A Short History of the Irish Revolution, 1912 to 1927 by Richard Killeen

Author:Richard Killeen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan

The change of mood anticipated by James Stephens was not long in making itself felt. Both Redmond and Dillon spoke in the House against the policy of executing the leaders of the Rising. Whatever misgivings the government may have had, they effectively left the matter to General Maxwell, the military commander on the ground in Dublin. It is all too easy to characterise Maxwell as a standard-issue military dolt, indifferent to the nuances of politics. His imposition of martial law and his policy of executing the leaders of the Rising were certainly politically inept, but from a soldier’s perspective they made perfect sense. The rebels had invoked the assistance of Britain’s principal enemy in the middle of the biggest war of modern times, this at a moment when the struggle at the front was at a desperate and uncertain stage. He may have considered that the political repercussions were nothing to do with him. But they certainly had to do with the government. And the government supported him.

Dillon, in particular, understood the effect that the executions might have on nationalist public opinion. His condemnation of the policy in the Commons was especially robust. He told the House that ‘it would have been a damned good thing for you if your soldiers were able to put up as good a fight as did these men in Dublin’. Suddenly, for Dillon at least, the army on the Western Front was ‘your army’. So who constituted ‘our army’ in Dillon’s eyes? And were not the IPP horribly compromised by their pro-recruiting calls for ‘your army’ over the previous two years?

At least as significant as Dillon’s outburst was the response of Bishop Edward O’Dwyer of Limerick to General Maxwell. The general had requested the bishop to discipline two of his priests who had publicly expressed republican views. The bishop let Maxwell have it: ‘You took good care that no plea for mercy should interpose on behalf of the poor young fellows who surrendered to you in Dublin…. Personally, I regard your action with horror and I believe that it has outraged the conscience of the country.’ The bishops and the Party had been like an arse and a shirt since the 1880s. O’Dwyer’s robust language was the first sign of a shift in episcopal support from the IPP to Sinn Féin, which was to be complete by 1918.

The IPP did not implode immediately. It continued to win by-elections in the period after the Rising. But it also began to lose them, as a new force began to take shape. The original Sinn Féin had been part of the nationalist fringe in the era prior to the Rising: the name had denoted a mood as much as a series of policies. Insofar as the policies themselves went, they included a monarchist constitutional arrangement along Habsburg lines. Yet the name Sinn Féin came to be a shorthand for all the radical nationalist movements, including the republicans. The British insisted on referring to Easter Week as the Sinn Féin Rebellion, although Sinn Féin had nothing whatever to do with it.

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