The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 50, 17 December 1924, Page 7

The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

(By William O'Brien.)

Another singular success was the choice of General Hubert Gough. I had never met him or been in communication with him in any way. He was only known in Ireland as the leader of "the Curragh Mutiny," and my suggestion of him as an apostle of National Peace would have been once grasped at by the malicious as an unheard of act of traitorism, and even by the worthiest would have been received with head shaking and silence. All I knew was that he had come of a gallant and genial line of Irish soldiers, that the part he had taken at the Curragh would give him an indisputable fjfcitle to be heard with respect in Ulster and f that with no less gallant and no less genial Irish soldier like Major "Willie" Redmond he would have supplied an irresistible soldierly argument for Irish peace. How true was my intuition may be judged by an ex-

CHAPTER XX.—(Continued.)

tract from a letter General Gough wrote me years afterwards (February 13, 1921), when he first heard of the liberty I had taken with his name: "It was absolute news to me to find that you had mentioned my name as far back as May, 1917, as one of those who might arrive at some sane solution for the government of our unhappy country, and I must say how very broadminded I think it of yon to have put forward such an idea. However much I ;may feel my own incapacity for dealing with such a question, I can at least be confident that I would never have adopted the present bloody and repressive metods which are being so brutally employed in Ireland to-day. However, I do not suppose anything could have been devised to unite all Irishmen more closely and in more real sympathy. The terrible misfortune is

that this real sympathy among Irishmen is being brought about by means which can only raise antipathy and hate between Irishmen and Englishmen. I can see no light at present and it is distressing to feel one is deprived of all power to alter things." Mr. Duke left upon my mind the impression of a man convinced of the unwisdom of the proposed composition of the Convention, but powerless to alter it. One other auspicious opportunity offered of reconsidering the matter before it was too late. No sooner did the Government plans get abroad than the Sinn Fein Executive in Dublin passed a, resolution unanimously rejecting Mr. Lloyd George's invitation to be represented by five nominees of Sinn Fein. Perceiving by the wording of the resolution that their decision applied to the outrageously unrepresentative character of the contemplated assemblage, and not to some more broadly conceived Irish settlement by Irishmen in Ireland, I at once telegraphed to Mr. Arthur Griffith, the founder of the Sinn Fein movement, and at that time (owing to the internment of Mr. de Valera and his chief fighting men in English prisons) the virtual leader and director of Sinn Fein affairs in Ireland : "London, May 23. "Confidential. May I ask does your objection to a big Convention bound to end in fiasco or Partition extend to a Conference of a dozen genuinely representative Irishmen whose agreement, if any, would be submitted to people of all Ireland by Referendum ?" His reply was: "Dublin, May 23. "I should be willing to state my views to a Conference of Irishmen. Absolutely reject Convention."* . Taking the offer to be one of moment, I communicated it without an hour's delay to the Chief Secretary, urging that it would ensure the participation in genuine Peace negotiations of the Irish Party of the future and expressing my own confidence that the co-operation of responsible men of the highest intelligence of the stamp of Mr. Griffith and Professor Eoin Mac Neill would be found to be of priceless advantage. I did so, although I had just been hearing news which satisfied me that the Cabinet's mind was made up against us: Hotel Windsor, May 24, 1917. Private.— Dear Mr. Duke,—From all I hear, it is useless to hope to dissuade your colleagues from the so-called "Irish Convention" they have resolved upon. I consider it, however, a duty to send you enclosed telegrams which passed between Mr. Griffith and myself yesterday. His reply proves that it would lie still possible to secure the co-operation of the immense mass of Irish opinion represented, though very vaguely, by the sentiment of Sinn Fein. All that, however, seems now given no,

* It was stated by Mr. Michael Collins in 1922 that Mr. Griffith laid down conditions. He did not do so in any communication with me.

and I am afraid the great body of Irish Nationalists will be left no escape from the v conclusion that the proposed Convention will \&e; held for Anglo-American purposes be held for Anglo-American war purposes ,and upon lines which are bound to aggravate instead of composing the present troubles. I shall be much obliged if you will kindly retarn me the suggestions as to the personnel and basis of settlement of an Irish Conference on the Land Conference model, which "M. gave you on Tuesday. Yours very faithfully, William O'Brien. Rt. Hon. H. Duke, MP. P.S. Mr. Healy has a suggestion for a preliminary "Conference" to draw up a programme for the "Convention," if the Government still persists in having one. He, like myself, however, thinks it uselses to persist in the face of the attitude of the Government. —W. O'B., Mr. Duke's only reply—one of pathetic helplessness—was this: "Irish Office, 25/5/'l7. "Dear Mr. O'Brien, enclose, herewith, the two documents which you kindly entrusted to me. Yours truly, H. E. Duke." CHAPTER XXI.—TO TAKE PART OR NOT TO? Sinn Fein was thus ruled out of the programme of a Government which had to wait for the lessons of years of bloodshed and horror to appreciate the value of the patriotic offer which Sir H. Duke was compelled \ almost rudely to repulse. It is impossible to believe that Mr. Lloyd George had not t-he Griffith telegram before him when he shot his bolt defining the membership of his Convention in a w r ay which he knew must render the collaboration of Sinn Fein and of the All-for-Ireland League impossible. He had made up his mind to cast in his fortunes with the Hibernian and with the Ulster Partitionists. A characteristic stroke of the small politicians, British and Irish, followed. The Hibernian leaders, accustomed to rely upon petty Government doles and favors as a means of concealing their failure in great things and lost to all power of diagnosing the new spirit they were dealing with, came to the conclusion that their best hope of rehabilitating themselves with the country, and, in the cant of the day, of "creating a friendly atmosphere" for "the Irish Convention" was to advise an Amnesty for the Sinn Fein- internees. Accordingly, when an evening or two afterwards I went over to Dublin, to make a last effort with Sinn Fein before announcing my own decision as to Mr. Lloyd George's invitation, it was to see Mr. de Valera and his interned fighting men —some four thousand of themflocking ytover by the Holyhead boat to the frantic (0 joy of a country that not unnaturally received them as conquerors. Be it remembered that up to that time the Irish Republic had no existence of any kind, even in name. The utmost length to which the first Sinn Fein Convention of five hundred dele-

gates in Dublin in the early part of 1916 went was a resolution: "That we proclaim Ireland to be a separate nation"— Mr. Lloyd George did a few years afterwards. Neither Count Plunkett's election for North Roscommon, nor Mr. McGuinness' for North Longford had been fought on the Republican issue. It was not until a few after his return to Ireland from his English prison that Mr. de Valera for the first time made the Irish Republic the electoral touchstone of the future. Any other programme had now, however, been wiped off the slate by Mr. Lloyd George's own hand. When Mr. Griffith did me the favor of calling upon me at the Shelbourne Hotel, the streets outside were throbbing with the rejoicings for the returning fighting-men. With all Mr. Griffith's moral courage—and it was dauntless there was obviously no more to be said for peace. The Amnesty which must have followed as a matter of course once a genuine National agreement was arrived at, was now justly despised as a mere Hibernain electioneering trick. Its only effect was to convince the Irish people—even those who were most reluctant to own —that the fighters of the Easter Week dispensation were the only men to deal with shifty British Ministers. Sinn Fein in its most militant shape was rooted more firmly than ever as the best hope of a country which had already irrevocably sentenced Parliamentarianism to die the death. Not for the first, nor the tenth time, Mr. Lloyd George failed to see the "fundamentally right" thing and did the obviously wrong one. No sooner was the composition of the Convention disclosed than it became evident it must end in Partition or throw the blame for its abortiveness upon Ireland. Of the 101 members 80 at the lowest estimate were Partitionists of the Hibernian Party or of the Orange Party. The representation accorded to the political parties— delegates apiece to the Hibernian Party, the Ulster Party and Sinn Fein, 2 to the All-for-Ireland League and 2 to the Irish Labor Party was on the face of it a perfectly fair one. It in reality covered a gross deceit. The Hibernian Party, with a nominal representation of only 5, obtained some 70 representatives through the Mayors of Corporations and the Chairmen of County Councils and District Councils, nearly all the direct nominees of the Board of Erin; the Ulster Party, technically restricted to 5 representatives, numbered 20 at the least through the delegates from the Unionist County and District Councils and the nominees of the Crown. These two Parties combined, counting a majority of something like 8 to 1 of the entire body, were publicly committed to a Partition agreement if there was to be any at all. Into this Partitionist sea, the five Sinn Feiners and the two AU-for Ireland representatives were to be precipitated, rari nantes in gurgite vasto, with whatever help they might receive from four known opponents of Partition who were included among the direct nominees of the Crown. Worse remained behind. Sir E. Carson, the only person who could operate any change of front from the Ulster side, held personally aloof from the Convention, and the partici-

pation of his Party was made expressly subject to the condition that their five representatives at the Convenion were to agree to nothing without first obtaining the approval of the Ulster Unionist Councilan extern body of the Covenanters' staunchest extremistswho were not to figure publicly at the Convention at all, but were to act as a Black Cabinet to revise or veto any agreement, even if recommended by their own Parliamentary representatives. The Convention was thus to he a collection of puppets, of which it was to be Sir E. Carson and his Ulster Unionist Council who were to pull the strings. After Mr. Redmond's death, Lord MacDonnell, in a letter to the Times, mentioned that the Irish leader had confided to him that he would never have entered the Convention if he understood at the time that this was to be the arrangement. If he was unaware fo it, it must have been because he failed to notice either the resolution of the Ulster Unionist Council making the stipulation regarding their veto in the most distinct terms, or my own reply to Mr. Lloyd George (dated June 18, 1917) in which I made this fatal flaw in the constitution of the Convention one of my principal reasons for declining to nominate representatives from the All-for-Ireland League: "On the other hand, while my friends and myself would welcome the most generous representation of the unofficial Unionist population of Ireland, the Government scheme ensures to the official Ulster Unionist Council a full third of the voting power of the Convention, under the direction, moreover of a Committee not present at the Convention, but specially nominated by the Council to supervise its proceedings from outside. The terms of the Resolution under which the Ulster Unionist Council consented to enter the Convention make it clear they have only done so as a war measure, and relying upon the assurances of the Government that they need fear no Parliamentary pressure if they should adhere to their demand for the exclusion of the Six Counties as a minimum—a demand, indeed, which was conceded to them last year by the Irish Parliamentary Party. It is consequently obvious that the chances of any agreement by the Ulster Unionist Council other than one based on the separation of the Six Counties are all but hopelessly handicapped from the start, and the temptation dangerously increased to those Nationalist politicians who have already committed them,selves to dismemberment." If this were not a sufficient proof how complete would be the veto of Ulster, any possible doubt on the subject was removed by a candid statement in the House of Commons by Mr. Bonar Law, in which the man who was next to Mr. Lloyd George, if even second to him, the most important member of the Ministry, pledged himself that the assent of Ulster would be regarded as indispensable to the "substantial agreement" in the Convention on which the Prime Minister undertook to legislate. Mr. Redmond's own want of foresight was, therefore, alone to blame if he was not warned in good time that nothing could come from the Convention unless with the consent of the Ulster Unionist Council,

and that consent, he already knew, was only to be had by reviving the old pact for the ■ separation of the Six Counties. Notwithstanding these conclusive warnings that the J Convention must end either in Partition or in abortiveness, a perfect torrent of entreaties was for the next month poured upon my head from all sorts of worthy peace lovers, imploring me to make the All-for-Ireland League a consenting party to the .On 13th June the Prime Minister addressed to me in cordial terms an invitation "to nominate two representatives of the Party under your leadership to serve as members: of the Convention." My reply, dated June.. 18th, expressed "with deep disappointment" my conclusion that "while the Government have nominally adopted the principle of allowing the constitution of Ireland to be settled by agreement among Irishmen,

they have done so under canditions which must render that principle a nullity. There can be little or no hope that a Convention constituted as the Government have directed can arrive at any agreement except some hateful bargain for the Partition of the country under some plausible disguise." I admonished him that "to attribute the blame for such a decision or for the failure to arrive at any better one to the unrepresented Irish people would be little short of an outrage upon Ireland and would be a.. gross imposition on the credulity of friendly nations abroad," and intimated that under the circumstances "I have made up my mind with reluctance, and indeed with poignant personal sorrow, that I must decline to undertake any responsibility in connection with a Convention so constituted." ;..... (To be continued.)