The Battle for Cork

July-August 1922

John Borgonovo

• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781856359771
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia irlandesa

By the sixth week of the Irish Civil War in 1922, all eyes turned to Cork, as the National Army readied its climactic attack on the 'rebel capital'. At 2 a.m. on a Bank Holiday Monday, Emmet Dalton and 450 soldiers of the National Army landed at Passage West, in one of the most famous surprise attacks in Irish military history. Their daring amphibious assault knocked the famed Cork IRA onto the back foot, though three more days of stubborn fighting was required for the National Army to secure the city. The retreating IRA left destruction in their wake, setting the stage for Michael Collins' fatal final visit to his home county. For the first time, 'The Battle for Cork' tells the full story of the battle for Cork, showing all the chaos, bravery and misery of the largest engagement of the Irish Civil War and the final defeat of Republican Cork.

CHAPTER 1

THE TREATY DEBATE IN CORK

By late 1921, ‘Rebel Cork’ was a city synonymous with militant Republicanism. It had earned an international reputation as a result of the assassination of Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain and the hunger strike of his successor, Terence MacSwiney, both of whom had commanded the Cork No. 1 Brigade, IRA. Further notoriety followed the burning of the city centre by crown forces in December 1920. IRA street fighters punched back with assassinations, ambushes and executions of suspected informers, keeping residents on edge. The city acted as a fulcrum for Republican resistance across County Cork, serving as an intelligence and communications conduit to the Cork No. 2 and Cork No. 3 Brigades in north and west Cork. Together, these three Cork brigades faced a disproportionate number of British troops in Ireland, and mustered the IRA’s most sophisticated and lethal guerrilla organisation.

THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY

The Truce of July 1921 seems to have been arranged with little input from provincial IRA units in Cork or elsewhere. IRA Volunteers throughout the 1st Southern Division welcomed the break, though senior officers believed their organisation was gaining strength when hostilities were suspended. From their perspective, they had defeated the British, which made the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed in December 1921 all the more shocking.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty disestablished the Irish Republic declared by Dáil Éireann in January 1919. Southern Ireland became a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, headed by the king of England. Republicans objected to continued citizenship within the empire, enshrined in an oath of allegiance to the king. The endorsement of a partitioned Northern Ireland state only added to the distaste for the settlement. Pragmatists argued that the Treaty provided most elements of political independence and the potential to achieve the difference in future years. More important, the alternative was renewed war with the British Empire, the world’s reigning superpower at that time. To Treaty supporters, Ireland was dancing on a razor’s edge between independence and annihilation.

Contemporary perspectives of the Irish Civil War assume a slow build-up to an inevitable clash between pro- and anti-Treaty supporters. However, events often moved with bewildering speed, as new developments reset the situation every month or so. The Treaty was signed on 5 December and the Dáil debates began a week later. On 14 January 1922, the Dáil ratified the Treaty and established the Provisional Government; the British evacuation began immediately. During February and March, IRA provincial leaders resisted the Treaty, and by April they had repudiated the Dáil and occupied the Four Courts in Dublin. In May Republican peace negotiations pointed towards a resolution and by early June de Valera and Collins had produced their Election Pact to rule the country through a coalition government, with the army being commanded by officers from both sides of the Treaty divide. Two weeks after the election, Provisional Government forces bombarded the Four Courts. Initial hope that the war could be confined to Dublin disappeared immediately, as fighting erupted across the country.

THE CORK SITUATION

Events in Cork broadly followed the national trajectory, with some notable exceptions. A Republican front composed of the IRA, Sinn Féin, Cumann na mBan and the Cork Labour Party had effectively ruled the city since early 1920. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations began in London, Cork Republicans watched from the sidelines, learning new details from the intense newspaper coverage.

Remarkably, though the Irish cabinet anticipated something short of a Republican settlement (including de Valera’s preferred ‘external association’), politicians made little effort to prepare the IRA for a compromise. Visiting Cork in October 1921, just before he left for London, Michael Collins addressed the Munster IRA’s senior leadership, under the auspices of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Before his speech, he casually mentioned to Liam Lynch, Florrie O’Donoghue and a couple of others that he thought a non-Republican agreement might be signed, which O’Donoghue recalled was, ‘the first indication that any of these officers heard’ of such a possibility. Collins then informed the larger assembly that they would be consulted before any agreement was concluded. In November and December, the Cork IRB repeatedly asked the IRB Supreme Council (headed by Collins) for clarification about the direction the talks had taken, but heard nothing. The announcement of non-Republican Treaty terms therefore shocked the Cork IRA.1

Cork’s conservative political elements immediately welcomed the settlement. The Redmondite Cork Examiner wrote celebratory editorials for a week, announcing ‘Ireland’s Triumph’, and claiming ‘reason has triumphed over force’.2 Cardinal Logue and the Irish bishops championed the Treaty terms, with Cork bishop, Daniel Cohalan, scheduling masses of thanksgiving across the diocese.3 (Cohalan had excommunicated IRA fighters in 1920.) The Cork Chamber of Commerce laid out signature books for business leaders to record their support, while Redmondite politicians spoke in its favour.4 Constitutionalist bodies such as the South of Ireland Cattle-traders and the Cork Legion of Ex-Servicemen similarly endorsed the agreement.5 The day the Treaty terms were published, the British government released thousands of Irish prisoners, adding to an end-of-war atmosphere. Hundreds of Cork Volunteers returned home to celebratory welcomes, as detention camps at Bere Island, Spike Island and Ballykinlar were emptied.6 Because of the optimistic coverage in the pro-Treaty Cork newspapers, it took the public a few days to realise the depth of Republican hostility to the Treaty.

On 10 December, the powerful 1st Southern Division informed IRA General Headquarters (GHQ) that its officers opposed the Treaty.7 Cork No. 1 Brigade commander Seán O’Hegarty told the city’s two pro-Treaty members of the Irish parliament (TDs) that he considered a ‘yes’ vote to be ‘treason to the Republic’, a fatal offence in Cork.8 During the Dáil debates, the IRA obstructed pro-Treaty lobbying, destroying pamphlets and confiscating Chamber of Commerce signature books.9 When city Sinn Féin clubs gathered to elect delegates to the party’s pivotal Ard Fheis, IRA Volunteers packed the meetings to elect anti-Treaty representatives. At one branch meeting, IRA leader Dan ‘Sandow’ O’Donovan reportedly secured his election by warning that no pro-Treaty delegate ‘would leave Cork alive’.10

Seán O’Hegarty’s belligerence towards the press had already made international headlines at the end of December 1921. Writing from Cork, Times correspondent A. B. Kay claimed that local IRA officers supported the Treaty and opposed resuming hostilities with Britain. Warned of Republican anger about his article, Kay fled Cork, but IRA intelligence promptly tracked him to a Dublin hotel. While Kay sipped tea with fellow international journalists, Cork City IRA commanders Sandow O’Donovan and Mick Murphy entered the Dublin café. Both the armed men were prominent Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) athletes and they had no difficulty in bundling Kay into a waiting Rolls-Royce sedan driven by Jim Grey. In style, they rode all night to a lonely cottage a few miles from Cork. The following evening Seán O’Hegarty convened a brigade court-martial which convicted Kay of deliberately distorting the IRA position. Forced to choose between deportation and publishing a correction, Kay opted for the latter and was released unharmed. When he was dropped in Cork city, Kay found Michael Collins’ GHQ officers frantically searching for him, in an attempt to head off an international incident. Kay wrote fondly of his Cork captors, who took him for strolls in the countryside, bought him drinks and shared their bed with him. This widely reported incident did nothing to diminish Cork’s reputation for fierce unilateral action.11

In this volatile political situation, Cork’s public bodies largely abstained from the Treaty debates. Cork’s Harbour Commission, Poor Law Guardians, Cork Trades Council and Rural District Council refused to offer an opinion on the matter. ‘What we want to preserve in Ireland at all costs is unity,’ explained Harbour Commissioner Frank Daly.12 Cork labour officials called for a ‘Worker’s Republic’ and a plebiscite to decide the Treaty issue, but expressed no specific constitutional preference. Appealing for national unity, Cork Corporation specifically refused to vote on the Treaty itself; only the County Council recorded its opinion, supporting the Treaty on a narrow vote of fifteen to fourteen. Public bodies seemingly feared that their intervention might derail internal Sinn Féin deliberations and inadvertently trigger a violent split.13

The Dáil’s Treaty vote on Saturday 7 January aroused tremendous interest in the city. Throughout the afternoon and evening, large crowds gathered outside the Examiner newspaper office awaiting the verdict from Dublin. When the result was finally chalked onto headline boards, some in the crowd cheered while others rushed off to spread the word. Local cinema audiences learned of the vote from special bulletin slides inserted into the films. At a pantomime in the Cork Opera House, the battling puppets ‘Iky’ and ‘Will Scott’ delivered the news to the audience, and then shook hands to signify lasting peace between the old enemies of England and Ireland.14

Within hours of the Treaty’s passage, the crown forces in Cork began their evacuation, adding to the momentum. Optimism, however, disappeared two days later, when the Cork No. 1 Brigade forced the Examiner to run a large advertisement that explained its stance in no uncertain terms:

The Irish Republic still lives. No ‘Free State’ government will take place; no ‘Free State’ Army will be formed in the south of Ireland; no ‘Free State’ judiciary will ever function without determined opposition. The Irish Republican Army fought that the Republic might live. It shall continue to live.15

Throughout its eight-year existence, the IRA had governed itself democratically, characterised by elected leaders and collective decision-making. Despite raising hundreds of thousands of pounds during the 1919–21 war, Dáil Éireann provided the IRA with little direct support; units raised their own funds, armed themselves and were essentially unpaid. The Dáil only assumed responsibility for IRA actions in the final stage of the War of Independence. This contributed to the army’s independent outlook and decentralised structure. In turn, provincial IRA officers were highly critical of the GHQ staff in Dublin, who failed to secure weapons for pressed units, despite the abundance of these in post-war Europe. Thus the settlement’s endorsement by army leaders Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and their (non-elected) GHQ staff failed to sway the rest of the army, despite government assumptions to the contrary. Collins and his colleagues presented the Treaty to the IRA membership as a fait accompli, naïvely assuming unquestioning obedience. They underestimated the IRA rank-and-file’s commitment to their role as guardians of an Irish Republic they had secured by force of arms. To these IRA Volunteers, no single leader, ruling clique or governing group had the right to hand over that Republic of its own volition. IRA officers in Munster remained incredulous that they were not consulted before the Treaty was submitted for ratification. Writing in 1929, Florrie O’Donoghue expressed this militarist view:

The Army created Sinn Féin in the country; the Army created and controlled every n...