The Irish Revolution, 1916-1923 (31 page)

‘The Roscarberry Triumph’

This is in many respects the most instructive operation recently carried out by our troops. The complete destruction of a large and strong fort has had a marked effect on the enemy in the adjoining area …

Tactically the operation serves as model for a Night Attack on a Strong Post. ‘The barracks was a detached building, three storied, of a frontage of about 45 feet and a width of about 50 feet. It was a stone building fortified in the usual way – steel roof, shutters, sandbags, and barbed wire. It had a flat roof also sandbagged on which were mounted 2 Lewis guns and a punt gun able to fire fifty pellets a long distance. There were three houses in front of the building about 20 yards away. The nearest house to a flank was the Post Office about 30 yards to the West. The barracks faced South and a wall
about 5 feet high extended from the Post Office to within three yards of the barrack door.’ The garrison consisted of 22 RIC.

The attack was carried out by an Active Service Unit of 28 men. The operation was covered in the outlying zone by three companies – each guarding its own sector towards East, North, and West. The fighting lasted about two hours and three quarters and about another half hour was occupied in posting the troops in their Action Stations and laying the charge. All details of the plan of attack were carefully thought out beforehand, and there was no unnecessary delay.

The design was to make a stormable breach by blowing in the door with 50lb of gun cotton and sending forward a Storming Party. Suitably positioned riflemen covered the assault … The charge was laid and the fuses … lit. The Storming Party lay flat on the ground 30 yards away. After the explosion the Party waited five seconds to escape falling splinters etc. On arriving at the breach it was found to be partly blocked by wreckage making a rush impossible. With admirable promptness and resource the method of attack was changed. It was now decided to destroy the barracks by bombing attacks directed against the breach and shutters … Covering rifle fire was opened from each party in reply to fire from the garrison. After a time the garrison was bombed out of the front of the building, and adopted a treacherous ruse – feigning to surrender and then opening fire again.

Eventually with help of the petrol and paraffin the building was fired, the attacking party closing in to 30 yards and eventually 10 yards. In future it would be more convenient to have a supply of pint bottles with petrol or paraffin as they could easily be thrown into the building.

The action was finished by 5am when the roof fell in leaving the barracks a mere shell. The enemy losses must have been nineteen … Our troops suffered no casualties – a fact in itself proving the carefulness of the planning and the efficiency of the carrying out.

Points to Note:

Use of local companies to cover Operation.

Careful previous thinking out of details.

Equipment and instructions for Storming Party.

Economy of cartridges by Direct Covering Party.

Stockinged feet to ensure silence.

Precautions to escape splinters.

Readiness to adopt an alternative plan.

Co-operation of covering riflemen.

Need for petrol and paraffin bottles.

Source: An tóglach (The Volunteer)
, 15 January 1920 and 22 April 1921.

Document 21 VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN DURING THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

The following extracts from the report of the British Labour Party's commission that visited Ireland in 1920 highlight the nature of violence carried out against women during the War of Independence by both crown forces and the IRA. There is a clear hint that some of that violence was sexual in nature.

Some members of the Commission visited the home of a widow whose house has been raided twice. On the first occasion, about a dozen Auxiliaries rushed into the house and asked for her son. Some of them terrified a delicate daughter whom they covered with revolvers and asked where two of her brothers were. As the Auxiliaries were unable to obtain any information they went away. On the following night at 11.30 p.m., Auxiliaries again came to the house. They broke in the panel of the door and shouted for the son for whom they had inquired on the previous day. The widow replied that the boys had been home to tea but she had not seen them since. One of the party went upstairs and sat on the bed. He pointed a revolver at the daughter who was ill in bed and demanded to know the whereabouts of her brothers, but she could not tell him. Downstairs the men roughly handled the old widow, saying that if she did not tell them where her boys were they would burn down the house. They placed a tin of petrol on the floor. The woman told the Auxiliaries that her son ___________________ was in prison, but she did not know where … The widow told those of our members who visited her that she prayed for mercy. The men left the house swearing that there was ‘no bloody God’.

This rough and brutal treatment of women is by no means the worst that is to be said against men in the service of the British Crown. It is, however, extremely difficult to obtain direct evidence of incidents affecting females, for the women of Ireland are reticent on such subjects. The following case is one which came under our notice. A young woman who was sleeping alone in premises which were raided by the Crown forces was compelled to get out of bed and her nightdress was ripped open from top to bottom.

Victimisation of Policemen's Wives and Barrack Servants

April 16, 1920

An armed party visited the house of Misses ___________________ and took the two girls out in their night attire. They were marched some distance and a court martial held on them ‘for walking with the Peelers’. They were sentenced to be shot, but it was mitigated and their hair cut off instead.

The motive for this outrage was that these two girls were on friendly terms with the young members of the RIC at ___________________ .

June 25, 1920

A party of about twenty armed and disguised men entered the house of Mrs ___________________ (a policeman's wife), seized herself and four children who were under six years of age, and put them out on the road. The furniture was then put out. Being raining at the time, Mrs _______________ sought refuge at the local post office, but the raiders informed her she would not be allowed to remain in the parish another night. She had then to cycle to ___________________ wet through, in a deplorable condition, where her husband was stationed.

August 7, 1920

Four men entered the house of an injured person. Two of them seized her by the hands and feet while another put his hands over her mouth. They then put three pig rings into her buttocks with pincers. She had been supplying the police with milk.

Source: Report of the Labour Commission to Ireland
, London: Caledonian Press, 1922, pp. 28–9 and 80–81.

Document 22 UNIONIST ACCEPTANCE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND ACT

A speech by Captain Charles Curtis Craig, brother of Sir James Craig, in the House of Commons on 29 March 1920, explaining why Ulster Unionists were prepared to accept self-government for the six counties.

We would much prefer to remain part and parcel of the United Kingdom. We have prospered, we have made our province prosperous under the Union, and under the laws passed by this House and administered by officers appointed by this House. We do not in any way desire to recede from a position which has been in every way satisfactory to us, but we have many enemies in this country, and we feel that an Ulster without a Parliament of its own would not be in nearly as strong a position as one in which a Parliament had been set up where the Executive had been appointed and where above all the paraphernalia of Government was already in existence. We believe that so long as we were without a Parliament of our own constant attacks would be made upon us, and constant attempts would be made … to draw us into a Dublin Parliament, and that is the last thing in the world that we desire to see happen. We profoundly distrust the Labour party and we profoundly distrust the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr Asquith). We believe that if either of those parties, or the two in combination, were once more in power our chances of remaining a part of the United Kingdom would be very small indeed. We see our safety, therefore, in having a Parliament of our
own, for we believe that once a Parliament is set up and working well, as I have no doubt it would in Ulster, we should fear no one, and we feel that we then would be in a position of absolute security …

Source
: Hansard, 29 March 1920, cols 989–90.

Document 23 THE GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND ACT (1920)

The Government of Ireland Act partitioned Ireland, creating two home rule states of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was effectively the constitution of Northern Ireland from 1921 until 1972.

An Act to Provide for the Better Government of Ireland, 10 & 11 Geo. V. Ch. 67 (23 December 1920)

Establishment of Parliaments for Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland and a Council of Ireland

1 (1) On and after the appointed day there shall be established for Southern Ireland a Parliament to be called the Parliament of Southern Ireland consisting of His Majesty, the Senate of Southern Ireland, and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, and there shall be established for Northern Ireland a Parliament to be called the Parliament of Northern Ireland consisting of His Majesty, the Senate of Northern Ireland, and the House of Commons of Northern Ireland …

2 (1) With a view to the eventual establishment of a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, and to bringing about harmonious action between the parliaments and governments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and to the promotion of mutual intercourse and uniformity in relation to matters affecting the whole of Ireland … there shall be constituted … a Council to be called the Council of Ireland.…

Power to Establish a Parliament for the Whole of Ireland

3 (1) The Parliaments of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland may, by identical Acts agreed to by an absolute majority of members of the House of Commons of each Parliament … establish, in lieu of the Council of Ireland, a Parliament for the whole of Ireland, consisting of His Majesty and two Houses …

Legislative Powers of Irish Parliaments

4 (1) … the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall respectively have power to make laws for the peace, order, and
good government of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland with the following limitations, namely, that they shall not have power to make laws except in respect of matters exclusively relating to the portion of Ireland within their jurisdiction … and that they shall not have power to make laws in respect of the following matters in particular, namely:

(1) The Crown, or the succession to the Crown, or a regency, or the property of the Crown … or the Lord Lieutenant …

(2) The making of peace or war, or matters arising from a state of war …

(3) The navy, the army, the air force, the territorial force, or any other naval, military, or air force, or the defence of the realm, or any other naval, military, or air force matter …

(4) Treaties, or any relations with foreign states …

(5) Dignities, or titles of honour …

(6) Treason, treason felony, alienage, naturalization, or aliens …

(7) Trade with any place out of the part of Ireland within their jurisdiction …

(8) Submarine cables

(9) Wireless telegraphy

(10) Aerial navigation

(11) Lighthouses, buoys, or beacons …

(12) Coinage; legal tender; negotiable instruments (including bank notes) …

(13) Trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent rights …

Prohibition of laws interfering with religious equality …

5 (1) In the exercise of their power to make laws under this Act neither the Parliament of Southern Ireland nor the Parliament of Northern Ireland shall make a law so as either directly or indirectly to establish or endow any religion, or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof, or give a preference, privilege, or advantage, or impose any disability or disadvantage, on account of religious belief or religious or ecclesiastical status, or make any religious belief or religious ceremony a condition of the validity of any marriage, or affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at that school, or alter the constitution of any religious body … or divert from any religious denomination the fabric of cathedral churches … or take any property without compensation.…

Powers of the Council of Ireland

10 … (3) The Council may consider any questions which may appear in any way to bear on the welfare of both Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland, and may, by resolution, make suggestions in relation thereto as they may think proper, but suggestions so made shall have no legislative effect …
Constitution of the Houses of Commons

14 … (2) The House of Commons of Northern Ireland shall consist of fiftytwo members …

(3) The members shall be elected … according to the principle of proportional representation, each elector having one transferable vote …

…

Powers of taxation

22 (1) The imposing, charging, levying, and collection of customs duties and of excise duties on articles manufactures and produced … and collection of income tax … and excess profits duty, corporation profits tax, and any other tax on profits shall be reserved matters, and the proceeds of those duties and taxes shall be paid into the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

Source
:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1920/67/pdfs/ukpga_19200067_en.pdf

Document 24 THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY

The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed at 10 Downing Street on 6 December 1921 by the Irish and British Treaty delegations. The 26 counties of Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion of the British Commonwealth. The King remained as head of state and members of the Free State Parliament had to swear an oath fealty to him. Britain also retained a naval presence in three Irish ports and the Free State undertook to pay a portion of Britain's imperial debt.