set-piece battle idea was first discussed early in the new year of 1921 at a specially convened meeting held at 41 Herbert Park, The O’Rahilly’s old home. Everyone in any way associated with the above intra-elite squabbles attended, which is to say de Valera, Brugha, Stack, Mellows, Collins, Mulcahy, O’Duffy, O’Connell, O’Sullivan, MacMahon, Béaslaí and Russell. De Valera, upon his arrival, immediately ‘made it clear that something in the nature of a big action in Dublin was necessary in order to bring public opinion abroad to bear on the question of Ireland’s case’.102 He suggested the storming of the Black and Tan stronghold at Beggars Bush, a proposal which was not enthusiastically received. By way of a compromise, then, an idea, which was originally mentioned by McKee, was accepted, i.e. the burning down of the Custom House within which were stored the papers of the British local government and tax system for Ireland.103
The date agreed upon for the attack was 25 May. By that time, behind the scenes on the other side of the Irish Sea, the war was increasingly causing turbulence within Lloyd George’s government, though it is unlikely that de Valera was aware of that. In actual fact, a heave under Bonar Law was pending, something which Lloyd George was determined to see down, in part by means of an all-out drive to finalise the Irish question. Lloyd George’s change of tack can be dated from de Valera’s return home, because, from as early as January 1921, Sir John Anderson, the Under-Secretary, who regarded de Valera as an important moderate, ordered the less enthusiastic Nevil Macready, General Officer Commanding the British Forces in Ireland that, from then on, he, de Valera, must not be arrested or attacked, so as to make him available for discussions, should the greater need arise.104 Consequently, when de Valera, having been arrested on 20 June, was released within twenty-four hours, it was obvious that he was being accorded diplomatic immunity for negotiation purposes. Sure enough, on 24 June, two days after King George V read out a conciliatory speech at the inaugural session of the Northern Ireland parliament – ‘May … the Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two … work together in common love for Ireland’105 – a formal invitation to talks was sent out and a truce with a view to a treaty settlement was declared on 11 July.
Therefore, the Custom House raid – a venture which Collins and Mulcahy had serious misgivings about, even though they went on as if they were merely amused by de Valera’s military suggestions106 – probably helped expedite the process towards a political settlement, as de Valera had hoped it would. (In justification of Collins’ and Mulcahy’s doubts, the cost in quality manpower was very high – one hundred and twenty of the best men of the Dublin brigades were actively involved, eighty of whom were captured and five of whom were killed.107)
Nonetheless, there is no escaping the fact that de Valera was motivated by more than considerations of international politics, when he became involved in military strategy. A tenable argument would be that, in the style of his performance in the States, he did not countenance playing second fiddle to anyone,108 most especially someone whose power base was in the army. Or, to put it in another way, he was fully aware that Collins had become the dynamo of the national front in his absence and that, therefore, backed up by his colleagues in IRA GHQ, Mulcahy in particular, he could prove to be an awkward ally during the Treaty negotiations, these being obviously an occasion of momentous national importance, as well as being an opportunity for gaining, or at least not losing, personal prestige and power in the process.109
CHAPTER 6
Pragmatic
Truce, Treaty and Debate,
July–December 1921
Hardly was the Truce declared on 11 July when Brugha and Mulcahy began squabbling once again. The particular reason was a relatively trivial one. During the war, an ex-British army officer by the name of W.G. Robbie owned a typewriter sales company and he had in his possession eleven American manufactured Yost typewriters. These typewriters were once the property of the British army. The IRA unceremoniously removed them from his premises. Robbie was convinced that his secretary had informed Sinn Féin on him, so he got rid of her. The IRA then forced him to leave the country. However, with the coming of peace, he applied for permission to be allowed home.1
Next day, 12 July, Mulcahy contacted Collins and asked him to deal with the case, ‘a very bad one’.2 Tom Cullen, one of Collins’ men, duly became involved. Brugha was informed of this on 27 July.3 He immediately made an angry complaint to O’Sullivan, as AG, about Collins, who, two days later, had been in contact with Tom Cullen on the matter:4 ‘The handling of this case from start to finish … displays an amateurishness that I thought we had long ago outgrown.’ Also, he hoped that Mulcahy would take action against Collins: ‘I intend to see about putting our Department of Information [Intelligence] on such a footing that things of this kind cannot occur in future.’5
At any rate, by September, as far as Mulcahy was concerned, the case had been adequately dealt with by Collins and was therefore closed. Even so, he expressed annoyance with Brugha’s criticisms: ‘I consider the tone of your letter of 30th July is very unfortunate.’6 But, of course, this remark merely served to provoke yet another angry reaction from Brugha:
The latter’s [Collins’] memo of July 29th. was not the result of your note of the 12th. but of mine of July 28th. – 16 days later … What good purpose was served by your writing 5 weeks after the event is probably best known to yourself. To me it seems a further development of that presumption on your part that prompted you to ignore for some months past the duly appointed Deputy Chief of Staff [Stack]. However, before you are very much older, my friend, I shall show you that I have … little intention of taking dictation from you as to how I should reprove inefficiency or negligence on the part of yourself or the D/I [Collins], as I have of allowing you to appoint a Deputy Chief of Staff of your own choosing.7
Mulcahy immediately handed the problem over to de Valera, thereby implicating him in a controversy which had the potential to develop into a profound split at the very top of the state-building elite: ‘I cannot usefully discuss any matter with the Minister for Defence, and in view of the spirit in which the endorsement of the 7th September is written, I cannot accede to his request to preside at or be present at any meeting of the staff.’8 It would appear, therefore, that he had asked for an apology from Brugha, but, having got a begrudging one only, he opted to withdraw his labour in protest, thereby giving Brugha the perfect opportunity to suspend him sine die, which, on 12 September, he warned him he would do if he did not comply by noon the next day. Mulcahy didn’t comply, whereupon Brugha proceeded as promised: ‘You will hand over to the Deputy Chief of Staff all monies, papers, books, and any other property of the Department in your possession.’9 But de Valera must have intervened as requested because Mulcahy turned up at Sheila Humphrey’s house on the Ailesbury Road, where Brugha and Stack were already gathered. Stack left immediately and, in de Valera’s presence, Brugha wept tears of frustration as he explained to Mulcahy that he himself could do no wrong, by which he probably meant that he always acted with the best of intentions, which was about as good an apology as Mulcahy was ever likely to receive from the man.10
Mulcahy later claimed that his trouble with Brugha was a form of collateral damage emanating from Brugha’s preoccupation with Collins: ‘I was a bad contact for the transmission of these attacks, and in that way Cathal became somewhat antagonistic to myself.’11 That was never the full story because Brugha would still have been suspicious of a military-based IRB, with or without Collins. Besides, once de Valera made up his mind to take on Collins, the unsettled political context widened considerably, as the following chain of events illustrates.
On 22 June, de Valera proposed that Brugha, Mulcahy and Collins draft a military statement outlining their fidelity to the Cabinet, ‘As an attempt is being made by the British Propagandists and others to misrepresent the position of the Army of the Republic.’12 Moreover, on 9 July, Mulcahy was not appointed to the delegation which met with Macready, arguably Mulcahy’s military counterpart, in order to settle the terms of the Truce13 and, from 11 July, de Valera and Brugha opened face-to-face communication with the IRA. Mulcahy immediately became suspicious that Brugha, in particular, was paying too much attention to the IRA’s complaints about the way the war had been managed.14
Then, lo and behold, probably in late July, Stack came into prominence. Ever since March 1918 there had