Remembering all of Cork's War of Independence fatalities, and the bitter Treaty debates
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Death, of course, provides the most quantifiable measure of extreme violence. Between 1919 and 1921, fatalities were noted by the military protagonists, in state records, by relatives of the victims, in burial records, and by local and national newspapers, so most conflict-related fatalities can be successfully identified in a host of available sources.
Recent research has revealed heavy concentrations of fatalities in the vicinity of the three major urban centres on the island — Cork, Dublin, and Belfast — making case studies of these three epicentres worthy of more detailed scrutiny.
In the case of Cork City, violence extended into the surrounding county to a greater degree than in the other two larger cities. Of all the counties, Cork recorded the highest number of deaths in absolute terms as well as more than one fifth of the total number of fatalities on the island during the War of Independence.
Peter Hart, as part of his pioneering 1998 thematic study of the Cork IRA, was the first scholar to enumerate all conflict-related deaths in the county between 1917 and 1923. Unfortunately, he did not publish a list of the names of victims (though scores of those killed appear in his text), so it is impossible to verify many of his findings concerning all of those killed.
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In 2017, Barry Keane published a volume entitled Cork’s Revolutionary Dead, 1916-1923, returning 477 fatalities for the War of Independence period (up to the truce), but this included some deaths outside Cork such as Alderman Tadhg Barry who was killed at Ballykinlar Detention Camp, or George Tilson who committed suicide on a London-bound train.
The first version of our Cork Fatality Index recorded 528 deaths for this period when it was published online very shortly before Keane’s volume appeared.
More recently, Eunan O’Halpin and Daithí Ó Corráin in their book, The Dead of the Irish Revolution [2020] slightly raised the figure for this time frame to 534 for Co Cork.
But we are not in accord with some entries in this volume. For example, we don’t believe that William Shields was captured and killed in Cork in the later stages of the War of Independence as claimed; Volunteer Frank Hurley has been counted twice (once as an unknown victim killed on the same date). And an unknown spy killed by the 5th Battalion of the Cork No 1 Brigade requires further verification in our view.
After taking account of new research and consulting new sources, we have revised our original estimate upwards to 539 conflict-related fatalities in Co Cork for the War of Independence.
The updated Cork Fatality Register remains, however, a work in progress, and will continue to be revised and updated based on public engagement. For example, we removed one entry from the Fatality Register when evidence was presented that this death occurred in another county (thanks to Dara McGrath for this correction).
We were also able to clarify and supplement other entries as new information came to light. We named, for example, two victims that had been listed as ‘unidentified’ in our original list (two British soldiers in the Machine Gun Corps who are buried in Charleville).
The updated register also incorporates recently disclosed new evidence on the number of victims who were ‘disappeared’ by the IRA in County Cork during the War of Independence.
In the past, there was greater focus on the republican dead of the Irish Revolution, and most other victims received much less attention or were even forgotten.
But recent research has increasingly focused more broadly on the high level of civilian fatalities, which accounted for well over a third of all fatalities in Co Cork during the War of Independence.
This high percentage was partially due to more ruthless targeting of spies and informers by the Cork IRA. It also reflects counterinsurgency measures by crown forces in which civilians were killed, such as shootings during curfews and at city checkpoints or rural road blocks.
But despite this high death toll, it should be noted that civilian fatalities in Co Cork were lower than in Dublin, and markedly lower than in Antrim, where civilian sectarian killing constituted the dominant category of victim.
In Co Cork, by contrast, the majority of victims in the War of Independence were the military protagonists, with crown forces accounting for 42% of all victims, and Volunteers for 26%.
During the truce period (between July 11, 1921, and the outbreak of the Civil War in June 1922), fatality levels in Co Cork declined dramatically relative to those experienced during the War of Independence. Nonetheless, a low level of killing continued, with a notable rise in the civilian share of fatalities. Some 60% of the 53 people who lost their lives during the truce were civilians.
These civilian deaths included those that occurred during the Dunmanway massacre in late April 1922, when 13 Protestants were shot dead in West Cork by anti-Treaty IRA members without local leadership approval.
As a response to the death of a single Volunteer, these sectarian reprisal attacks, which took place during the final stages of the British withdrawal, were quite exceptional in their ferocity.
Though the attacks shook the confidence of the West Cork Protestant population, they were not repeated. More typically, fatalities during the Truce occurred in episodes where only a single person was killed.
While Co Cork witnessed a higher level of disappearances during the truce than in other counties, this was at far lower levels than during the last year of the War of Independence.
As the Cork Fatality Register demonstrates, most fatalities between 1919 and June 1922 occurred during episodes when only one or two people died. However, there were many individual incidents where larger numbers were killed.
The Kilmichael Ambush in November 1920 stands out as exceptionally violent considering the number of combatants killed, but episodes like the Battle of Clonmult in east Cork on February 20, 1921, also resulted in the death of a high number of IRA Volunteers. The Upton train ambush five days earlier led to many civilian fatalities, and the IRA mine attack on the Hampshire Regiment in Youghal produced high fatalities among these British soldiers.
• The newly revised Cork Fatality Register, which now also includes fatalities in Cork during the Irish Civil War, is available to search at www.ucc.ie/en/theirishrevolution.
ON DECEMBER 14, 1921, Dáil Éireann assembled for the first of nine days of sittings in University College Dublin to decide whether the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain should or should not be ratified.
With thousands of people thronged outside, two spacious rooms in the rooms of Earlsfort Terrace were the setting for the historic Dáil debates on the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in London eight days previously.
The once largely united republican movement now stood bitterly divided. Such divisions were to play out in the glare of the world’s media:
So wrote reporter John Boyle of the opening day’s proceedings.
“International pressmen and press women had assembled, restricted to space, they were crowded in like sardines. They represented newspapers in every civilised portion of the globe. Through them, use of the meeting was flashed to the ends of the earth,” reporter John Boyle wrote of the opening day’s proceedings.
Foreign affairs minister Arthur Griffith, who had led the Irish delegation, rose to move the motion on the Treaty.
“I move the motion standing in my name: That Dáil Éireann approves of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, signed in London on December 6, 1921,” he said.
Griffith made the case for the Treaty and those who negotiated it, hitting out at those including Éamon de Valera who refused to go to London and face the likes of David Lloyd George, Lord Birkenhead, and Winston Churchill.
“We have made a bargain. We have brought it back. We did not seek to act as the plenipotentiaries; other men were asked and other men refused. We went… We have brought back the flag; we have brought back the evacuation of Ireland after 700 years by British troops; and the formation of an Irish army. We have brought back to Ireland her full rights and powers of fiscal control,” he said.
Hitting back at the criticism levelled at him, Griffith said: “It was said that I was a weak man in the negotiations in London and that I and my colleague and friend, Michael Collins, gave something away... He was the man who won the war.”
Then President de Valera stood up and made clear his opposition to the Treaty.
“I am against this Treaty because it does not reconcile Irish national aspirations with association with the British Government. I am against this Treaty, not because I am a man of war, but a man of peace. I am against this Treaty because it will not end the centuries of conflict between the two nations of Great Britain and Ireland,” he said.
Michael Collins, described by press reporters as an uneven speaker, did manage to articulate in eloquent terms what the Treaty meant for him:
“I do not recommend this Treaty for more than it is. Equally I do not recommend it for less than it is. In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it,” he stressed.
With passions running high, several deputies sought to invoke the memory of their dead relatives who had died in 1916 at the hands of the British. One was Kathleen O’Callaghan, widow of Michael O’Callaghan.
On December 20, she said in a blistering speech:
Pro-Treaty TD Finian Lynch responded by saying: “We have had a great deal of emotional speeches about the dead. The bones of the dead have been rattled indecently in the face of this assembly.”
Margaret Pearse, mother of Pádraig Pearse spoke strongly against the Treaty: “It has been said here on several occasions that Pádraig Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account I will not accept it,” she said.
Predictably enough, the status of the new proposed Irish Free State in relation to the British Empire dominated the debates. Central to the division was the controversial oath of allegiance and just what it meant.
In defending the proposed wording, Griffith called on TDs to see what the oath is, to read it, not to misunderstand or misrepresent it. “It is an oath that any Irishman could take with honour. We have done the best we could for Ireland,” he said.
Éamon De Valera was having none of it. To Griffith, he said: “You were prepared to accept the King of Great Britain as King of Ireland, under promise to keep faith with him as if he had a national right to expect faith from you. You will swear allegiance to that Constitution and to that King.”
Alluding to his decision not to go to London he said: “The members of the Dáil know that one of the reasons why I did not go to London was that I wanted to keep that symbol of the Irish Republic pure — even from insinuation — lest any word across the table from me would, in any sense, give away the Republic.”
Backing up his chief, Harry Boland said he was opposed to the Treaty as it denied a recognition of the Irish nation:
"With this Treaty, we are asked to commit suicide and I cannot do it."
Looking back with the benefit of 100 years reflection, it is surprising how little time of the debates were spent discussing the issue of the North.
Anti-Treaty TD Seán MacEntee asked when the achievement of our nation’s unification cease to be one of our national aspirations.
Referring to comments from Lloyd George made in the House of Commons about the Boundary Commission proposal to resolve the border issue, MacEntee said the real purpose of the Boundary Commission was not to bring the Six Counties into Ireland, but to enable them to remain out of Ireland.
"I tell you what England propose to do. She has robbed you of your territory to settle it upon her new Cromwellians and is asking you now to give her the title deeds."
Initial hopes that a vote on the Treaty could have taken place before Christmas were abandoned and TDs returned home. On their reconvening in the New Year, faced with the passions of their constituents, a change in the mood was apparent.
Roscommon TD Daniel O’Rourke spoke on how the views of those close to him led him to backing the Treaty.
“When I came here first I was opposed to the Treaty, and on principle I am opposed to it still,” he said.
“I returned to my constituency at Christmas and I went there to the people who had been with me in the fight, the people whose opinion I valued, the people who are, I believe, diehards; and I consulted them about this question and unanimously they said to me that there was no alternative but to accept the Treaty,” he added.
With the end of the debate looming, it fell to Cathal Brugha to close the argument for the anti-Treaty side. Instead of concentrating on the primary flaws of the agreement, he chose to launch an invective against Collins and the role he played in the negotiations.
“Arthur Griffith referred to Mr Michael Collins as the man who won the war. It is necessary for me, as Minister for Defence, to define Michael Collins’ position in the army. One of the heads of the sub-sections in the department is Mr Michael Collins — he is merely a subordinate in the Department of Defence,” he barbed.
He said he could not praise too highly the work done by the headquarters staff: they worked conscientiously and patriotically for Ireland without seeking any notoriety, with one exception.
“One member was specially selected by the Press and the people and put into a position which he never held; he was made a romantic figure, a mystical character... The gentleman I refer to is Mr Michael Collins,” he said with venom.
On Saturday January 7, 1922, with all the speeches all but over, the looming vote on the document by Dáil Eireann moved into focus.
Eoin Mac Neill, as speaker, convened the vote of the deputies who said “Is Toil” if in favour and “Ní Toil” if opposed. Later, he announced:
Having lost the vote, de Valera made clear his intentions.
“It will, of course, be my duty to resign my office as Chief Executive. There is one thing I want to say — I want it to go to the country and to the world, and it is this: the Irish people established a Republic. The Republic can only be disestablished by the Irish people. Therefore, until such time as the Irish people disestablish it, this Republic goes on,” he said ominously.
In response, Collins said he did not regard the passing of this thing as being any kind of triumph over the other side. He urged that despite the split, that attempts be made to ensure public safety:
“In times of change like this, when countries change from peace to war or war to peace, there are always elements that make for disorder and that make for chaos. Some kind of understanding ought to be reached to preserve the present order in the country, at any rate over the weekend,” he pleaded.
On January 10, 1922, following de Valera’s resignation and subsequent failure to be re-elected, Griffith became President of Dáil Eireann.
In protest, de Valera and his supporters then left the Dáil. As they were leaving, an angry Collins shouted, “Deserters all to the Irish nation in her hour of trial.”
The country would soon be plunged into a bitter 10-month Civil War, the scars of which have lingered for the past century.