Having denied calls by Collins for inquiries into the Clones Affray, and both the McMahon and the Arnon Street killings, the British obviously felt pressured to concede in the face of the latest demand in relation to the events at Pettigo and Belleek. Lloyd George clearly had serious reservations about what happened at Pettigo. Collins had managed to convince Lloyd George that he had a case, and the British decided to appoint a leading civil servant to investigate the collapse of the second Collins–Craig Pact. Maybe it was just to take pressure off the Pettigo situation that Churchill called for an investigation into the Belfast killings. ‘Such an inquiry would be of real value,’ Churchill wrote to Craig. ‘Having supplied you with arms and financial aid for your own police forces, I feel entitled in the general interest to make this request to you, and to make it seriously and definitely.’. 1.. But he was not prepared to go so far as enquiring into the conduct of British soldiers at Pettigo and Belleek.
‘It is not intended to institute any such inquiry,’ Churchill told the House of Commons. ‘His Majesty’s government believe themselves to be fully informed as to the facts, and accept full responsibility for the action which the military authorities took by their express direction.’. 2.. This, of course, undermined his request . for the other investigation, especially after Dawson Bates, the minister for home affairs at Stormont, objected strenuously. ‘It is impossible to agree to Mr Churchill’s suggestion without gravely weakening the Government of Northern Ireland,’ Bates warned. ‘To set up an outside tribunal to inquire into the action which is found necessary from hour to hour, and to justify or condemn it would strike at the very roots of government.’. 3..
Craig met Churchill that day and suggested that a public official should conduct a preliminary inquiry at least. The British cabinet appointed Colonel Stephen Tallents, private secretary to the lord lieutenant, to evaluate the implementation of the second Collins–Craig Pact. Tallents considered that the pact was a virtual invitation to Collins to act as the representative of the northern minority, and it encouraged the latter in refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the northern government, much to the exasperation of the unionist population. Moreover he thought that the failure to implement the clause of the pact calling for a cessation of IRA activities in the north was a major cause of the failure of the agreement, and this was largely the responsibility of the Provisional Government. The northern government had documentary evidence that the Provisional Government was fully aware of the ‘active co-operation between the members of the IRA inside the six counties with members of that force outside the six counties who are undoubtedly representatives of the Provisional Government’.. 4..
On the other hand Tallents was highly critical of the Special Constabulary, especially the B Specials. He described their behaviour as disquieting and disgusting. He was also critical of Minister for Home Affairs Dawson Bates, whom he considered . an asset to the republicans. ‘If I had to choose a precise wish for immediate fulfilment in Northern Ireland,’ Tallents wrote, ‘my first selection would be the kindly removal of the present Minister of Home Affairs to a less responsible ministry.’. 5.. While Tallents thought that a judicial inquiry into the events in Belfast might have been feasible at one point, it was no longer appropriate because it would not have any advantage and it would revive matters best forgotten. Moreover, it would encourage Collins to interfere in northern affairs and he needed no such encouragement.
June 1922 was a particularly hectic month for Collins. The British balked at the draft constitution, and he was involved in a general election campaign, while things took another sinister turn in Northern Ireland. Any one of those items would have taxed the most proficient of politicians, but he had to deal with all of them at the same time. Most of the negotiations in relation to the constitution were left to President Griffith and Hugh Kennedy, who was the attorney general of the Provisional Government. The British felt that the draft constitution conflicted on six different points with the existing British monarchical system and thus with the provisions of the Treaty:
In public the British played down the difficulties with the draft constitution from the outset, because, as Lloyd George explained to his cabinet, it would put the Irish representatives in ‘an impossible position if it leaked out that they had come over with one constitution and gone back to Ireland with another’.. 6.. If those six issues were not changed, however, the British decided that they would consider the Treaty as having been violated. Lloyd George formally outlined the British objections in a letter handed to Griffith at 6 p.m. on 1 June, and it was arranged that Griffith and Collins should see him thirty minutes later and they would deliver a formal reply the following afternoon. Collins immediately complained that the British were adopting ‘the attitude of Shylocks’ by demanding the fulfilment of the last letter of the Treaty.. 7.. Lloyd George essentially asked the same question he had asked at the . end of the Treaty negotiations the previous December – were the Irish representatives prepared to come within the British Commonwealth of Nations? Both Griffith and Collins replied that they stood by the Treaty and stressed that they were within the Empire. But Collins insisted ‘that the position of Ireland in regard to the crown must be identical with that of Canada’.. 8..
The prime minister informed the cabinet afterwards that ‘Collins had laid great stress on the strong feeling prevailing in Ireland against allowing appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in view of the fact that three of the Judges were men who had publicly taken up a very hostile attitude to the Irish Free State.’ Collins was referring to the law lords Carson, Sumner and Cave. Where they had taken part in controversies that might come before the Privy Council, they would stand aside, Lloyd George replied. ‘The participation of these Judges in political questions was a great misfortune, and its effect would extend beyond Ireland,’ the prime minister told the cabinet. He added that ‘Collins had repeatedly raised the question of the Ulster situation and of our responsibility for it, in view of the fact that we were at any rate in part paying the cost of the “Specials”, and pressed for an impartial Enquiry into the events in Belfast.’. 9..
Every member of the committee that drew up the draft constitution was a supporter of the Treaty, Griffith explained in his formal response. The crown would be the same in the Irish Free State as in the dominions in all ‘constitutionally effective’ matters, and Ireland would accept the same treaty-making powers as Canada. The Treaty stipulated that all members of the Free State parliament should subscribe to the Treaty-oath, but that did not necessarily mean it had to be included in the . constitution. A case for excluding the oath from the constitution could certainly be made, as the provisions of the Treaty could be covered by ordinary legislation, but Griffith had no intention of defending the republican symbols of the draft constitution to the point of breaking with the British. He therefore wrote that the inclusion of the Treaty-oath ‘does not present any difficulty’, and the members of the Provisional Government would be required to sign the declaration subscribing to the provisions of the Treaty. He essentially conceded on every point, though he did state that ‘there are in Ireland particular reasons for the objection widely entertained to the idea of taking appeals to the Judicial Committee’.. 10.. While the British cabinet felt that ‘further elucidation would be necessary’ on the position of the crown and the issue of appeal to the Privy Council, it was content to move ahead, and officials from both sides engaged in intense discussions behind the scenes.
The draft constitution incorporated a clause stipulating that ‘the legislative, executive and judicial authority of Ireland shall be derived solely from the Irish people’. There was also a clause stipulating that only the Free State parliament could declare war on behalf of the country. If the British parliament ratified such a constitution for the Irish Free State, it would be tantamount to acknowledging the right to neutrality – that prized right which de Valera had contended would make ‘a clean sweep’ of the whole defence question during the Treaty negotiations.. 11..
The British disliked the way that the role of the king was played down in the draft constitution. Although the functions of the crown were not defined in Canada, or even Britain, Lloyd George noted that it was of ‘a greater potential force’ than other . aspects of the everyday government of a dominion. This was what de Valera had been warning. Tom Jones suggested that ‘Collins might appoint a charwoman’ to the post of governor-general. ‘I see no great objection if she’s a good one,’ Jones added, ‘but others may take a different view of what is fitting.’. 12..
Griffith and Kennedy agreed to incorporate the oath and the Treaty in the constitution, with the stipulation that in any conflict between the Treaty and the constitution, the Treaty would take precedence.
The text of the agreed constitution was released on the eve of the election, which met the strict conditions of the Ard-Fheis agreement, but the Irish people did not have a chance to examine it properly, as it was only published in the daily newspapers on the day of the election.
Collins hoped the electorate would be presented with an opportunity to support pro-Treaty candidates from other parties, as well as independents. But some republicans engaged in a strong campaign of intimidation to prevent other parties contesting the election. In the days leading up to the close of nominations, Godfrey J. Green, who had been selected as a Farmers’ Party candidate in the East Tipperary and Waterford constituency, withdrew after eight or nine men fired shots into his home and wounded him in the arm. Daniel Morrissey of the Labour Party refused to succumb to the intimidation in the other Tipperary constituency. The Kilkenny home of Denis Gorey, another Farmers’ Party candidate, was also attacked, but he fought back and refused to withdraw. In the Mayo North and West constituency, the Farmers’ candidate, Bernard Egan, came under intense pressure. The night before nominations closed, two armed men had tried to persuade him . to withdraw his candidacy. He refused, but the next day the man delivering his nomination papers was kidnapped and Egan duly withdrew that day. There were also late withdrawals of Farmers’ Party candidates in Kerry-West Limerick, in Clare, in Leitrim, in North Roscommon, in South Mayo and in South Roscommon, so there were no contests in those six constituencies, or in Donegal.
In the other nineteen constituencies the Sinn Féin panel was opposed by forty-seven other candidates – eighteen from the Labour Party, twelve representing the Farmers’ Party and seventeen independents, almost all of whom were avowedly pro-Treaty. Collins told the British that many pro-Treaty independents and Farmers’ Party and Labour Party candidates would undoubtedly replace some of those on the anti-Treaty Sinn Féin panel.
It was not only political candidates who were being intimidated. There was also considerable intimidation of business people and former policemen. In the Loughrea area of Galway there was a report that armed men had kidnapped a former RIC sergeant, John Kelly, from his home on Friday 9 June. He had recently purchased a local public house for £2,400. The same night as he was kidnapped, shots were fired through the windows of the Athenry homes of eight former members of the RIC. Four of these were married men with children, and all found it necessary to move. In Ballinasloe two former constables were wounded and another said that he had been given twenty-four hours to leave, much to the indignation of the local priest, who denounced such intimidation from the pulpit. Former policemen in the Nenagh area were also ordered to leave and shots were fired into the home of the wife of a former RIC sergeant.
The Sinn Féin factions held a joint rally at the Mansion House, . Dublin, on that Friday night. In his address Collins appealed for unity and decried the growing unrest throughout the country. He complained in particular about communist activities. In recent weeks there had been reports that workers at seven Cleeve factories – which specialised in dairy products in Counties Cork, Tipperary and Limerick – had ‘attempted to establish Soviet rule’. The red flag was hoisted over the factory in Clonmel. The following day Collins referred to Soviet activities after workers from the Clonmel factory picketed shops that did not stock Cleeve’s butter. The men and women picketers refused to move for the republican police and the IRA, even after the troops threatened to open fire if the street was not cleared. The picketers held their ground and the IRA withdrew. A local priest and the president of the Trades Council then succeeded in getting the crowd to disperse quietly.. 13..
The thatched roof of Denis Carroll’s home was torched in Ballywilliam, near Nenagh, in the early hours of the morning of Monday 12 June. Once the fire began, his son Patrick rushed from the house and was shot dead. Another son, John, a fourteen-year veteran of the RIC, had been shot dead in February 1921 after a visit home. He was part of a convoy that was spending the night in Nenagh en route from Dublin to Cork. He left his colleagues to visit his parents but was seized the following morning and killed as he tried to return to Nenagh. There was no explanation for the subsequent shooting of his brother Paddy. ‘People in the neighbourhood who knew the deceased personally informed our representative that he was one of the most harmless and inoffensive young men in the parish and that the foul deed met with the strongest condemnation from the people of the parish,’ reported the Nenagh Guardian. ‘They have my two sons shot . now, and they were good sons,’ Denis Carroll told the inquest in tears. ‘I have neither family nor home now.’ The coroner, James O’Brien, told the inquest that he had never before been called upon to investigate such a harrowing and heart-rending case.. 14..
Shots were fired in Ballinasloe on Monday into the home of a Protestant businessman who had been warned to leave town, apparently because he was a Protestant. A local Guinness representative, who happened to be a Protestant living in Cleaghmore with his wife and family, was also given a final notice to quit, as was a Protestant widow living with her teenage daughter. They were ordered to get out, as their home was supposedly needed for Belfast Catholics. A local linesman and the stationmaster, both Protestants, were also warned to leave. Fr P. J. Heenan condemned the outrageous intimidation as uncharitable, un-Christian, and un-Irish. The same day there were attacks on Protestant-owned businesses in Mullingar – Porter & Son, grocers, Hutchinson’s two business houses, Connolly’s drapery, Carson’s boot shop, and Loftus’s saddlery. They and other Protestants had received notices ordering them to get out of town.
On Tuesday men stoned a Methodist church in Cork, smashing windows and doing some internal damage. Two Protestants in the Listowel area of County Kerry were given ultimatums to leave the vicinity, as were several Protestants in the Athlone area. Moore’s Hotel, nine miles from Mullingar, was raided and looted on Tuesday night. There were also attacks on Protestants in Athy and the windows of the Methodist church there were smashed.
It was an attack on another Protestant, Darrell Figgis, the main architect of the draft constitution, which attracted most attention. A former national secretary of Sinn Féin, Figgis was critical of the . election pact because it allowed the anti-Treaty people to pretend that the Treaty was not an election issue. Over the weekend he wrote to the press about the ‘powerful plea for loyalty to the government’ that Collins made at the Mansion House rally on Friday evening. Although he endorsed what Collins had said, he was critical of those who were pretending that the Treaty was not an election issue, when it was really the main issue. ‘Not all the words in the world can mask this plain and honest issue,’ Figgis argued. ‘Not to have a plain understanding on it is to sow the seeds of a harvest of future trouble; nothing is more certain than this, that if we sow confusion we shall reap confusion. The country desires above all things to settle the Treaty finally, to have no more words about it, to establish the Free State, to be loyal to the government of that Free State and to begin the practical, hard work of construction and development.’. 15..
On the night of the publication of his letter in both The Irish Times and the Irish Independent, three young men forced their way into his home and cut his beard. The main reason given for the attack was his refusal to withdraw as an independent candidate for elections. The young men were obviously distressed. ‘They had themselves stated that they strongly objected to the orders they had received and disliked the work that had been committed to them,’ Figgis told the press afterwards. ‘The offence lay not with these boys but with the men who had charged them and finally with the leaders of those who opposed the Treaty.’. 16.. The attack got enormous publicity, and was even reported in The New York Times. There is little doubt that it enhanced his election campaign.
Even though he had little empathy with Figgis, Collins, on his return from London, called on him and his wife and gave them . a pistol for protection. Figgis did not wish to keep it, as he did not believe in the use of firearms, but he said his wife, Millie, ‘felt greater safety and comfort in her mind knowing that the revolver was in the house’. In the circumstances they decided to keep the weapon, but this was to have unfortunate consequences some months later when she shot and killed herself in a taxi. She left a suicide note explaining that she was using the gun given to them by Collins.. 17..
While Collins did not comment publicly on the attack on Figgis during the election campaign, he did take exception to an advertisement in which Cumann na Poblachta, the anti-Treaty organisation, intimated that non-party candidates who contested the election were acting against the national interest. Collins emphasised that the pact agreement with de Valera specifically stipulated ‘that any and every interest is free to go up and contest the election equally with the national Sinn Féin Panel’.. 18..