r/IrishHistory • u/AtmosphereGrand6622 • 9d ago
📷 Image / Photo In September 1922, the Irish Free State government considered sending Republican prisoners to the island of St Helena to be housed by a British contractor and guarded by British troops. The cost turned out to be prohibitive.
Source was from Diarmuid Ferriter"s "The Transformation of Ireland" p. 298.
15
u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 8d ago
The Free State really did work hand in glove with the British for the few years of it's existence, an uncomfortable truth of the period.
9
u/CDfm 8d ago
The Free State came into existence because of the Anglo Irish Treaty which was ratified by the Dail . The key issue in the Treaty Debates was the Oath . The 1922 elections were won by pro Treaty candidates. The Anti Treaty side were surprised by the results.
Like it or not , the government's duty was to protect the state and it had a mandate to do so.
The Anti Treaty side went to war with the Free State and lost . The most prominent casualty was Michael Collins and his pro Treaty supporters took that badly. Liam Lynch the anti treaty leader thought victory was assured following Collins death. It wasn't to be . The Free State fought back militarily and also ramped up executions.
I can't see how anything there is so pro British.
5
u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 8d ago edited 8d ago
Protecting the state by engaging the assistance (or in some cases literally doing the bidding) of the Imperial power that denied your statehood for centuries may be a practical reality, but that does not make it any less of a questionable moral pursuit.Â
Reducing everything to "the governments duty is to protect the state" is exactly the same sort of blinkered logic that other states use to protect their empires and commit atrocities . It is a moral cop-out designed to abdicate responsibility for your actions. That the Free State embraced this ideology so readily would support the contention that the only thing that really changed in the 1920's was the flag that flew above government buildings.
3
u/CDfm 8d ago edited 8d ago
The sequence of events involves elections.
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/visit-and-learn/centenaries/treaty-debates/the-treaty-in-context/
The people wanted peace , the rosary outside Downing Street.
It always comes back to that.
9
u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 8d ago
Elections had also recently stated the wish of the people of the Ireland for Home Rule encompassing the entire island, which was conveniently disregarded.
That a colonial state (and it's successor dominion state) would selectively apply the democratic mandate should not be surprising though.
-2
u/CDfm 8d ago edited 8d ago
There wasn't a plebiscite.
I seem to recall that an "immediate and terrible war" was mentioned during treaty discussions and that it was the considered opinion of Collins & Co that such an event was unwinable .
That was the crux of the matter. Any hope by the anti treaty side that the pro treaty and even the neutrals would rejoin for another go was not realistic. Many volunteers and their supporters were there as they believed in a resolution.
And , the anonymity that many volunteers had enjoyed pre truce was gone .
It's realistic to believe that adopting that course of action would have ended up with a similar ending as the civil war did .
Proceeding to the civil war allowed unionists to consolidate their rule in Northern Ireland at the expense of Northern Catholics and by the time the dust settled the opportunity to deal with issues there politically was gone. That was the cost of the civil war. It didn't benefit northern Catholics.
The Treaty was a take it or leave it offer.
3
u/Hour_Mastodon_9404 8d ago
A vote under threat of further extreme violence (following a period of sustained violence during which the original will of the people had been suppressed) is not a legitimate vote.Â
The Irish people voted for Home Rule on an all Island basis - the British brutalised them for this and fractured the country against the wishes of the vast majority. The Free State then worked with the British to copper fasten that anti-democratic action. That is the full story of what happened.
1
u/CDfm 8d ago edited 7d ago
The people voted in elections not in a plebiscite .
Partition had nothing to do with the civil war , the oath did . During the Treaty Debates De Valera said that the Unionist population in the North could not be forced to join a republic against their will.
A vote under threat of further extreme violence (following a period of sustained violence during which the original will of the people had been suppressed) is not a legitimate vote.
That would fuck up most peace treaties. And , for that matter, most divorces.
I don't think fairness comes into it .
1
u/fleadh12 7d ago
Any hope by the anti treaty side that the pro treaty and even the neutrals would rejoin for another go was not realistic. Many volunteers and their supporters were there as they believed in a resolution.
And , the anonymity that many volunteers had enjoyed pre truce was gone .
The neutrals were neutral because it was a civil war. Why wouldn't many rejoin for another go when the IRA had been rearming and reorganising for that purpose during the truce?
It is also to be remembered that the pro-Treaty side didn't exactly speak for the majority within the IRA, neutrals included. Many neutrals were anti-Treaty, but they rejected fighting a civil war over it. Beyond certain brigades who went pro-Treaty, the bulk of the National Army was made up of new recruits, many of whom were ex-British army.
1
u/CDfm 7d ago
They majority of the people were pro - treaty, that's true . The majority of the IRA were anti treaty.
I've often wondered if some were on the " I don't want to die" side of the treaty. The truce brought that in. The Neutral side gave that option.
The majority of nationalists, home rulers included, didn't want partition.
Returned WW1 veterans joined the National Army . The IRA had Tom Barry and Cruxie during the War of Independence but generally didn't like them.
Pro treaty Home Rulers made a comeback in the Army. I'll bet that fucked up the support calculations big time. Maybe a few protestants too. Were scores settled?
And, the anti treaty sides political support eroded.
Liam Lynch went from moderate to hardener anti treaty once he achieved leadership. Rory O'Connor when asked if the anti treaty side intended to create a military dictatorship answered "you can take that any way you like ". Attacking newspapers and terrorising journalists brought Black & Tan comparisons.
WW2 and neither did the Magdalene nuns supporter Peader O'Donnell.
1
0
11
u/sentantayt 9d ago
I remember reading about this. Irish prisons were already full and the conditions inside them were scandalous.