Decisive leadership and selflessness saved the nation after the Army Mutiny
ALLOWING any group or segment of society to be above the law has had frightening ramifications. This has been particularly apparent in recent decades with allegations of misconduct against the clergy, police, medical profession, teachers, and even charitable workers.
The starkest dangers were obvious during the Civil War. The National Army got away with such outrageous behaviour that some later seemed to assume they had the right to dictate to the government. At 10pm on March 6, 1924, two senior officers — General Liam Tobin and Colonel Charlie Dalton — issued an ultimatum to the government headed by WT Cosgrave.
“We claim Michael Collins as our leader, and again remind you that even after the treaty was signed, that drastic action was taken against enemies of the unity and complete independence of our country,” Tobin and Dalton wrote. “It is our duty to continue his policy, and therefore present this ultimatum to which we require a reply by 12 noon, 10th March, 1924. We demand a conference with representatives of your government to discuss our interpretation of the treaty.”
Collins had accepted the 1921 treaty as a stepping-stone to full freedom, but the government seemed happy with the Irish Free State as an end in itself. The size of the army was being cut by over three quarters, even though the aims of Collins in relation to the North were unfulfilled.
They therefore demanded “the immediate suspension of army demobilisation and reorganisation,” along with “the removal of the army council”.
To an extent, this was a power struggle between different elements that had supported Collins within the army.
Those who worked for Collins in intelligence and the Squad thought they were being shabbily treated after what they had done for the country. Tobin, who had been head of Intelligence, had recently helped to set up the so-called “IRA Organisation” to counter the influence of those in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which included those who controlled the army through the army council. It consisted of Chief of Staff General Seán McMahon, Adjutant General Gearóid O’Sullivan, and Quartermaster General Seán Ó Murthile.
“In the event of your government rejecting these proposals, we will take such action that will make clear to the Irish people that we are not renegades or traitors to the ideals that induced them to accept the treaty,” Tobin and Dalton concluded. “Our organisation fully realises the seriousness of the action that we may be compelled to take, but we can no longer be party to the treachery that threatens to destroy the aspirations of the nation.”
The Cosgrave government would have understood the implicit threat in the reference to “that drastic action” that Collins had taken in relation to the North during the months leading up to the Civil War. But history has generally ignored those events.
In February 1922, Collins was behind the kidnapping of 43 unionists with the aim of holding them hostage to prevent the execution of three men in Derry. Those death sentences had actually been commuted some hours earlier, so Collins actually got the credit from the British by securing the release of those hostages.
The following month, Collins supported the seizure of 16 policemen in Belcoo, Co Fermanagh. They secretly were held hostage for over three months in Athlone. In May and June of 1922, Collins was behind the so-called Northern Offensive that led to scores of killings in the North. He was also behind the murder in London of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, the military advisor to the Stormont Government.
AFTER the death of Collins, men under the command of General Paddy O’Daly, who had been the head of the Squad during the War of Independence, were responsible for the worst outrages of the civil war, such as the murder of eight prisoners at Ballyseedy Cross, near Tralee, and four prisoners at Countess Bridge, near Killarney, on the night of March 7, 1923.
In both instances, the army detonated mines to kill the prisoners, but in each case, one man escaped to tell what happened. The following week, soldiers under the same command blew up five more republican prisoners near Kenmare, but first shot them in each knee to ensure none escaped.
Whether O’Daly ordered those outrages is open to question, but there was no doubt that he covered them up with a staged military inquiry that was a figurative whitewash.
Defence Minister Richard Mulcahy and the army council accepted the cover-ups, much to the annoyance of Justice Minister Kevin O’Higgins.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the outrages at Ballyseedy and Countess Bridge, Tobin and Dalton had the contemptible arrogance to issue their ultimatum to the government. This was the last straw for O’Higgins.
The ultimatum issued amounted to a threat of a coup d’êtat, which should be viewed against the backdrop of international developments.
Less than six months earlier, Benito Mussolini and the fascists had seized power in Italy with their March on Rome. Then, only days later, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had tried to seize power in Germany with their unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. Hitler’s trial was actually going on in Germany at the time of the Irish army mutiny.
O’Higgins deplored the actions of Tobin and Dalton, but he was even more critical of Mulcahy and the army council, because he felt their behaviour had, to an extent, provoked the mutineers. In the absence of WT Cosgrave, who was ill, O’Higgins persuaded the cabinet to demand the resignation of the army council.
To the public it may have looked like a pragmatic move, because the cabinet agreed to inquire into the complaints of the mutineers and it met their demand for the removal the army council. But O’Higgins acted decisively. Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy, who had been chief of staff of the army under Collins, was temporarily put in charge of the army.
O’Higgins also moved to demand Mulcahy’s resignation as defence minister, but he stepped down voluntarily. By accepting his humiliation, Mulcahy helped to alleviate the crisis. Going quietly was not the sign “of a weak man, but a committed democrat,” in the judgment of historian Joe Lee.
The mutineers were duly forced out of the army, and the demobilisation continued unabated. In the process, civil control of the army was firmly established.
Had it not been for the decisive leadership of O’Higgins and the selflessness of Mulcahy, things might have been so different.
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