick (and they were unlikely to be suffering from deafness). They would not have survived a day if they were the undisciplined, idiosyncratic mob portrayed by our reviewer. And Barry knew this well because he was with them throughout the whole war and learned his craft with them. It was a battle between professionals and the most competent won. Anything and everything but chaos was a factor at Kilmichael. As for being a killer in war, Barry’s killing in the War of Independence was as nothing compared to what he did in WWI but that is not the killing our reviewer has in mind. This latter killing is never held against him or even mentioned by our revisionists so they are certainly not upset by his killing skills per se. It’s the cause, stupid.
It is worth pointing out that the false surrender trick was not unique to Kilmichael. The ambush nearest to where I happen to come from was the ambush of Auxiliaries on a train at Drishane (North Cork) and the IRA Commandant, Con Meaney, gives an account that includes the following:
“An N.C.O. and 13 military were together in one compartment. The Volunteer Battalion Commandant called on the military to surrender but the answer was a rifle shot from the train, which was immediately replied to by slug loaded shot-guns and limited rifle fire from the Volunteers. The Volunteers had only 4 regular Magazine .303 rifles and two single shot .303 rifles.
The firing lasted about seven or eight minutes when the ambushed party shouted “We surrender”. The Commandant then ordered, “Stop firing”. Firing then ceased but after an interval of about 30 seconds another shot was fired from the train and the Volunteers immediately resumed their fire.
In less than a minute, in response to another shout of “We surrender” from the train the Commandant again ordered the Volunteers to stop firing and the military were ordered to come out of the train and leave their arms.” (‘The Boys of the Millstreet Battalion Area’ Aubane Historical Society, 2003)
The first collapse in Hart’s allegations became apparent in an exchange of letters in the Irish Times initiated by Padraig O’Cuanacahin in 1998 reacting to a diatribe on the subject by Kevin Myers. Myers did not engage further in the debate but Hart and others joined in. The Editor decided to end the exchange when Hart effectively conceded the argument while simultaneously reasserting it and claimed it was all down to confusion, fear, the darkness etc. The hope was clearly that it would be all left hazy and unclear but with the definite assumption that there was indeed a massacre of unarmed soldiers.
This ploy was foiled by Meda Ryan who produced a most detailed account of the ambush and refuted all Hart’s allegations about it and other events in West Cork. Now a new ploy has emerged. Ryan’s book cannot be answered or ignored any longer so it’s a case of forget it lads and move on to some other target to discredit the War of Independence.
Below is an unpublished letter to The Village in response to a plea from Brian Hanley that we forget about the whole thing and move on from Kilmichael.

10/11/2004
Dear Sir/Madam,

‘MOVING ON FROM KILMICHAEL’

Brian Hanley, as a historian, urges us to move on from Kilmichael (The Village. 6/11/04). A very laudable aim. But why are we discussing Kilmichael at all, 80 odd years after the event? At the time, the leaders on both sides, those of the IRA and General Crozier of the Auxiliaries all agreed that there had been a false surrender and all concerned then ‘moved on’ on that basis. We are discussing it again because a few years ago Peter Hart claimed to know better than Crozier, Barry etc and that there was no false surrender and moved the debate back over 80 years.

The case for the false surrender has been reconfirmed again (principally by Meda Ryan and Brian Murphy) but despite the issue being gone into in great detail Mr. Hanley will not give a view on the issue because he claims it does not matter. He ‘cares little’ about it, he says. This is hardly a creditable attitude for any self-respecting historian in current circumstances. The accusation of shooting soldiers dead in cold blood after a genuine surrender is a serious matter and a serious historical issue at any time.

After Hart made his accusations we were told - screamed at - in no uncertain terms by a whole array of people that it was indeed a war crime of the first order and that it had happened at Kilmichael. Now there is a deafening silence from those people and indifference from Mr Hanley.

Instead, Mr Hanley poses a whole range of other very interesting questions to be answered. I thought it was a historian’s job to answer questions and to pose them in order to answer them. But Mr Hanley leaves them all hanging in the air. But how can one have confidence in him finding or accepting credible answers to these other very pertinent questions when he won’t give a clear answer to the one central question that started all this debate and which has now been discussed and debated in minute detail in books, pamphlets, reviews, letters to papers, meetings, on the Internet etc. for some years now. The question simply is – was there or was there not a false surrender at Kilmichael?

It seems to me that in not answering that question his plea for ‘moving on from Kilmichael’ is really a plea to avoid a straight answer to a very straightforward question. It is just not good enough - and it won’t do after all the hubbub that has been created in recent years about this incident in the War of Independence.

Jack Lane

by Jack Lane Mon Dec 20, 2004 09:33

There were two forces at work at Kilmichael: the rage felt by the survivors at the death of their friends, and Tom Barry’s determination that no Auxiliary would be left alive. Before the ambush began, he declared it was to be a fight to the finish, ordered bayonets to be fixed, and posted men to prevent anyone escaping. Afterwards, he ordered the execution of wounded, helpless men. The result was a daring ambush which turned into a massacre: a combination of hot-blooded reprisal and cold-blooded murder, justified by the labelling of the victims as "terrorists". Sound familiar? The same recipe produced the same kind of violence in the British army and policy--and later the Free State army. The real secret of Kilmichael is that the IRA inhabited the same culture of violence as their enemies, in which heroes and villains were indistinguishable.
10th December, 1998: Irish Times
This correspondence is now closed.--Ed. I.T.

["…it is possible that one or more Auxiliaries surrendered while others kept firing. Or that a wounded policeman ignored the surrender and shot an IRA man when he approached. And it is certainly possible that some of the column did believe that they had been tricked. However, what is clear is that there was no ‘false surrender’ as Barry depicted it. There was no trick being played, and at most only one guerrilla died after the surrenders began"!!
This is war as conceived from the kindergarten. And it is no wonder that Conor Brady, Irish Times Editor, protected Adjunct Professor Hart from further damage by closing the correspondence. Soldiers act under command, whether fighting or surrendering. And in a concentrated engagement like Kilmichael it was certainly not open to some Auxiliaries to surrender while others kept on fighting. By conceding that one guerilla may have been shot after a surrender, Hart gives away the substance of his case. And by reasserting in Paragraph 7 what he gave away in Paragraph 6, he demonstrates the weakness of the element of reason in his position.]


12. Unpublished Letter From Meda Ryan
The sources Peter Hart uses to state that there was no false surrender at Kilmichael need to be scrutinized closely.
He discovered a document in the Strickland Papers in the Imperial War Museum. This document he took at face value, and did not entertain the view that it could be a forgery. In fact he continues to refute the forgery aspect, despite evidence which points in this direction. This document did not mention that there was a false surrender, and Peter Hart then, from my reading of it, sets out to dispute the false surrender story. He uses as further evidence the lack of mention of the false surrender in a summary article supplied by Tom Barry to the Irish Press of November 1932. He does not know if this article was cut by editorial staff, yet he admits that F.P. Crozier (Auxiliary Commandant) demonstrated that the false surrender story was in circulation in 1921. Piaras Beaslai mentioned the false surrender in his book, written 1923-24. Furthermore, Stephen O’Neill, Kilmichael Section Commander, mentioned it in his article in the Kerryman in 1937. Therefore I fail to see the logic of his argument--i.e. the lack of mention of a false surrender in some cases, but not in all cases (in fact, suspect cases) means for Peter Hart that there was no false surrender.
He backs up his argument with interviews, some with people whom he lists under letters of the alphabet, beginning with A--thus he has two interviews which he uses himself, namely, AA, 3rd April, 25th June 1988; AF, 19th November 1989. If the last survivor (including scouts) of the Kilmichael Ambush, Ned Young, died aged ninety-seven, in 1989, and the second last, Jack O’Sullivan, in 1986, then who are these two people who could not stand over their names and the information that they gave? (Participants were totally wiling to stand over anything they said when I interviewed them in the 1970s.) Did those listed participate in the Kilmichael Ambush--those whom Peter Hart gives their identity only by using letters of the alphabet as sources of reference? Why did these wish to remain anonymous?
Barry himself accepted full responsibility for the order to shoot outright "soldiers who had cheated in war". He regarded it as deceitful to call a surrender and then take up arms as they (the Auxiliaries) saw the opportunity. Further surrender calls could mean death for more of his comrades, could he take this chance?
Peter Hart uses a quotation from AD, 21st April, 1989, that Tom Barry "‘made his name out of Kilmichael’" and he (Hart) adds, "this was probably one of his aims from the outset". Was it? Was there not a war on, for independence from Britain, and were not the Auxiliaries raiding the Third West Cork Brigade area? History deals with facts, not probabilities! Barry built his reputation, not on Kilmichael alone; he was a formidable Commander. Certainly, the Kilmichael Ambush was extremely important, not alone for west Cork, but for the War of Independence nation-wide, as it gave Volunteers and people the necessary moral boost.
Peter Hart makes a statement: "the IRA often killed tinkers, tramps, and other loners and outsiders who might never be missed, some of these killings will surely never come to light." And, in a further page of statistics, he gives under the heading tinker/tramps: 8 per cent were shot by the IRA and that none of them informed on the IRA. There are several statistics on Spies and Informers, but isn’t the nature of spying and informing a secret weapon? Using British records for this type of information needs scrutiny. Of course, British records on who informed on the IRA could not but have a certain slant. So do we really know whether or not people (regardless of religion, as he singles out Protestants) informed on the IRA?
Meda Ryan
8th February, 1999

13. The IRA And Its Enemies
by Brian P. Murphy
The author presents a critical review of this important book, subtitled
‘Violence And Community In Cork, 1916-1923", by Peter Hart,
(ppxvi-350, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998, £40. 0 19 8205376)
This is a well researched book, an important book, a controversial book. The IRA in Cork is examined in thematic fashion and in great detail. Part one recounts the course of the revolution in Cork between 1916 and 1923; part two considers the background of the rebels; part three examines the causes that led them to embrace the revolution; and part four narrates the action taken by the IRA against its neighbours and its enemies. This manner of treatment, while comprehensive and possessing a form of unity of its own, has some drawbacks. For example, the ambush at Kilmichael and a chapter on the boys of Kilmichael are separated by some hundred pages.
However, by starting the book with the graphic account of the killing of Sergeant James O’Donoghue on 17 November 1920, and the ambush at Kilmichael of 28 November 1920, the author does engage the reader in the harsh reality of war. The killing of O’Donoghue by the IRA serves as an introduction to the tit-for-tat killings that were an integral part of the war. Hart’s book not only chronicles these events in detail, but also provides interesting background information on the individuals involved and on the area in which they lived. In so doing he sets a pattern, and a high standard, for his subsequent treatment of similar events throughout the length of County Cork. One is stimulated to read on.
A human face is given to this general characterisation by an examination, again in considerable detail, of individuals such as the Hales family (they have a chapter to themseves), Sean O’Hegarty, Liam Lynch, Sean Moylan, and Liam Deasy. While the records of these men are well-known, Hart adds substantially to our knowledge of them. He also highlights the contributions of other individuals such as Jack Breen, Robert Langford, Frank Busteed, Mick Fitzgerald, Denis Murray and Mick Leahy, and the telling of their stories introduces into the pages of history other names who contributed to the IRA war effort.
The same detailed attention is given to the British forces in Ireland. Further insights are provided into the actions and attitudes of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries, and of special interest is the information that many British regiments in Cork, such as the Essex and Manchester, were actually sending men out of the country during the difficult years of 1920 and 1921 to strengthen the British Empire elsewhere. All that is missing is a map, or several maps, to give some visual clarity to the many locations that are mentioned.
One caveat needs to be expressed over Hart’s general setting of the scene in which the war took place. His emphasis on the local and the personal tends to underplay the wider rationale that shaped nationalist minds at the time. In particular, he fails to stress the significance of the Volunteer Convention of October 1917, which re-shaped the command structure of the organisation that eventually became the IRA.
Moreover, this convention took place in tandem with the Sinn Fein Convention which transformed the political aims of that society. Hart cites a police source of June 1917 stating that "Sinn Feinism is of a very undefined sort", a view which accurately conveys the character of Sinn Fein at that time. However, at that very moment all nationalist groupings were engaged in the political debate that culminated in the definition of republican Sinn Fein in October 1917. Many of the Volunteers were engaged in that debate, and must have been influenced by it.

Controversial Issues
The controversial nature of Hart’s book centres on two issues: firstly, his treatment of the ambush at Kilmichael; secondly, his treatment of the sectarian nature of the IRA. In regard to the ambush by Tom Barry and his Flying Column of a force of Auxiliaries at Kilmichael, Hart maintains that Barry’s account of the ambush
"is riddled with lies and evasions. There was no false surrender as he described it. The surviving Auxiliaries were simply ‘exterminated’."
Hart bases his argument on two accounts of the ambush by Barry, which fail to mention a false surrender on the part of the Auxiliaries. The first account purports to be a document captured by the British forces at the time. This account does fail to mention a false surrender, but it is brief and also fails to mention other salient features of the ambush. Moreover, the report is not the original handwritten copy, thus making it impossible to check the spelling against Barry’s rather unorthodox usage.
For the record it should be stated that all Barry’s more detailed accounts of the ambush mention a false surrender. Barry also referred to other individuals who did the same. For example, to Stephen O’Neill, who was in command of the Number 3 section at Kilmichael, and who wrote in The Kerryman (1937), and to General F.P. Crozier who wrote his account in Ireland For Ever (1932). Crozier’s evidence is of particular importance, as he was Commandant of the Auxiliary Division of the RIC from 1920 to 1921.
Crozier stated that at Kilmichael "it was perfectly true that the wounded had been put to death after the ambush, but the reason for this barbarous inhumanity became understandable, although inexcusable". He explained that "arms were supposed to have been surrendered, but a wounded Auxiliary whipped out a revolver while lying on the ground and shot a ‘Shinner’ with the result that all his comrades were put to death with him".
Hart mentions that Crozier was "the first writer" to recount the false surrender story, and he accepts that this story was to be heard as early as 1921. In fact Crozier was not the first to write of such a surrender. Piaras Beaslai, who was a member of the GHQ staff of the IRA, wrote, in his life of Michael Collins (1926), that
"what really happened on the occasion was that, after the fight had continued for a time, some of the Auxiliaries offered to surrender. When Volunteers advanced to take the surrender they were fired on.
Despite this significant body of evidence, which explicitly affirms the false surrender account, Hart, while citing some of it, chooses to reject it in favour of other sources, which simply fail to mention a false surrender. One cannot but feel that far more evidence is required before Barry’s account may be simply dismissed as "lies and evasions".
One other feature of Hart’s treatment of the Kilmichael ambush merits consideration: there is no mention of Bishop Daniel Cohalan of Cork. The bishop, who was actually born in Kilmichael, responded to the ambush by issuing, on 12 December 1920, a decree of excommunication on all those who participated in ambushes or kidnapping or murder. Barry was angry and worried about the decree, writing in his autobiography that nobody should "minimise the gravity of such a decree in a Catholic country". He feared that the bishop’s action would reduce IRA membership. Any account of the enemies of the IRA in Cork cannot ignore the Bishop of Cork.
In regard to the second controversial issue, that of an IRA sectarian campaign against Protestants, Hart writes that "nationalism veered towards sectarianism in late 1920 and guerrilla war became, in some places, a kind of tribal war". Many Protestants undoubtedly did suffer during the war. The question is whether they suffered because of their religion or because of other factors. Hart does adduce other factors such as suspicion over their political allegiance, and envious eyes cast on their vast landed estates; but he posits a religious dimension to the IRA hostility towards them. This interpretation may be questioned.
No Element Of Sectarianism
Erskine Childers, a Protestant, was in no doubt that there was no element of sectarianism in the Nationalist struggle for independence. His papers include his own account of The Irish Revolution in which he wrote that:
"it is worth noting once more that the violence evoked in this year (1919) was slight. Nor was it indiscriminate or undisciplined. At no time, neither then nor subsequently, have civilians--Protestant Unionists living scattered and isolated in the South and West, been victimised by the republicans on account of their religion or religious opinion or religion [sic]."
This opinion of Childers was based, to a large extent, on the evidence of Protestants themselves. In the summer of 1920, when the pogroms against Catholics were taking place in the north of Ireland, many Protestants, among them ministers of religion, wrote letters to the press stating that there was no religious discrimination in the south. Hart has used this manuscript source of Childers, but he has neither adverted to the significant correspondence referred to by Childers, nor accepted his interpretation of events.
Moreover, by maintaining that Protestants did not have sufficient knowledge to act as informers, Hart heightens the suspicion that they were killed for religious motives. Citing the official Record of the Rebellion in Ireland, Hart writes (pp. 305,306) "the truth was that, as British intelligence officers recognised, ‘in the south the Protestants and those who supported the Government rarely gave much information because, except by chance, they had not got it to give’."
Hart does not give the next two sentences from the official Record which read:
"An exception to this rule was in the Bandon area where there were many Protestant farmers who gave information. Although the Intelligence Officer of this area was exceptionally experienced and although the troops were most active it proved almost impossible to protect those brave men, many of whom were murdered while almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss."
In short, evidence from this British source confirms that the IRA killings in the Bandon area were motivated by political and not sectarian considerations.
The main incident involving the IRA killing of Protestants occurred in County Cork, in the area around Dunmanway, at the end of April 1922. Ten Protestants, two as young as sixteen, were shot in cold blood. Hart explains that the shooting dead of Michael O’Neill, an IRA man, by Captain Woods on 26 April undoubtedly sparked off the following three days slaughter of Protestants. However, despite giving this context and despite identifying the loyalist connections of many of the Protestants, Hart comes down strongly in favour of a religious factor behind their killing.
Hart writes:
"in the end, however, the fact of the victim’s religion is inescapable. These men were shot because they were Protestants. No Catholic Free Staters, landlords or ‘spies’ were shot or even shot at. The sectarian antagonism which drove this massacre was interwoven with political hysteria and local vendettas, but it was sectarian none the less. ‘Our fellas took it out on the Protestants.’
The impression is given that "our fellows took it out on the Protestants" is in relation to the killings at Dunmanway. Such was not the case.

A Different Incident
The quotation refers to a completely different incident in the Civil War. As recounted to Dorothy Stopford, a Protestant, by Denis Lordan, an IRA man, "the ‘boys’ went to a Protestant house to seize a motor car, were fired on, and one of them killed. Then ‘our fellas took it out on the Protestants’." The descriptive word "Protestant" is used, but both the original motive for the raid (the stealing of a car), and the subsequent reprisal, on account of the killing of a comrade, was not occasioned by sectarian motives. Indeed, it was not even recorded if anyone was killed as part of the reprisal.
To link Lordan’s comments with the Dunmanway massacres is misleading, a misrepresentation which is compounded by calling the chapter, "Taking it out on the Protestants". Moreover, in adopting this sectarian interpretation of events, Harts rejects the opinion of one of his sources, an IRA veteran, who maintained that the massacre was the product of anarchy, and that "we had nothing against" the Protestants.
This latter view, it may be contended, more accurately reflects the feelings of nationalists, be they pro- or anti-Treaty, at the time. The killings were condemned, as Hart testifies, by the IRA commanders on the spot. They were also condemned by both sides of the Treaty divide in Dail Eireann. Speaking on 28 April, when news of the death of three Protestants ha been reported, Arthur Griffith stated that the Government of Dail Eireann:
"does not know and cannot know, as a National government, any distinction of class or creed. In its name, I express the horror of the Irish nation at the Dunmanway murders.
Sean T. O’Kelly associated the anti-Treaty side with these sentiments of Griffith.
One may dismiss these views of nationalist Catholics as mere lip service, but the response of Dorothy Stopford and other Protestants is revealing. Stopford lived and worked as a doctor at Kilbrittain, in the West Cork area, and yet she remained a friend of Denis Lordan and committed to the anti-Treaty side. Albina Brodrick, the sister of the Earl of Midleton, who was also well-informed of affairs in Cork, did likewise. So too did Erskine Childers, Robert Barton, Dr. Kathleen Lynn and Charlotte Despard,the sister of Lord French.
Could these Protestants have acted in such a manner, if their fellow religionists were the calculated targets of sectarian attacks? Hart’s finding on this important issue of sectarianism are open to question, but his book is to be welcomed as providing much new and indispensable information on the IRA.
Brian P. Murphy OSB
September-October 1998, The Month

Note: Brian P. Murphy is the author of Patrick Pearse And The Lost Republican Ideal, 1991
Meda Ryan is the author of biographies of Tom Barry and Liam Lynch, and of a book about the death of Michael Collins.]

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Mon Dec 20, 2004 09:14 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

It was very good news from Peter Hart on 21st October 2004 that he intended to deal with Meda Ryan's book which refutes his claims about the false surrender at Kilmichael and other allegations he made about the War of Independence in Cork. Readers may appreciate the following exchange between Peter Hart and others in 1998 following publication of his book and before Meda Ryan's book was published. I wonder if he will he make a better job of defending his arguments the next time?

Introduction
The exchange of letters reprinted here was first published in the Cork Examiner and the Irish Times in 1998. What gave rise to them was a book entitled, The IRA & Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, published in 1998 by the Clarendon Press at the University of Oxford, and written by Adjunct Professor Peter Hart of Newfoundland University and Queen’s University, Belfast.
There was nothing very remarkable about this book in its general conception. It was an industrious follow-on from the more original ‘revisionist’ histories of recent decades--those in particular of Professor David Fitzpatrick of Trinity College and of Professor Charles Townshend, who in turn followed on from the British propaganda of the Black-and-Tan period, and particularly from Major Street’s 1921 book, The Administration Of Ireland In 1920.
(Perhaps it is not accurate to include Townshend amongst the Irish revisionist writers. He is an English writer and puts the standard British imperialist line. The revisionists, properly so-called, are Irish writers, many of whom were "Official" Republicans not very long ago, who write to the British political agenda.)
Hart’s book struck sparks because, unlike Fitzpatrick’s, it is deliberately sensational; it is written in the frantic rhetoric of Ulster Unionism; and it had a ‘hook’ for catching public attention--the claim that the account of the Kilmichael Ambush which had been generally accepted for almost eighty years was false.
Hart’s character assassination of Tom Barry was no doubt intended to give the coup de grace to the Republicanism of the South. If people would put up with that, they would put up with anything.
But people have not put up with it. And the effect is likely to be the opposite of what was intended.

Two issues are dealt with in the correspondence reproduced here: the false surrender of the Auxiliaries at Kilmichael, and the legitimacy of Republican military action in support of the mandate of the 1918 General Election.
In the era of democracy the prima facie assumption must be that the landslide victory for Sinn Fein in the 1918 Election gave a mandate for independence which superseded all rights asserted in the pre-democratic era and which legitimised all that it was necessary to do to give effect to that mandate. Hart presents no argument against this view--which has been stated often enough to require some arguing against by anyone who does not accept it. He simply takes it for granted that British Imperial right in Ireland was unaffected by the Election result--an assumption which makes the holding of elections rather a waste of time, effort and money.
He mentions the election only incidentally. This is the longest mention of it:
"The elections of 1917 and 1918 provided the other great proving ground [i.e., in addition to the hunger strikes] for activists. Scores of Cork Volunteers… travelled to constituencies all over Ireland to immerse themselves in the work of the movement. Each campaign was a miniature crucible of revolution… Going on the run had much the same radical impact" (pp253-4).
So there was nothing Constitutionally special about the General Election. It was on a par with going on hunger strike or going on the run. And those who engaged in military activity to uphold the British administration in defiance of the General Election result were upholders of the law, while those who engaged in military activity in support of the election result were "rebels", "murderers", "political serial killers".

Hart’s book was rapturously and uncritically received by Sunday Times columnist, Eoghan Harris (who affected paramilitary costume when hounding Poppy sellers in Cork in the first phase of his political career and is now a groupie of the Ulster Unionists), and Irish Times columnist, Kevin Myers (who was a hanger-on of the Republican movement in Belfast in the early seventies, before he discovered the glories of the Empire and found that they were profitable).
*
The main significance of the Kilmichael Ambush (28th November, 1920) was that it was the first major military challenge to the elite Special force, known as the Auxiliaries, that was set loose on the Country in July 1920, for the purpose of breaking the will of the electorate and consolidating the British Administration.
Britain raised two bodies of Special Forces for use in Ireland in 1920. Both were paramilitary auxiliaries of the police force (the Royal Irish Constabulary) and both were raised from demobilised British soldiers from the Great War.
The first body of police auxiliaries was set up in January 1920. They came to be known as the Black And Tans, because of the motley uniform that was hastily acquired for them. By the end of the conflict in 1921 there were over 9.000 of them. They were paid ten shillings a day.
The body set up in July 1920 was recruited from demobilised officers of the Great War. They were paid £1 per day plus expences, which made them the highest paid coercive force in the world. They were known as the Auxiliary Police but were under military command. By the end of the conflict there were fifteen companies of them, with a hundred in each company.
The term, "Black And Tans" was sometimes used to include both bodies. But the "Auxies" were of a much higher calibre than the other body of special ‘police’.
Many features of the Nazi regime of 1933-45 were pioneered by Britain between the late 19th century and the early 1920s--Concentration Camps, racist political ideology, conviction in a superior destiny which over-ruled the claims of democracy. The Special forces used in Ireland (Black and Tans and Auxiliaries) were forerunners of the Einsatzgruppen with which Hitler sought to break the popular will in East European countries during the Second World War. There is, of course, a difference of degree between them, but not a difference of kind.

Documents
We give below extracts from the documents that are discussed in the correspondence.

A. Tom Barry wrote:
"Of all the ruthless forces that occupied Ireland through the centuries, those Auxiliaries were surely the worst. They were recruited from ex-British officers who had held commissioned rank and had had active service on one or more fronts during the 1914-18 war. They were openly established as a terrorist body with the avowed object of breaking by armed force Ireland’s continued resistance to British rule. Their war ranks ranged from Lieutenant to Brigadier-General and they were publicised as the very pick of Britain’s best fighters. Highly paid and with no bothersome discipline, they were habitual looters. They were even dressed in a special uniform calculated to cow their opponents. Each carried a rifle, two revolvers, one strapped to each thigh, and two Mills bombs hung at the waist from their Sam Browne belts…
"The Auxiliary force had been allowed to bluster through the country for four or five months killing, beating, terrorising, and burning factories and homes. Strange as it may appear, not a single shot had been fired at them up to this by the IRA in any part of Ireland to halt their terror campaign. This fact had a very serious effect on the morale of the whole people as well as on the I.R.A. Stories were current that the ‘Auxies’ were super-fighters and all but invincible. There could be no further delay in challenging them" (Guerilla Days In Ireland, 1949, Chapter VII).
According to Barry’s account a Column of 36 riflemen was assembled near Dunmanway on 21st November for a week’s training for an attack on a contingent of Auxiliaries. "This unit was composed of new men, only one of whom had fought previously at Toureen, and only three of whom had been through camp training. They were mostly quite untrained but many appeared to be splendid natural fighters."
They were trained from Monday to Saturday, marched to the battleground during the night, and deployed in ambush positions by 9 o’clock on Sunday morning, being informed that "the positions they were about to occupy allowed for no retreat".
Lorry loads of Auxiliaries travelled regularly between Macroom and Dunmanway. The ambush site was a short straight stretch between two bends on that road.
The convoy would be travelling from west to east. Barry’s Command Post was close to the road at the eastern end. The Column was divided into three Sections. Sections 1 & 2, with 10 men in each, were placed north of the road. Section 3 (commanded by Stephen O’Neill) was sub-divided, part of it being placed south of the road to prevent the Auxiliaries taking up firing positions there, and the rest being placed to the rear to deal with the possibility that there might be more than the two lorries that were expected.
The Column stayed in position all day, until the convoy was sighted at four o’clock.
To slow down the convoy, Barry himself stood on the road in Republican uniform. (Paddy O’Brien, an officer in the Column, had got himself a Republican uniform, which Barry borrowed for the ambush.) The first lorry slowed down on seeing Barry and was attacked with a bomb and rifle fire. Some of the Auxiliaries got out of he lorry and for a few minutes there was hand-to-hand combat. "There was no surrender called by these Auxiliaries and in less than five minutes they were all exterminated". There were nine of them.
The second lorry stopped some distance behind the first. The Auxiliaries deployed on the road and exchanged fire with Section 2. Barry left his Command Post when the first lorry had been dealt with and made his way with three riflemen back to the second group:
"We had gone about fifty yards when we heard the Auxiliaries shout ‘We surrender’. We kept running along the grass edge of the road as they repeated the surrender cry, and actually saw some Auxiliaries throw away their rifles. Firing stopped, but we continued, still unobserved, to jog towards them. Then we saw three of our comrades on No. 2 Section stand up, one crouched and two upright. Suddenly the Auxiliaries were firing again with revolvers. One of the men spun around before he fell, and Pat Deasy staggered before he, too, went down."
Barry then gave the order, "Rapid fire and do not stop until I tell you", and he took no heed of a further "We surrender" call by the Auxiliaries:
"The small IRA group on the road was now standing up, firing as they advanced to within ten yards of the Auxiliaries. Then the "Cease Fire" was given and there was an uncanny silence as the sound of the last shot died away."
The Sections were reassembled. The arms and papers on the dead Auxiliaries were collected. The lorries were set on fire. A few of the men who were in a state of shock were "harshly reprimanded" to jerk them back to military efficiency, and for the same purpose
"…the Column commenced to drill and march. The lorries were now ablaze. Like two huge torches, they lit up the countryside and the corpse-strewn, blood-stained road, as the Flying Column marched up and down, drilled, and marched again between them. For five minutes the eerie drill continued until the Column halted in front of the rock where Michael McCarthy and Jim O’Sullivan lay. There it executed a ‘Present Arms’ as its farewell tribute to those fine Irish soldiers". (This is described in the chapter that Barry entitled, "Drill Amidst The Dead".)
Half an hour after the start of the action the Column marched off into hiding for a night’s rest. Barry recounts his night thoughts:
"The Auxiliaries had had it… Close quarter fighting did not suit them… Keep close to them should be our motto, for generally they must be better shots than us, because of their opportunities for practice and their war experience. There are no good or bad shots at ten yards’ range. Our dead! Two of them might be alive now had I warned them of the bogus surrender trick, which is as old as war itself. Why did I not warn them? I could not think of everything."
The Column spent the following days evading British sweeps of the general area. A Police Order was issued in Macroom on 1st December that murders had been committed by apparently loyal people who had revolvers hidden in their pockets and that men would therefore not be allowed to have their hands in their pockets in Macroom. On 10th December the Viceroy, Lord French, proclaimed Martial Law in parts of Cork, Tipperary and Limerick because of "an ambush, massacre, mutilation with axes of sixteen cadets by a large body of men wearing trench helmets and disguised in the uniforms of British soldiers". And all business premises in Cork City were made to close in honour of the dead "cadets" as they passed through on their way to London.
Barry sums up:
"Of the eighteen Auxiliaries, sixteen were dead, one reported missing (after he had been shot, he crawled to the bog hole near the side of the road, where he died and his body sank out of sight) and one dying of wounds. The last-mentioned never regained consciousness before he died. There were no spectators to the fight."

Adjunct Professor Hart states it as a fact that Barry’s account of the ambush is "riddled with lies and evasions. There was no false surrender as he described it" (p36). Hart finds the "official British report" of the ambush "remarkably accurate" (p36):

B. Official British Report.
"…When dusk was falling, at about 5 p.m., the patrol was proceeding along the Macroom-Dunmanway road and reached a point where the road curves. Low stone walls flank the road and there are narrow strips of tussocky bogland, rising to boulder-covered slopes of high ground on either side.
"It is surmised from an examination of the site and from inquiries that the attackers, who were all clad in khaki and trench coats, and wore steel helmets, had drawn their motor lorry across the road and were mistaken by the first car of cadets for military. The first car halted, and the cadets, unsuspecting, got out and approached the motor lorry . . . shooting began, and three were killed instantaneously. Others began to run back to the first car. The cadets in the second car ran along the road to the help of their comrades. Then from a depression in the hillside behind the second car came a devastating fire at close range. The cadets were shot down by concealed men from the walls, and all around a direct fire from the ambushers’ lorry also swept down the road. After firing had continued for some time, and many men were wounded, overwhelming forces of the ambushers came out and forcibly disarmed the survivors.
"There followed a brutal massacre, the policy of the murder gang being apparently to allow no survivor to disclose their methods. The dead and wounded were hacked about the head with axes, shot guns were fired into their bodies, and they were savagely mutilated. The one survivor, who was wounded, was hit about the head and left for dead. He had also two bullet wounds . . . terrible treachery on the part of local inhabitants is indicated by the fact that, although many people attending Mass on Sunday morning were diverted from their route by the murder gang, no word was sent to the police, and the ambush sat there until dusk." (As quoted by Hart.)

Hart then quotes from the "original after-action report written for his superiors", allegedly by Barry. He describes it as "an authentic captured document". He quotes it from "an unpublished and confidential history" of "The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Divisional Area" in the papers of General Strickland:

C (i). Alleged Barry Report.
"The column paraded at 3.15 a.m. on Sunday morning. It comprised 32 men armed with rifles, bayonets, five revolvers, and 100 rounds of ammunition per man. We marched for four hours, and reached a position on the Macroom-Dunmanway road . . . We camped in that position until 4.15 p.m., and then decided that as the enemy searches were completed, that it would be safe to return to our camp. Accordingly, we started the return journey. About five minutes after the start we sighted two enemy lorries moving at a distance of about 1,900 yards from us. The country in that particular district is of a hilly and rocky nature, and, although suitable to fighting, it is not at all suitable to retiring without being seen. I decided to attack the lorries . . . The action was carried out successfully. Sixteen of the enemy who were belonging to the Auxiliary Police from Macroom Castle being killed, one wounded and escaped, and is now missing . . .
"P.S.:--I attribute our casualties to the fact that those three men were too anxious to get into close quarters with the enemy. They were our best men, and did not know danger in this or any previous actions. They discarded their cover, and it was not until the finish of the action that P. Deasy was killed by a revolver bullet from one of the enemy whom he thought dead."

Hart next quotes as follows from an article on Kilmichael by Barry, which was published in the Irish Press, 26th November, 1932:

C (ii). Irish Press Account.
"…I.R.A. and Auxiliaries were engaged in a death struggle. After eight or ten minutes of terrific fighting the first lorry of the enemy was overcome and a party of three men . . . advanced up the road to help their second section. They were firing as they advanced to the relief of their sorely pressed comrades, three of whom had already fallen. The end was at hand and in a short time the remainder of the Auxiliaries fighting the second section were dead. They like the I.R.A. had fought to a finish." (As given by Hart.)

Hart also quotes briefly from the account of Kilmichael given in Liam Deasy’s, Towards Ireland Free, published in 1973. This account is not by Deasy himself. He says it was given to him by Paddy O’Brien. O’Brien is the officer in the Column from whom Barry borrowed the Republican uniform that he wore for slowing down the convoy. Hart only quotes two and a half lines from O’Brien’s account. We give O’Brien’s account in full and follow it with the part quoted by Hart:

D (i). Paddy O’Brien:
"We paraded at 5.00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and after a breakfast of tea, bread and butter we set out on the five mile march to Kilmichael. It was raining heavily… When we reached Gloun Cross it was still very dark, and we were soaked through. We met people going to Mass, and they were ordered to return home for their own safety--and for ours also.
"It was just coming daylight when we reached Kilmichael, and without more ado, Tom Barry divided the Column into two sections, taking charge of one section himself, and placing the other under the command of Michael McCarthy. Positions selected the previous evening were taken up, and I was given orders to maintain contact with the different units while immediate preparations were being made. I first went to help Michael McCarthy. We rolled stones down to within two yards of the verge of the road and built a low barricade there and camouflaged it with furze bushes…
"Having completed my round I returned to the first position inside the low fence… In the adjoining laneway stood Tom Barry, Sonny Dave Crowley, Jim ‘Spud’ Murphy, Mick Herlihy, and John ‘Flyer’ Nylan… Shortly afterwards I crossed the road to the spot where Stephen O’Neill and Jack Hegarty were lying directly opposite the first position… We had two official scouts from the locality…
"Time seemed to move slowly. Yet in spite of the tense air of expectancy spirits were still high, though here and there a pale face glimpsed through the shifting mist reflected the inner fears of a youth facing the ordeal of battle for the first time, and the possibility of death. The early winter night was beginning to fall… when the signal… was given.
"All wearniness vanished, the quiet talk ceased, safety catches were released… In these last moments before the battle there was an extraordinary distraction: along the road from Gloun came a pony and trap with four armed men… A sharp order directed the new arrivals to gallop the pony and trap up the lane to Murray’s yard. Even as it reached the lane, the first Crossley tender appeared in view. Tom Barry had placed a stone on the road, and had ordered that when the tender reached it fire was to be opened.
"The opening fusillade killed the driver instantly, and the tender came to a halt. Barry appeared on the road and threw a grenade into the back of the tender, and all was over so far as that one was concerned. When Stephen O’Neill and I came out on to the road from the opposite side, we found ‘Flyer’ and ‘Spud’ were at the first tender; all the occupants had been killed.
"Meanwhile, the second tender was about one hundred and fifty yards behind, and had become stuck at the side of the road where the driver had tried unsuccessfully to turn it. The Auxiliaries had jumped out, threw themselves on the road and were firing from the cover of the tender. We then opened fire from their rear and when they realised that they were caught between two fires, they knew they were doomed.
"It was then realised that three of our men had been killed in Michael McCarthy’s section; he himself had been shot through the head, Jim O’Sullivan through the jaw, and Pat Deasy had two bullet wounds through the body. Two others had been wounded, Jack Hennessy and John Lordan, but though they had lost a great deal of blood, their wounds were not serious. It had been a short but grim fight. Of the eighteen Auxiliaries involved, one escaped and fled across the country only to be captured and shot later, and another who was taken for dead survived for a while but never recovered from his wounds. The remaining sixteen had been killed outright." (Deasy, p170-72. The pony and trap incident is also related by Barry.)

D. (ii). The extract quoted by Hart:
"The Auxies jumped out… We then opened fire from their rear and when they realised that they were caught between two fires they knew that they were doomed. It was then realised that three of our men had been killed."

The first statement about the false surrender in print was made in General Crozier’s Memoirs, Ireland For Ever (1932). We give a longer extract from this than Hart does. Hart’s extract is indicated by square brackets.

E. General Crozier
"The best weapon we ever had in Ireland was King’s justice… when that failed the edifice crumbled…
"There is no doubt if some of the men associated with the Black and Tan enterprise had found themselves suddenly transported to Mexico or South America and there put in command of some military coup they would have been ‘warned off’ as being ‘too hot’ for the new world or ‘popped off’ as more suitable for the next…
"While I was in hospital a convoy of Auxiliaries had been ambushed in County Cork, all save one man (desperately wounded) being killed, while, it was alleged, the wounded had been butchered by Sinn Feiners while lying helpless on the ground. I journeyed to Cork to find out the truth about this carnage, and, as I was in mufti and unknown, learned a great deal, not only about the ambush but about what went on at Cork during the burning which …happened while I was in hospital.
"[It was perfectly true that the wounded had been put to death after the ambush, but the reason for this barbarous inhumanity became understandable although inexcusable.] For, as Mr. Lloyd George so vehemently pointed out during the African war, it is unjust to punish the innocent for the guilty although then his words of wisdom did not apply. [Arms were supposed to have been surrendered, but a wounded Auxiliary whipped out a revolver while lying on the ground and shot a ‘Shinner’ with the result that all his comrades were put to death with him, the rebels ‘seeing red’, a condition akin to ‘going mad’]--as often given in defence of the Black and Tans by Mr. Churchill and others". (pp126-128. Lloyd George when in Opposition had been strongly critical of the British methods used in the Boer War.)

F. Stephen O’Neill
An article by Stephen O’Neill, who commanded Section Three at Kilmichael, was published in The Kerryman in December 1937 (see Letter 8). We have been unable to acquire a copy of this in time for publication in this pamphlet, but Hart does not dispute Dr. Murphy’s statement that it includes an account of the false surrender.
J. Lane
B. Clifford
November 1999.

The Discussion
1. Padraig Ó Cuanacháin
A chara,--Kevin Myers (May 29th) laments the fate of 18 members of the Auxiliary division killed in the Kilmichael Ambush during the War of Independence.
Must I stress once again, that this war was forced on Ireland by the British Government who refused to accept the authority of a lawfully elected government of the Irish people and their declaration of independence. Worse still, in the war that followed, the British Government refused to implement the terms of the Geneva Convention and captured IRA members (and the IRA was the lawful government of the Irish people) were executed by hanging or firing squad, or were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. In many cases, they were executed unofficially after capture.
Kevin Myers must surely be joking if he suggests that the IRA, underarmed and undertrained and facing tremendous odds should treat the enemy, that behaved in such a manner, with kid gloves and most certainly not the Auxiliary Division, who were guilty of the most appalling atrocities, including the murders of two priests--Fr Griffin in Galway, and Canon Magner in Dunmanway.
The Auxiliary company stationed in Macroom Castle, as Kevin Myers admits, were guilty of the murder in Baile Mhuirne, of an unarmed civilian. The Auxiliaries who were present were all guilty of a capital crime, since they participated in the murder or refused to arrest and charge those responsible. The Auxiliaries at Kilmichael had no special reason to expect that they would be treated as soldiers, given their record of refusing to accept the conventions of war.
However, having known General Tom Barry very well, I am quite prepared to accept his version of the ambush--that the Auxiliaries surrendered, threw down their rifles, but then opened fire with their revolvers at close range when the volunteers broke cover to accept surrender. This version is supported by the fact that the IRA casualties were three dead and another wounded. These would be unlikely if the ambush party remained in their concealed and covered positions.
Incidentally, Captain Godfrey, for whom Kevin Myers sheds tears, was generally believed in Baile Mhuirne to be the man who murdered the civilian there.
I wonder if this habit of revising history will spread to other countries? Are we likely to find some German journalists in the new millennium favourably reviewing a book that laments the hard times suffered by the Gestapo or the SS in occupied Europe during the last war?
Dia idir sinn agus an tolc!
5th June, 1998: Irish Times

2. Peter Hart
Sir,--With reference to letters from Padraig Ó Cuanacháin (June 5th) and John Paul McCarthy (June 15th) regarding Kevin Myers’s discussion of my book, The IRA and Its Enemies, several points require a response. First of these is Mr Ó Cuanacháin’s appeal to the rights of the Dáil, as a "lawfully elected government," and the agreed laws of war to defend the actions of the IRA at the Kilmichael ambush and elsewhere.
In fact, whatever its moral or democratic legitimacy, the Dáil had no legal standing and was never recognised by any foreign government. Nor did the IRA, as a guerrilla force acting without uniforms and depending on their civilian status for secrecy, meet the requirements of international law. The British government was therefore within its rights to give courts-martial the power to order executions. This, of course, did not empower policemen or soldiers to commit murder--as they certainly did--but this had nothing to do with international law.
Mr Ó Cuanacháin also declares that he is willing to accept Tom Barry’s version of Kilmichael, but one of the points my book makes is that Barry’s story has changed considerably over time. Does Mr Ó Cuanacháin believe Barry’s original account, written in 1920, which makes no mention of a "false surrender" and blames the dead men for exposing themselves? And why shouldn’t he believe the many other IRA veterans who were there, who disagreed with Barry’s later version published in his memoirs? Surely Mr Ó Cuanacháin would agree that history is a matter of fact, not blind faith in comfortable myths?
23rd June, 1998: Irish Times

3. D.R. O’Connor Lysaght
Sir,--John Paul McCarthy (June 15th) suggests that the first (two? three?) Dáils lacked democratic legitimacy. In this, he is backed by Owen Quinn (June 22nd) who corroborates with statements from two Sinn Féin activists.
Their letters pose a new problem. If the Dáil lacked democratic legitimacy, who had it? Of course, women under 30 lacked the vote, but this disability affected all parties in these islands, not just Sinn Féin. At the very least, the 1918 election left a power vacuum in Ireland, but one which Sinn Féin was the best suited to fill of all the contestants. It had won 25 of its 73 seats unopposed and won 22 more with two-to-one majorities. Such victories cannot be dismissed as mere products of intimidation and personation. Only a handful of results could have been affected by such means. The number of such results may be reduced further by the well-documented cases of intimidation by Britain (which had the biggest firepower) and by anti-Sinn Féin employers. Neither matter is taken into consideration by your correspondents.
At the very least, the election put the onus on the British government to negotiate with Sinn Féin. Instead, it attempted to impose a settlement unwanted by any sizeable political group in Ireland. This was a far worse breach of democracy than the establishment of Dáil Éireann.
Finally, Mr McCarthy uses Tom Garvin’s 1922 as his authority for claiming that the actual leaders of Sinn Féin (or some of them) doubted the democratic validity of their 1918 mandate. This is less convincing when Professor Garvin’s actual passage is read. It comes to two sentences in 206 pages, without any authority given for them in an otherwise well-annotated work. Only the already converted should be convinced by this.
30th June, 1998: Irish Times
[We have taken the liberty of including Mr. O’Connor Lysaght’s letter, even though we realised at the last moment that we had neglected to ask his permission.]

4. Padraig Ó Cuanacháin
Sir,--I am certainly surprised at Peter Hart’s contention (June 23rd) that Dáil Éireann, which I claim was the lawfully elected government of the Irish people, had no legal standing and was never recognised by any foreign government. He states further that the IRA acting without uniform and depending on their civilian status, did not meet the requirements of international law (whatever that may be) and the British government was therefore within its rights to give courts martial the power to order executions.
Older readers will remember that after the last war, scores--if not hundreds--of German army officers were executed in formerly occupied territories for doing precisely what Mr Hart claims was legal. If Irish guerrillas fighting without uniform deserved execution, surely also did the French Resistance fighting in the same manner. And it must be remembered that the French Resistance was also fighting in open defiance of their own government, which had concluded a peace treaty with Germany in 1940. Your readers will also recall that at Nuremberg, German leaders were held responsible, and rightly so for atrocities against civilians, although they themselves never actually "pulled the trigger". Many were executed.
I never read any writer advocate that Lloyd George or Sir Hammer Greenwood or Lord French (Commander of the British occupation forces) should have been tried for their lives on account of atrocities committed against the civilian population in Ireland and most especially, for the horrific murders of Canon Magner in Dunmanway and Fr Brown in Galway that I referred to in a previous letter. The revision of history works in a very selective manner indeed.
It seems to me that in international law, the poor, the under-privileged, the third world, Irish patriots fighting for independence are in one category, and the rich and powerful nations and the victors are in another.
On the matter of the Kilmichael Ambush, Peter Hart refers to an account written [by] General Tom Barry in 1920, I knew the General very well indeed. Is it seriously contended that in the middle of the War of Independence, he was guilty of an extraordinary breach of security, by committing to paper details which would incriminate himself and others and even attach his signature to the document? And then it was conveniently captured by the British army. This sounds very much like fiction to me or the British black propaganda. Where is the letter now? In the British war museum? Can Peter Hart produce even a photocopy? I am sure you, sir, would be delighted to reproduce it. It would be of great interest to readers.
7th July, 1998: Irish Times

[A letter from John Paul McCarthy was published in the Irish Times on July 13th, 1998. It praised "Professor Tom Garvin’s excellent 1922", and quoted it as follows: "The election of 1918 itself had been in many ways non-competitive, and there had been considerable intimidation by what was becoming the IRA. There was also a considerable amount of personation and stuffing of ballot boxes." "Separatist leaders openly admitted that the elections of 1918, 1921 and 1922 were doubtful expressions of the popular will."]

5. Peter Hart
Sir,--In reply to Padraig O Cuanachain (July 7th), members of the British army and the Irish police committed murder on a massive scale in Ireland in 1920 and 1921--and typically got away with it. My book, The IRA and Its Enemies, discusses many such instances, their causes and consequences. These men should have been tried and convicted--but under British laws, not international ones.
Nor were members of the IRA protected by the Hague Convention, the basis for the law of war on land. The British government and its forces were not at war in this sense. To be recognised as belligerent soldiers, the guerillas would have had to be fighting for a responsible established state, wear a recognisable uniform or emblem, carry their arms openly, and not disguise themselves as civilians. None of these conditions applied. It is of course true that international law favours established states, but if any group can claim belligerent status when using political violence, then so can the INLA or the LVF. The Oklahoma bombers would also have a right to POW status.
The analogy Mr O Cuanachain makes with occupied France in the second World War is an interesting one, but--at least under the Nuremberg principles--German criminals were convicted for war crimes because they violated the Hague rules by plundering, killing prisoners of war and hostages, etc. They were an illegally occupying power, and the Free French forces were fighting for a recognised government (in Allied eyes), despite not having a 1918-style mandate. Of course, resistance fighters did many of the things the IRA had done, and thus violated the laws of war, but they did for the most part qualify as combatants.
To return to the specifics of the Kilmichael ambush, I can answer Mr O Cuanachain’s queries as to Tom Barry’s first report of the action. It is reprinted in a classified divisional history written in 1922, now to be found in the Imperial War Museum in London. I have quoted almost all of it in The IRA and Its Enemies. Is it genuine? Clearly so, on a number of grounds.
First, IRA units habitually wrote weekly, monthly, and after-action reports, and many of these were captured. Many survive in Irish archives, but others are sprinkled through internal British documents and files, or were released to newspapers. Any historian of the period will know this to be true. Incidentally, there are no known cases of forged IRA documents.
Second, the report contains details of the column and the ambush which only a participant could have known.
Third, the report does not support the official British version of the ambush, which wrongly accused the IRA of mutilating the Auxiliaries with axes, among other things. Why forge a document if it won’t do you any good or make your opponent look bad?
Fourth, why forge a document and then only reprint it secretly in an internal, unpublished, history after the conflict is over? It simply makes no sense.
Finally, my account of what happened depends largely on the memories of other IRA men who were there. Were not they also "Irish patriots fighting for independence"? Should we "revise" their words out of the story so to keep Barry’s lies intact?
As I write from Belfast, the terrible cost of hypocrisy and double standards is clear. Surely murder was murder in 1920, no matter who committed it, and surely it is time we can say so, and be governed simply by what the facts--and simple morality--tell us.
22nd July, 1998: Irish Times

[A letter by Paddy Connolly published in The Examiner on 1st August, 1998 pointed out that an account of the false surrender at Kilmichael, written by Stephen O’Neill, who commanded Section 3, was published in The Kerryman in 1937.]

6. Brian P Murphy
Sir,--I write in relation to the recent correspondence about the ambush at Kilmichael on November 28th, 1920, which was initiated by Kevin Myers on May 28th, 1920, which was initiated by Kevin Myers on May 29th when he praised Peter Hart’s book, The IRA and its Enemies and accepted its conclusions. In his book Hart concluded that "British information seems to have been remarkably accurate. Barry’s ‘history’ of Kilmichael, on the other hand, is riddled with lies and evasions. There was no false surrender as he described it." Hart has defended this view on two subsequent occasions in your columns.
This opinion of Hart is largely based on, what he calls, Barry’s "original after-action report written for his superiors", which was captured by the British. Hart accepts this as "an authentic captured document" and states that it "was only printed in an unpublished and confidential history." [The IRA & Its Enemies, p26.]
Several observations may be made about this document, which is so central to the charge that Barry was lying. Firstly, the report as it appears in the General Strickland Papers is not the original hand-written account by Barry. It is typed into the official record of the Irish Rebellion (1916-1921) in the 6th Divisional Area. Secondly, the report is not dated. Thirdly, contrary to Hart’s assertion, the report did appear in published form, although with a limited circulation, in The Irish Republican Army from Captured Documents Only (June 1921).
The internal content of the report also raises many questions. While it does describe the column as being divided into three sections for the ambush, as indeed happened, there are many anomalies. The most serious discrepancies, as Hart admits, are the statements that the column left its position to return home "as the enemy searches were completed", and that the decision to attack the Auxiliaries was taken some five minutes into their homeward journey. In other words the document suggests that, contrary to all other existing evidence, the column did not remain in their ambush positions until the Auxiliaries arrived.
These considerations alone place a major question mark on the authenticity of the document. These errors, moreover, are compounded by other issues over detail: for example the time of the column’s arrival at Kilmichael and the time of the ambush do not accord with other accounts. The report is also brief. It does not, it is true, contain a mention of a false surrender, but neither does it mention other features central to the incident such as Barry standing in the road in military uniform to confront the first lorry, or the division of the three sections into smaller sub-sections.
The context in which the report was written is also significant. Barry had retreated with the column to Granure, some 10 miles south of Kilmichael, by the late evening of November 28th. In the early hours of next morning he was contacted by Charlie Hurley, Brigade Commandant, and made a verbal report to him. Liam Deasy received what he described as "a full report of the ambush" from Hurley on November 30th. A few days later, on December 3rd, Barry was taken to hospital in Cork with heart trouble, and was confined there until December 28th. In this context questions arise as to the need to make a report, and the opportunity to do so.
It should be noted that all Barry’s detailed accounts of the ambush since the early 1940s mention a false surrender, and that he referred to others who did the same. One of the most significant was General F.P. Crozier, who was responsible for the Auxiliary Division of the RIC from 1920 to 1921, when he resigned owing to their lack of discipline. He wrote in Ireland For Ever (1932) that at Kilmichael "it was perfectly true that the wounded had been put to death after the ambush, but the reason for this barbarous inhumanity became understandable although inexcusable" because "arms were supposed to have been surrendered, but a wounded Auxiliary whipped out a revolver while lying on the ground and shot a ‘Shinner’ with the result that all his comrades were put to death."
Hart accepts that this story was to be heard as early as 1921, and he acknowledges Crozier "as the first writer" to acknowledge the false surrender story. In fact Crozier was not the first to write of such a surrender. Piaras Beaslai, for one, wrote in his life of Michael Collins (1926) that "what really happened on the occasion was that, after the fight had continued for some time, some of the Auxiliaries offered to surrender. When Volunteers advanced to take the surrender they were fired on."
Despite this significant evidence, which explicitly affirms the false surrender story, Hart chooses to reject it in favour of a document, surrounded with question marks, which merely fails to mention a false surrender. One cannot but feel that far more evidence is required before Barry’s account may be dismissed as "lies and evasion".
4th August, 1998: Examiner; and 10th August, 1998: Irish Times

7. Peter Hart
Sir,--Brian P. Murphy (August 10th) raises some interesting points regarding Tom Barry’s first report of the Kilmichael ambush. However, he is wrong to state that my reconstruction in The IRA and its Enemies is "largely based" on this document. In fact, my primary sources were interviews with participants and statements made by them, conducted and collected by myself and others.
The details are given in my book. It is these men’s eyewitness accounts which contradict Barry’s memoirs, and which provide the main body of evidence about what really happened on November 28th, 1920.
The document in question is, however, significant in that it is the first written account of the ambush and it (and Barry’s first published account in 1932) is remarkably different from the later, now familiar, story. It was only later that Barry claimed the Auxiliaries were wiped out because their "false surrender" lured three Volunteers to their deaths.
But is this report authentic? Murphy first notes that we do not have the original and that, as well as appearing in the unprinted, unpublished 6th Division history, it appears in a confidential printed (but not published) pamphlet issued to units by the Irish Command in 1921. This was not a piece of propaganda. In fact, it used dozens of captured documents to illustrate IRA methods and tactics. The pamphlet’s British author even comments that the Kilmichael report does not support the official version of the ambush, which claimed the IRA mutilated the Auxiliaries’ bodies.
We must therefore ask the following questions: why would the British army forge a document which does not agree with its version of events, and then keep it secret except to mislead its own officers as to IRA methods? Presumably Murphy does not question the provenance of the other reprinted documents (many can be found in Irish archives), so why suspect this one only? It seems to me that its inclusion among so many other authentic documents actually reinforces its believability.
Murphy also points to the report’s omission of detail and to inconsistencies with later versions, although he does he does note the reference to the column being split into sections as accurate. Other details which only participants could have known include the times given, the casualties and the fact that one Auxiliary escaped. The omissions can be attributed to the report’s brevity, which also explains who Barry could write it so fast. The fact that he felt the need to write it all (which Murphy questions) could be held against any of the numerous similar reports he wrote about later actions, which can be found in the Richard Mulcahy Papers in the UCD Archives.
The inconsistencies arise from Barry’s explanation of why the ambush happened. In the report--unlike his latter accounts--he suggests the ambush was accidental and unavoidable. Why? Possibly because it was unauthorised and outside brigade boundaries. This ensured Barry could stay in charge, but required explanation. And why would British forgers make up this otherwise insignificant detail anyway?
Finally, Murphy argues that other writers’ mention of a "false surrender" supports Barry’s later claims. I agree that F.P. Crozier’s "finding" must be taken into account, but neither he nor Piaras Beaslai were there. There references must be put alongside equally serious endorsements of the equally false British version by such writers as General Macready and W.A. Philips. Repetition doesn’t make either truer. Kilmichael was the subject of a propaganda battle from the outset: it’s hardly surprising that the truth lay in neither camp.
Why is the "false surrender" so important? Because from Barry’s point of view it justified the "extermination" of unarmed and wounded prisoners. We know this happened: Barry and his biographer admit it, and many witnesses have described it in detail. These same witnesses deny Barry’s claims--as do, implicitly, his earliest accounts. I would invite readers to ignore Barry’s self-constructed reputation, weigh these facts and draw their own conclusions.
19th August, 1998: Examiner; and 1st September, 1998: Irish Times

8. Dr. Brian P. Murphy
Sir,--In his letter on Tom Barry and the Kilmichael ambush (September 1st), Peter Hart replies to my earlier letter and attempts to substantiate his claim that Barry’s account of the ambush "was riddled with lies and evasions".
In regard to the documentary evidence, Hart is prepared to accept the captured report of the Commander of the Flying Column as that of Barry, although, as I have pointed out, it is not handwritten by Barry and it is not dated.
Hart asks why this particular report, which he takes to be Barry’s initial report, should be questioned. The answer is simple: the details of the ambush that it records do not, despite Hart’s assertions to the contrary, match the accepted version of the encounter in many important matters.
Hart himself accepts that "it is clear that, contrary to Barry’s initial report, the ambush was planned." This is the most striking difference: the captured report talks of the Flying Column retiring from its position before the ambush, while all other accounts maintain that the column remained in waiting until the Auxiliaries arrived.
Hart states in his letter that the time of the ambush in the captured report is the same as in other recorded versions. This is not correct. Most versions state that the ambush began soon after 4 p.m. and Barry gives 4.05 p.m. as the start of the engagement. The captured report states that at 4.15 p.m. "we started the return journey" home, and then saw two lorries of Auxiliaries at about 4.20 p.m. The ambush began soon afterwards. In other words, the captured report has the ambush beginning when the action, which lasted about 20 minutes, was finishing.
The fundamental question is not whether or not the document was a forgery by the British, but why Peter Hart should reject part of the account as inaccurate, and then accept the failure to mention a false surrender as accurate. On what grounds does he base his selection? The source is either of value in its entirety or not at all. Questions as to why the British should forge such a document become irrelevant.
In regard to interviews with participants, the names of those interviewed by Hart, and by others, are given only as initials in his book, and much of their testimony centres on the killing of the Auxiliaries rather than on the false surrender. The published account of Stephen O’Neill, commander of section three at the ambush (Kerryman, December 1937), which accepts Barry’s version of a false surrender is rejected by Hart. Also rejected is the evidence of eye-witnesses to be found in Meda Ryan’s book on Tom Barry (1982), who accepted that there was a false surrender. I agree with Peter Hart that readers may weigh these facts and draw their own conclusions.
I would also add that in the quest for veracity over this particular issue, and in other historical matters of the period, it would be of great benefit if the statements and documents deposited in the Bureau of Military History were made available for research purposes.
7th September, 1998: Irish Times

9. Peter Hart
Sir,--Brian P Murphy’s latest letter on Kilmichael (September 7th) abandons the argument he made previously that Tom Barry’s original report of the ambush is not genuine. He now asserts that the "fundamental question" is not forgery but rather my explanation for why it differs from later accounts. [That is not what Murphy said. See third paragraph back. JL & BC.]
Yet surely there are only two logical possibilities: either Tom Barry wrote it or he did not. If he didn’t, someone else did. Assuming that no one in the IRA would have reason to, then only someone on the government side could have. But, as I hope I have already demonstrated, British intelligence officers had no reason to concoct such a version of events and, in fact, believed the document to be real. It follows, therefore, that Barry must have written it.
How, then, do we account for its omissions and discrepancies? The report lacks Barry’s signature and handwriting, but this is entirely consistent with those he wrote in 1921, which can be found in the Richard Mulcahy Papers. Dr Murphy points again to the timing of the ambush, which Barry’s report puts at 4.15, although he later stated it was 4.05. A similarly small difference exists with later versions of when the column began its march to the ambush site. In other words, the report is within a few minutes of other accounts, but not identical. This is certainly an acceptable level of accuracy given that people wrote from memory and given the much wider gap between it and the British "official" version (which presumably a forger would wish to support).
So if the timing issue is not very significant, and if most of the other stated details are accurate--and Dr Murphy does not dispute them--we are left with the question of why Barry would lie about whether or not the ambush was planned. Dr Murphy believes that "the source is either of value in its entirely [sic] or not at all".
In fact, most documents are neither. Surely the correct historical approach to an apparently genuine document is to ask why the author wrote as he or she did?
In this case, I believe Barry’s omissions and lies form a coherent pattern in that they eliminate the controversial aspects of the event. He didn’t have authority to launch a risky ambush outside brigade boundaries, and he hadn’t told his superiors, so he claimed it was an accident. Remember, at this point Barry was more or less on probation and had yet to make his name as a commander. Indeed, this was his first ever report. He also failed to mention the killing of wounded and surrendered men because that too might cause trouble. It was unprecedented and went against the often chivalrous standards in combat set by such commanders as Sean Moylan and Sean MacEoin.
My own reconstruction in The Irish and Its Enemies is, as Dr Murphy points out, based primarily on the testimony of witnesses whose identities I was asked to keep confidential. This was true of interviews I conducted, and also those held by other people, who kindly allowed me to use the tapes and statements they collected (the details are in the book). Nowhere, however, does my book depend on the uncorroborated evidence of my interviews--they are always backed up by other sources, as is the case here. It is worth noting that Meda Ryan’s excellent biography of Barry also quotes unnamed sources. In fact, we clearly interviewed the same person in at least one instance, although she does believe there was a "false surrender" (as I do note in my book).
Finally, let me end on a note of agreement and echo Dr Murphy’s call for the Bureau of Military History to be opened to researchers. If this debate helps bring new evidence to light, it will represent a victory for everyone.
14th September, 1998: Irish Times

10. Meda Ryan
Sir,--I refer to correspondence regarding the Kilmichael Ambush and the "false surrender" aspect. For my book The Tom Barry Story (1982) I interviewed the ambush participants who were alive back to the early 1970s. All, including the last survivor, Ned Young (d. 1989) and Paddy O’Brien (d. 1979) spoke of the "surrender call" by the Auxiliaries and their resumption of shooting. Unlike Peter Hart, none of the participants of the ambush to whom I spoke asked me to keep their names confidential, and I have no problem with giving reference names, dates, etc. I would stress that I spoke to and questioned them while their memory was vivid, and this is important.
I grew up in the area and I listened to people get very angry that "The Auxies" picked up their guns after their surrender cries. My uncle, Pat O’Donovan, was in Section 2, where the three volunteers who were fatally shot were positioned. He, like others, said that he heard "the surrender call" in that evening atmosphere of the Kilmichael countryside.
The suggestion made by Peter Hart that there was no false surrender is based to an extent on a report that allegedly was written by Tom Barry and was later captured. Peter Hart chooses the absence of the mention of a false surrender in this report as a proof that there was no false surrender. As Brian Murphy has pointed out (August 10th), this report is not an original handwritten account, nor is it dated; nor indeed has it any of the characteristics to show it is authentic. It is typed into an official record with quotation marks. Furthermore, it was typed after the Truce because it mentions Barry as being "afterwards appointed Liaison Officer." It has all the hallmarks of a propaganda work. Basic elements point to a forgery. Most of the sentences contain elements that are at variance with written versions and also with that of participants’ information.
To begin with: If Tom Barry wrote this report for his superiors, he would surely have got the number of men under his command correct. The first sentence has the time incorrect (important to Barry); the second has 32 men, instead of the correct 36 men. That sentence also mentions 100 rounds of ammunition per man. With that amount Barry could have stormed Macroom Castle!
This report (allegedly Barry’s) states that the column left its Kilmichael position at 4.10 p.m. and "about five minutes after the start we sighted two enemy lorries… I decided to attack the lorries." Peter Hart agrees that this is incorrect, that the column remained in position; however, he suggests that Barry wrote this because "he hadn’t told his superiors, so he claimed it was an accident" (September 14th) as the ambush "was unauthorised and outside brigade boundaries" (September 1st).
The facts are: The ambush was sanctioned by Liam Deasy and Charlie Hurley who both visited the training camp the previous week, and who were in consultation with Cork No. 1 brigade personnel. I have Deasy’s word for this. Deasy also mentions the "maturing" of ambush plans in Towards Ireland Free. The exact location and ambush plans were left to Barry. The ambush was outside brigade boundaries because of the terrain. The Macroom-based Auxiliaries who had been raiding the Third West Cork Brigade area had to be apprehended in the stretch of road before Gleann crossroads.
This report has Barry saying he hurriedly divided his column into three sections when they "sighted" two lorries. There is no mention of the sub-sections that were an extremely important device by Barry.
Peter Hart (September 1st) suggests that by claiming the ambush was "an accident" Barry "ensured" that he "could stay in charge." If Barry was trying to impress fellow officers, then from a guerrilla tactical viewpoint of preparedness, they would be fools to leave him in charge.
Just to refer to some of the terminology in this report that has all the aspects of one written, from a barrack viewpoint:
(a) "We camped in that position." They didn’t camp, they got into ambush positions, which is what Barry would have said.
(b) "…and then decided that as the enemy searches were completed." Barry would have used the words "raids" or "rampages", the barrack would have used "searches".
(c) "One wounded and escaped, and is now missing." Barry knew that one escaped, how did he know whether he was "now missing"? In Macroom Castle they knew he was "now missing".
(d) In a short report on an ambush, would Barry write, "the action was carried out successfully" against "the Auxiliary Police from Macroom Castle" (giving them their full title)?
As pointed out by Brian Murphy (August 10th), Piaras Beaslai mentioned the false surrender at Kilmichael. This is significant, as Beaslai wrote his book in 1923/24. Also significant is the first full account and mention of the false surrender, written by Kilmichael Section Commander, Stephen O’Neill (1937)--all prior to Barry’s full account.
Barry himself accepted full responsibility for the order to shoot outright "soldiers who had cheated in war." Because of the death of his comrades, he regretted for the rest of his life that he had not thought to warn his men "of the old war trick of a false surrender." Tom Barry placed great emphasis on exactness; he was upright and direct. I believe that to record for history that Tom Barry told lies regarding the Kilmichael ambush, and that he evaded responsibility, does not do justice to history nor to Tom Barry.
10th November, 1998: Irish Times

11. Peter Hart
Sir,--Meda Ryan (November 11th) repeats many of the arguments I have already answered. Thus, she returns to Tom Barry’s first report and once again suggests that it "has all the hallmarks of a propaganda work". No historian I know has ever found a forged IRA document from this period, so I’m not sure how she would recognise one. If it was a forgery, why was it kept secret? Why wasn’t it written to support the British version of events?
Ryan also points to the report’s "barracks" terminology, but a wider reading of IRA documents would show that their authors often assumed as "official" a style as possible; British officers noticed the same thing. Barry, of course, had spent four years in the army and would presumably have known it well.
In any case, as I point out in The IRA and Its Enemies, Barry also failed to mention any "false surrender" in his first published account, in the Irish Press in 1932. In this version (very different from later ones), he declares that the three column casualties "had already fallen" when he advanced to the second lorry and that the Auxiliaries "like the IRA had fought to a finish." Was it forged as well? What reason would he have for concealing British treachery? Here is an account, indisputably by Barry, that agrees with the earlier report.
Ms Ryan again mentions my use of anonymous interviews, and contrasts it with her own. I have great respect for her research--as my footnotes show--but her biography of Barry does use the phrase "one Volunteer told me" about the killing of prisoners without saying who it was. Most of the interviews I used were not my own, but were conducted by others, as detailed in my book. In each case, the holders of the recordings asked me not to use names, as a matter of courtesy to the families involved. These sources can be checked, however.
Nor am I the first person to question Barry’s later accounts. Liam Deasy’s memoirs, Towards Ireland Free, quoting Paddy O’Brien, do not mention any "false surrender". When Barry attacked them in print, Deasy stood by his book and specifically denied Barry’s "refutations", with the public support of most of the surviving officers and column men. Why believe Barry and not his former comrades?
There is an alternative, as my book suggests: legitimately different accounts exist of what happened at Kilmichael which can never be entirely reconciled. It was getting dark when the ambush started, some observers were far away, others saw only part of the action. Most of the participants were scared or enraged at the death of their comrades. And things happened very fast. So it is possible that one or more Auxiliaries surrendered while others kept firing. Or that a wounded policeman ignored the surrender and shot an IRA man when he approached. And it is certainly possible that some of the column did believe that they had been tricked.
However, what is clear is that there was no "false surrender" as Barry depicted it. There was no trick being played, and at most only one guerrilla died after the surrenders began. Most interviewees say that no one died in this way. Wounded and unwounded prisoners were beaten and killed in revenge for the grievous IRA losses around the second lorry--but this also happened at the first lorry where no column men were killed. One Auxiliary escaped only because he was believed to have been shot in the back as he ran away--only to be captured and executed a few hours later (although not by the column). Why were these men "finished off" if they were not guilty of treachery?
There were two forces at work at Kilmichael: the rage felt by the survivors at the death of their friends, and Tom Barry’s determination that no Auxiliary would be left alive. Before the ambush began, he declared it was to be a fight to the finish, ordered bayonets to be fixed, and posted men to prevent anyone escaping. Afterwards, he ordered the execution of wounded, helpless men. The result was a daring ambush which turned into a massacre: a combination of hot-blooded reprisal and cold-blooded murder, justified by the labelling of the victims as "terrorists". Sound familiar? The same recipe produced the same kind of violence in the British army and policy--and later the

by captain rock Sun Dec 12, 2004 21:32

This is a review that will add to this debate

Published in the Fall 2004 issue of the "Irish Literary Supplement" (
> Boston ).
>
> 
>
> Irish Literary Supplement
>
>
>
> Wars of Independence
>
>
>
> MEDA RYAN
> Tom Barry: Irish Freedom Fighter
> Mercier Press, 2003, EUR30.00
>
>
> SEÁN MOYLAN
> His Memoir of the Irish War of Independence
> Aubane Historical Society, 3rd edition, 2004, EUR15.00
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> Reviewed by
> MANUS O'RIORDAN
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> Tom Barry was not only the outstanding military leader of the War of
> Independence in West Cork. His own 1949 book Guerrilla Days in Ireland
> also established him as one of the foremost historians of that War. Yet on
> the two occasions in my life when I encountered Barry I failed to seize
> the opportunity to engage him in conversation.
>
> The first is more explicable in terms of age. I was just a twelve year old
> schoolboy in 1961 when I was taken on a tour of the West Cork battle sites
> that was conducted by Barry himself. I was introduced to him, obtained his
> autograph and was even induced to sing Brendan Behan's Auld Triangle in
> his presence. But I was too shy, and too much in awe of the man whom I had
> just heard give vivid accounts of the military engagements he had
> commanded four decades previously at Kilmichael and Crossbarry, to
> actually converse.
>
> In my teenage years, when I went on to devour Barry's own book from cover
> to cover, that awe turned to even more profound respect. And yet when I
> saw him again in Cork in 1975 at the funeral of a mutual trade union
> friend I still could not bring myself to talk with him. This, however, was
> more refusal than reluctance, prompted by anger rather than awe. For I had
> been thoroughly opposed to Barry's pronouncements which seemed to give his
> blessing to a war in Northern Ireland, even though his own chivalrous
> approach to warfare would lead him to condemn attacks on civilian targets.
> His mistake was to underestimate the substance of Northern Ireland's
> majority Protestant community by considering it little different from the
> Southern Loyalist minority he had to deal with in West Cork.
>
> Reading Meda Ryan's full-life biography reconfirms the two rather
> conflicting emotions I had felt in Barry's presence. He emerges
> warts-and-all, inclusive of simplistic "solutions" to Partition. There is,
> however, a pernicious view pushed by historical revisionists that somehow
> the peace process would be further assisted by painting the War of
> Independence that Barry himself actually fought in 1919-21 as a
> disreputable one replete with sectarian and other war crimes. Nothing else
> can explain the award of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize to
> Peter Hart for his 1998 book The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and
> Community in Cork 1916 - 1923. Meda Ryan's biography is all the more
> welcome, then, as an outstanding tour-de-force which demolishes Hart's
> much acclaimed reputation as a pathbreaking historian  when it comes to
> his most controversial allegations against Barry.
>
> These primarily centre on whether or not Barry had behaved as a war
> criminal at the Kilmichael ambush of November 1920. Hart insists that
> British troops were massacred after the battle had concluded.  Barry,
> however, always maintained that the Auxiliaries had pulled the stunt of a
> false surrender in order to inflict further casualties on his own
> volunteers, and only then had he insisted on a fight to the finish.  Hart
> opts for the British version and places Barry's account in quotation marks
> as a "history" that is "riddled with lies and evasions".
>
> Ryan painstakingly reconstructs the Kilmichael ambush from every bit of
> evidence available, ranging from her own earlier pioneering research in
> collecting the eye-witness accounts of named participants in that fight to
> a demolition of "evidence" presented by Hart from unnamed  people who were
> in fact in no position to witness what had happened. But she goes much
> further than that. Responding to Hart's assertion that Barry had not
> thought of presenting the "false surrender" argument in his 1932 Irish
> Press article on Kilmichael, Ryan comes up trumps with a letter from Barry
> to the editor protesting at that section of his submitted article being
> omitted from publication. Finally, Ryan subjects to rigorous linguistic
> analysis one of Hart's prize exhibits, which he claimed was an authentic
> report written by Barry himself in 1920, but later captured by the British
> military authorities. She convincingly demonstrates how Barry could not
> have written it, with the coup-de-grace being her restoration of a
> sentence that Hart himself carefully omitted, the erroneous statement that
> Volunteer Pat Deasy had been killed outright during the ambush itself,
> rather than dying from his wounds shortly afterwards. Hart's evasion grew
> like Pinocchio's nose, rapturously admired by revisionist academia as an
> outstanding piece of art, until it has now fallen off under the full glare
> of Ryan's relentless research.
>
> Like a heroine of a historical version of Crime Scene Investigation,
> Ryan's forensic expertise is employed to demolish another hare set running
> by Hart, namely, that the Boys of Kilmichael had engaged in a sectarian
> pogrom against West Cork Protestants during the Truce period of 1922.
> Following the murder of a Republican by Loyalists whose car he was
> attempting to "borrow", there had indeed been a number of Protestants
> murdered, but not because they were Protestants. Tom Barry had at a very
> early stage decided that his own history of the War of Independence would
> not name the British Army's informers of those years, out of consideration
> for the feelings of their families. Hart, by way of contrast, in shouting
> from the roof-tops the names of  all those Protestants killed in April
> 1922, and presenting them as religious martyrs whose images might properly
> adorn a memorial banner, left Ryan with no alternative but to publish the
> evidence that all but two of them had indeed been Loyalist informers. The
> two exceptions were the brother of one informer and the son of another. My
> own Clonakilty Republican mother knew the latter Loyalist family, and
> forty years ago she told me how disgusted the wider Republican community
> had been at the despicable murder of the young lad.
>
> But neither should the informers themselves have been killed at that
> stage, since the Truce ceasefire required a line to be drawn under the
> settling of "old" scores, however recent. Barry, who was based in Dublin
> at that time, bore no responsibility for such actions. But he did return
> quickly to West Cork and did indeed drive some people out of the area. His
> targets were, however, a number of local Catholics attempting to derive
> sectarian advantage against their Protestant neighbours from the tensions
> that undoubtedly resulted. And West Cork Protestant farmers went on to
> warmly thank and praise Barry for the armed IRA protection he provided for
> them against any such threat of sectarian abuse.
>
> A powerful defence of Barry against revisionist charges of sectarianism
> was also mounted in January 2004 by the Minister for Community, Gaeltacht
> and Rural Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív, who is a grandson of de Valera, when he
> launched the second edition of Seán Moylan's Memoir. It is a measure of
> the hunger that now exists for authentic reminiscences of that period that
> this Memoir, rescued from the dusty archives by the Aubane Historical
> Society and first published in July 2003, was already into its third
> edition by April 2004, with Minister Ó Cuív's Answer to Revisionists now
> included as an introduction.
>
> Moylan was a carpenter-turned-soldier in leading the War of Independence
> in North Cork, without having what he himself judged to be Barry's
> vocation for soldiering per se. Moylan's memoir is nontheless just as
> replete with the details of military strategy and tactics as  Barry's
> writings. But there is also evidence of deeper philosophical reflection.
> Barry, who wrote of coming to an understanding of his own nationality when
> news of the 1916 Rising reached his British Army regiment as it swept
> through what afterwards became Iraq, did not indicate any real awareness
> of the indigenous peoples through whose lands he passed. Moylan's deeper
> understanding of a wider world, however, led him to observe that " the
> mere Irish" had experienced the "poverty, oppression and that contempt
> which only the Mississippi Negro knows". No better man to be appointed
> Minister for Education by de Valera in 1951!
>
> While Moylan had spent the 1930s developing as a purposeful politician,
> Barry floundered in an IRA doggedly determined to pursue a mythical
> Republic and refusing to acknowledge the actual one that de Valera set
> about constructing in the real world. The mindless murder of Admiral
> Somerville in 1936, for which Barry must be held responsible but in
> relation to which he rather shabbily washed his hands in public, must be
> regarded as his lowest point. Far more creditable were his firm anti-Nazi
> convictions and his 1937 visit to Germany in order to subvert an earlier
> attempt by Seán Russell to set a bombing campaign in motion with such a
> hoped-for ally, although Russell himself was no Nazi .
>
> But it was when Barry finally caught up with Moylan, and not only
> recognised de Valera's state but loyally served it during the precarious
> years of World War Two, that his military skills were once again put to
> positive and constructive use. While Moylan as a Junior Defence Minister
> cooperated with the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland in making
> special provisions for the evacuation of Jewish children if Dublin were in
> danger of being occupied, Barry offered his services and expertise to Col.
> M.J. Costello in  setting about strengthening the defences of Cork Harbour
> against any would-be-invader, British or German. Barry was, of course, now
> working in tandem with an old Civil War foe, that Civil War which Moylan
> had done his level best to avert and Barry his own best to bring to a
> speedier end. All the more reason, then, to have regard to Brendan
> Clifford's argument in a postscript to the Moylan Memoir, that the Treaty
> War should not really be called a Civil War at all, in the sense in which
> that term has applied to other societies, since both sides shared the same
> ultimate Republican objectives. And nothing demonstrated the healing of
> old wounds better than when Barry himself unveiled the Michael Collins
> memorial in 1966.
>
> But the War of Independence itself had certainly been about the
> self-determination that its name proclaims, notwithstanding the
> revisionist assaults on the reputations of those who fought it. And in the
> polemical wars of independence that are now being fought to defend the
> reputations of such heroes, both Ryan's biography of Barry and Moylan's
> memoir are indeed indispensable weapons, as well as invaluable records to
> be placed before the Court of History.
>
>
>
> Manus O'Riordan is Head of Research with Ireland's largest labour union
> SIPTU.

by Robert Murdoch Tue Nov 30, 2004 16:41

Times Online November 28, 2004

Comment: Sue Denham

There are still those unwilling to accept that Tom Barry, an IRA leader, massacred 17 auxiliary policemen in the infamous Kilmichael ambush of 1920. Some of them will be at a ceremony “marking” the 84th anniversary of the bloodshed today at the site.

The guest speaker “chosen by the Kilmichael and Crossbarry Commemoration Committee” will be Meda Ryan, whose recent and sympathetic book on Barry has cheered up republicans no end.

Crows the committee: “The choice of Ryan is timely, as she possesses the research findings to refute the unfounded allegations of revisionist historians relating to a false surrender by the auxiliaries and false accusations regarding the manner in which Barry and his comrades conducted the ambush.”

Maybe it’ll rain.

[Note: it did not rain and over 1,500 attended: reputedly the biggest turnout in years. Thank you Rupert Murdoch.]

by Barry McGarry Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:36

29/11/04 Irish Examiner

Author challenged to name sources for ambush claims
By Eoin English

AN AUTHOR was challenged yesterday to name his sources and end decades of controversy surrounding an IRA ambush in West Cork.

Historian and author Meda Ryan called on Peter Hart to name two men he says he interviewed which led to his claims that Tom Barry’s account of the 1920 Kilmichael ambush was “riddled with lies and evasions”.

Ms Ryan was speaking in Kilmichael during ceremonies to mark the 84th anniversary of the ambush.

“While Peter Hart fails to reveal the identity of his anonymous sources, the story of the Kilmichael ambush will remain clouded in controversy.

“This is extremely important for history and for the men who fought with the third West Cork Brigade. “If he revealed the names, then the credibility of these two witnesses who claim to give a first-hand account could be examined,” she said.

Barry, commanding officer of the third West Cork Brigade, led the IRA unit in an ambush against Macroom Castle-based Auxiliaries on November 28, 1920.

It was the first major ambush against British forces in Ireland.

Eye witnesses said some Auxiliaries shouted “surrender” and dropped their guns soon after the ambush began.

As Barry’s men stood thinking the exchange was over, some Auxiliaries picked up their guns and began to fire again, killing three volunteers.

Realising the “false surrender”, Barry then issued an order to his men to open fire, killing all but two of the Auxiliaries.

He accepted full responsibility for the action, Ms Ryan said. Peter Hart, who was attached to Queens University Belfast but who now lives in Newfoundland, claimed in 1998 that Barry and his men killed prisoners, and that he refused to accept the false surrender.

But Ms Ryan, whose uncle Pat O’Donovan was involved in the ambush, reiterated the widely-held view that the Auxiliaries engaged in a false surrender.

by Brian Vernon Mon Nov 29, 2004 03:54

Whilst I cannot offer any further insight into the events that are so hotly debated here, my historical knowledge is tainted by the facts rather than propaganda or some nutty revisionist crap. And the facts are that Tom Barry's mens' action on that day played a vital part in removing the Black and Tans from 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland. Fact. Im sure given the opportunity he would do it again.

So from what I can gather from the ensuing argument - it's quite alright to be killed or tortured by IDF, USA, or UK in the pursuit of global hegemony . That's a noble cause that outweighs all other causes.

On the contrary death by an Irish, Palestinian or Iraqi hand in resistance to that global hegemony is savage and "bruhal", undemocratic, akin to the SS.....

To Mr Hart I would ask in relation to his piece.
"I normally never respond to these sort of attack pieces - they are insubstantial and politically motivated........"

What was your motivation for writing your Book?
Money? Notoriety? Sycophancy?

This smack's of the (recent) Bloody Sunday cover up, where un-named witnesses from an un-named regiment gave testimony from behind a screened off section of the court.

You are an apologist for the crimes of Imperaist masters Mr Hart. Wouldnt surprise me to find out you were commisioned to write it by yet another un-named source. Whitehall!

Grunt:
The Americans are great at pointing out everyone elses
atrocities while totally ignoring their own. 30,000,000 Sioux, Apache, Cherokee etc etc. were butchered in the Conquest of America. Not forgetting the dropping of 2 Atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for which they should have tried in the International Court.
Then there is the Phillipines, Korea, Nicaruaga, Iran, Lebanon, Colombia, El-Salvador, Grenada, Somalia. Afghanistan. Iraq. did I forget anywhrere? Oh yeah Jugoslavia, Spain, China, Honduras, Laos, Cambodia.

I see wherein mr dog's affinity with the black and tans's was propagated. http://blackandtans.org/

Yes I support the reunification of Ireland, and I'm not ashamed to say I supported the armed struggle, and will again if necessary. Thankfully the blood of people like Tom Barry still flows through this land, or we would still be eeking out a living similar to the traumatised Palestinians.

Im neither Catholic nor Protestant [some of my best friends are though ;-) ]. I have never voted for Sinn Fein nor any other political party, nor ever will. "Western Democracy" is a con. It's like the concluding scene in Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon". It's all done with mirrors. Im not even going to get involved in the Bruton argument, he is a non-person as far as I'm concerned. You wont see me at his funeral.

by Barry McGarry Sun Nov 28, 2004 19:31

Speech at
www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67691

See also
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4043737.stm
(Coverage of Kllmichael controversy)

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Fri Nov 26, 2004 15:09 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork

Could Peter Hart once and for all tell us who were the two eye winesses at the Kilmichael Ambush that he claims to have interviewed in the late 1980s. I take it they are all now dead and will not mind - assuming that these people were too cowardly or too shy to say publicly who they were about 20 years ago.

by Barry McGarry Fri Nov 26, 2004 14:44

Historian who refuses to respond on the spot!
Irish historians Dr Brian Murphy and Meda Ryan aired their criticism of the evidence, based on anonymous sources, from Dr Peter Hart on the Kilmichael ambush.

Based on copious research and new evidence, both Ryan and Murphy have produced detailed refutations of Hart. Hart’s suggestion that his critics have a "faith based" approach to history is insulting and lacks credibility. Hart refuses to debate on Indymedia (see link above) and has so far refrained from using any other forum to answer his critics.
BBC Northern Ireland Radio, Good Morning Ulster programme, November 26 2004:

BBC Announcer Conor Bradford:
This Sunday marks the 84th anniversary of the Kilmichael Ambush in Co. Cork in 1920, the bloodiest single battle in the Irish War of Independence. Queen’s University academic Peter Hart alleges that IRA leader Tom Barry had soldiers, who had surrendered, shot in cold blood. But now another expert says he has found new evidence of a British propaganda operation which discredits all official British accounts of the time. Diarmaid Fleming reports from Dublin on the controversy:

Fleming:
[Gunfire]
The ambush at Kilmichael was the bloodiest single battle of the Irish War of Independence. Commemorated in song, for nationalists it was seen as a turning point of the conflict.
[Song: O forget not the Boys of Kilmichael ….]
But for 17 Auxiliary Officers who had survived the First World War, a routine patrol through the Cork countryside on a Sunday afternoon was to end in death when they were ambushed by an IRA Flying Column led by Tom Barry. Three IRA men also died, two of them shot, according to Barry who died in 1980, after they stood up to take the surrender of a group of auxiliaries. But Tom Barry’s account has been challenged by a Canadian historian Dr Peter Hart, author of the award-winning book, the IRA and its Enemies. He says the notion of a false surrender was made up to excuse the execution of defeated soldiers in cold blood.

Hart:
Seven accounts by eye-witnesses, two of whom were interviewed by me, say there was no false surrender. Either they explicitly deny it or they make no mention of it at all in their accounts. So I think there is an enormous preponderance of evidence giving accounts of the ambush radically different from Tom Barry’s.

Fleming:
Martial law was declared shortly afterwards in Cork after newspaper articles wrote reports of the mutilation of the bodies of those killed at Kilmichael. But new research by another historian, Dr Brian Murphy, reveals that fictitious official accounts such as these were run from a British propaganda office established just three months before Kilmichael, headed by a British Army Major Street in London and former journalist Basil Clarke in Dublin.

Murphy:
He said that “We must engage in Propaganda by News rather than Propaganda by Views”. And he said “We must do this in accordance with truth and verisimilitude”. That’s the air of being true but not strictly true. Now Major Street, he said for propaganda to work it must be dissolved in some fluid which the patient will readily assimilate. And official news, according to Street, was the best way of doing that. It must be now very close as to whether Peter Hart has to qualify his statement in the light of the fact that the hand of Basil Clarke was at work in defining what happened at Kilmichael. To dismiss, as Hart does, Barry’s account as lies and evasions, I don’t think is tenable.

Hart:
My account is based on IRA witnesses, not on the British report. One of the points of my looking into Kilmichael was to examine the kind of stories and labels that came out of the event, whether both sides calling each other terrorists, for example, and to try and get to the truth behind it. And the truth is, as I think the whole book shows, that really, in many ways, the two sides acted in much the same way, whether in terms of propaganda, or thinking, or violence.

Fleming:
But Barry’s biographer, Meda Ryan, says that her interviews with the IRA leader and other survivors of the ambush, including her uncle who was beside one of the IRA men when he was shot, do not corroborate Dr Hart’s account.

Ryan:
Admittedly it was years later, but it was so vivid in their minds. This was a major event, and if a major event happens in anybody’s life they will remember it with stark reality. In fact they were really adamant about the false surrender.

Fleming:
Among some who revere the memory of Tom Barry, Dr Hart’s findings provoke fury. Secretary of the Kilmichael Commemorative Committee is Sean Kelleher.

Kelleher:
We’re baffled, genuinely baffled, at his sources. The people of my generation, and younger, and some older, to put it bluntly they are outraged that such allegations would be made.

Fleming:
Peter Hart says that he doesn’t mind criticism but feels that some of his critics are not open to debate

Hart:
What becomes difficult is not people being sceptical, what becomes difficult is people refusing to accept what one says has any validity. Because the typical reaction of critics is not that I have some things wrong. The typical reaction of critics is that I have everything wrong, and everything Tom Barry says has to be right. So in other words it is almost a kind of faith-based history.

Announcer: Myths still swirling around that ambush at Kilmichael many years on. Dr Peter Hart ending that report on the controversy still raging about the Kilmichael ambush 84 years on. Diarmaid Fleming reporting.

-------------------------------------------------

Based on copious research and new evidence, both Ryan and Murphy have produced detailed refutations of Hart. Hart’s suggestion that his critics have a "faith based" approach to history is insulting and lacks credibility. Hart refuses to debate on Indymedia (see link above) and has so far refrained from using any other forum to answer his critics.

Murphy and Ryan’s criticism is not confined to the Kilmichael issue , as is clear from Ryan’s book on Tom Barry, and Murphy’s recent talk on British propaganda during the War of Independence (to be published).

Meda Ryan speaks at Kilmichael Commemoration Nov 28 at 1pm

by Cara Thu Nov 25, 2004 15:59

Niall,

I don't really know alot about the LOL in Newfoundland, except that it's in a steep decline in my hometown. There's not one Lodgeman in my town under the age of 45 and everyone thinks they're alcoholics. The only event I can think of off the top of my head that they participate in it is the Christmas parade and the like - they only really get together to play in the brass band. I don't really know if they have any religious restrictions like the Orange Lodge in Ireland. I could easily check that out with my mother. I'll get back to you on that one.
Thanks for the sources!

by Criostóir de Baróid - Dúnlaoi Teo. Wed Nov 24, 2004 11:36 Dúnlaoi, 8 North Mall, Cork. 00 353 21-4393572

NAME: Criostóir de Baróid
ADDRESS: Dúnlaoi, 8 North Mall, Cork.
Organisation: Dúnlaoi Teo.
Phone: 021-4393572
e-mail: between@eircom.net.



POSTHUMOUS DEFAMATION OF NOBLE MEN & WOMEN

Only now have I seen the recent Indymedia response of author/historian Peter Hart to the substantive refutation by Niall Meehan and Jack Lane of Hart’s posthumous defamation of the heroic dead of the Irish Independence War, the particular aspect of this controversy which concerns me most. “I never respond to these (sic) sort of attack pieces,” responds Hart, because, he alleges ¾ no doubt, again with the same infallible inspiration of his reliable crystal ball¾that “Meehan and Lane ¾and others¾have a political agenda and probably (my emphasis) belong to specific Irish political organisations.”

His partial vow of silence impels me to recite again a story related to me by an IAOS Development Officer concerning a dispute at an AGM. of an East Cork Co-operative Society in the 1950’s, the moral of which I feel is relevant to Mr.Hart’s style of non-debate. The Officer had come from the meeting at which a disgruntled shareholder, having traduced the Chairman, slandered the Secretary and Treasurer and demolished the reputation of a reputable Committee, concluded with the coup-de- grace ¾– “and ‘tis no use replying to me because I’m stone deaf! “

Every armed conflict gives rise to atrocity by individuals, sooner or later, and Irish Republicans, too, had their days of shame, which they acknowledged and over which, they agonised and apologised – and are still doing so. Witness the reaction of protest by Republican organisations – even the immediate clampdown by the West Cork I.R.A. itself on the maverick perpetrators of the West Cork killings of 26/27 April 1922 during the period of Truce; together with the clamour of protest against the outrages from a diverse spectrum of Republican sources, from the Republican-controlled Cork Corporation to the Belfast Brigade of the I.R.A and from both parties of the then- divided Dáil Éireann.

Those who are using those isolated killings to stigmatise the whole Irish Independence Movement and who choose to represent the isolated outrages as a “Pogram on Protestants” do so in defiance of unequivocal declarations to the contrary by Leaders of all Protestant Churches at the time. Would they, on the other hand, quote one comparable example where British authorities ,on their part, did other than condone and cover-up the daily, hourly campaign of murder, arson and outrage by specifically -dedicated, terrorist Government Forces and incite those forces from the highest level of Government to further excesses on defenceless Irish civilians. Even their own Commander of those (British) forces, General Crozier, resigned in protest against the villainous conduct of his own troops and his Government’s condonation thereof.

Peter Hart must have realised by now that the insistent refutations of his thesis cannot be simply dismissed by a posture of assumed nonchalance. Would it not be more productive for him to rebut, if he can, evidence which belies his allegations, evidence which has been presented by Niall Meehan, Jack Lane and others which casts a serious shadow over his historical credibility, rather than waste a comparable amount of time and space in his irrelevant crystal-gazing to divine whether “ Meehan and Lane¾– and others ¾ have a political agenda.”




Surely, what is in question in this controversy is whether Hart’s posthumous allegations against noble men and women, or the alternative evidence being adduced in contradiction thereof, are true or untrue, irrespective of who raises the issue. The stature of a historian is measured by his/her honest and accurate presentation of historical evidence. One would have thought that any historian of credibility, confident of the integrity of his/her evidence, would rush to its vindication if such integrity were impugned, no matter by whom.


If a suspicion by Peter Hart concerning one’s political preferences disqualifies a questioner from getting an answer, perhaps, then, Hart would reply to me who am pursuing the same avenues of enquiry as Niall Meehan and Jack Lane.

I hasten to forestall Hart’s predictable, if irrelevant, cop-out by which he endeavours to evade Messrs. Meehan the Lane, and may try to do likewise with me. I am not a member of any political organisation. I have spent 34 years promoting a well- acclaimed, if low-profile, non-political, cross-community, reconciliation and human rights organisation, with and between Northern Irish communities. The work of the group has earned written commendations from the Northern Loyalist UVF, UDA and Red Hand organisations as well as the Irish Republican Movement, together with many less-unorthodox testimonials¾all of which are available for inspection.

And, incidentally, in that work of reconciliation, few were more forthcoming and appreciative of our reconciliation objectives than the many Veterans of our Independence War, (many of whom had confronted one another in tragic Civil War), with whom my colleagues and I had the closest relations in their declining years. Knowing them at close quarters was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I involve myself in this defence of their reputations on the simple principle of Cothrom na Féinne, or fair play, and in vindication of the important right of a human being to preserve the integrity of his/her good name beyond the grave.

At a lecture given by Peter Hart to the History Society of University College, Cork, as long ago as November, 2000, I sought to present indisputable evidence in refutation of his thesis of defamation of the dead Volunteers of our Independence struggle. My efforts to question him on the subject were made almost impossible by the restrictions of the Chairman, whose bias from the outset was palpable. For some obscure reason on which I can only speculate, the Chairman obstructed my every effort to enter the discussion after the lecture, in spite of my raised hand over quarter of an hour. Finally, I was obliged to rise to my feet to protest against the obvious misconduct of the Chair.

When I insisted on my right to speak, I was greeted with hostile howling from members of the academic and alumni audience, headed up, in particular, by established U.C.C. academics, two of whom were identified to me as historians. Their only response to the evidence proffered by me against Hart’s defamation of the dead, was limited to such shouted protests against my right to speak as “ we came here to listen to the lecturer (Hart) and not to these people”. Another’s contribution fell short of even that inanity with his repeated, strident demands to “shut that man up, shut that man up”.

Hart did not defend my right to speak. He did admit the truth of my emphatic assertion that, in his treatment of the Irish Independence War, he relied heavily on British intelligence files. This is very pertinent, especially now that
.Brian P. Murphy has recently exposed, from British archives, categorical documentary evidence from the pens of the main British “spin-doctors “ of the era –
that British propaganda against Republican forces at the time was the product of a carefully organised and managed system of misinformation, forgeries and mendacious fabrications. The evidence that the current campaign of defamation of dead heroes is but a rerun of that “same old story”, is becoming more and more compelling.

Peter Hart did not respond to my evidence in refutation of his thesis in 2000, no more than he does to that of Niall Meehan and Jack Lane in 2004; nor to the considerable body of evidence garnered by the Brian Murphy’s thorough professional research over the past five years, nor to Meda Ryan’s demolition of Peter Hart’s allegations in her “Tom Barry, I.R.A. Freedom Fighter”, published ten months ago. But .he assures readers that he intends to respond to the “substantive historical points mentioned”. But, I wonder, when?

Given the naked, timeless, anti-Catholicism of the British colonial administration and the centuries of despoliation and degradation of the defenceless Catholic population on the criterion of religion, the Republican movement accomplished a miracle in restraining volatile and vengeful elements of the civilian population from retaliatory activities for past oppressions, a problem which armed conflict in such circumstances never fails to throw up. These anti-social elements were one of the most intractable problems the I.R.A. had to deal with during the War of Independence. It is those same elements, together with the usual criminal opportunists of the time ¾– whom the I.R.A. determinedly repressed ¾– that Hart and his collaborators now choose to represent as the I.R.A. in spite of indisputable contrary evidence to which they refuse to respond.

Re-Writing of Subject Nation’s History:

In an Editorial commentary in the Sunday Business Post of 10 September, 2000, on the current attempted “ revisionist” re-write of Irish History, the then-Editor recalled pertinent observations on “Colonisers and the Colonised” by Tunisian political scientist, Albert Memmi. Mennis writings on the nature of imperialism, drawing on his own traumatic experience, were expressly endorsed by Jean-Paul Sartre. The Sunday Business Post editorial comments that “ Albert Memmi, following exhaustive study of colonisers and colonised, reached the conclusion that imperialist powers were not simply content with occupying another country and stripping it of its wealth and its sovereignty. Real imperialists also sought the total re-writing of the subject nation’s history and the erasure from popular memory of facts about what had happened to that nation in the past. The process of occupation and expropriation could only be brought to finality when the destruction of popular memory was completed.”

Memmi’s commentary on the methods of imperialism – and of its intellectual heirs – is an excellent profile of what we are now witnessing. Peter Hart’s work is but one element of it.

Criostóir de Baróid

by Mr Meehan Tue Nov 23, 2004 13:04

Cara,

I do not intend to offer advice on Newfoundland as you are clearly the expert in that regard. I quoted from Newfoundland sources and copied most of them to this page or referenced the link. I was suggesting that the involvement of the Orange Order in Newfoundland politics, the numerous commentaries on sectarian tensions (and the commentary in ‘The Arts in Newfoundland – the Irish connection’, www.inp.ie/newfbook-23.pdf) indicates the presence of an issue that could be addressed - in particular by Peter Hart, who appears to be from the ‘no ideological baggage’ school of thought).

It would appear to be the case that, as in the South of Ireland, the association of religion with nationality has been eroded. This allows the free interplay of ideas and concept formation without regard to whether one’s religious upbringing should be the dominant or even a substantial factor governing how identity is determined.

The only substantial group that associates religion with nationality in Ireland today are unionists in the Six County state of Northern Ireland, who associate their sense of British nationality with the Protestant religion (a notion rejected by the vast majority of Protestants in the South of Ireland). It is important to state that Irish nationalism always had a much stronger secular and pluralist approach than unionism, which is why it attracted significant support from Protestants who were won to the democratic content of the programme of Irish nationalism and Irish republicanism. This is also the case in the North of Ireland.

However, within unionism there is a much stronger ‘control culture’ – the notion that a Six County Protestant who shows sympathy for Irish nationalism or who is more pluralist in their outlook is betraying their religion, nationality and community. A similar type concept on the Irish nationalist side today would be regarded as absurd and dismissed out of hand. For instance (to give a bizarre example) the head of the Orange Order here in Ireland accused the British Prime Minister Tony Blair of “betraying his religion” by marrying a Roman Catholic. His view was representative of many within unionism, and the Orange Order is the biggest mass political organisation on this island (I believe it is in decline in Canada and that members there are even permitted to marry Roman Catholics, a big ‘no-no’ over here).

In a historical context, during the War of Independence, the only part of the South of Ireland where Protestants as such organised a paramilitary group in association with British forces was in the area around Bandon in Cork – I refer to this above and it is one of the issues that his critics would like Peter Hart to address, as it is missing from his account of the period.

On of the reasons why this sectarian conception of nationality is strong within unionism is because, in my opinion, unionists have little self-confidence that a formal British identity will survive the erosion of the association of Protestantism with their sense of national identity. I may be wrong in this, but the example of the evolution of non-sectarian opinion and more secular conceptions of identity within Newfoundland over the past 40-50 years might be seen by Orange Order supporters here with some sense of foreboding.

Information sources

In relation to Ireland, information on the IRA is probably to hand in your library. A useful source of information in a contemporary context is the CAIN database in the University of Ulster (cain.ulst.ac.uk/, you will find some material I contributed on censorship in the South of Ireland there, if it is of interest to you).

I am interested to know if anyone has looked at Newfoundlander Bill Browne’s commentary on the Irish War of Independence. I referred to it above (www.brownepapers.com, See Chapter Two, Oxford University, 1919-22). As an eyewitness account of events during the War of Independence from a future public figure in Newfoundland, they may be of interest to history or politics students in Newfoundland.

On the situation in West Cork 1919-22, a helpful and comprehensive database is provided by www.dhoun.utvinternet.ie. It provides an account of hostilities in each of the Cork Brigade areas and also lists overall casualty figures. There is a useful links page and a page giving information on further reading (including Peter Hart’s book). There is also a link to send on messages to the author of the site.

(By the way, not offended by being called ‘Meehan’. It is simply unusual in this part of the world to address people by their surname, except in a formal and sometimes hierarchical context (ie school, etc). But, that’s cultural diversity for you.)

Best of luck again,

Niall (Meehan)

by barry Sun Nov 21, 2004 21:21

Hes the EU ambassador to the US. That means most of the developed world not only gives a toss but will be heavily influenced by his spin and opinions. And theres no prizes for guessing who is going to be influencing, if not virtually dictating his opinions.

by Alexander McMurphy Sun Nov 21, 2004 06:13

Alright folks, lots of writing, lots of opinions and lots of self inflated egos!!!!

Truth is, no one gives a toss what Brutal Bruton thinks says or does!!!!

HARMONIOUS............................

by Cara Sat Nov 20, 2004 23:58

Mr. Meehan, I'm sorry if by calling you "Meehan" I caused any offense on my part. Here in Newfoundland, it's quite common to call people by their last names - as a nickname. It was in no way meant to be offensive and if you took offense, I’m truly sorry.

I would really like to know where you learned that Newfoundland's 1949 confederation with Canada was a "re"-unification. This is the first I've ever heard of it and I'd be really interested to know if it's true or not.

I would also like to know why you're so keen on whether or not Newfoundland is "Anglicized" or not.

Much like your country has, we refused British rule and opted for freedom! And when we joined with Canada, Canada had recently separated from Britain and severed all ties with with them (we even joined World War Two a week late to proove our independence) and pretty much stopped trading with them too.

If you'd like to know my source, that's from a book I read by Andrew Cohen called "While Canada Slept" ; it's all about Canada's history of Foreign affairs and what a state it's in now - McClelland and Stewart, 2003 I do believe - It's really interesting, I liked it alot.

It is true that our provincial flag is "reminiscent" of the British flag, but I'm guessing that's because being a British colony for so long really helped our economy and that's the reason why our island is even inhabited. We don't go around shouting "Yay England! God save the Queen!". We just kind of shrug and say "Oh yeah, we were once a British colony weren't we?". To Newfoundlanders, we're just that - Newfoundlanders. Half of us even detest being Canadian and want to separate because the Federal government bleeds us dry of all our resources and is hell bend on driving our economy into the ground. (Sorry for being bitter, it’s just that our province would be financially better off if we didn’t have to give the federal government so much of our resources - I’m not sure what exact percentage we have to give them, but I do know that it’s well over 50%).

Well, that’s it for now, I have to go do a History paper. On the IRA actually. Have a nice day.

by Niall Meehan Wed Nov 17, 2004 18:40

Cara

1
When you come to read Peter’s book, I suggest that you read Meda Ryan’s ‘Tom Barry Irish Freedom fighter’ (Mercier Press, 2003 – check if you have it in your library) alongside it. As Peter says he respects Meda Ryan I am sure that he will not object to this course of action on your part.

2
Because information is on the Internet it is not necessarily unreliable. You have written on the internet and I doubt that you question the reliability of your own contribution. An official Newfoundland-Ireland website made the commentary on the political and sectarian difficulties in Newfoundland available for all who wished to read it – this included the comment on Memorial University. Apart from my assertion that Newfoundland ‘re’-unified with Canada, I have not seen anything here or in other material I have read recently that substantially contradicts what I have written. In fact it reinforces it.

(By the way, most of the material was published in hard copy format first – there is a lot that is both reliable and unreliable in that format that appears every day. Debate on the authenticity of material is a useful way of testing reliability, of the kind we are engaged in now and of the kind that his critics want Peter Hart to engage in.)

Since you say you were discriminated against because you were a Protestant in a Roman Catholic school, this reinforces my view that there are tensions that are not being admitted as openly as they should be.

3
A people who have suffered colonial oppression are no more or less able to comment objectively on their own past (and present) than those who have not. Those who suffer discrimination tend to develop an objective view and understanding of the actions of those who engage in the discrimination. It is part of a natural human reaction: ‘Why is this person doing this to me, why am I a second-class citizen?’ Such a person tends to assert their equality with other human beings and to assert the right to equality. Essentially, that was the motivation for the Irish War of Independence.

What is it exactly about the Irish past (that Peter Hart has told you about) that makes us unable to comprehend our condition objectively? If you don’t mind me saying so, this sounds just a little condescending. I am sure you do not mean this.

4
“Personal vendetta” against peter Hart. I am afraid that is something unreliable that has just appeared on the Internet. I never met him. I came across the popularisation oh his views in the Irish media last year. I read his book and other material by him. I also read the critiques – by Meda Ryan and Brian Murphy, etc. I think Peter should participate in the normal scholarly task of engaging with his critics. He has now promised to do so (see above), but has not committed to when he will do so. It was the silence in the face of criticism from people Peter says he respects that annoyed me (if anything). If I have done anything to encourage Peter Hart to respond to the criticism, I believe my efforts will have been worthwhile.

5
If there are no features of Newfoundland today which are anglified it may be because the effort failed, just as it did in Ireland - due in part to the efforts of Tom Barry (a Roman Catholic) and Sam Maguire (a Protestant), both from the county of Cork in Ireland and both fighters for Irish freedom.

6
My first name is Niall (the last time I was called “Meehan” was when I was in school and being discriminated against, by adults).

Good luck with your studies.

by Cara Fri Nov 05, 2004 20:01

I'm just going to make this short.

1
Meehan, you should be ashamed of yourself for fabricating "facts" about Newfoundland (and using unreliable internet sources to back up these fabrications). I was born in Newfoundland and have lived here my whole life and I have never heard of these anglifying classes students had to take in the 60's. The only thing I can think of that even comes close to classes like that, are English teachers trying to correct our grammar, because outport Newfoundlanders are notorious for bad grammar. There are not, nor have there ever been speech classes at MUN to change our accents.

2
Personally, I think you have some personal vendetta out against Dr Hart. I am a student of his, and in the past months of what he has taught me about the History of Ireland, he has never even showed the slightest inclination of bias. I haven't read his book on the IRA (which I intend to do) but it seems to me that you are looking for reasons to discredit him, because HE is the one that shows an unbiased view of your history.
If I had the history of the Irish people, I believe I too would be biased.

And by the way, if you had even stepped foot on Newfoundland, you would know that there are no anglified features of Newfoundland. I can't think of any British in Newfoundland and I'm a born and bred outport Newfoundlander.

And the only religious discrimination I have ever witness was against ME, for being Protestant when I went to a Catholic school when I was a child.

by Nordie Tue Nov 02, 2004 13:04

It's just a mindset.

by Dog Catcher Mon Nov 01, 2004 17:05

Why do you avoid the awkward questions? The dog has no credibility. He supports the mass murder of civilians when it is carried out by the British, US or Israelis.

How come he questions the legitimacy of the IRA struggle in the War of Independence but doesnt question the legitimacy of the British occupation in the first place. How about the countless millions who died at the hands of the British throuhout their Empire? What right did the British have to occupy and loot countries across the Planet? What right did the US have to ccupy the Philipines and murder millions?

C'mon now, have you no answers to the above?

Surely you admit that the British Empire existed, the question is do you suggest that the British had the right to pillage their way across the world? What right did the US have to hold onto and ravage the Philipines?

by Barry Thu Oct 28, 2004 23:14

Men, I think this Iraq thing has been picked over more times than a downed Blackhawk. Jeff and DD support the war, me and Nordie dont, but we all agree that Sadaam and Bush are a couple of dangerous lunatics ( I think we do anyway) I am a wee bit disappointed that hardly anyone out there has said anything about this Bruton character. He is now the EU ambassador to the USA. On the world stage this means he carries a serious amount of influence in the sphere of policy making and opinion forming throughout the globe. This is bound to have implications for this country and it's people. Remember this guy resigned from Fine Gael because he reckons it has too much of a radical republican streak...(gulp!!). When Bush and Blair come rolling down the South Circular in tanks to the tune of "it's a long way to tipperary"and install him as the vice-regal chancellor, don't say I didnt warn yis !!!

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 22:08

Your exact words to me: 'Does such a regime deserve your support,'


Take a wee look at this latest report and tell me that the Iraq war is a good way to put an end to massacres and murder and misery and hate:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VPJ4FIJEQ52G4CRBAEKSFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6648889&pageNumber=1

' The last massacre, if you're indeed interested, which I'm really beginning to doubt, was in 1991/1992. Zero media coverage, no hundreds of thousands of protesters in the street. Just plain killing and nobody cared.'

Exactly, Jeff. Exactly. My point entirely. Not in 2003 when the war began. It wasn't happening then.


'I bet you didn't as well.'

Probably because I was 11 or 12.

'Oh, and don't play this tough-guy game with me. You might be able to impress others with that, but I've seen too much to be impressed.'

What? Tough guy? If you want. Whatever you want. Bit funny though.

by Jeff D. Thu Oct 28, 2004 21:52

My exact wording:

"Would it have been better not to remove Saddam?"

I didn't ask whether you supported Saddam or not.

Don't accuse me of something I didn't say. It's not very intelligent and it weakens your argument enormously.

The last massacre, if you're indeed interested, which I'm really beginning to doubt, was in 1991/1992. Zero media coverage, no hundreds of thousands of protesters in the street. Just plain killing and nobody cared.

I bet you didn't as well. Oh, and don't play this tough-guy game with me. You might be able to impress others with that, but I've seen too much to be impressed.

Jeff

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 21:05

Catch yourself on boy. I’m not actually serious that Saddams reign was pussy I’m just using that figure and those words to compare. Fuck I should have known someone would come out with that. Unbelievable.

Right. You didn't ask me if it would have been better to leave him power, you asked me if i supported him. Looks like it would have been better to leave him power if the alternative is the new reality. Face hard facts or don’t, I don’t really care because we’ll make no difference either way.

Have to ask you again to explain the difference between a child murdered by Saddam and one murdered by American forces. Please enlighten me again how it is better to have Sunnis and Shias being slaughtered than anyone else. Please explain how it was a good idea to cause a war that would cause these people to be murdered even while the Kurds where in a relatively safe zone. When was the last massacre of Kurds by Saddam?

http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i4iraq.htm

by Jeff D. Thu Oct 28, 2004 20:26

Nordie,

I asked you a simple question - would it have been better to leave Saddam in power?

You didn't answer. Instead you claim the victims of Saddam's regime (I'd really, and I mean really suggest you have a hard look at your numbers; they don't agre with most of the numbers published by various NGO human rights groups), or rather their fate to be 'sissy'.

Please enlighten me to how you actually mean that - it would have been better had Saddam been allowed to continue to kill of anyone who's not a Sunni or a Baathist?

You know, you may only talk about paper figures. I speak of real people. I saw the mass graves. I held a skull of a under one year old with a bullet hole in the head. I'd suggest you visit a mass grave site in Kurdistan. Might change your perspective a little bit.

Again, no problem if we disagree about the motives of the US government. I agree these were not utilitarian. I agree it was not about humanitarian issues.

Also no problem about critizising Bush II government. I didn't vote for him 4 years ago, I won't do it this time, for reasons that have nothing to do with Iraq.

But if you really believe that killing off 1/15th to 1/10th of those living in Iraq, partly by gassing innocent villagers is 'sissy', if you really, really believe this, then, my friend, you're the most cold-hearted bastard I've ever come across!

Please tell me you don't.

Jeff

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 19:42

Jeff, i'm going to have to accuse you again of sheer buffoonry and I'll have to ask you to please read the post in which I spelt out my reasons for not supporting the war. Nothing to do with supporting Saddam. Don't be a twit. Please.

And I believe the actual figure for Iraqis killed by Saddam was around 300,000 which is a pussy figure for 20 years when you realise that over 65,000 have died the 18 odd months since the invasion.

In a war of ideas its people who get killed. Would you support America going into all the awful places in the world even if it caused chaos and just more murder like it is doing in Iraq? Its the stupidity of it that shocks me.

by Jeff D. Thu Oct 28, 2004 18:44

Barry,

while for the motives of the current US administration behind the war we probably have to agree to disagree (while I also think the motives were far from humanitarian, I don't believe it was oil...), I accept that I may be quite a little bit biased due to personal experience.

Yet let me stress one thing. The Kurds themselves are not a small minority group in an otherwise united Iraq; we're talking of between 20% and 35% of the population here. They wanted nothing else than Saddam gone, so for them the war was indeed a godsend. Likewise, the Shiites, again 30% to 40% of the population, while opposed to the US, still support the inital ousting of Saddam. The main gripe they have with coalition forces is that they didn't leave the day after Saddam's regime was toppled.

Which results in more than two-thirds of those living in Iraq supporting the removal of Saddam, whatever the reasons.

With those living in the Sunni triangle, it's different. You may remember that the UN embargo caused a child mortality rate comparable to those in central Africa. But only in the Shiite south. In the triangle, while not being able to maintain their privileged status they had enjoyed pre-1991, most of the Sunnis fared quite well, not the least so because the food-for-oil program in reality was a oil-for-feeding-Sunnis program.

Which is the reason why you won't find much sympathy with them in the rest of Iraq, neither in the North nor in the South. Even Al-Sadr, who got the mother of all media coverages here and in Europe is actually much more of a fringe figure for the maiority of the Shiites.

So, yes, I have not the same sympathy for many of the Sunnis that I have for the Kurds or the Shiites. Yet the fact remains that more than two thirds of those living in Iraq are thankful that Saddam is now gone - mind you, this doesn't mean they're necessarily happy about what the coalition does at the moment, but you have to seperate war from post-war.

Which brings me to Nordie.

We may agree that the way the post-war situation was handled was - and still is - deplorable. No doubt about that.

But is therefore the logical conclusion that it would have been better not to invade? Let me directly ask you a question: Would it have been better not to remove Saddam? If you say yes, then you say yes to a nazi (in the very sense of the word) regime that killed up to a million of those living in Iraq and used for the first time since WW2 WMDs. Does such a regime deserve your support, I wonder?

Jeff

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 17:06

I believe our much respected leader of the free world has on a few occasions claimed that God told him to do it. But I was being sarcastic when I said it was all for Jesus though I'm sure a few crazy neo-cons can make themselves feel better by thinking that the Prince of Peace wants them to bomb and shoot for love. Do you think oil has nothing to do with it at all? I'm sure it has something. What do you think it was all for then? Free the Iraqis for Jesus? WMD's? I'm sure he would have a bit more difficulty invading Mexico and all seeing as they don't have a Saddam running them and besides if its about oil Iraq has much more to suck up.

I think it has mostly been about the American ego and about the absurd belief that elections brought about by slaughter of Iraqis by America = pro-American Iraqis who will let the US run the mid-East from a Baghdad embassy.

Now, what was that again about Halliburton not making profits from this war?

by Devil Dog Thu Oct 28, 2004 16:49

Dogcatcher, your rant is a good example of the typical post on tis site...Nordie, at least you're a bit more balanced.....Are you seriously suggesting that Bush invaded because Jesus told him? And that Powell, Rice, the whole Governemnt went along with this religious expedition?

If it's all about oil, why didn't the US invade in 1991? Or sometime between 1991 and 2003? Why doesn't the US invade oil producers closer to home such as Mexico, Canada or Venezuala? If it's all about cheap oil, then why not keep Saddam in power, he wd have been more than happy to sell oil (as a lot of UN officials found out, to their enrichment).

by Dog Catcher Thu Oct 28, 2004 15:54

The dog has no credibility. He supports the mass murder of civilians when it is carried out by the British, US or Israelis.

How come he questions the legitimacy of the IRA struggle in the War of Independence but doesnt question the legitimacy of the British occupation in the first place. How about the countless millions who died at the hands of the British throuhout their Empire? What right did the British have to occupy and loot countries across the Planet? What right did the US have to ccupy the Philipines and murder millions?

Why doesnt Mr Dog deal with this?

I dont believe that hes a USMC offficer anywhere other than in his own fantasies espevially when hes involved in war gaming.

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 15:48

Does Fox News not talk about goodies and baddies? I refer to bold boys because I want to be a happy moron too.

In my opinion targeting a missile on a house full of civilians in case a bold boy is in it is murder. The US army non-terrorist organisation has policy of doing this so therefore they have a policy of murder. They are child murderers. Do you support this child murder if a bold boy is having his dinner in the house? Again, what would you think if Al Qaeda bombed the house of a US soldier in New York and wiped out his family? Murder or non-murder? I'd say murder as I think you would. Whats the difference? The accents? When Iraqi terrorists let off a bomb and slaughtered all those children last month could they claim it wasn't murder because they just set out to kill the US soldiers that were talking to them and the pesky kids weren’t their intended target and that they were just collateral damage who got in the way? How is this different than the US army dropping a bomb on a family home and saying its not murder because they just wanted to kill bold boys?

Actually, I did think it would be like this only that the violence would have spread to the other parts of the region and would have inspired attacks in the US. Only a flag-sucking cretin could have fantasised about it being peaceful and about to turn into a secular democracy where the people have the Stars and Stripes tattooed on their foreheads. I think the real question is how many more Iraqis are dying because of this war and how much more fucked up the country and the world is going to get because of it. How about possible (if its not happening) civil war between the pro and anti US forces? How about the radicalisation of massive swaths of the Iraqi and Arab populations to the Islamic right because of a direct consequence of the non-occupying liberation and the all the non-murdering by the non-occupiers? Good for Iraq? Good for the world?

And here, no, the US didn’t plan on staying as a power in Iraq. That’s why they planned the biggest embassy in the world (one that would hold 5000) and why they were building all those military bases. In fact, Bush did just go in because Jesus told him to blow up children who associated with bold boys and Bush is a goodie and wanted to make baby Jesus happy.

‘Barry, thanks for a rather more reasoned form of debate - we'll agree to disagree - who is benefitting financially form this war? Please don't say Halliburton,. this is Michael Moore fantasy. ‘

Come again?

by devil dog Thu Oct 28, 2004 14:09

Nordie,

- I'm not this other punter you mentioned.

To answer your points:

1. No, don't think murder is to be judged by SS standars alone - don't know how you cd ask anyone if they thought kicking a child to death isn't murder?

2. "bold Boy" in a house? A bit childish - how about Baathist/Jihadist? All I can tell you is that in my experience, US forces do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties. Do I think civilian casualties are "murdered"? Depends on the circumstances....the pilot who dropped the bomb in Haifa street has a priam facie case to answer - then again, I wasn't there.

3,4 & 5 - Hamas and AQ aren't anything approaching the US military, so I'm not even going to bother answering them.

Murder requires intention to kill or cause serious injury - do you believe US forces are deliberately setting out to kill civilians? Do you think Hamas are?

As for my putative support for the Black & Tans - I think this is fantasy on your part, no?

All those who opposed the war have been proved WRONG in their predictions - there was no refugee crisis, no ecological disaster and the Battle of Stalingrad part II did not take place on the banks of the Tigris - please, don't tell me you predicted the currrent situation, if you did you're about the only person who did.

Iraq is certainly not worse than under SH - is the North in rebellion? How about the Shia south? Most of the country is relatively stable.

As for what the world thinks of the invasion - I think the relevant question is what the Iraqis thinkm of their brutal dictator being gone- I think most are pretty happy about that - they want the US out - so what, the US wants out too but do you think it can leave right now? Or do you really think it wants to maintain a presence there after Iraqi elections?

For Kintama - please, try to be a little bit more grown up - the reason I mentioned my service was because I actually think war is not a great, macho adventure and to call into question the views of those who support "anti-imperialist struggle" - many of whom seem too blase about violence to me. As for googling my username, "DD" is a nickname for Marines, I was trying to show that I'm not some 15 year old kid stuck in his bedroom as I was accused of...and I certainly didn't "plead" with "everyone" to do so.

Where have I glorified my service or violence for that matter? As for your arguments - what are they, apart from a rather sad personal attack on me?

Barry, thanks for a rather more reasoned form of debate - we'll agree to disagree - who is benefitting financially form this war? Please don't say Halliburton,. this is Michael Moore fantasy.

Oh and Nordie - I don't think Jeff has admitted a blanket US Policy of murder...I believe he was referring to the specific examples you mentioned.

by Barry Thu Oct 28, 2004 04:15

It's obvious that Jeff has a deep emotional attachment to the Kurdish people (the ones on the Iraqi side of the border anyway). That any of his personal friends have been murdered or bereaved is a tragedy I would not wish on anyone. However this genuine and understandable attachment to one section of the population within Iraq seems to have blinded him to the plight of the others who are now themselves under seige.

I would imagine the fears of the population of Fallujah as the Americans and British now prepare for a "final solution" to that towns rebellious populace are pretty similar to those felt by the Kurds when Saddam had their towns under siege. Is the grief of a Sadr city mother at the destruction of her family by a cluster bomb or an Apache gunship any less than a Kurdish victim of a Hind gunship ? Surely what we desperately need now is a UN no-fly zone over these towns.

I would agree with Jeff in as much as that probably the only decent thing to come out of this sorry mess is that Iraqi Kurds no longer live in fear of outright annihilation from Saddam Hussein. That is self evident. However there is no guarantee that whichever corrupt puppet that the Yanks replace him with wont turn around and do the same thing all over again. Furthermore is it right to replace the Kurds suffering with the suffering of other sections of the population ?

Jeff fails to grasp that the reason most people are absolutely oppsed to this illegal war is that the people who have launched it are simply a bunch of cold-hearted money orientated scumbags who care nothing about ordinary people, simply lining the pockets of themselves and their cronies.

The contemptuous dismissal of not only the death and disfigurement of Iraqi civilians but their own soldiers (which it can be safely assumed are predominantly working class) has only added to the deeply held belief of many that this war is wrong in it's entirety and simply one which has been initiated by the capitalist western powers for their own ignoble ends. That this invasion is a key plank in the facist "Project for a New American Century" has made the entire world fearful for their own safety.

While understandably from a Kurd point of view the war has been a godsend, unfortunately from Donald Rumsfelds mates in the oil and arms trades position it has been a godsend to them as well. Thats why they started it and lied to the entire world to justify it. As for Al-Quada and Bin-Laden godsend sums it up exactly.

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 02:57

No, I agree if a bomber is sent to bomb a bridge for example and he doesn’t see any civilians on it and kills some by mistake then that is not murder. But what I'm talking about is the delirate targeting of family homes which I’m glad to see you've accepted is murder. I never mentioned bridges.

So the US forces don't just kill babies. So what? Neither do plenty of groups like Hamas and the IDF. Doesn't take away from the fact that they still murder babies and I'm again glad you've accepted that the US military is engaging in murder all the time, most notably in their terror campaign in Fallujah.

My feelings on the fake Christian Bush have nothing to do with it. You’re making things up again. Go back and read my post as to why I oppose this war.

When was the last time Saddam was able to massacre the Kurds? Were they not in a safe enough zone when the new war began? Is it good to massacre the Arabs instead; is that a better result?

I didn't say Hamas were operating in Iraq. I was just asking a question about whether if they fired a missile at a crowd of onlookers would it be murder and if so is it also murder when the US does it.

If the US had went into the Kurdish area to keep them safe then I’d have supported it because I think it would have saved lives and a lot of them because the Kurds would most probably have supported it. Big difference with the rest of Iraq, big fucking difference.

My point about majorities was directed to DD because he had made a point about minorities supporting violence he doesn't like but I wanted to know his learned opinion on minorities supporting violence he does like.

Obviously the bomb ravaged Iraq of Bush and co is a more dangerous place for the majority of Iraqis than Saddams Iraq was in 2003. Face facts, it just is and I hope I'm wrong but I think it's only starting what with possibly two or more fully blown civil wars on the cards (between pro and anti US forces and the religious groups and possibly the Kurds also).

by Barry - 32csm Thu Oct 28, 2004 02:40

Thanks for that one Jeff. Ill refer Devil Dog to you if he starts sniping at my beliefs.

by Jeff D. Thu Oct 28, 2004 02:18

Ok, if I'm going to get silly, then I apologize. I neither want that nor to inflammate anyone.

To answer your questions - by the way, why does Hamas always gets into the equation? According to my admittedly limited intelligence and understanding they don't operate in Iraq today, even if they received some (not much) financial report during Saddam's reign - all the cases you mention are murder in some way or other.

What I find infuriating is that you simply claim the intentions to be irrelevant. This effectively means, as I already said, that an accidental killing has the same quality as a hate crime. The cases you mention seem to be quite clear cut, but what's with a bomber pilot targeting a bridge or a C3 facility and missing his target? Is he a murderer, too? Or is there a difference? If not, why? Or are the coalition forces in Iraq doing nothing else ('nothing else' means they don't do anything else, it's their sole occupation, mind you) but killing babies?

What I find even more infuriating is that people from the safe distance of thousands of miles simply decide what's good for other people and what's not. Because you don't agree with the current US government - which I by the way also don't on many issues - you simply decide that everything they do has to be wrong, and that the Kurds would be better off with Saddam than without. Hey, why not herd them together, expend some FAE and then the problem is solved once and for all, hm? Only because you can't stand Bush, it's morally imperative that they suffer? What do they have to do with your or my gripe with Bush? Why do you deprive them of the right to live in peace and deem it to be better instead that they live in fear and terror? Would you think the same way if the Kurds were Palestinians?

Look, I lost any confidence in the US government's actions over the past 13 years. I was there in 91, in 92, in 94, in 95, during Desert Fox and so on. I have lost a number of good friends in 91 simply because a coward US government decided it wouldn't do to remove Saddam once and for all. I have seen the freedom of my friends being guaranteed by the no-fly zones, which were in violation of international law and bound to be lifted one day. I recall the many times they rose and waived to the planes streaking above on missions over the northern zone, and I also recall their determination on what would have happened had the NFZs been lifted. It would have been short, it would have been bloody, and at the end of the day there would have been no Kurds left. They were determined to fight to death, not to give up their freedom again, while at the same time knowing that their chances were exactly zero. Could you again explain why such a course of events would have been preferrable to what actually happened?

Tell you something. Bush may be the greatest villain in the world; if nothing else, the funeral I was able to attend in April was worth it.

Don't tell me they'd be better off under Saddam than they're now, because it's bollocks and simply shows that you don't know anything about what's really going on there.

One other thing. I'd be very, and I mean really very careful about using the maiority opinion as an argument. You're right that eg in Europe there were solid maiorities in the population opposing the war. So what? Is what the maiority wants always the best thing to do? What if the maiority opinion would have been 'nuke them anyway'? Would you then advocate the use of weapons of mass destruction against Iraq?

Jeff

by Barry - 32 csm Thu Oct 28, 2004 01:41

Well personally speaking I find it extremely embarrassing and demeaning as an Irish person to have a former leader of the 26 co state wish that Ireland was still completely under the British crown and therefore effectively surrender all notion of it's national sovereignty and political independence from British rule.

The British State has behaved atrociously towards Ireland throughout the centuries, including the use of mass-starvation, the deliberate encouragement and fostering of sectarian division, the deliberate carnage of Dublin/Monaghan and the arming and direction of deathsquads.

Therefore I find it absolutely sickening that an educated man, who was in a position of great power and influence within this unfortunate little nation I dearly love, expresses the belief that we would be better-off if we knew our rightful place in the world and rather than having courageously opposed British rule in Ireland for centuries, we had recognised British sovereignty over our nation and lay down to be ruled by our betters.

While it is quite legitimate for anyone to critically analyse history it is quite another thing to rewrite it simply to support a neo-colonialist argument. For example very few in holland, poland or even Bosnia would attempt to commemorate those fools who joined Hitlers locally recruited SS brigades. Bruton and co believe that the Irish nation should now erect monuments to those equally foolish people who took part in the British empires colonial and racist escapades throughout the world. As far as I am concerned they are the moral equivalent. Indeed to do so will only encourage more fools to do so in the future.

As for my contention that Bruton would be quite happy to see Ireland become as British as Finchley I would point out the nauseating spectacle that sorry excuse for an Irishman made of himself during the state visit of Charles Windsor to Dublin a number of years back. Bruton went so far as to tell Charles Windsor that he "personified everything that we Irish people strive to become ourselves". It is a veritable miracle that Brutons tongue didnt have to be surgically removed from the aforesaid royal arsehole. Maybe it's just me but Uncle Toms are embarrassing to any nation. When they manage to gain control of it's government it's an absolute disaster. If you were a relative of the Dublin/Monaghan or Bloody Sunday victims I would imagine it would be very personally painful also.

As for how I feel about the Irish peoples opinion on my political views, well I would contend that the aim of an independent 32 county sovereign Irish state is not only a noble, historical aspiration but our right as a people under International law. In 1918 we legitimately declared our independence from the British crown at the ballot box.We are as entitled to our national sovereignty as any other country is. As someone who campaigns regularly at street level on behalf of Republican prisoners I am very encouraged by the response I have recieved whether this has been North or South, Belfast, Derry, Dundalk or Dublin. Warm grins ,handshakes, donations and thumbs up
have generally been the response from ordinary people in the street. Although many have made it clear that they do not support the use of armed struggle (as have members of 32csm themselves) they can respect those who are prepared to risk everything in pursuit of a noble ideal. Even within my own local community I find a great warmth from the people, who even though they dont actively suport 32csm respect my beliefs as genuine and deeply held. As a republican I am historically aware that support ebbs and flows and that the dark days outnumber the bright ones. However I am convinced that Irelands right to full sovereignty and nationhood is a just and honest belief and will continue to convince others that this is the case, regardless of whether anyone thinks I have no right to express such an opinion. As a fair minded indiividual Im sure you dont fall into that category.

by kintama Thu Oct 28, 2004 01:40

the answer is probably no, in any case what would those lily livered apologists for assaults on the cradle of democracy know. the only person with any moral authority to speak on war related issues is sad dog because he has been there, shot up a few barefoot conscripts and would no doubt blow the shit out a wedding if needed. what a guy. what a sad twat, without wanting to be accused of psychological profiling there is something wanting in an individual who pleads with everyone to google his name. who gives a shit. I suspect most viewers care as much about this inadequate canine as George W does about the poor redneck cannon fodder whose return in coffins is ignored by the media and self serving nutcases in the administration.

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 01:16

Does the fact that the majority of citizens in most countries of the 'collation' oppose the war in Iraq mean anything to you?

by Nordie Thu Oct 28, 2004 01:12

Now, now Jeffers, you’re starting to get a tad silly here and you’re not really answering anything at all. So I’ll ask you some simple questions and I hope you can respond without more stupid, stupid references to American bombers targeting an AA gun on the house of a family or in the middle of a family wedding or going off on a stupid, stupid rant which, hilariously, calls me a racist for opposing the slaughter of one group over another.

1) Because the SS murdered people does that mean that American soldiers don’t murder people when they fire targeted missiles at a crowd, which very clearly includes children, who are looking at a burning truck. Is all murder to be measured to SS standards and if so is it alright, say to kick a child to death as long as you don’t gas her?

2) Because Saddams men shot Kurdish children in the head at close range does that mean that US bombers dropping their load on a family home and slaughtering the whole family because they heard a whisper that a bold boy was in the house isn’t murder either?

3) If Hamas fired rockets at a group of people looking at a burning truck would it be murder to you?

4) If Al Qaeda bombed the house of an America soldier in New York and wiped out his family would that be murder to you?

5) Is a child ripped apart with American bombs in his bed as he sleeps in a home the US military know is a family house any less murdered than a child shot to death with Hamas bullets?

They’re very simple questions, one which I note Devil Fantasist (who I believe to be Drbinoche - rem him people? - another fantasist who was caught out and never returned and who held the exact same views of DF who would have touted for the Black and Tans if he’s been around in the 20’s) has shied away from answering. Now please don’t go off on one again without answering my question. Please, it takes time to type them out.

I was opposed to this stupid war because I knew how stupid the results would be and I’ve been proved right and anyone who thinks that a free, West friendly, Israel protecting, secular Arab state was gonna emerge in Iraq after lies, lies, lies and slaughter is worshipping at the alter of, yup, stupidity. I can see that Iraq is now in an even worse hell than it was under Saddam and I’m not a Bushite looper, so I can’t really see much hope for the future in it either.

If the real figure of dead since the start of the war is 68,000 in 18 months, do you really think there will be less people killed when it’s all over in fuck knows how long than would have been under a seriously weakened Saddam? Getting rid of Saddam sounds great, but in the real world all with a bit of sense could see the price to be paid and what would take his place if the hated-in-the-Arab-world-Americans rode into Iraq and left thousands of people dead and even more mourning. Never hear the figure of 2% when it comes to Iraqis viewing the US as liberators?

by Devil Dog Wed Oct 27, 2004 23:46

Barry, I think that I accurately described what is laughably called the "Iraqi Resistance" - i.e. those carrying out attacks, kidnappings etc - I didn't intend it to apply to those who oppose the "occupation" of Iraq (God, I love the whole France under the Nazis sub-text!).

As for the thread, umm, you claimed JB wanted all of Ireland to be as British as Finchley - any evidence for this?

Bruton is asking legitimate questions about 1919-22 - the likes of Dr Murphy, Ms Ryan and Mr Meehan who seem to think that the historiography of the period shd actually be haigography of Republicans are doing everyone a great disservice.

Does the fact that the vast majority of the Irish people oppose your organisation and its aims mean anything to you?

by Barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 23:08

Yes Jeff, I stand corrected. You are quite right and I thank you for pointing this out to me. What distracted me however was Devil Dogs description of anyone who opposes the occupation as "BAATHIST THUGS, FOREIGN JIHADISTS AND HEAD-HACKERS" This highly offensive use of lannguage prompted me to make a sweeping generalisation in return, but I'm glad you pointed it out.

by Jeff D. Wed Oct 27, 2004 22:47

Barry, you should be careful in accusing anyone of racism - claiming 'the Iraqi populace' to be consisting only of Arabs is precisely that. Nothing else. Well, not entirely. It was also official Iraqi policy for roughly 20 years.

Jeff

by barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 22:45

Getting back to the original thread, that west Brit asshole John Bruton (remenber him) has gotten away scot-free yet again !!!!. Does no-one out there have an opinion on what he said ?? For Jesus sake he was the Taoiseach and a senior cabinet minister for donkeys years . Is no-one even a wee bit pissed off ??? Am I completely alone on this one ?? (yeh, probably, cue piss taking)

by barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 22:31

There are quite a few people who are convinced that is exactly why 9/11 happened in the first place. Could the Bushes have at least cut their ties with the effing Bin Ladens and made it a bit less obvious !!!!

As for power projection in the ME, well it doesnt look to me like the Arabs are the slightest bit intimidated or that they are ever likely to be. If anything the resistance seems to be growing by the month. While it may be comforting to believe that the Iraqi resistance comprises nothing only thugs and head-hackers, the scale of the resistance which we are currently witnessing would be simply impossible to sustain without a large degree of support within the Iraqi populace.

Your contention that the entire Arab world should be taught a lesson for 9/11 is frankly racist. Very few in the Arab world had anything whatsoever to do with it. It is the equivalent to Bin Laden and Al Zaqarwi stating that all US/Westerners should be taught a lesson. All America and Britain have done is ensure that these religious maniacs in particular will have an endless supply of recruits in the future.

Strutting about the middle east like a cowboy will simply not solve a damn thing and will only add fuel to the fire. America went from having the worlds sympathy after 9/11 (including mine) to becoming absolutely despised. It takes an amazing degree of Presidential blundering to do that. The fact that the most powerful nation the world has ever seen is being led by an absolute moron, surrounded by a clique which even the CIA referred to as "the crazies" scares the shit out of every body- except it seems the Arab resistance fighters.

As regards "witless nonsense about oil and haliburton" are you taking the piss ? Are you seriously denying that the people who pushed for this illegal war of occupation are up to their necks in these very interests, and the fact that they and their companies have made a shit-load of money out of this mess??

by barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 22:29

There are quite a few people who are convinced that is exactly why 9/11 happened in the first place. Could the Bushes have at least cut their ties with the effing Bin Ladens and made it a bit less obvious !!!!

As for power projection in the ME, well it doesnt look to me like the Arabs are the slightest bit intimidated or that they are ever likely to be. If anything the resistance seems to be growing by the month. While it may be comforting to believe that the Iraqi resistance comprises nothing only thugs and head-hackers, the scale of the resistance which we are currently witnessing would be simply impossible to sustain without a large degree of support within the Iraqi populace.

Your contention that the entire Arab world should be taught a lesson for 9/11 is frankly racist. Very few in the Arab world had anything whatsoever to do with it. It is the equivalent to Bin Laden and Al Zaqarwi stating that all US/Westerners should be taught a lesson. All America and Britain have done is ensure that these religious maniacs in particular will have an endless supply of recruits in the future.

Strutting about the middle east like a cowboy will simply not solve a damn thing and will only add fuel to the fire. America went from having the worlds sympathy after 9/11 (including mine) to becoming absolutely despised. It takes an amazing degree of Presidential blundering to do that. The fact that the most powerful nation the world has ever seen is being led by an absolute moron, surrounded by a clique which even the CIA referred to as "the crazies" scares the shit out of every body- except it seems the Arab resistance fighters.

As regards "witless nonsense about oil and haliburton" are you taking the piss ? Are you seriously denying that the people who pushed for this illegal war of occupation are up to their necks in these very interests, and the fact that they and their companies have made a shit-load of money out of this mess??

by Devil Dog Wed Oct 27, 2004 20:30

This site just has me rolling in the aisle!!!

Heather, your attempt at psychological profiling is fantastic, even better than Pat C's - you're on a par with Hannibal Lecter!!!!I recommend you apply to Oxford or Harvard for tenancy in their Psychology faculties, you'll be a shoe-in.

Barry, here's the bottom line - I never said Iraq was invaded on humanitarian grounds - but it wasn't invaded for oil, profit etc (and that's certainly not why the Iran-Iraq war was fought) - it was intended as a display of power projection in the wake of 9/11, a message to the Arab world that "You can take out the twin towers and the Pentagon, but we can overthrow a regime in the heart of the ME". Syria or Saudi wd have done too, but Saddam went "pour encourager les autres"...that and the fact that he deserved to go.

Not you might think that Wolfowitz and Perle are being hopelessly optimistic in believing that they can transform the ME by showing the world that a democratic, tolerant, economically viable state in the heart of the Arab world is possible but PLEASE, don't trot out the witless nonsense about oil, haliburton etc

As for Iraqi resistance - if you think a bunch of Baathist thugs, foreign Jihadists and other associated head hackers and homicide bombers represent the Iraqi people, you're nuts...then again Barry, the wishes of the people are irrelevant to self-appointed cabals who confer the right to carry out atrocities on themselves, aren't they?

A question for all those who believe this - do you think Iraq wd have been invaded if 9/11 hadn't happened?

by Jeff D. Wed Oct 27, 2004 19:47

Actually, I've never said Iraq was invaded on humanitarian grounds - because it wasn't. I agree with you on that.

I also agree that Saddam received support from the US, the UK, France and about every other bloody nation on this planet. And yes, the Kurds were gassed with German technology and American know.how.

SO WHAT????

Does the fact that the US supported Saddam makes it impossible that something good comes out of removing him? Do the Kurds have to suffer at the hands of a brutal dictator, because the US is not allowed to remove him, because they supported him in the past? Is it morally imperative that the Kurds pay the price for mistakes the US made??

You're right - that's not hypocrisy. It's worse than that. You demand a certain action (or in this case, non-action) on the part of the US, completely disregarding the results of such action. If the Kurds perish, tough luck, if only the US doesn't intervene.

Perhaps I should introduce you to some friends of mine - try explaining to a girl who has lost her husband and about every other male member of her family to Saddam's henchmen that the intervention was a bad thing; that it would have been far better had they not done it, but instead according to the German-French plan lifted sanctions and no-fly-zones.

Oh, and don't repeat this 'the Iraqi people' thing. Ask everyone down there - there are Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, Kurds; it's kinda tricky to find an Iraqi there.... In any case, you might entlighten me why the Kurdish pesh merga, instead of raising as one man against the evil American agressor, cooperate with them?

Perhaps you should explain to them why they should 1) feel to be Iraqis, not Kurds, and 2) not feel liberated from a brutal, racist, pathologic dictator, but oppressed from an evil foreign army.

Jeff

by barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 17:52

Well Jeff , far from being indifferent to the plight of these poor people I am actually quite angry that the no-good criminal sleazeball who gave Saddam the chemichal weapons which put many of those people in mass graves in the first place was none other than Donald Rumsfeld. Far from being indifferent I also remember that while Saddam was butchering these people he had the wholesale support of Haliburton, the CIA etc, who were encouraging him not only to wipe out internal dissent but also to launch a war against his Iranian neighbours, whom they also gave military assistance to. The ensuing human cost from this artificially created stand-off distresses me greatly along with the knowledge that these rich kid slime buckets were laughing all the way to the bank (just like they are now). As regards the plight of the Kurds I am also old enough to remember when the pictures of the poison gas massacre were first broadcast the British government tried to suggest they were faked because, surprise surprise, they were also up to their necks in doing all sort of business with Saddam at the time too (remember the big gun hi ?) At the same time they were and are staunch allies of the Facist Turkish regime which has been slaughtering kurds on a weekly basis long before Saddam was even a pup. For yourself and Devil Dog (WHERE DID HE GET SUCH A DAFT NAME) to suggest for one minute that these same people and business interests have invaded Iraq on humanitarian grounds, as opposed to purely financial, is taking the proverbial biscuit I'm afraid. I therefore reject your insinuation of hypocricy and indifference. At the same time I would re-iterate that the Iraqi resistance have every right to oppose the foreign occupation of their nation, just as all peoples do, including the Irish.

by Jeff D. Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:30

Actually, senseless slaughter is not quite getting it. For quite a number of people, being able to dig up the bones of their loved ones from unmarked mass graves, put them into plastic bags, carry them home and giving them a decent burial is quite a lot of sense.

Imperialism is a nice accusation to field. The trouble is, when you show that you're totally indifferent to what happens abroad, are you then much better?

Jeff

by Heather Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:26

The so-called Devil Dog clearly has psychologial issues relating to authority. Maybe it's to do with your upbringng Mutley but you have an obvious visceral hatred of rebels or anyone who challenges authority. This is very evident from all of your various postings on Indymedia. You just can't seem to take it that the world is not as you were assured when a child. You've got to cut that oppresive umbilical. I wonder who was responsible- an overbearing father, strict school authorities or what? You clearly always did what you were told by those you thought knew better and kept away from the 'bold boys'. Well guess what? The real world dont work that way. I suggest a course of psychoanalysis. By the way is your ridiculous moniker your own wee attempt at rebellion? Your a bit of a joke old chap. Stop making a complete arse of yourself.

by Jeff D. Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:24

So it's all the same. You really believe this. If it's all the same, then there's no difference between a SS camp guard who fancies a lamp shade and a US bomber pilot targeting an AA gun on a rooftop.

I can accept this if you are a radical pacifist. In all other cases this is simply nuts. If you go only by the result, then someone accidentally killing another person is guilty TO THE SAME DEGREE as someone committing a hate crime. Thank god this is nowhere law of the land.

Oh, and don't tell me this crappy stuff about 'invasion', 'sovereign nation' 'valiant Iraqi freedom fighter boldly trying to evade evil aggression'.

I was there in 1991/1992. When a US government decided 'oh well, it's all interior affairs, we have no mandate'. When Kurdish leaders desperately - but unsuccessfully - tried to get the USAF to shoot down the helicopters Saddam's henchmen randomly killed civilans with.

If you really think that noone wanted the US go into Iraq and remove Saddam, then you're either blind to the realities of the world, or a racist. Because you either don't know/don't want to know about the plight of the Kurds, or you don't care because they are Kurds; which makes you not much better than the folks shooting toddlers in the forehead..

I have yet to meet one who's of the opinion that it would have been better had the US not gone in. Most of the times I get asked 'why did you wait for such a long time?'.

Jeff

by Seamus Robinson Wed Oct 27, 2004 16:16

Could Devil Dog tell us on whose behalf he engaged in "combat"? I think this might be illuminating in relation to his rabid ramblings.

by barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 15:52

I think devil dog etc are just annoyed that the Iraqis dont ride round American bases on horses in a big circle going whoo-whoo and peg bows and arrows at them. Life truly is a bitch when the natives are able to shoot back once in a while. As for his Israeli mates, well taking out a wheelchair bound 66 year old quadroplegic from 3 miles away with half a dozen hellfire missiles says it all. Spare us the war stories Devil Dog. The US and Britain are illegally occupying Iraq and it has nothing to do with the war on Terror or wmd. Its so a lot of rich people in the US and Britain can get even richer. Their kids wont be in the firing line, just poor people whether they be arab, american or british. If you want to try and justify this senseless slaughter for profit so you can sleep better at night that's understandable. But theres no need to insult the beliefs of people who truly are opposed to imperialism. The conflict in this country was and is against an illegal occupying force no matter what your opinion is of barstool provos (my opinion of them is'nt very high either) Unfortunately you seem to be suffering from the British disease of being totally unable to understand why anyone whose country is occupied would ever want to go out and defend their sovereignty, and therefore have to ascribe other motives in order to escape the truth.

by Nordie Wed Oct 27, 2004 11:01

So lets see now, is it this, Jeff ?:

Saddam ordering children to be shot = dead children = bad

American military ordering dropping of bombs on family home = dead children = good

Bomb exploding in restaurant in Jerusalem = dead women = bad

Bomb dropped on restaurant in Baghdad = dead women = good

And the difference on the ground is what? And the grief for the living is different how? And the lives destroyed are more bearable in what way?

Look here, I'm going to bomb on a city because it will kill some bold boys. Never mind the civilians, it's not them I'm targeting so they'll not really die, and if they do it won't be the same because I didn't care enough about them either way as I'm too moral and their dead bodies will smell nicer to the world because it was I who done it for Jesus. Isn't life grand?

by barry Wed Oct 27, 2004 03:20

Ermm, am i wrong or was this debate started by a piece on John Bruton ? Does it not bother anybody that the Free-States' former Taoiseach has basically made a speech wishing that all 32 counties were as "British as Finchley", thereby elevating the peculiar southern hobby of west-Brittery to a new improved Olympic gold standard ? (NEVER MIND THE TOY-SOLDIER NONSENSE FOR JAYSUS SAKE). The implications this has for the very notion of Irish sovereignty, nationhood and independence are absolutely staggering.

by Michael Wed Oct 27, 2004 01:37

Hi Jeff,

I'm not Nordie, but I've answered the question you've posed - a good one - on this site when it's come up before. Here I go again. :-)

Firstly, The US military are in Iraq as invaders and occupiers. I'm sure you don't believe that the invasion and occupation have much to do with eradicating Saddam's WMD or ties to Al Qaeda, but those were the principle arguments given before the war. That is, before it became impossible to ignore for even the supporters of the war that (a) there were no WMD in Iraq in 2003, and (b) before the US invasion there were very little ties between Iraq and terrorism, but that's all changed now. No, their motive was something else, something far more obvious: to control oil.

They've come to plunder Mesopotamia, and so everything that they do must be seen in that light. If they say "I was only trying to kill the guy in the red t-shirt, not the kid in the blue t-shirt", it makes little difference really. They have no business whatsoever in Iraq as occupiers and warriors.

True, a US soldier who commits a crime which is caught on camera for the world to see (like some of the torture of prisoners in Abu Graib) should face justice. Same as a pirate who commits some transgression of the "pirate community code" needs to walk the plank. Alas, the moment they get on a plane to Iraq -- flying via Shannon Airport perhaps -- they're already chin-deep in crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.

This "regretable" stuff is almost completely pointless, cause we don't know why they regret the loss of life. Why? Because it's bad for soldier moral? Or because Iraqi lives are equal to American lives? If it were the latter, and if the American soldiers had any sense, they'd frag the highest ranking officer they could get their hands on and join the Iraqi resistance!

by Jeff D. Wed Oct 27, 2004 01:02

Nordie,

did you ever think that it might matter to what end violence is applied? Setting international law aside for the moment, do you really believe that it's the same if you declare young women and children to be your prime military target or if you go after a leadership target and cause regrettable loss of life while doing so?

If you kill civilians during a war in a situation where civilian casualties can't be avoided is just the same as state-sponsored mass murder? The regrettable loss of life in the Baghdad restaurant you mention has the same moral quality as the systematic killing of men, women and children by Saddam's henchmen? Trying to go after a brutal dictator and causing loss of life of innocents has the same moral quality as putting a pistol to a toddler's head, saying 'Kurds have no right to live' and pulling the trigger???

Please don't tell me you really believe this.

Jeff

by Nordie Tue Oct 26, 2004 20:29

I think you may have me confused with an IRA man or something. I'm not; I'm not a supporter of violence at all, unless it's in self-defence*. I am a republican but not one who believes in political violence and if I stand up for the IRA it's only against lies that Irish republicans were trying to drive the prods into the sea or had a plan to take over the south, because I don't think such myths are helpful.

*P.N. Self defence should not be confused with dropping bombs on family homes and shooting women and children on the street.

Now lets see. Because the Provo’s did such and such that means that dropping bombs on civilians that are gathered around a burning US truck (which contained no burning US non-terrorists) isn't murder? Is that what you're saying? Can you explain your logic to me because I might just want to go out and petrol bomb someone's house and kill them and then tell the police it wasn't murder because someone stabbed someone in the back in Africa today?

Now, I'm sure the allies didn't drop bombs on French civilian houses or weddings and crowds of French people standing in the street looking at a burning truck or fire bullets into a schoolhouse in Paris but if they did I'd must certainly get to thinking that there could have been some murders of French civilians by the Allies.

So, really, tell me - when the Provo’s walked into a chip shop on the Shankill Road and the bomb intended for Johnny Adair exploded and murdered 9 civilians why is that murder but when the US dropped bombs on a restaurant at the start of the Iraq war because they thought Saddam was hungry and might be there and instead killed (now this might surprise you because I know most restaurants contain only dictators and terrorists, but this one was special) no one but a whole pile of innocents, well why was that non-murder? When the Provo’s exploded bombs at a pub used by soldiers and murdered 21 people why was that murder but when the IDF dropped a bomb on a house in Gaza and killed the same amount of people because a Hamas member might have been there, again why was that particular incident non-murder? Why are you outraged by people getting blown up in Pizza restaurants in Israel but supporting people getting blown up in Kebab shops in Iraq if you don't distinguish between victims of violence? Bad bombs bad, good bombs good, is it?

by Devil Dog Tue Oct 26, 2004 20:00

Another balanced contribution form N Boy - you're right, the USMC is just like the Provos - we murder kids, those of a different religious persuasion, make fortunes from smuggling, all the while against the wishes of the American people..oh yeah, we claim to be the actual government f the US too.

As to your points, I'm not the one seeking to distinguish between victims of violence...and I don't spout claptrap like "anti-imperialist fighters".....

Tell me, were the 20,000 French civilians who died in pre-D-Day bombing murdered too?

by Nordie Tue Oct 26, 2004 19:48

...ever non-murder any woman and children when you were serving with your non-terrorist organisation? Feel proud if you did? Ever talk to any of the families of those who you or your non-terrorist organisation liberated by process of death? Ever see any beautiful woman have their bodies ripped apart by your non-terrorist organisation or ever had a good duke at the children your non-terrorist organisation liberated from legs and arms? Ever went to the funeral of a child non-murdered by the non-racist IDF or visited the rubble of a house which buried a liberated family in Fallujah after a flying cowboy non-criminal dropped a bomb of liberation on them while they slept?

Fuck, you're the quare boy to talk about violence or am I just not understanding that official goodie violence and the grief and destruction it causes are just a bit of craic and just what baby Jesus told the goodie leader to do or he’ll cry?

by Getting back to the thread Tue Oct 26, 2004 17:59

Aspects of British Propaganda during the War of Independence

A talk by Dr Brian Murphy OSB
Teachers Club, Dublin - 16th October 2004

Mags Glennon • 21 October 2004

Dr Murphy's lecture examining the operation and consequences of the British propaganda efforts during the Tan War started with an unambiguous statement about the conclusions of his research; that in addition to their contemporary political influence on the 1920s, they still influence historical accounts published ninety years later. Murphy claims that his examination of the historiography has revealed the over dependence of 'revisionist' historians - he named Roy Foster and Peter Hart in particular - on the 'official' version of events spun by Dublin Castle during the War.

A central function of the British propaganda efforts in the period under examination was the planting of stories in reputable journals which were supposedly from non-aligned sources. Murphy cited an article entitled 'Ireland under the New Terror, Living under Martial Law', which appeared in a popular London publication in the Summer of 1921. While purporting to be a series of travellers anecdotes from Ireland, it presented the IRA in a far less favourable light than the British forces. However it was not revealed that the writer, Ernest Dowdall, was in fact member of the RIC Auxiliary and the article was directly planted by the Propaganda Department in Dublin Castle to influence public opinion.

Continued here: http://lark.phoblacht.net/mg201010g.html

by Devil Dog Tue Oct 26, 2004 17:36

"so you choose to ignore all the evidence set out in this thread and choose to believe in hart? on what basis? a leap of faith?

its quite obvious from your debating style and the contents of your posts that you live in some sort of a fantasy world where you habve served in an imperial army and despatched the beastly "terrorists" with your high pwered 5.56mm bullets.

i think the reality is much more likely that you are a sad little introvert who wouldnt say boo to a mouse in real life. but on the internet you are the reincarnation of capt robert nairac. you arentfooling anyone here. as has been pointed out you are against all progressive causes and you support the villianous Israeli govt. Are you happy with the latest 15 Palestinians killed?

get yourself a life."

I was an officer in the US Marines and served in Iraq - whether you believe that or not, I really don't give a shit. Either way, your amateur psychological analysis is absolutely hilarious - ever hear of Google? Why not type in my username and see what you find.

Judging by your response, you sound like the typicall barstool Provo.

Anti-imperialists in NI? Jesus, get real - this analysis belongs in the 70's and it was a load of shite then, even more so now.

"Progressive causes"? - usually means some variety of Marxism/terrorism with a load of tribal hatred thrown in.


"villainous Israeli government"? - Come on, you can do better than that - how about bloodthirsty Zionist babykillers.?

Ever met any victims of the PIRA's heroic "anti-imperialist" struggle? Or the relatives of an Israeli blown to shit in a pizza parlour?

by Curious Tue Oct 26, 2004 17:32

Where did the English get their Mandate for violence? When did the Indian, Irish, Kenyan, Ceylonese, Tongan, etc etc vote to allow the English to come in and ravage their countries? Perhaps Mr Dog would answer that?

by pat c Tue Oct 26, 2004 16:53

so you choose to ignore all the evidence set out in this thread and choose to believe in hart? on what basis? a leap of faith?

its quite obvious from your debating style and the contents of your posts that you live in some sort of a fantasy world where you habve served in an imperial army and despatched the beastly "terrorists" with your high pwered 5.56mm bullets.

i think the reality is much more likely that you are a sad little introvert who wouldnt say boo to a mouse in real life. but on the internet you are the reincarnation of capt robert nairac. you arentfooling anyone here. as has been pointed out you are against all progressive causes and you support the villianous Israeli govt. Are you happy with the latest 15 Palestinians killed?

get yourself a life.

by Ned Daley Tue Oct 26, 2004 14:10

Dear Mr Dog,

Sinn Fein had an overwhelming mandate for independence in 1918. The First Dail was suppressed by Britain, the elected TDs arrested by the British or in hiding from the British.

Britain fought a war to suppress the wishes of the Irish people. British force in Ireland was in defiance of democracy.

Just as in other colonies later in the 20th Century, Britain eventfully gave in, bequeathed an unworkable constitution (two of them actually, one for each part of the island), and retired to lick its wounds.

At the time, Indians, Asians and Africans looked on with interest.

Irish people eventually made of success of independence, while Britain held on to a sectarian and repressive state in Northern Ireland. While Britain rules in Ireland, sectarian conflict ensues (usually promoted by those who think that British and Protestant are the same thing). when Irish people do it they debate and begin to eradicate the sectarianism themselves.

Yours etc,
Ned

by Devil Dog Tue Oct 26, 2004 13:46

Violence was not part of the SF manifesto in Dec 1918 so it's a bit hard to claim that the IRA had a mandate for violence - Irish republicanism has never sought nor thought it needed democratic endorsement of it its violence.

It's a bit of a laugh, what appears to be an IRA supporter levelling the charge of anti-democratic and sectarian at someone.

by Ned Daley Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:57

“The IRA resorted to assassination and the murder of Irish policemen as the main tactic to intimidate the long-suffering people of Ireland.”
The British “burned dairies”.
The “vast majority” of the “notorious Black and Tans” were Irish Roman Catholics.

Is this a joke?

Mr Alex Morgan has the effrontery to write:
“I am saddened to see that the standards of academic debate have declined to such an abysmal level.”

After that "abysmal" effort at revising the history of the period I assume that Mr Morgan is now further “saddened”.

The British burned more than Dairies (the city of Cork and the town of Balbriggan spring immediately to mind), the “vast majority” of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries were British soldiers from Britain (their religion is irrelevant), and the Irish people were so ‘intimidated’ by the IRA that they supported Sinn Fein and subsequent separatist parties in their droves from 1918 onwards. Those acting in defiance of the First Dail (British armed forces primarily) were acting against the clearly and democratically expressed wishes of the vast majority of the Irish people.

Does Peter Hart endorse the anti-democratic, factually incorrect and sectarian nonsense produced in his defence?

by Alex Morgan Tue Oct 26, 2004 06:49

Clearly it is fashionable today in Eire to view the events from 1916 to 1923 as a clearcut struggle between brave honourable republicans and oppressive imperialists. As Robert Key has pointed out in his comprehensive examination of the period the truth was very different. Let it be said that Mr. Key is no pro-British propagandist. The fact is that there were very few stand-up fights between the IRA and British forces: the IRA resorted to assassination and the murder of Irish policemen as the main tactic to intimidate the long-suffering people of Ireland, while the British burned dairies to the same end. The Easter rebels were protected by British troops from the incensed people of Dublin, who spat on Pearce and the rest, and would likely have lynched them, given the chance. The vast majority of the notorious Black and Tans were Irish Roman Catholics, and Michael Collins was murdered by his own people - or at least on the orders of the Spanish-American DeValera. Given the great contributions to civilization made by the Irish people, I am saddened to see that the standards of academic debate have declined to such an abysmal level. Clearly, no debate of the official version is tolerated. This approach leads back to the Dark Ages, which the Irish helped to keep at bay with their scholarship so long ago. Acknowledge that history is never a case of white hats against black hats, only grey. All politicians have blood on their hands. Embrace all of Ireland's history, acknowledging villains and heroes, embrace history (if you will forgive the Cromwellian reference!) "warts and all".

by J.W. Tue Oct 26, 2004 00:22

As this whole affair caused one of the websites I tend to visit more often than others to shut down, I decided to have a closer look at it.

After reading through the 'article' - the term 'piece' seems to be more appropriate, and indeed it's used in the subtitle - and the comments I must admit I was decidedly unimpressed.

Although I'm a professional historian myself, I cannot comment on the historical issue, as it's well outside my own research interests. I guess it's also not necessary to notice that Mr Meehan's piece is at least partly partisan in character, as this is quite obvious.

What I can comment on is Mr Meehan's approach to a historical problems - actually I feel compelled to comment, as it seems to be quite typical for much of the media's perception of what historical research is - as displayed eg by the following sentence:

" Peter Hart is part of a trend of revisionist historiography in which essentially pro-British ‘evidence’ is found to question other versions of history. Its strongest argument has always been that it is based on facts properly and professionally researched. Meda Ryan has demonstrated that such historiography can have methodological feet of clay. "

Now, what should that mean?

Historical analysis, based on the research of documentary or other evidence, is questionable on methodological grounds? What precisely is a 'methodological foot of clay'? I readily concede it's a nice metaphor, but what does it stand for? Taking a selective approach to the evidence available? I cannot for the worth of my life believe that any serious historian could accept that. Historical research, at least as far as modern and contemporary history is concerned, is always based on a selection of evidence - otherwise, it would be simply impossible to undertake historical research, as I can't envisage any situation where you really have 'completeness of evidence'; one might argue that ancient historians indeed enjoy this, but only because most of the evidence simply vanished.

Or is it the challenging of a certain position that is deemed unacceptable? This generally seems to be not an uncommon view, however, it's as wrong as things can get. Imagine the opinio communis would not be challenged (setting for a moment aside the logical problem of how such an opinion comes about in the first place); this would kill any progress in historical research. We learn from interpreting the evidence we have and from thinking about other people's interpretations. If my memory of the lessons on Popper and Kant doesn't fail me completely, exchanging and challenging opinions should be the basis of any science.

So, again, why has historical research based on a selection of evidence a methodological foot of clay, or even two?

Again, I can't comment on the real issue at stake; an in-depth analysis of the argument made by both sides would be a necessary prerequisite, and that is something that cannot be done, as Mr Meehan apparently seems to believe, in a few days' time. I find, however, the approach to history in general as displayed by the Mr Meehan highly disturbing; this together with the in parts obviously partisan nature of his piece greatly weakens his argument.

J. Wintjes

by pat c Sun Oct 24, 2004 17:32

you obviously live in a fantasy world and should cancel your subscription to "guns & ammo". if you took the tablets maybe some of your more violent hallucinations would recede.

once again, i would point out to you that this thread is about the "war of independence" of 1919-22. so why not stick to that topic?
otherwise you are just derailing the thread and exposing yourself as a troll.


Yeah right, cops shot in the head in front of their families in 1919-22! is that what hapened at kilmichael? were the auxies on a picnic outing with their families? how about crossbarry? gee you make hart look like an honest historian.

by Devil dog Sat Oct 23, 2004 14:46

"How is Nialls membership or otherwise of SF relevant to this debate? The same is true of your previous comments about Adams. This discourse is about incidents during the "war of independence".

Seeing as you are the one who brought up the issue of contributers on this thread using guns, perhaps you would inform us as to whether you have ever used a gun on behalf of Loyalists? Or are you just a sad member of FG or the PDs?"

Relevant because the Shinners are trying to construct a skewed history of NI which portrays them as anti-imperialist freedom fighters forced to take up the gun...oh yeay, any of the small number of civilians killed by the IRA were regrettable collaterla damage.

This is quite similiar to the air brushing of history which occurred in the aftermath of 1920-22....the "War of Independence" mainly consisted of cops being shot in the head, often in front of their families.

Used a gun for Loyalists?? Jaysus, are you paranoid or what? No, can't say that I was ever a loyalist scumbag murderer - but I've been in combat and know what 5.56 ball does to people - how about you?

Why are FG/PD members sad? Because they're not intrinsically linked to a gang of mass murderers and criminal scumbags?

by Niall Meehan Fri Oct 22, 2004 14:23

Dear Peter,

1
You say you issued a “call to debate”. Is it directed solely at others and not at yourself? You say you will not respond to the substantive issues. But why, if you are so confident about your methodology and your evidence? A basic principle of historical scholarship is a willingness to debate substantive historical issues.

2
You say that you will respond. I congratulate you, though the timescale is still a little indeterminate. Would it be a matter of weeks, months, or possibly even years? Perhaps you might clarify.

3
You say you respect Dr Brian Murphy and Meda Ryan. Ryan’s book on Tom Barry has been in the bookshops since December 2003. You have not responded as far as I can see in any way to the challenge it has posed for your analysis.

4
Dr Murphy has been waiting for six years for a response to his criticism that you refused to cite relevant evidence from one part of a document, while quoting liberally from other parts. Murphy’s position is that the information you omitted was highly relevant. It contradicted a substantive point you were attempting to make.

5
While it is apparently a “smear” to mention you in connection with Canada, Newfoundland, wargamers, the Ewart Biggs Prize and Roy Foster, it is somehow legitimate for you to write without evidence of any kind that I “probably belong to [a] specific Irish Political organisation”. I leave others to judge a possible double standard. Your suggestion is without substance, as I do not – were I to be, it would be without relevance to the debate over analysis of what happened in West Cork during the War of Independence.

(It may be a slip of the pen, but when you write that you “do not” belong to a “specifically Irish” political organisation, I assume you to mean you do not belong to a political organisation in any country.)

6
Your analysis of my criticism of your work is as flawed. Your suggestion that Tom Barry and Kilmichael form only a small part of the overall body of work you have produced omits the fact that it forms a major part of one book, your first. That is only one aspect of the debate. Ryan and Murphy have raised other issues. I have read some of your work, but not all. You write well, but my criticism stands.

7
To sum up: you say there is not “space” here to respond. But that is one thing about the Internet; the space is fairly much unlimited. As Dan Quayle said about ‘Space’: it is a big area. You could fill some of it up here for the benefit of your friends and critics (and the interested neutral) on the points in contention.

8
However, as you confirm that you will, at last, respond (in the near future hopefully) my role in this matter is now finished and I look forward to your reply to Meda Ryan and Dr Brian Murphy on the substantive points in contention between you.

Yours sincerely,

Niall Meehan

by pat c Fri Oct 22, 2004 11:28

How is Nialls membership or otherwise of SF relevant to this debate? The same is true of your previous comments about Adams. This discourse is about incidents during the "war of independence".

Seeing as you are the one who brought up the issue of contributers on this thread using guns, perhaps you would inform us as to whether you have ever used a gun on behalf of Loyalists? Or are you just a sad member of FG or the PDs?

by Devil Dog Fri Oct 22, 2004 01:25

Mr Meehan,

Can you pls confirm or deny that you are a SF member?

Semper,

by Peter Hart Thu Oct 21, 2004 22:17

I normally never respond to these sort of attack pieces - they are insubstantial and politically motivated and if I made a habit of it I would be it at it forever.

However, since so many people I know took the trouble to respond, for which I'm grateful, I thought I should make a statement.

1.) I will not be responding to the substantive historical points mentioned here. They originate with Brian Murphy and Meda Ryan, both of whose contributions to Irish history I respect, and I will respond to them (and to critics in general) in full and in an appropriate form. Apart from anything else, there isn't space here. But in any case, why respond to Jack Lane and Niall Meehan on these matters when they have nothing original to say and say it in such an objectionable way?

2.) Meehan and Lane - and others - have a political agenda and probably belong to specific Irish poltical organisations. I do not. Nor do I have any religious affiliations. I am not an Irish or British unionist, nationalist or socialist. I am not a Protestant or a Catholic. I am a Newfoundlander and a Canadian. As my friends can attest after our many many conversations on world politics, I am neither conservative nor right-wing.

3.) Yet, proceeding from their strong bias, M and L assume I have some countervailing politics or prejudice that must have driven me to write on the Irish revolution. This is simply false, based on the false premise that my work is somehow partisan.

4.) Readers should note the method used by Meehan, who apparently teaches journalism. I wrote something he thinks is antithetical to the IRA's historical reputation so I must be anti-IRA, therefore anti-republican, therefore anti-nationalist and even anti-Irish, therefore pro-British. My conclusions cannot simply be derived from a study of the evidence - there must be a hidden motive.

5.) I am accused of using evidence selectively (as can every historian ever of course) to further this agenda. Yet M refers, at best, to only 2 chapters of my 1st book (out of 13 in total) and not at all to my many articles and two other books, the latest being The IRA at War, 1916-23.

6.) To readers of this discussion: if you want to know what I think about the revolution, read my work for yourself - you may be surprised to find how little space in it Tom Barry and Kilmichael occupy, and how much evidence is presented on a wide range of subjects.

7.) I am further damned by association. With Roy Foster, with the Ewart-Biggs award, with Newfoundland, with Canada, with wargamers. This of course has nothing to do with the argument but is so blatant a smear that it prompted most of the earlier responses.

8.) How can anyone take such a level of argument seriously? What unbiased reader would accept these insinuations and accusations as relevant?

9.) As already noted, such methods are not used by serious critics of my work. I disagree with almost all their substantive points and stand by my work completely, but I by no means reject criticism in general. My last book was written as a call to debate, and rational debate is what develops better understanding. I have responded to many of the points raised by Murphy and Ryan already in print and I will do so again.

10.) If readers are interested in reading a relevant debate between myself and another historian, in a few weeks one will be posted at www. history.ac.uk/reviews in a few weeks (sorry, don't know exaclty when).

11.) When the book or whatever it is on Kilmichael and all that comes out, I hope you all will read it and that the debate will continue.

by Eamon Dyas Thu Oct 21, 2004 22:04 eamon.dyas at talk21 dot com

I'm very disappointed in the quality of Mr Marshall's response/reaction to Neil Meehan's piece. The issues raised surely deserve more than the sweeping accusations and personal insults which constitute the brunt of Mr Marshall's position. I can't see one rational argument in his outburst beyond the minor point that the Pink White and Green flag never having being an official flag of Newfoundland. Methinks perhaps that it may have been an unnofficial flag of some standing - which is not denied. There is a concerted campaign being waged at present to question the Irish sense of history. While I have no problem with this - iconoclasm after all is a necessary condition of a rigorous intellectual existence - but hey, lets start hurling ideas and not insults. Surely Newfoundland is not as barren of these as the Orange Order!!

by Niall Meehan Thu Oct 21, 2004 21:33

Bill (re your post),

I was referring in my last post to the Newfoundland issues, that gave rise to discussion and that has parallels with Ireland. I had already addressed the war-gaming issue. I suspect that anything further I say may not be regarded as sufficient. It is clear that I have trodden on a sensitive nerve. I had no idea that mentioning that Peter Hart was a keen war gamer, information available publicly on a website, would be regarded as “outing” him. I was not aware that this pastime was regarded as the pursuit of a persecuted minority, requiring protection from… what? Marauding gangs of pacifist gamers? Levity aside, I will attempt again to put it in context.

(Also, since you ask, no, I would not have mentioned it if I had known that Pete was behind in his rent or if he had a gay daughter (what is wrong with the latter by the way, why is that something you would want kept hidden?).)

I made two quite minimal references to the issue. The first was factual, and pointed interested readers to the site. War in Ireland - war games: there is a certain connection, don’t you agree? Is it the context that you object to, the fact that I am critical of Peter Hart and that he refuses to answer in relation to criticism of his work?

In the second reference I attempted to draw attention to Peter Hart’s highly schematic approach to the history of the period in question, 1919-22. Hart was unable to integrate into his narrative the overwhelming support for Irish independence that existed at the time. Instead of placing the situation in its anti-colonial context, he opts instead to see it in the context of policing, admittedly on a large and unusual scale. He puts the Irish War of Independence in the British context of ‘disorder’ and ‘outrages’. He also creates a false scenario in which the Irish side is motivated not by a desire for independence and democracy, so much as by sectarian revenge. In that he actually follows British strategy, which aimed to portray the Irish separatism as sectarian and loyalism as tolerant, whereas the opposite was in fact the case at the time.

Hart’s analysis starts by attempting to take the Kilmichael Ambush of November 1921 out of its internationally recognized context as a textbook military ambush, conceived and organized by Tom Barry. Instead, there is an attempt at character assassination and to insinuate that British prisoners were slaughtered on the order of the commander. Hart dismissed the false surrender, in which surrendering British soldiers took up arms again and shot unsuspecting Irish soldiers who stood to take the surrender. His analysis has been undermined by Meda Ryan (Tom Barry 2003, Mercier Press) and others, more recently by Dr Brian Murphy. Peter Hart has not responded to these serious criticisms, though invited to do so.

Instead of treating it as a military engagement, Kilmichael becomes Hart’s platform for insinuations of sectarianism and petty localized hatreds on the part of the Irish side.

Peter Hart also attempted to suggest that loyalist Protestants who were killed in April 1922 were shot because of their religion. While conjecture in that regard is of course legitimate, not dealing with two obvious and clearly pertinent facts undermines Hart’s analysis:

1.
The area surrounding Bandon was unique in the South of Ireland in witnessing the formation of a sectarian paramilitary group acting in collusion with British forces. Sectarian in the sense that it was linked with Orangeism - the view that being a Protestant and being British are synonymous.

2.
There was significant Protestant support for the campaign for independence from Britain.

Meda Ryan has examined the incident in detail. Her meticulous analysis undermines Hart’s attempt to place the incident in a sectarian context.

In other words I was suggesting that Peter Hart had a schematic ‘police action’ approach to the history of the period that was sympathetic to the British side and unsympathetic to the Irish side. I wrote in my second reference to war gaming that it was “as though he [Peter Hart] has a war (game) plan in his head and is criticising the British in retrospect for not adhering to it.” I then said that this was not surprising “in someone whose hobby is war games,” in other words has anachronistically and retrospectively conceived of how the IRA could have been beaten. Succinctly, I am suggesting that Peter Hart is biased.

If those who engage in this hobby are upset by the reference, then I am sorry. At this stage, readers can make up their own minds on the issue. If this is not regarded as sufficient it will have to be said that we are dealing with an unusual degree of obsessiveness.

I would just say finally, that the one person who can answer the question is Peter Hart himself. He is silent on the issue. If he does not answer, his approach to the history of the period will simply be classed as ‘hit and run’.

The substantive issue therefore is Hart’s misreading of the period in question and his refusal to respond to Meda Ryan’s refutation of his analysis.

by Jack Lane Thu Oct 21, 2004 21:13

Tim

You say "..Peter would never stoop to the level of Mr Meehan and make fabrications. He is thorough, skillful ..". The problem is that with selective evidence Peter has fabricated a history of the War of Independence in Co. Cork. This has been established by Meda Ryan's book in exhaustive detail, almost literally, a 'blow by blow' refutation of Peter's case. Why Peter has done this has been a mystery to many and I have heard many reasons put forward. Niall Meehan has simply wondered if it could be explained to some extent by his background. That is usually of some significance in these matters and the contributors to this debate from Canada certainly feel strongly about their background and it is clearly important to them. Meehan has shown us the evidence he found and used and I detect no fabrication of evidence by him which is in stark contrast to Peter's history of Cork.

Jack Lane

by Keir O'Flaherty Thu Oct 21, 2004 18:15

Gentlemen,

I'm another of the Newfoundlanders who has learned of this internet debate. I think there are a several things going on here.

First, Mr. Meehan did not indicate to Tim that he was using him to confirm the identity of Peter so as to slag him on the indeymedia site for, amongst other things, being a wargamer. As a journalistic method, this kind of conduct is bound to raise the ire of the person so duped. Nor do I understand that Mr. Meehan approached Peter Hart on this issue beforehand, so one wonders how necessary it was. I have seen a copy of Mr. Meehan's original e-mail to Tim Marshall, and it makes for an edifying read.

Secondly, there is the idea Mr. Meehan floats out there that there is something wrong with the hobby of wargaming. There may be something to this, though I would not assent to same, but that is another topic for another time. I think it would make as much sense to attack someone for being a chess player.

Third, I thought this topic and Mr. Meehan's article was supposed to address questions of the writing of the history of conflict in what is now the Republic of Ireland in the 1920's. Is not this site, by its own terms, supposed to be about the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth, and to against distortions of the same? Mr. Meehan is passionate. he may be a radical depending on what that term means. But I see little in what he says that suggests a impulse towards the accurate truth, and I see some things that suggest intentional distortions of it.

I cannot speak on the history of the rebellion in County Cork in the 1920's. I can tell you some home truths about Newfoundland history. The so-called Penal Laws never applied as a a matter of law to Newfoundland as Mr. Meehan suggests. Under the early legal system in Newfoundland permanent settlement on the Island was prohibited by law. Justice was meted out by British naval officers or by masters of vessels in the harbours that they had appropriated to their use on a first come basis that year, the so called "Fishing Admirals". Such justice was often arbitrary. Prejudice had its way in many cases. That said, because the (illegal) house of a settler of Irish heritage or domicile was destroyed by order of one of these men does not mean that the Penal Laws applied in the sense that Catholics in Ireland suffered under the legal disabilities of that legislation.

Nor was Newfoundland ever a part of Canada before confederation in 1949. To say that Newfoundland is the only part of Canada to which the Penal Laws applied is, historically, nonsense.

hese are just examples, but I don't really think Mr. Meehan is really that interested in history. The sources he cites are fictional, anecdotal, or internet opinion. In the late-19th century on the European Continent such sources were regularly cited by anti-semites to justify the truth of the blood libel. Karl Rove is a master of the radical creation of truth from such tawdry materials, when he just doesn't make something up to suit his client.

Of course, Mr. Meehan's recourse to websites for his information (about the supposed application of the Penal laws in Newfoundland) simply discloses the weaknesses of such research, and the flimsy basis for all he says on such. Do a Google search using any of his terms above. He doesn't even give the citations, but they are there, each and every one.

If someone on the Internet writes that the Earth is Flat does a journalist then report as fact that we live on a circular plane at the center of the universe, or does he report that someone else believes it to be so? I would think the latter, if it be newsworthy at all. When a lecturer in journalism engages in this kind of technique, I'd say his words aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

Cheers

by Tim Marshall Thu Oct 21, 2004 17:15

Niall, thank you for taking the time to write and detail your sources for some of the claims you make in your article. However, I will tell you that with respect to the picture you paint of the land in which I grew up with Dr Hart, the timings were off by quite a few years (I was born in 1963) and that some of your sources are very slanted.

The nonsense about accent classes at Memorial University is pure fantasy. There never was any such thing, I can assure you. To demonize Hart by fabricating a religious background in which he was raised is all the more hilariously insane to anyone who grew up in that time. It reminds me of the sort of propaganda I see when I look at old posters of the Kaiser in 1914.

What a responsible argument does is deal with the issues, not the person. Your false information about Newfoundland has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue (and is false, anyway) and neither has the wargaming reference.

As for the real issue, Jack Lane, thank you, you sum this up perfectly. This _should_ be about the real war your land has experienced. However, Mr Meehan attempts to discredit a historian who has done a tremendous amount of research by coming up with irrelevant personal details simply because said historian is a "foreigner" (see the article under the 'Propaganda' heading).

Niall you suckered me by writing and saying "I just came across your amazing website. I was wondering, is the Peter Hart mentioned the Chair of Irish Studies in Memorial University? I have just been reading one of his highly acclaimed books." He offered no credentials and no indication of how this information would be used. He then further tried to pump me by asking: "How did Peter get his interest in Ireland?". Not receiving a response, he used (hopefully unwittingly) fabrications about a culture he obviously knows nothing about. In hindsight, it was naive of me to assume a fellow hobbyist was writing.

Nevertheless, I think not identifying himself was unethical and I intend to lodge as many complaints as I possibly can (though fat lot of good it will probably do, with western journalism, at least in North America, in its current state).

Mr Lane, the above is the reason why I have taken up so much bandwidth on this topic. I know Peter's book has created controversy - the only comment I can make on that area, on which I know very little, is that Peter would never stoop to the level of Mr Meehan and make fabrications. He is thorough, skillful and there is not a malevolent or spiteful bone in his body. But of course, I understand it's his conclusions and interpretations with which many have taken issue and not his person, correct?

by Ron Knowling Thu Oct 21, 2004 14:59

You're asking for two things here. Why hasn't Hart responded, and that he answer the issues/problems raised by Ryan's work.

"Until he does so his reputation as a relaible historian is in question. I would suggest that Tim Marshall and his friends would do Peter a big favour by encouraging him to provide a detaIled reply to Ryan. Otherwise he is condemning himself by his silence."

I would suggest that by making 'detailed' researches and posing challenging but sustainable answers to difficult questions Hart has more than vindicated his reputation as an award winning Historian. As to responding to Ryan I am sure Hart will do this in a forum and at a time of his choosing.

And happily he he doesn't have to worry about being a 'reliable' speller.

RK

by Bill Armintrout - The Miniatures Page Thu Oct 21, 2004 14:51 editor at theminiaturespage dot com

"With the greatest respect to people who play war games the issue in this debate is not about their hobby"

We didn't ask to be involved, but Mr. Meehan has involved us.

"I would suggest that Tim Marshall and his friends would do Peter a big favour by encouraging him to provide a detaIled reply to Ryan."

And I would suggest that Mr. Meehan's friends should encourage him to issue a much-deserved apology, thus ending the controversy and allowing the historical discussion to continue.

To do otherwise is to give the impression that you support the "outing" of personal information in the debate.

by Jack Lane - Aubane Historical Society Thu Oct 21, 2004 09:39 jacklaneaubane at hotmail dot com Aubane, Millstreet, Co. Cork 00 353 29 70368

With the greatest respect to people who play war games the issue in this debate is not about their hobby but about a real war - the Irish War of Independence. Peter Hart's claim that it was a sectarian war in Cork has been countered in a detailed and fully documented book by Meda Ryan on Tom Barry published last year. As far as I know Peter Hart has not reviewed the book or published a single word to defend his case against Ryan's refutation. Why not? Until he does so his reputation as a relaible historian is in question. I would suggest that Tim Marshall and his friends would do Peter a big favour by encouraging him to provide a detaIled reply to Ryan. Otherwise he is condemning himself by his silence.

Jack Lane

by Bill Armintrout - The Miniatures Page Thu Oct 21, 2004 05:00 editor at theminiaturespage dot com

[If there is something missing, perhaps it can be pointed out, politely.]

Yes - you ignored my comment, regarding your denial lacking credibility.

You've committed two errors of judgment.

First, you deliberately "outed" Mr. Hart as a toy soldier hobbyist. I suppose, in order to support your point of view, it didn't matter what you used as a weapon. If he had been behind in his rent payments, and you had known that, would you have thrown that in? Or if he had been reading the wrong books? Or if he had a lesbian daughter?

But guilt by association is a poor argument.

Second, you assumed that "toy soldiers" was something pejorative, something Mr. Hart should be ashamed of, something that would tear him down. You've displayed immense ignorance of a beloved hobby of tens of thousands of people worldwide.

And you used 20th Century thinking on a 21st Century forum - you forget that on the internet, anyone can be listening. And the "toy soldier" hobbyists have heard your slurs, and we're tired of it.

If you have any decency, you will apologize for your lack of professionalism, your discourtesy to a popular hobby, and your zeal to win an argument regardless of the cost.

by Niall Meehan Thu Oct 21, 2004 01:26

There is a fair amount of reading here, that emanates from Newfoundland.

It concerns aspects of Newfoundland history and the ‘tension’ that seems to mirror the British-Irish or English-Irish distinction in Ireland. I am not convinced by anything written here that this information should be completely dismissed.

It is an argument within Newfoundland, if those who reject what I have written above do not agree with it.

On the flag: the 19th Century green, white and pink tricolor was not, it has been asserted, the “official” flag, Was it an unofficial one then? Why the later adoption of the Union Jack when Newfoundland partitioned itself off from Canada? Why indeed the vehement rejection of a flag symbolising peace between Roman Catholics and Protestants? The strength of the negative reaction to this notion appears significant. I will investigate further.

-----------------------

NEWFOUNDLANDER BILL BROWNE in Ireland
www.brownepapers.com

For an alternative Newfoundlander's view of the Irish War of Independence, I suggest reading the letters of famous Newfoundland lawyer, judge and politician, Bill Browne. Browne won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford and visited Ireland during the War of Independence. Chapter Two, Oxford University 1919-22, is the one to go for.

Browne’s evocation of, and identification with, the War of Independence as an eyewitness in Cork is at variance with that of Peter Hart as a historian many years later.

The material may be accessed at www.brownepapers.com.

Browne comments on Bloody Sunday 1921, the death of Terence MacSweeney and other momentous events in the conflict that eventually saw southern Ireland achieve its independence

---------------------

From CATHOLICS IN NEWFOUNDLAND, by Murray Nicolson

What becomes apparent in any study of Catholicism in English Canada is the adversities its followers faced in their efforts to establish their faith in the new country. The problems stemmed partly from the religious disdain of the English majority towards those who refused to align themselves with the tenets of the Protestant Reformation and partly from animosity towards the ethnicity of the people who professed Catholicism. These sentiments applied particularly to the Irish, whom the English regarded generally as a pariah group. In no place was the antagonism more vividly demonstrated than in Newfoundland where, unlike in Canada, the Penal Laws applied. And yet, regardless of the influence the Irish had in most of English-speaking Canada, it is in Newfoundland that the roots of Irish Catholic ethnicity run deepest.

----------------------------------------

As stated, the penal laws were applied in Newfoundland. Moreover they were augmented by local orders and practices. Catholics could not bury their dead; only an Anglican incumbent was permitted to read the service of burial and collect a fee for doing so. Aware that Catholics were practising their religion by stealth, the local authorities hunted the itinerant priests who hid, said Mass and fled. Punishment for participation in the Mass was severe. One account refers to a Michael Keating of Harbour Main who, in 1755, was fined $50 for allowing Mass to be celebrated in his fish store; his house was demolished, his goods were seized, and he was banished from the Island.

----------------------------------------

ARTS AND THE IRISH in NEWFOUNDLAND

The following is from “The Arts in Newfoundland: the Irish Connection”. It can be obtained form www.inp.ie.

The research and production were sponsored by the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership. It seems quite nuanced on the whole. There is definite evidence of tension in Newfoundland, with the intersection of social class and ethnic conflict.

It is of course possible to argue that the extent of the tension is overemphasized. For instance, it is reported that the Orange Order in Canada is not as virulently sectarian as in the North of Ireland. It is said, though not below, that an Orangeman in Canada is permitted to marry a Roman Catholic – is this true? That is a big ‘no-no’ in the North of Ireland where total sectarian exclusivity is the name of the game.

However, it would appear indefensible to deny that there is a history of anti-Irish prejudice among the more well-to-do who adopted a sectarian-ethnic marker alongside the usual ‘snobbish’ social class distinctions. In fact the adoption of ‘Englishness’ appears to have been a way of affecting the distinction between classes.

----------------------------------------

Until relatively recently, there was a consensus, at least among the educated middle classes, that “high culture” in Newfoundland was represented by “Englishness”, while the Irish element of Newfoundland culture was not only lacking in formal education, but also to be discouraged. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in Margaret Duley’s Cold Pastoral, in which a young girl from an Irish Newfoundland family is adopted by a wealthy family from St. John’s, taught how to speak “properly” and dissuaded from holding views associated with Catholicism, Irishness and superstition.

The child and her family, who are “pure Irish” represent uncouth “nature” while “culture” appears in the person of a wealthy English Newfoundland family in St. John’s:
Pure Irish. I’d say, by the sound of her [the child is described]. I know the Shore she comes from. I was there once, and it took me back to Grimm.

As recently as the 1960s, and in the real world rather than the world of fiction, students at Memorial University were expected to attend classes in how to speak with Anglified accents. A strong backlash against this attitude is more than evident in the writing and songs of many Newfoundlanders who seek inspiration in the island’s Irish aspect.

Although slightly less than half of contemporary Newfoundlanders are of Irish descent, the visitor’s impression of the island, and especially the capital city of St. John’s and the Avalon Peninsula, is of an overwhelming Irishness. Irish and Newfoundland music can be heard everywhere, many people speak with an accent almost indistinguishable from that of certain parts of Ireland and, in conversation, the island’s many historic and cultural links to Ireland are continuously referenced. Furthermore, Irishness is often a source of pride;

“People out on the Cape Shore were very proud of their Irish Heritage. It was something they wanted to hang on to. Many people knew more or less where in Ireland they came from, music can be heard everywhere, many people speak with an accent almost indistinguishable from that of certain parts of Ireland and, in conversation, the island’s many historic and cultural links to Ireland and that’s not through genealogical research, it was passed down in the oral history.” (Agnes Walsh)

Given the fact that as many, if not more, New-foundlanders are descended from English settlers, why the insistence on Irishness? The reasons are varied. Some remark that, until recently, all of the money and power was in “English” (Newfoundland English) hands, and that if you have power, you don’t also need to have culture. (While some Catholics of Irish extraction were represented in the middle classes, these remained predominantly Protestant and “English” in nature.)

Others suggest that Irish folk traditions of music, folk drama and the arts and narration was simply stronger. Still others point to the similarities in the political histories of the two islands (In Johnston’s Baltimore’s Mansion, the writer records his father making an unfavourable comparison between Charles Stewart Parnell’s aspirations for Ireland to those of former Newfoundland Premier, Joey Smallwood).

Michael Crummey, a Newfoundland writer of English descent, notes that many Newfoundlanders continue to have high levels of interest in the British monarchy, and to consider the island as having strong links to Britain, while popular culture consistently reflects Irishness to a much higher degree. (MacFarlane’s family memoir, The Danger Tree, is a moving and fascinating depiction of a Newfoundland family with a strong identification of itself as British and monarchist. Of the author’s grandfather’s funeral, he writes: “Gramp had a funeral like Winston Churchill’s,” my mother wrote from Grand Falls back to her family in Hamilton, “He lay in state in an oak coffin draped with the Union Jack.” P. 33)

In areas where Protestant and Catholic communities live side by side, banter and name-calling is common, but benign (Catholics are known as “Micks” but no offence is meant, or taken). Even the Orange Order, notorious in Ireland for its rigid anti-Catholicism and widely seen as promoting sectarianism is a social club in Newfoundland, whose most threatening activity is to organise tea parties and other community events. Elsewhere, mutual awareness of identity and tradition can be surprisingly low.

The puritanical bent of some of the forms of Protestantism on the island must have had a part to play in minimising unfavourable awareness of “Protestant” forms of creativity, too. Those living in rigid Protestant communities and seeking access to music and other forms of artistic interaction often found themselves leading a “double life” – visiting other, often Catholic communities for their musical “fix” – along with the accompanying card-playing and drinking.

Walter Kirwan of the Ireland Newfoundland Partnership remarks: “I have ... heard reference to Protestants on an offshore island whose only entertainment was on Saturday night, listening to the sounds of music, singing and dancing, as carried across the sea from a neighbouring Irish Catholic community...” It should also be noted that oral traditions have remained strong throughout Newfoundland, in part because of the comparative lateness of universal literacy as well as the isolation of many communities and to a larger extent because of the Newfoundlanders’ love of social activity, the exchange of ideas and good conversation.

Poet Boyd Chubbs, who grew up (in Labrador) in a community composed of both Catholics and Protestants, remarks that the Protestants seemed “much flatter” culturally speaking, because of the restrictions and prohibitions placed upon members of the religious group. Anita Best comments that many Newfoundlanders assume themselves to be of Irish descent, only to find that their ancestors originally came “from Somerset” and converted to Catholicism on finding themselves living in an Catholic community or, if they were not wealthy, naturally aligned themselves with their Catholic neighbours in contrast to the wealthy English merchants and bureaucrats whose influence was so great and so frequently resented

Although Newfoundland is culturally rich and varied, its Irish aspect is often, in recent times, lauded more than other cultural influences. Writer Ed Kavanagh says of Newfoundland culture:

"I’ve always been convinced that what gives Newfoundland culture its edge is that input from Ireland. If there wasn’t the Irish, there would still be music and song and all the rest of it … but just look at our most famous artists. If you think about it, if you have to name the Newfoundland cultural icons, many if not most are from Irish cultural backgrounds."

The fact that Irish settlement is very concentrated in the Avalon peninsula has given Irish Newfoundland communities greater access to St. John’s, the administrative, financial and culture capital of the island, and lends greater prominence to their culture and tradition than to that of more widely dispersed communities of English, Scottish or other origins. An “Irish” identity also becomes self-creating to some extent, as Irish Newfoundland is given greater representation in the media, in literature and on television. This emphasis on the Irishness of Newfoundland is not universally welcomed, being seen by some as a sort of “Irish cultural imperialism”, which causes some people to embrace less refined forms of cultural expression in the name of Irishness.

-------------------------------

One of the first books to achieve widespread publicity beyond Newfoundland was Bernice Morgan’s Random Passage, published in 1992.

The book tells the story of a small community settled in the nineteenth century by immigrants from Britain and Ireland. As the story unfolds, we learn that one of the central but least transparent characters, Thomas Hutchings, the original settler of the tiny community of Cape Random is in fact Thomas Commins, a Spanish-born priest of Irish origins forced to flee Ireland where he was employed as a parish priest after having become involved in an incident at the local “Big House” when he tried to petition a wealthy landowner for basic rights for the parishioners, his tenants.

Morgan deals in some detail with the historical and social background to Commins’ flight to Newfoundland, and with the sense of defiance prevalent among Irish Newfoundlanders in the St. John’s of the nineteenth century, expressed largely through their public participation in Catholic ritual, and the construction of the Catholic Cathedral in St. John’s; a mammoth venture involving the labour of every Catholic individual of both sexes and all ages. This Catholic triumphalism was, of course, mirrored in Ireland during those years, when many of Ireland’s finest churches were built and the Catholic hierarchy began to establish itself as one of the country’s most important political and social forces.

Catholics in Newfoundland did not find themselves accepted by a Protestant hierarchy with greater warmth than in Ireland and, in fact, during the early years of the settlement, suffered many injustices and persecutions because of their ethnic identity, and their adherence to a faith which was seen by the British as subversive.

"I asked what the history of the Catholic church in St.John’s was [Commins said] and heard a story similar to those Father Francis had told me in Ireland: years of proscription, of imprisonments, whippings, of deportations for holding mass. "

One of the great strengths of Morgan’s writing lies in the fact that she describes the truth about Newfoundland settlement, without sentimentalising or idealising any particular ethnic group. In her descriptions of the reasons behind the various characters’ decision to move to Newfoundland, we hear echoes of the history not only of Ireland, but of Britain and elsewhere. Above all, her book gives the reader a sense of how Newfoundland became Newfoundland, combing the threads of all the cultures that settled it, and weaving them through labour, deprivation and hard work into something entirely new.

----------------------------------------

If here is something missing, perhaps it can be pointed out, politely.

by Bill Armintrout - The Miniatures Page Wed Oct 20, 2004 21:52 editor at theminiaturespage dot com

"Tell me something: in your Wargames do the Brits beat the IRA and is the South still part of the Empire?"

I usually lose, so it depends which side I play. :-)

My guess is that most who collect or play toy soldiers in this period are pro-IRA (those who are pro-Empire have so many other conflicts to select from among). It takes a certain passion to collect, paint, and organize games for a period.

http://canfodmins.com/IRISHPACK.htm

The above link is to a webpage showing some Irish figures from an Australian manufacturer.

by Devil Dog Wed Oct 20, 2004 20:55

Pat C,

You're absolutely right - what we need is the type of history which says the Provos were engaged in a noble anti-imperialist struggle, with a couple of accidental civilian victims...oh yeah, Grizzly was just an unemployed barman/writer and politician, never ever in what Provos laughably refer to as "the Army".

Hart is a fine historian - the fact that many IRA heroes from 1920-22 were out and out psychopaths is a bit unpatable, I imagine.

You ever held a weapon yourself Pat? Ever seen what rounds do to people or are you just another barstool Provo hero?

by Tim Marshall Wed Oct 20, 2004 20:43

I have no idea what a "revisionist" is in the context you used. To be honest, I am not in the least bit interested in the history of your country at the intense level at which you are engaging me. That's not meant to be offensive, it's just a fact.

I have responded to:

1) Meehan's leading me on and taking advantage of information to slag my friend;

2) Meehan's incorrect and ignorant assertions about Newfoundland and Labrador; and

3) Meehan's use of an obscure hobby in which I particpate to help paint a picture.

If you insist on having to apply labels based on your own views and paradigms to everyone, then, well, that's...

Sad.

by Tim Marshall Wed Oct 20, 2004 20:36

"take it that you are proud of the Orange and British aspects of its heritage. Or are you trying a revisionist act to erase certain aspects of your history"

Hello Pat,

You could ask the same question of any North American country. We are lands of immigrants. Our development into what we are today are the products of many things, not just people from your country but from many others as well.

Indeed, I find the Orange Order a silly organization with a ridiculously and needlessly confrontational intolerance that is obsolete in today's world and it is not part of my culture. A small part of my overall heritage, but so too are the Jesuits and Christian Brothers.

It's interesting how you and Meehan are so hung up on applying labels and broad sweeping generalizations on groups of people. Put your obvious hatreds and pre-judgements away.

Just because one comes from a past which has controversy as a small part does not mean one must hang his head in shame. If that were the case, there's not a country in Europe, in fact, the world, in which a resident could be proud of his/her country's achievements, wouldn't you agree?

The wargaming reference *is* an issue I've raised. I find Meehan's use of it offensive and unfair as I do his leading me on in our correspondence.

Also, the portrayals of Newfoundland are absolutely false and I challenge you and Meehan to cite references to back up your claims.

Many Newfoundlanders may have partly come from there, but we certainly don't carry the weight of the horrible events of 20th century Ireland/Eire with us. Perhaps it was because we came from there so long ago we've been able to leave it behind?

by RvisionistWatch Wed Oct 20, 2004 20:23

The revisionists are getting so desperate that they have to raise War Games to defend Sir Peter Hart. Tell me something: in your Wargames do the Brits beat the IRA and is the South still part of the Empire?

by pat c Wed Oct 20, 2004 20:00

Far from being a fine historian, Hart has been exposed as a charlatan and revisionist par excellence. His lies about Kilmichael and other aspects of Irish history have been well dealt with.

From your own comments about your beloved Newfoundland I take it that you are proud of the Orange and British aspects of its heritage. Or are you trying a revisionist act to erase certain aspects of your history? The way you are reacting makes me suspect that you are using the wargaming as a red herring. Well its not working. Deal with the substantive issues rather than with one short sentence. This thread is about how Hart has lied and distorted Irish history.

by Gwydion M. Willliams Wed Oct 20, 2004 19:55

I write as a long-standing hobyist, mostly now playing on a computer, which is vastly more convenient. It is relevant to assessing a man's character. Or a woman's character, though female wargamers are extremely rare. Professionals aim different sorts of game at a mixed or mostly-female audience. I suspect a game about running a dress shop would mostly appeal to women, plus the occasional male transvestite. And so on.

One relevant anecdote. My mother had a clear understanding of the laws of chess, but didn't care to play it. As she saw it, the pawns were doing very nicely where they were, so why get into a pointless fight with another set of pieces.

A liking for the idea of warfare need not make you a warmonger - it depends on whether you can assess and allow for your own emotional bias. I've also done paintballing, and I've heard it said that paintballers would like to try it with real weapons. Having been variously hit in the wrist, gut, thigh etc. with a harmless little paintball, I have no ambition to try it with anything more solid. Nor to ask anyone else to take such risks, unless there is some sound reason.

by Tim Marshall Wed Oct 20, 2004 19:46

While it bothers me to see a very good friend spoken of in this matter, I can accept that as part of the environment in which his profession as a damn good historian places him.

But I have to ask, if Mr Meehan has nothing against wargamers, why then would he respond above to Michael Armstrong, with respect to Dr Hart with "It is as though he has a war (game) plan in his head".

Peter, BTW, does not feature "prominently" on my site at all. He's mentioned in a few game reports as a participant.

by Bill Armintrout - The Miniatures Page Wed Oct 20, 2004 18:40 editor at theminiaturespage dot com

[I have no view on war gaming. I did not cast aspersions on Peter Hart for being a fan or player.]

Then explain how the remark was relevant to the article, please.

Otherwise, it just looks like a cheap shot, intended to make some kind of spurious link between toy soldier aficionados and "warmongers."

by Niall Meehan Wed Oct 20, 2004 18:27

A
I have no view on war gaming. I did not cast aspersions on Peter Hart for being a fan or player.

B
I wrote to Tim Marshall asking him if the PH mentioned prominently on his site chairs Irish Studies in Memorial University. The reason: there are two academic Peter Harts. Tim said “he sure is”. I wrote again. Tim did not reply. No misrepresentation.

C
A fair reading of my article indicates an anti-sectarian, anti-racist and pluralist attitude on my part.

D
I had no idea this would cause a fuss.

by Vincent Tsao Wed Oct 20, 2004 17:10 Vtsaogames at rcn dot com

I've been playing wargames with toy soldiers for about 40 years and have noted that players come in all political hues, from left to right. I'm on the left myself.

Dave McReynolds, the head of the War Resisters League, is an avid player of board wargames, or at least he used to in the 60's. When not planning to shut down the Pentagon by passive resistance he could be found defending Stalingrad from the cardboard legions of the Third Reich, among other virtual wars.

I see no point in using the author's sometime hobby to disparage him. Of course, that is what passes for debate these days. Note the US Presidential campaign.

by Bill Armintrout - The Miniatures Page Wed Oct 20, 2004 16:14 editor at theminiaturespage dot com Troy, New York, USA

Mr. Sheehan attempts to disparage Mr. Hart by characterising him as "this keen player of war games with toy soldiers."

He is apparently unaware that the hobby of collecting, painting, and - yes - playing with toy soldiers is more popular today than it ever has been, with people of all ages. (Partially due to the recent success of the Lord of the Rings films, and the related figures and games.)

While for some this hobby is a simple entertainment, for others it is a method for studying the past through simulation of military strategy and tactics.

Mr. Hart is certainly not the only scholar to occasionally indulge in the hobby, nor should a hobby disqualify someone in the academic world.

by Tim Marshall Wed Oct 20, 2004 15:26 tmarshal at mun dot ca

I am the web master of the site mentioned near the end of Niall Meehan's "John Bruton looks into his own ‘Hart’" and I am also a staff member of Memorial University Meehan also denigrates in his article. I am writing to decry his extremely poor research which sounds as if it consisted of a careless 5 minute google search followed up by a series of baiting emails to me.

I must say I am shocked at the cultural enmity Meehan is attempting to stoke. His warped depiction of Newfoundland, a place where many are proud of their Irish roots, is a strange echo of the sort of fundamentalist slant one sees coming from certain ignorant religious and political leaders around the world these days. His writing, to an outsider, is a horrifying commentary on part of the source of the strife that beset your land for so many years; religious prejudice and intolerance. In Meehan's case, the kettle is embittered by large dashes of ignorance. Guess what, Niall Meehan, there are people in this world who are not jaded by the cultural malice and hatred that obviously cripples your writing and research skills.

I was duped by Meehan who wrote me as though he shared in the small hobby in which I participate. I resent the fact that I was milked this way - probably a legitimate journalistic method, I suppose, but as my web site is a testament to a long time group of friends who have been through much over the years, the term "slimeball" comes to mind. And by the way: the "keen" wargamer the razor sharp Meehan comments upon plays with our group of friends perhaps once a year. "Keen" indeed. In fact Meehan's depiction of Peter Hart as such shows Meehan to be a liar and a distorter of his sources - I told him, in fact: "Pete doesn't play as much any more".

Back to my home. Mr Meehan described, doing an amazing job of using ordinary sounding statistics to paint a dark picture. This is a skill we see white supremacists in North America use to attack other cultures. Obviously Mr Meehan has a shared skill. The pink white and green was _never_ an official flag of Newfoundland and Labrador. Bald ignorance. I grew up beside and now work at Memorial University. His news of how the university tried to 'anglify' accents is just that: news, and news that is typical of what I see as Meehan's poor research which leads to unfounded conclusions.

As a famous comic strip writer, Bill Waterson, wrote: "ignorance is wilful".

by Niall Meehan Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:13

Introduction

The "recent theories" below refers to Peter Hart and Roy Foster regurgitating deliberately falsified but cleverly constructed British propaganda on the Kilmichael ambush and on Bloody Sunday.

The dead hand of Basil Clarke's propaganda unit is reaching down through the ages to grip the attention of a modern historical press corps represented by Hart, Foster and their acolytes. Their findings in turn overthrow the accepted historical version of events and reinstate the view that was produced to mislead public opinion. It would probably be difficult to find a more perfect example of a preference for the imperial over the Irish view of events. 'Official' British propaganda is preferred to Irish fact.

It would have to be said that the revisionist historians do not write British propaganda: they re-write it.


NM

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British Army used spin to ‘confuse’ Irish.

By Scott Millar

Sunday Times Oct 17 2004

THE British Army used “spin” for the first time during the Irish war of independence, according to Dr Brian P Murphy, a leading historian, who says the propaganda is still causing confusion.

Murphy has uncovered documents in the British national archives that he claims reveal the workings of a “department of publicity” that invented “official reports” of events between 1919 and 1921. Many of these reports, as well as forged IRA documents, have been accepted as historical fact, he says. The black propaganda unit was under the command of Basil Clarke.

Although propaganda was disseminated in earlier conflicts this is believed to be the first time the British used more underhand methods. They were competing with Sinn Fein’s propaganda machine in a battle for British and world opinion.

Murphy said: “This was a highly organised unit divided into three sections and located at army headquarters in Parkgate Street, in Dublin Castle and in the Irish office, London.

“From the files in the archive in London, you can discern the complicated manner in which this department, numbering no more than 10 permanent members, operated.”

Murphy says the unit developed an “official report” system, fabricating events for both external and internal dissemination. The reports were designed to undermine the IRA, and also to boost morale in the police force and among auxiliaries. “Unfortunately these reports have in recent years formed the basis of what are perceived as reliable historical accounts,” said Murphy, a member of Glenstal Abbey community.

He believes the British spin machine went to work to lessen negative publicity over the torture and killing, by British forces, of Tom Hales, a Sinn Fein member. They also tried to soften the impact of the events of Bloody Sunday 1920, when the Black and Tans killed 12 spectators and one player at a football match in Croke Park.

The historian says his new evidence debunks recent theories based on British military accounts of the ambush at Kilmichael. These “official reports” portray Tom Barry, the commander of an IRA flying column, as demanding that no prisoner be taken, even though British soldiers had surrendered. Seventeen auxiliaries were killed by the IRA during the ambush. Murphy says it is now clear that this report was not compiled by field commanders but by the publicity department, which also distributed counterfeit editions of Sinn Fein’s daily news sheet.

Colonel Charles Foulkes, the officer in charge of British chemical warfare during the first world war, was one of the department’s key operators and revelled in his work. In an internal memo that he wrote in 1921 to a fellow officer, Foulkes states: “You may remember me in connection with chemical warfare in France. I am now running a variation of this sport, ie propaganda in Ireland.”

Foulkes first came up with the idea of distributing leaflets from the air calling for local IRA units to surrender. The ploy met with little success and the unit then seems to have concentrated on subverting media coverage of events.

Murphy said: “This unit marks a very important stage in the development of British propaganda methods where competing versions of events vied for the attention of the British and world public.

“Its work ranged form forging ‘stolen’ IRA documents to writing articles that were carried in newspapers. It is a form of atrocity propaganda that would also be used in the British Empire’s conflicts in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan.”

by Niall Meehan Fri Oct 15, 2004 17:37

English translation of piece in Irish language daily ‘Lá’ on Oct 13 – go to www.nuacht.com for original - Saoithe na bolscaireachta le hEoghan Ó Néill

Another reason why Peter Hart got in wrong on Tom Barry and the Kilmichael ambush

Concerning Brian Murphy talk on how revisionists are spun by British 80 year old spin. (8pm 15 October 2004 Teachers Club Parnell Square)

Turning black white was the job of the propagandists of the forces of the Crown during the War of Independence but little research has been done into the role of these hidden men. Until now.

On Friday, in the Teachers’ Club in Parnell Square, Dr Brian P. Murphy, a well-known historian, will describe the pioneering research he has done on this propaganda war between the forces of the Crown and the Republic during the War of Independence.

“On the Irish side, I didn’t discover any evidence that they intended to deceive anyone or to take the take the truth out of context. On the English side, there are many statements of principle in their documents that they intended to use information out of context and deceive people.

I researched especially the documents from August 1920 to the end of the War of Independence. I concentrated especially on the propaganda structures that both sides had put in place and the influence this propaganda has had on the writing of the history of that period since.

Basil Clarke was head of the British propaganda forces at the time, a man who was a journalist during WWI, who then spent some time working with those responsible for gathering evidence, and who understood how to use every propaganda trick that existed to attack the Irish.

Clarke was in charge of an extensive network because the English understood the value of propaganda, and the British army had its own propaganda department, as had the police, as well as various branches of government.

Clarke and his operatives used to put the label “Official” on statements that were issued about events. This added to the status of these statements and stories among the public and among journalists at the time, even though these statements were taking the truth out of context very often.

For example, in the “Official” statement about Bloody Sunday, Clarke stated that the soldiers who were killed that morning were involved in legal work and that it wasn’t spying they were engaged in.

But in military records of the time, it can be seen that these people who were killed were officers, who had been trained in Britain beforehand for the work they were doing in Ireland. This use of the label “Official” was extremely important in the stories and statements that Clarke issued.

It wasn’t only the public at the time of the War of Independence that Clarke put astray. His propaganda is still putting contemporary historians astray. An example of this is the way the historian Peter Hart discussed the Kilmichael ambush. He says that the “Official” statement about the ambush cannot be completely denied. He doesn’t mention Basil Clarke – maybe he was unaware of his role.

Clarke’s role was to take facts out of their context and to put another gloss on the story. So, Hart’s methodology has to be questioned when he examined the Kilmichael incident because he didn’t disregard the completely the official version of what happened.

Clarke had a team who wrote false accounts of events and sent these accounts to the newspapers. Sometimes, it was soldiers or Auxiliaries themselves who wrote these accounts. These were released to the media without it being clear at all that soldiers were the authors of the accounts.

Clarke understood the importance of photographs. The time that troops tortured and killed the three Republican prisoners, Magee, Clancy and Clune, they issued a statement saying that the three were trying to escape and that they were shot during the escape attempt.

To verify this, they published photographs that were completely out of context, photos that showed there was a big fight going on and that there was a danger of the captives escaping with guns.”

An echo, no doubt, of the photos that the British army made available after Bloody Sunday in Derry, photos that showed bodies in cars with nail bombs sticking out of the pockets – photos that are now accepted as false images.

Clarke had a great knowledge of his profession and years of experience at it.

The years of the War of Independence were years of censorship, of course, and few voices were permitted in the media to tell the story of the terror being perpetrated by the forces of the Crown.

Twenty journalists used to come to Dublin Castle twice every day to get the “Official” story from Clarke and the propaganda department. Journalists had few other ways of getting official statements or official “facts”.

For the most part, newspapers that were hostile to the official line were suppressed. The odd exception escaped censorship. One of those was the “Catholic Bulletin”, which escaped censorship because of its title.

“Clarke and his friends weren’t without competition. The Republicans issued the “Irish Bulletin”. Frank Gallagher and Robert Brennan were the two who wrote mostly in it.

Garret Fitzgerald’s father, Desmond, was head of the Dáil’s publicity department. And Erskine Childers was very active in this area and his writing was very effective. He helped to spread Sinn Fein’s gospel, not only in Ireland but in Europe and the US as well.”

For some time now, there is a discussion in the Irish Times about the 1918 election and its worth, something that surprises Dr Murphy.

“Clark and his team’s main business was to cast doubt on the 1918 election and the local elections of 1920. Is it amazing that certain people in this country now are imitating them!”

by Niall Meehan Thu Oct 14, 2004 18:53

Very interesting (the material on the web page about Dunmanway and Bandon that Peter Hart managed to miss). I offered no opinion as to Professor Foster’s ability as a judge of historians. I don’t think much of him as a judge of history – see ‘Aubane Vs Oxford’. Perhaps he excels in the former role to the extent that he fails at the latter. He chaired the panel and chose a winner who writes in the same vein as he does. He chose a version of himself (of earlier historical vintage). I assume that he was as objective as it was possible for him to be in the circumstances.

by Michael Hennigan Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:50

No intention of snobbery - my father worked there for many years and it wasn't in the office.

I just thought that the way Roy Foster was dismissed was unfair, in particular the implication that he would not be objective on an awards panel. Meda Ryan may well be a better historian than him, as I said.

I don't dispute the point you make about Bandon which didn't earn its title as the 'Londonderry of the South,' for nothing.

I have written about its Protestant tradition towards the lower end of the following page:

http://www.finfacts.com/hennigan.htm

by Niall Meehan Thu Oct 14, 2004 00:03

Michel,

From your comment above, I would say you are a bit of a snob. People who work (worked?) in marts should not write history books or be taken seriously - is that what you are suggesting?

The fact is that Meda Ryan's book demolishes Hart's argument. Hart's way of proceeding is to quote extensively form British army and RIC records and to then pronounce himself satisfied with their perspicacity and accuracy. He gives the impression that if only the British government had delivered a policy of consistent repression and imprisonment, then their enemy would have been beaten. It is as though he has a war (game) plan in his head and is criticising the British in retrospect for not adhering to it. Not surprising in someone whose hobby is war games. He also has little or no concept of politics and the political mass movement that existed in Ireland at that time, 1918-21, or of the overwhelming support for Sinn Fein at that time. His only concept of legality is British legality, the mandate won by Sinn Fein has little or no meaning for him. His downplaying or ignoring of blatantly sectarian elements within unionism in the Bandon area is, quite frankly, shocking. He utterly fails to understand why a Dunmanway Protestant, Sam Maguire (the ‘Sam Magure’), was in the IRA or why republicans had significant Protestant support, so he ignores it.

Anyway, to satisfy yourself, you need only read the books and to go to Brian Murphy’s talk in the Teacher’s Club on Friday night. You would then be in a position to confirm or deny your first impressions.

by Michael Armstrong Tue Oct 12, 2004 14:37

And the same goes for Michael (Hennigan).

by Michael Armstrong Tue Oct 12, 2004 12:56

If John Hennigan feels there not enough to support the case put, then all that is required is to read the books mentioned and to hear what Dr Brian Murphy has to say.

Making up your own mind could not be easier in the circumstances. One of the reasons why debate has been difficult is because Peter Hart will not come out to debate serious criticism of his book.

by Michael Hennigan Tue Oct 12, 2004 12:25

It is a pity that Niall's long piece which is used to highlight a forthcoming lecture on British propaganda, has a very particular slant itself.

Brian Murphy, a priest at Glenstal Abbey is a 'precise analyst of the historical record,' whose 'analysis is sure to exercise a lasting influence on our view of the War of Independence' while Canadian historian Peter Hart's view may be tainted by his association with Newfoundland, 'the first and most loyal outpost of the British Empire.' Roy Foster is a revisionist and was chairman of a judging panel which awarded Hart a prize while Bandon writer Meda Ryan's views are taken as gospel.

I knew of Meda Ryan when she worked in administration at Bandon mart during my school days. She may well be a better historian than the renowned Roy Foster and Brian Murphy may outshine them all. However, there is nothing here to support that case.