The Irish Revolution (2019) - full transcript
The story of the Irish war of independence 1919 to 1922
April 1916.
Driven to achieve an egalitarian,
progressive
and Gaelic Ireland,
15 hundred Irish rebels march to
Dublin City,
to mount a rebellion.
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The Rebellion fails, but its ideals
inspire the majority of Irish people
to vote in the 1918 General Election,
for the establishment of an Irish
Republic.
And after 700 hundred years,
an end to British rule.
I felt they had no right or reason
here,
we were a separate island,
and we felt we owned it,
and we wanted at some stage
to get them out.
But fresh from victory in World War 1
Britain rejects the People's Mandate,
Ireland must remain in the United
Kingdom
and the Empire.
Undaunted the Irish rise
and stand against Britain's might and
power.
I don't consider it as action
against Britain,
as action for Ireland,
and the liberation of Ireland.
Armed with little more than faith and
courage,
the Irish declare a Republic,
and vow to defend it,
whatever that may bring.
January 21st, 1919.
The General Election has resulted in
a landslide victory
for the Sinn Fein party.
Irish Nationalists have expressed a
clear desire for independence.
The successful Sinn Fein candidates,
who are not in prison,
gather at Dublin's Mansion House,
where they proclaim an Irish
Republic.
They form an Independent Parliament,
known as Dail Eireann,
and call on the world to recognise
the Irish Republic,
free from British rule
for the first time in centuries.
There's a wonderful description of
the first Dail
by Maire Comerford.
It's about how incredible it felt to
be walking into the Mansion House,
and to be actually there,
and to have done it.
There's the feeling that they're
getting control
of their own destinies.
Trying to think out how they're
going to make a new country.
I think, for those who were there,
it was a turning point,
an inspirational moment,
but we, perhaps, need to take a
hard, cold look at this
and say, well really the power that
they wielded
was very limited,
and the power still wrested with the
British Government at Westminster.
The British rejected independence at
that particular stage, they just reject.
What do you mean you're independent?
You're part of the United Kingdom,
you're part of the Empire.
Despite Britain's response,
many in Dail Eireann remain hopeful
that Britain can be persuaded,
through peaceful negotiation to grant
Irish Independence.
But in the Military Wing of the
Republican Movement,
others have a different view.
They believe that Britain will only
leave Ireland
if it is forced out by the barrel of
a gun.
"War must be faced, blood must be
shed, not gleefully,
but as a terrible necessity.
Freedom must be had, at any cost of
suffering."
Among the most militant in the Irish
Republican Army,
some will become household names.
Ernie O'Malley.
Dan Breen
and Tom Barry.
With the circumstances of guerrilla
warfare and people struggling for freedom,
your first duty is to keep alive,
and keep your men alive.
Your second duty is to look after
the people who are supporting you,
and who you are trying to raise from
a status of serfdom.
But the IRA needs to become a far
greater force,
than the few whose names are
remembered.
Over 100,000 volunteers, from all
over Ireland,
will enlist in its ranks to support
the cause.
It is literally a peoples' army.
It's of the people,
it's of the community,
it's of every parish in the country,
literally.
You're talking about well educated,
literate young men
in their mid to late 20s.
They are lower, middle class,
Catholics primarily,
but not exclusively.
They are the sons of small farmers.
They are skilled tradesmen.
They are people who have a lot to
gain
if there is change in the country.
The IRA will be aided by the women's
republican organisation
Cumann na mBan.
The solidarity was something
extraordinary.
You had a completely new idea of
life,
it was what you could do for
Ireland,
and nothing else mattered.
The one priority was to get our
freedom.
Upwards of 20,000 women will enlist
in 800 Cumann na mBan branches
nationwide.
We don't pretend to be one voice,
we're one people with many voices,
but we all wanted freedom.
January 21st, 1919,
the same day Dail Eireann meets in
Dublin,
the Republican Military wing
launches an unexpected attack.
If we were to wait to get orders
from Dublin,
nothing would ever happen.
You just can't be waiting 'til
someone 100 or 200 miles away
tells you to do something.
You seize the opportunity and do it.
In Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary
2 Royal Irish Constabulary officers,
escorting explosives
are ambushed by a local IRA unit,
acting on their own initiative.
(Gunshots)
The RIC men are shot dead.
Mayoman, James McDonnell leaves 7
orphan children behind.
The killing of the Irish Police
officers at Soloheadbeg
is condemned by many leading
Republicans,
and by the Catholic Church.
Cumann na mBan and the IRA may be
ready to fight against British Rule,
but, as yet, few in Ireland want war
visited upon their shores.
Many Irish families had had sons and
husbands and brothers
who had died in World War 1.
People were exhausted,
they didn't want any more war.
For now, the IRA holds fire,
leaving Republicans who advocate non
violence
in control.
They include former maths teacher,
veteran of the 1916 Rebellion
and Sinn Fein President,
Eamon de Valera.
On April 1st, 1919,
after a daring prison break,
and despite now being a wanted man,
de Valera arrives at the Mansion
House
to tumultuous applause,
as Dail Eireann sits for the second
time.
The room was packed to see de Valera
elected
first President of the Irish
Republic.
Dublin born Cathal Brugha,
veteran of the 1916 Rebellion,
is elected Minister for Defense.
A 28 year old from Co. Cork, Michael
Collins,
also a 1916 veteran,
becomes Minister for Finance.
Collins immediately launches the Dail
Bond scheme.
In the months that follow,
people across Ireland open their wallets,
to support their illegal Republic.
370,000 raised,
a huge figure,
to finance the counter state,
but also in raising public
consciousness of the new Dail.
Dail Eireann is intent on finding a
peaceful path
to Irish Independence.
The appeal, in those days, wasn't
fighting with England, or that.
The project being put to the general
public was
that there would be an appeal to the
Peace Conference,
that we stood some chance,
of getting something from the Peace
Conference.
With the First World War over,
victorious allied powers meet in
France,
at the Paris Peace Conference,
to carve the territories of the
vanquished between them.
American President Woodrow Wilson
has become a strong advocate for the
self determination
of small nations.
If President Wilson could be
persuaded
to support Irish Independence at the
Paris Peace Conference,
they could win freedom.
A Dail Eireann delegation,
led by future Irish President,
Sean T. O'Ceallaigh,
travels to Paris to petition for
recognition
of the Irish Republic.
Eamon de Valera, meanwhile, travels
to America,
where he hopes to persuade the Irish
Diaspora,
to pressurise President Wilson,
to support Ireland's cause.
The welcome de Valera received in
America
was unprecedented and absolutely off
the scale.
In Fenway Park in Boston, 60,000
people turned out to see him.
A couple of weeks later,
in Wrigley Field in Chicago,
he couldn't speak for 34 minutes, because
the crowd were cheering and applauding.
San Francisco, Butte Montana,
Cleveland,
every city he went to, it was the
same.
You have to go back to the 19th
century
to see the roots of that connection.
It's basically the Famine,
and it's devastating.
A million people die, a million
people flee the country.
Thousands end up on the east
coast of America, and these Irish,
some leave with the view that in
Ireland's extreme hour of need,
that the British Government had
failed the people.
And hence, you have this memory bank, which builds
up in the United States, amongst Irish Americans
and they want to see their homeland
free of this oppression.
The welcome de Valera receives in
America,
encourages Irish Republicans.
In Paris, new nations are being
created
at the Peace Conference.
Perhaps Ireland can succeed as well.
The Versailles Moment is, in many
ways,
one of huge hope and utopianism.
There is a sense that this will remake the world, this
will create a new fair and more just world global system,
and there will be much more self
determination allowed to individual nations.
Now, that doesn't come to fruition.
From Britain's point of view,
Ireland was probably a bloody pain
in the neck,
they had bigger problems,
they had bigger fish to fry.
They had to think about the empire.
The Irish are not the only people in
the British Empire
agitating for freedom
They have so many hot spots to worry
about.
Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and
Ireland.
Despite pressure from Irish America,
Woodrow Wilson is convinced by
British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George,
to ignore Ireland's plea,
and another door closes on Ireland's
peaceful quest
for freedom.
When that fails, they really don't
have a follow up plan.
And so it's that continued
failure
to achieve self-determination
through peaceful means,
that sets up an alternative,
which is you achieve it
through using a gun.
Having held fire for 4 months,
in May 1919, the IRA strikes again.
Two Royal Irish Constabulary officers
are shot dead
as they escort a Republican prisoner
at a railway station in County
Limerick.
As the face of British law
and order in Ireland,
the 12,000 strong RIC Force becomes
a prime target for Republicans.
The Royal Irish Constabulary,
was the police force in Ireland.
It was the most visual presence
and it was the eyes and ears
of the British Government in
Ireland.
"The police kept a file that time
on practically any movement.
Even joining the Gaelic League,
the police kept a file of.
Their movements were watched
and they were shadowed".
"They knew what you had for
your breakfast, dinner and supper,
if you had it.
They knew even what you
were thinking."
On June 23rd, three weeks after
the Knocklong killings,
Michael Hunt, a RIC district
inspector,
was shot dead by the IRA
in Thurles, County Tipperary.
By the year's end, nine more
RIC officers will have been killed.
Again the killings are widely
condemned.
Fearing that the Irish public
would be opposed to
an all out military campaign
against the Crown forces,
Dail Eireann calls instead for a
boycott of the RIC and their
families.
Their children were shunned at school.
Their wives were shunned.
They were completely ostracised.
They couldn't even buy
goods in the local shop.
The wives and the children
of the RIC in particular,
seem to have suffered
psychologically.
The strategy is, make the RIC
into pariahs.
Make their ability to function
as a police force, impossible.
As the boycott takes effect, IRA headquarters are
established in Dublin, in the early summer of 1919,
under the command of chief of staff,
Richard Mulcahy.
The IRA must be prepared
for any military conflict to come.
I don't think people like Michael
Collins or Richard Mulcahy
thing there's any question that the
British can be forced to leave Ireland.
I think they think they can make
British occupation very, very painful.
And they can deplete their
willingness to stay.
Newly appointed as
IRA Head of Intelligence,
Michael Collins establishes
an IRA spy unit.
It becomes known as The Squad.
They're hit men.
These are young men whose
only function is to kill people,
whom Collins wants killed.
Collins used to come down
maybe twice a week.
He'd come in and two hands
stuck in his trouser pockets
and he are ye goin' on lads.
Oh not bad, Michael.
Well, God be with yis now.
Go on with the good work.
The Squad's headquarters
on Dublin's Abbey Street,
is disguised as Moreland's
Cabinetmakers, Upholsters and Builders.
This was a most unusual builders
because they never did any work.
They had one of the squad
standing behind the counter,
dealing with any potential
customers who would come in.
It was always
'sorry, we're absolutely full'.
Behind the wall,
The Squad were there.
They had their guns ready.
And then, when the order came,
out they went.
The Squad's first target
is G Division.
The intelligence unit of Britain's
Police Force in Dublin.
Among them, Detective Sergeant
Patrick Smith from County Longford,
is suspected by Republicans
as having identified leaders
of the 1916 Rebellion,
leading to their executions.
On July 30th, just yards from
his North Dublin home,
a squad team shoots Smith
in the back.
(gunshots)
His children run to help
but he dies days later.
September 12th. The squad
assassinates another G Division detective,
Daniel Hoey, outside a police
station in Dublin City Centre.
These killings of senior detectives
anger those loyal to the British Crown.
Immediate action is demanded.
As pressure mounts,
Lloyd George decides to act.
On September 12th, 1919,
the IRA, Cumann na mBan,
Sinn Fein and Dail Eireann,
are all outlawed.
Irish nationalism's democratically
elected representatives
are forced underground.
The suppression of the Dail
is the turning point.
This is the crossing of the Rubicon.
If you suppress the Dail,
you're removing the only
legitimate vehicle that
nationalism has
for expressing its voice
peacefully.
There's no way back after that.
With all non-violent paths
to independence closed,
in late 1919, the IRA leadership
makes the decision to go to war.
Their strategy is to undermine
British rule by
making Ireland ungovernable.
In December 1919,
the IRA launches an assassination
attempt on Lord French,
Britain's Lord Lieutenant in Ireland,
as his convoy drives through
the Phoenix Park.
It's symbolic. He is the representative of the
British government, of the king in Ireland.
To carry out a successful assassination attempt
on him would make headlines around the world.
(gunfire)
In the ambush, the IRA
attack the wrong car.
Though Lord French escapes,
the attempt sparks panic in London.
When the attempt is made on
the life of Lord French,
this is something that rocks the
British establishment to its core.
Members are sitting around the
cabinet table,
not knowing if they're safe.
It's a sign that the IRA campaign
has moved up a notch.
The IRA continues to exert pressure.
January 3rd, 1920.
IRA Cork Number 1 brigade
approaches Carrigtwohill
RIC Barracks in County Cork.
The attack force numbered
about 20 men.
The attack opened about 11pm,
with volleys of rifle and gunfire.
The RIC responded vigorously.
After an hour's fighting,
the RIC surrender.
The rebels pull out with a haul
of guns, bombs and ammunition.
That same night, 16 IRA men
attack Kilmurray RIC Barracks,
west of Cork City.
The RIC easily repel
the attackers
and the IRA men flee into
the night.
With the odds stacked against them,
the IRA resorts to guerrilla war.
Move quickly, be aggressive,
be careful and then disperse.
Don't stick around.
Don't fight it out.
Live to fight another day.
Because of that, they're
very hard to catch.
"The Irish Republican Army
had one outstanding quality.
That of suitability to its purpose.
It was indeed, the spearpoint
of an uprising of a people".
They arm themselves,
they finance themselves,
they elect their own officers.
They are not really getting
anything other than words of
encouragement now and then
from their general headquarters.
The idea that Ireland should
be liberated from
colonisation, from occupation,
is something that is shared
by the many.
But it is only the few
who take up arms.
Nominally, the IRA has 100,000
volunteers in its ranks.
But weapons shortages mean
fewer than 3,000 actually
engage in armed conflict.
Those not fighting support
in other ways.
They were doing intelligence work.
They were following people.
They were opening letters.
They were cutting wires.
They were digging trenches.
They were blocking bridges,
cutting down trees.
They were doing all sorts
of support work,
basically to make Ireland
ungovernable.
Cumann na mBan women
also provide vital support.
"Out activities included
carrying dispatches,
arms and intelligence work.
We visited the IRA prisoners
and supplied them with
such comforts as warm clothing,
tobacco and papers".
IRA attacks occur throughout
the country.
The heaviest concentration
is in Munster.
Particularly County Cork.
Where IRA volunteers are frustrated
for having failed to rise
in the rebellion of 1916.
It was right across the board
in terms of rank and file.
The sense of frustration.
The sense of shame, that they had failed.
There was a steely determination
not to let that happen again.
March 1920. Eight RIC officers
are killed in IRA attacks.
Across Ireland, the RIC become
increasingly concerned
for their lives and safety.
When these attacks quicken and when
individual constables are being killed,
a whole portion of the force
want to have nothing to do with it.
So resignations go through the roof.
About a third of the force resign.
The government sees a lot of its
posts as extremely vulnerable.
And so they withdraw from hundreds
of barracks across the country,
just in about 3 or 4 months.
By the end of 1920,
700 barracks are evacuated,
as the RIC retreats to the relative
safety of large towns.
And that leads us to a situation
where the British state
is no longer as visible
or as powerful
or as able to assert its control
and authority in Ireland,
on a daily basis.
Though Britain has tens of thousands
of soldiers stationed in the country,
it is reluctant to be seen as
officially going to war in Ireland.
Instead, war secretary Winston
Churchill develops an alternative plan.
"Decided to meet force with force,
terror with terror."
Churchill recruits World War I
veterans into a new armed auxiliary
police force known as the
Black and Tans.
Their orders are to support the RIC
and reassert British control in Ireland.
They're told take them out, kill as many as
you have to, torture as many as you have to.
You are released from the normal
rules of war because you are not
fighting the normal rules of war
and this is entirely their
responsibility.
I joined it because there were no
jobs about and things were pretty
rough.
I went up to Whitehall for an
interview and I went to Ireland the
same night.
They'd seen the horrors of World War
I and within a year they were being
dispatched to Ireland to fight a
guerrilla war.
You can't imagine something so
different.
The IRA used to dig trenches in the
road around the corners.
You'd come across this and down
would go your front wheels.
Wallop. Straight in.
That's when they used to throw one
or two homemade bombs.
In the bombs there was gelignite but
pieces of iron and scrap metal.
And all you could do is say here,
share that amongst you.
Human beings are going to stand so much
and you're going to retaliate, aren't you?
If your life is at stake, the other
fella's going before you.
They're incredibly badly led and
disciplined.
And a context of fear causes
ordinary men to behave in really
abhorrent and repugnant ways.
They become extremely violent.
The IRA men are all hiding.
You can't find the men, so who do
you attack?
You attack the family home.
In the course of the war, thousands
of homes and properties
throughout Ireland are attacked.
We were ruthless to the marked
degree of going to the limit of law and order.
We'll put it that way.
The pattern is usually that a
Crossley Tender would arrive
in the middle of the night with
maybe 12 to 20 Black and Tans on
board.
(BANGING/SMASHING)
They would kick the door in, stick a bayonet up
against you and then they'd search the house.
The search was really quite brutal.
The children would be crying,
terrified and sometimes the women
were dragged outside and had their
hair cut off with razor blades.
We see several cases of women who
reported being raped,
where the women's names and their
full addresses were reported
to add veracity to these stories,
that this was actually really happening.
Local elections in early 1920
confirmed the strong support of Irish
nationalists for the republican
cause.
Sinn Fein wins control of many local
councils.
In Cork, IRA leader Tomas MacCurtain
is elected as the city's Lord Mayor.
MacCurtain's term as Mayor will prove
short lived.
March 19th, 1920.
RIC officer Joseph Murtagh is
returning home from the theatre
in Cork city when he is shot dead by
the IRA.
(GUNSHOT)
Hours later, RIC officers, their
faces blackened in disguise
break into MacCurtain's home in Cork
and shoot him dead in front of his
wife and son.
The killing of MacCurtain, a democratically
elected public representative sparks outrage.
100,000 people line the streets of
Cork for his funeral.
What the republicans were very good
at was propaganda.
The propaganda value of funerals.
Newsreels and correspondence from
around the world come and cover his funeral.
What Irish civil society is showing
is that they have no appetite for
British assassinations of republican
officials, even republican officials
who are involved in the IRA.
Days later, the writer and IRA leader
Terence MacSwiney stands in City Hall
as Cork's new Lord Mayor.
He's not a stereotypical Irish
gunman.
He has a young family. He has
beautiful wife, a baby.
He's pretty much the best front man
the republicans can put forward.
"One day the consciousness of the
country will be electrified
by a great deed or a great sacrifice
and the multitude will break from
lethargy and march with a shout for freedom
in a true, brave and a beautiful sense."
Easter Sunday, April 4th 1920.
Two weeks after MacCurtain's death,
IRA men march out across the land.
Within hours, they have set 400 of
the evacuated RIC barracks on fire.
The flames confirm Britain's weakened
authority over Ireland.
The next day, Easter Monday, fourth
anniversary of the 1916 Rebellion,
50 republicans go on hunger strike in
Dublin's Mountjoy Prison
demanding immediate release.
When prison authorities refuse to
negotiate, hundreds of Cumann na mBan
women descend on the prison to
support the hunger strikers.
One of the most iconic photographs
was that photograph of women
on their knees praying outside of
Mountjoy Gaol in that period in 1920.
They use the power of prayer to make
mass civil acts of disobedience.
From the point of view of the
government in keeping public order,
it's easier to deal with a crowd of
restless men than it is to deal with
a crowd of restless women.
You cannot really break up a
demonstration of people
who have come together ostensibly
simply to pray.
It's religion as a weapon.
The Rosary as a weapon.
The women are not alone.
The Irish Labour Trade Union
Congress decides to call a national
strike to force the British hand to
release the hunger strikers.
Across Ireland, hundreds of thousands
join the national strike.
It was energy workers, water
workers, road workers.
Basically the country couldn't
operate without all these people.
Lord French argues that the British
government must ignore the prisoners'
demands.
The prisoners should be left to die.
But Britain is nervous,
fearing a social revolution like that
led by Vladimir Lenin in Russia.
For the British government, this is
a scary moment.
They don't know what's going to
happen next.
After just two weeks, the government
caves.
The prisoners are released from
Mountjoy Prison.
People within the British
administration in Dublin Castle,
in the police, in the military, are
horrified.
What is going to be the deterrent if
you can go into prison
and you can just not take food and
you can be cut loose.
Emboldened by their success,
nationalists boycott the Crown courts
and Dail Eireann establishes its own
alternative court system.
Nationalists take control of most
administration in Ireland.
People stop paying government taxes,
giving their money instead to republican funds.
Railway workers embark on a six month
strike causing major disruption
to British military operations.
A body of soldiers got on the train.
Crews walked off.
I suppose it was their attempt at
patriotism.
There's a Gandhian quality to this.
We exist as a distinct people and
ultimately there is nothing
you can do to stop us from being the
Irish nation.
Only in Ireland's northern province
of Ulster, does British authority
continue virtually unchallenged.
Here unionists, loyal to the United
Kingdom, want nothing to do with
Irish independence.
Unionist politicians Edward Carson
and James Craig have some degree
of influence with Prime Minister
Lloyd George.
They urge him to find a political
solution to the Irish question.
The British Cabinet resolves to
establish two Home Rule parliaments
in Ireland.
One for the North, one for the South.
The partition of Ireland is underway.
Summer 1920.
With IRA attacks increasing, British
authorities move to reassert control
over southern Ireland.
Lloyd George and his government
realise by the middle of 1920,
that large parts of the island have
gone over to the enemy,
are being controlled by the enemy;
we must strike back.
Somebody Churchill knew as a hard
man, General Hugh Tudor, is sent to
Ireland.
"This country is ruled by gunmen.
They must be put down."
Tudor unleashes a new parliamentary
group of elite British officers
to support the Black and Tans and the
RIC.
They are known as the Auxiliaries.
"Police and military will patrol the
country roads at least fives times a
week.
When civilians are seen approaching,
shout 'Hands up'.
Should the order be not obeyed,
shoot with effect."
"The Auxiliaries were dangerous
because they were really courageous.
There were absolutely no cowards in
them and they didn't care what they
did."
They regard Ireland as England's
Wild West and they're the new
sheriffs in town.
Crown forces resort to collective
punishment against local communities
to discourage support for the IRA.
During 1920, they destroy 48 farm
creameries throughout the country.
That collective punishment though,
that's pretty much the last thing
you want to do.
The one only thing that does is
create a lot of animosity.
It doesn't normalise conditions. It
makes them worse.
It destabilises things even more.
September 20th 1920.
An IRA unit enters a pub on Drogheda
Street in Balbriggan north of Dublin,
where RIC inspector Peter Burke is
drinking with friends.
The IRA opens fire killing Burke.
His death sparks an immediate
reprisal.
140 Black and Tans and Auxiliaries
descend on Balbriggan intent on revenge.
The town will be destroyed.
"To realise the full horrors of that
night, one has to think of bands of men
inflamed with drink, raging about
the streets,
firing rifles wildly, burning houses
here and there.
Loudly threatening to come again
tonight and complete their work."
By Morning, Balbriggan lies in ruins.
Two local Republicans, Seamus Lawless and
Sean Gibbons, have been bayoneted to death.
Churchill basically says, 'It's
regrettable but we have no
alternative '
'but to meet fire with fire in this
way'.
Over coming months, in response to
IRA killings and ambushes,
Crowned forces continue to conduct
reprisals against civilians.
Hundred of towns are looted and
burnt.
The policy of 'Reprisals' hardened
and toughened public opinion against
the British occupation.
It made them see that these are not
our well meaning rulers,
these are our occupiers, these are
our enemies.
Though Britain is resolved to
suppress the Irish Republican
challenge to the bitter end,
one man is about to make a sacrifice
so great, that it will cause people
throughout the world to condemn
British mis-rule in Ireland.
August 9th 1920.
In a further attempt to control
Ireland,
the British Government enacts the
'Restoration of order in Ireland', act.
The act grants Crowned Forces special
powers to arrest Irish Republicans.
Hundred of IRA volunteers are rounded
up.
Those who slip the net are forced to
go on the run.
And what eventually what ends up
happening,
is they start to gather in groups of
10, 30 or 40.
And these become the nexus points of
what will ultimately be
'The Flying Columns'.
The members of The Flying Columns
are the most zealous of The
Republicans.
The number of ambushes doesn't
dramatically increase, however,
the casualties inflicted increases
significantly.
The Flying Columns rely on the
people to hide and feed them
as they live rough in ditches, hills
and mountains across the land.
Now, partly as a result of British
counter measures,
British repression, there's a
feeling that there's us against them.
'We will support them, we will
protect them, we will disguise them
and put them up and so on'.
So, they had the support of the
community, they were able
to disappear back into the community
and re-emerge from it
and of course, that's what
frustrated the British so much,
the fact that they couldn't
'get them'.
On August 12th 1920, Cork Lord Mayor,
Terrance MacSwiney is arrested,
charged with sedition, he is sentenced
to 2 years hard labour in Cork jail.
In prison, MacSwiney joins 11 other
Republican prisoners on hunger strike.
In an effort to break his resolve,
the authorities transfer MacSwiney to
London's Brixton Prison.
Here, McSweeney continues his refusal
to eat.
As an elected mayor and member of
Dail Eireann,
MacSwiney's action captures global
attention.
So the press from all over the
world, came to London,
and they watched day by day, and every
morning they would send out a bulletin.
'The Lord Mayor's condition today'.
He's talked up as a sort of Christ
like figure,
sacrificing himself for the good of
the people.
Sacrificing himself for Ireland,
just as Christ sacrificed himself
for the salvation of the world.
Appeals for his release are made by
international governments
and by Pope Benedict the XV, in Rome.
But the British Government remembers
its humiliation by IRA hunger
strikers in April,
and refuses to yield.
The release of The Lord Mayor would
have disastrous results in Ireland.
And would probably lead to the
mutiny of both military and police
in the south of Ireland.
As McSweeney endures his hunger
strike, on August 22nd,
a unit of the Cork IRA travels
north.
In Lisburn, they assassinate
District Inspector Oswald Swanzy,
in revenge for suspected involvement
in the murder of Thomas Mac Curtain.
Hours later, local loyalists
retaliate by attacking Catholic
homes and businesses in the town.
Communal violence across much of
Lisburn.
300 Catholic houses are burned and
most of the Catholic population is
expelled.
But it then actually spreads to
other towns.
In Belfast, Catholic workers are
attacked by Loyalists in the city's
ship yards.
The Catholics flee.
They were running but there wasn't
actually anyone in chase.
Whatever had happened in the
shipyard, they were so terrified
they started to run and they just
kept on running.
Belfast IRA units retaliate, sparking
the worse violence of the war in Ulster.
After 3 weeks of fighting, 7,000
Catholics have been expelled from their jobs,
22 people are dead, hundreds wounded.
By Winter 1920, Ireland has been
flooded with British military re-enforcements,
making it even more difficult for the
IRA to operate.
With Dublin City under curfew,
resentment grows on both sides.
Shopkeepers boycott Crown forces,
raids on private homes and businesses
take place almost every day.
With 9,000 troops in Dublin, British
military cordon off entire city blocks
to conduct room by room searches.
Innocent civilians are shot dead.
It's a surreal world.
You've got ordinary men and women
and children, going about their lives.
But erupting into that world, is this
other world of a grenade being thrown,
of a shooting, of a squad
assassination.
You'd raids, arrests, you had
counter assassinations by auxiliaries.
This is taking place in a city that
officially is still part of the
United Kingdom!
In constant fear of arrest, Dail Eireann
meets in secret rooms and basements.
It wasn't a normal parliament by any
stretch of the imagination.
There was at times an element of
'Scarlet Pimpernel' about the
activities of the Dail government.
W.T. Cosgrave, was on one occasion,
about to leave his office on Wicklow
Street in Dublin,
and he checked in the mirror, to make
sure that his disguise was impenetrable
and his staff approved his
appearance.
"Nobody will recognise you,
Minister."
And out he went into the street, and
was accosted by a beggar who said,
'Spare a copper, Mr. Cosgrave'.
There was a conspiracy to protect
these underground ministers
because they were seen as the
leaders in our fight against the British.
And by now, the demarcation lines
were clear, it is Irish against British.
With 55,000 troops and 15,000 armed
police on the ground,
by October 1920, Crown forces feel
that they have finally regained
control of Ireland.
Lloyd George announces that
he has 'Murder by the throat'.
But Lloyd George has failed to take
account of how Terrance MacSwiney
hunger strike has captured the
world's attention.
There were demonstrations around the
world, Barcelona, South America,
all across The States.
When you see the protesters outside
the White House in Washington D.C.,
that's when we begin to see Lloyd
George really worrying
about how the perception of Ireland is
undermining his legitimacy on a global stage.
Even the Stevedores in New York
Harbour wouldn't empty British cargo ships.
So the King asked the Priminister,
'Could he not put an end to this?'
And the Priminister said, 'No'.
What MacSwiney does, he manages to
encapsulate the drama,...
and it's one in which the Irish are
positioned as heroically suffering
and enduring for something that's
right, over might.
Each day, friends and family stand in
solidarity with MacSwiney's wife,
Muriel, at Brixton prison.
Terrance asked me to remain friends
with his wife
and I was trying to re-assure him
that, we would look after her.
At this time, the weight of the bed
clothes was too much,
to lift his finger was agony.
On October 25th, having survived 74
days without food,
Terrance MacSwiney dies.
His death elicits a global outcry.
It is one of the great propaganda
coups of the history of any
nationalist movement, I think.
The international interest that
follows MacSwiney is absolutely
extraordinary.
His name is known all over the world.
MacSwiney body is met by huge crowds
and is returned home to Cork City.
Tens of thousands march behind the coffin,
with acting President, Arthur Griffith at the head.
MacSwiney becomes this story which
other oppressed people
identify as a heroic moment of
resistance to Empire.
MacSwiney's heroism, fortitude in
the face of inevitable death,
it instils a spirit of resistance into a lot of
people who would have previously said,
'Well I'm against British Government
in Ireland but what can be done?'
A sufficient number of young people
would have gone so far as to say,
'Well, I'm not going to do it myself
but I'm going to have more
understanding'
'and help as far as I can, those who
are prepared to do it.'
In the months that come, the war
escalates as British Crown Forces
try to excerpt their power over the
Irish people.
Britain has the IRA on the run.
In America, while having raised
millions for 'The Struggle',
De Valera has failed to gain
recognition for the Irish Republic.
But MacSwiney's death had changed
something,
the majority of Irish people are now
resolved to stand for freedom and
face the inevitable consequences
of war.
'It is not those who can inflict,
but those who can suffer the most'
'who will conquer.'
# Maidin moch do ghabhas amach.
# Ar bhruach Locha Léin.
# An Samhradh 'teacht san chraobh
len' ais.
# Is ionrach te ón ngréin.
# Ar thaisteal dom trí bhailte poirt.
# Is bánta míne réidhe.
# Cé a gheobhainn le m'ais ach an
chúileann deas
# Le fáinne geal an lae.
Subtitling Team
RTE 2019
Driven to achieve an egalitarian,
progressive
and Gaelic Ireland,
15 hundred Irish rebels march to
Dublin City,
to mount a rebellion.
#
The Rebellion fails, but its ideals
inspire the majority of Irish people
to vote in the 1918 General Election,
for the establishment of an Irish
Republic.
And after 700 hundred years,
an end to British rule.
I felt they had no right or reason
here,
we were a separate island,
and we felt we owned it,
and we wanted at some stage
to get them out.
But fresh from victory in World War 1
Britain rejects the People's Mandate,
Ireland must remain in the United
Kingdom
and the Empire.
Undaunted the Irish rise
and stand against Britain's might and
power.
I don't consider it as action
against Britain,
as action for Ireland,
and the liberation of Ireland.
Armed with little more than faith and
courage,
the Irish declare a Republic,
and vow to defend it,
whatever that may bring.
January 21st, 1919.
The General Election has resulted in
a landslide victory
for the Sinn Fein party.
Irish Nationalists have expressed a
clear desire for independence.
The successful Sinn Fein candidates,
who are not in prison,
gather at Dublin's Mansion House,
where they proclaim an Irish
Republic.
They form an Independent Parliament,
known as Dail Eireann,
and call on the world to recognise
the Irish Republic,
free from British rule
for the first time in centuries.
There's a wonderful description of
the first Dail
by Maire Comerford.
It's about how incredible it felt to
be walking into the Mansion House,
and to be actually there,
and to have done it.
There's the feeling that they're
getting control
of their own destinies.
Trying to think out how they're
going to make a new country.
I think, for those who were there,
it was a turning point,
an inspirational moment,
but we, perhaps, need to take a
hard, cold look at this
and say, well really the power that
they wielded
was very limited,
and the power still wrested with the
British Government at Westminster.
The British rejected independence at
that particular stage, they just reject.
What do you mean you're independent?
You're part of the United Kingdom,
you're part of the Empire.
Despite Britain's response,
many in Dail Eireann remain hopeful
that Britain can be persuaded,
through peaceful negotiation to grant
Irish Independence.
But in the Military Wing of the
Republican Movement,
others have a different view.
They believe that Britain will only
leave Ireland
if it is forced out by the barrel of
a gun.
"War must be faced, blood must be
shed, not gleefully,
but as a terrible necessity.
Freedom must be had, at any cost of
suffering."
Among the most militant in the Irish
Republican Army,
some will become household names.
Ernie O'Malley.
Dan Breen
and Tom Barry.
With the circumstances of guerrilla
warfare and people struggling for freedom,
your first duty is to keep alive,
and keep your men alive.
Your second duty is to look after
the people who are supporting you,
and who you are trying to raise from
a status of serfdom.
But the IRA needs to become a far
greater force,
than the few whose names are
remembered.
Over 100,000 volunteers, from all
over Ireland,
will enlist in its ranks to support
the cause.
It is literally a peoples' army.
It's of the people,
it's of the community,
it's of every parish in the country,
literally.
You're talking about well educated,
literate young men
in their mid to late 20s.
They are lower, middle class,
Catholics primarily,
but not exclusively.
They are the sons of small farmers.
They are skilled tradesmen.
They are people who have a lot to
gain
if there is change in the country.
The IRA will be aided by the women's
republican organisation
Cumann na mBan.
The solidarity was something
extraordinary.
You had a completely new idea of
life,
it was what you could do for
Ireland,
and nothing else mattered.
The one priority was to get our
freedom.
Upwards of 20,000 women will enlist
in 800 Cumann na mBan branches
nationwide.
We don't pretend to be one voice,
we're one people with many voices,
but we all wanted freedom.
January 21st, 1919,
the same day Dail Eireann meets in
Dublin,
the Republican Military wing
launches an unexpected attack.
If we were to wait to get orders
from Dublin,
nothing would ever happen.
You just can't be waiting 'til
someone 100 or 200 miles away
tells you to do something.
You seize the opportunity and do it.
In Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary
2 Royal Irish Constabulary officers,
escorting explosives
are ambushed by a local IRA unit,
acting on their own initiative.
(Gunshots)
The RIC men are shot dead.
Mayoman, James McDonnell leaves 7
orphan children behind.
The killing of the Irish Police
officers at Soloheadbeg
is condemned by many leading
Republicans,
and by the Catholic Church.
Cumann na mBan and the IRA may be
ready to fight against British Rule,
but, as yet, few in Ireland want war
visited upon their shores.
Many Irish families had had sons and
husbands and brothers
who had died in World War 1.
People were exhausted,
they didn't want any more war.
For now, the IRA holds fire,
leaving Republicans who advocate non
violence
in control.
They include former maths teacher,
veteran of the 1916 Rebellion
and Sinn Fein President,
Eamon de Valera.
On April 1st, 1919,
after a daring prison break,
and despite now being a wanted man,
de Valera arrives at the Mansion
House
to tumultuous applause,
as Dail Eireann sits for the second
time.
The room was packed to see de Valera
elected
first President of the Irish
Republic.
Dublin born Cathal Brugha,
veteran of the 1916 Rebellion,
is elected Minister for Defense.
A 28 year old from Co. Cork, Michael
Collins,
also a 1916 veteran,
becomes Minister for Finance.
Collins immediately launches the Dail
Bond scheme.
In the months that follow,
people across Ireland open their wallets,
to support their illegal Republic.
370,000 raised,
a huge figure,
to finance the counter state,
but also in raising public
consciousness of the new Dail.
Dail Eireann is intent on finding a
peaceful path
to Irish Independence.
The appeal, in those days, wasn't
fighting with England, or that.
The project being put to the general
public was
that there would be an appeal to the
Peace Conference,
that we stood some chance,
of getting something from the Peace
Conference.
With the First World War over,
victorious allied powers meet in
France,
at the Paris Peace Conference,
to carve the territories of the
vanquished between them.
American President Woodrow Wilson
has become a strong advocate for the
self determination
of small nations.
If President Wilson could be
persuaded
to support Irish Independence at the
Paris Peace Conference,
they could win freedom.
A Dail Eireann delegation,
led by future Irish President,
Sean T. O'Ceallaigh,
travels to Paris to petition for
recognition
of the Irish Republic.
Eamon de Valera, meanwhile, travels
to America,
where he hopes to persuade the Irish
Diaspora,
to pressurise President Wilson,
to support Ireland's cause.
The welcome de Valera received in
America
was unprecedented and absolutely off
the scale.
In Fenway Park in Boston, 60,000
people turned out to see him.
A couple of weeks later,
in Wrigley Field in Chicago,
he couldn't speak for 34 minutes, because
the crowd were cheering and applauding.
San Francisco, Butte Montana,
Cleveland,
every city he went to, it was the
same.
You have to go back to the 19th
century
to see the roots of that connection.
It's basically the Famine,
and it's devastating.
A million people die, a million
people flee the country.
Thousands end up on the east
coast of America, and these Irish,
some leave with the view that in
Ireland's extreme hour of need,
that the British Government had
failed the people.
And hence, you have this memory bank, which builds
up in the United States, amongst Irish Americans
and they want to see their homeland
free of this oppression.
The welcome de Valera receives in
America,
encourages Irish Republicans.
In Paris, new nations are being
created
at the Peace Conference.
Perhaps Ireland can succeed as well.
The Versailles Moment is, in many
ways,
one of huge hope and utopianism.
There is a sense that this will remake the world, this
will create a new fair and more just world global system,
and there will be much more self
determination allowed to individual nations.
Now, that doesn't come to fruition.
From Britain's point of view,
Ireland was probably a bloody pain
in the neck,
they had bigger problems,
they had bigger fish to fry.
They had to think about the empire.
The Irish are not the only people in
the British Empire
agitating for freedom
They have so many hot spots to worry
about.
Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and
Ireland.
Despite pressure from Irish America,
Woodrow Wilson is convinced by
British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George,
to ignore Ireland's plea,
and another door closes on Ireland's
peaceful quest
for freedom.
When that fails, they really don't
have a follow up plan.
And so it's that continued
failure
to achieve self-determination
through peaceful means,
that sets up an alternative,
which is you achieve it
through using a gun.
Having held fire for 4 months,
in May 1919, the IRA strikes again.
Two Royal Irish Constabulary officers
are shot dead
as they escort a Republican prisoner
at a railway station in County
Limerick.
As the face of British law
and order in Ireland,
the 12,000 strong RIC Force becomes
a prime target for Republicans.
The Royal Irish Constabulary,
was the police force in Ireland.
It was the most visual presence
and it was the eyes and ears
of the British Government in
Ireland.
"The police kept a file that time
on practically any movement.
Even joining the Gaelic League,
the police kept a file of.
Their movements were watched
and they were shadowed".
"They knew what you had for
your breakfast, dinner and supper,
if you had it.
They knew even what you
were thinking."
On June 23rd, three weeks after
the Knocklong killings,
Michael Hunt, a RIC district
inspector,
was shot dead by the IRA
in Thurles, County Tipperary.
By the year's end, nine more
RIC officers will have been killed.
Again the killings are widely
condemned.
Fearing that the Irish public
would be opposed to
an all out military campaign
against the Crown forces,
Dail Eireann calls instead for a
boycott of the RIC and their
families.
Their children were shunned at school.
Their wives were shunned.
They were completely ostracised.
They couldn't even buy
goods in the local shop.
The wives and the children
of the RIC in particular,
seem to have suffered
psychologically.
The strategy is, make the RIC
into pariahs.
Make their ability to function
as a police force, impossible.
As the boycott takes effect, IRA headquarters are
established in Dublin, in the early summer of 1919,
under the command of chief of staff,
Richard Mulcahy.
The IRA must be prepared
for any military conflict to come.
I don't think people like Michael
Collins or Richard Mulcahy
thing there's any question that the
British can be forced to leave Ireland.
I think they think they can make
British occupation very, very painful.
And they can deplete their
willingness to stay.
Newly appointed as
IRA Head of Intelligence,
Michael Collins establishes
an IRA spy unit.
It becomes known as The Squad.
They're hit men.
These are young men whose
only function is to kill people,
whom Collins wants killed.
Collins used to come down
maybe twice a week.
He'd come in and two hands
stuck in his trouser pockets
and he are ye goin' on lads.
Oh not bad, Michael.
Well, God be with yis now.
Go on with the good work.
The Squad's headquarters
on Dublin's Abbey Street,
is disguised as Moreland's
Cabinetmakers, Upholsters and Builders.
This was a most unusual builders
because they never did any work.
They had one of the squad
standing behind the counter,
dealing with any potential
customers who would come in.
It was always
'sorry, we're absolutely full'.
Behind the wall,
The Squad were there.
They had their guns ready.
And then, when the order came,
out they went.
The Squad's first target
is G Division.
The intelligence unit of Britain's
Police Force in Dublin.
Among them, Detective Sergeant
Patrick Smith from County Longford,
is suspected by Republicans
as having identified leaders
of the 1916 Rebellion,
leading to their executions.
On July 30th, just yards from
his North Dublin home,
a squad team shoots Smith
in the back.
(gunshots)
His children run to help
but he dies days later.
September 12th. The squad
assassinates another G Division detective,
Daniel Hoey, outside a police
station in Dublin City Centre.
These killings of senior detectives
anger those loyal to the British Crown.
Immediate action is demanded.
As pressure mounts,
Lloyd George decides to act.
On September 12th, 1919,
the IRA, Cumann na mBan,
Sinn Fein and Dail Eireann,
are all outlawed.
Irish nationalism's democratically
elected representatives
are forced underground.
The suppression of the Dail
is the turning point.
This is the crossing of the Rubicon.
If you suppress the Dail,
you're removing the only
legitimate vehicle that
nationalism has
for expressing its voice
peacefully.
There's no way back after that.
With all non-violent paths
to independence closed,
in late 1919, the IRA leadership
makes the decision to go to war.
Their strategy is to undermine
British rule by
making Ireland ungovernable.
In December 1919,
the IRA launches an assassination
attempt on Lord French,
Britain's Lord Lieutenant in Ireland,
as his convoy drives through
the Phoenix Park.
It's symbolic. He is the representative of the
British government, of the king in Ireland.
To carry out a successful assassination attempt
on him would make headlines around the world.
(gunfire)
In the ambush, the IRA
attack the wrong car.
Though Lord French escapes,
the attempt sparks panic in London.
When the attempt is made on
the life of Lord French,
this is something that rocks the
British establishment to its core.
Members are sitting around the
cabinet table,
not knowing if they're safe.
It's a sign that the IRA campaign
has moved up a notch.
The IRA continues to exert pressure.
January 3rd, 1920.
IRA Cork Number 1 brigade
approaches Carrigtwohill
RIC Barracks in County Cork.
The attack force numbered
about 20 men.
The attack opened about 11pm,
with volleys of rifle and gunfire.
The RIC responded vigorously.
After an hour's fighting,
the RIC surrender.
The rebels pull out with a haul
of guns, bombs and ammunition.
That same night, 16 IRA men
attack Kilmurray RIC Barracks,
west of Cork City.
The RIC easily repel
the attackers
and the IRA men flee into
the night.
With the odds stacked against them,
the IRA resorts to guerrilla war.
Move quickly, be aggressive,
be careful and then disperse.
Don't stick around.
Don't fight it out.
Live to fight another day.
Because of that, they're
very hard to catch.
"The Irish Republican Army
had one outstanding quality.
That of suitability to its purpose.
It was indeed, the spearpoint
of an uprising of a people".
They arm themselves,
they finance themselves,
they elect their own officers.
They are not really getting
anything other than words of
encouragement now and then
from their general headquarters.
The idea that Ireland should
be liberated from
colonisation, from occupation,
is something that is shared
by the many.
But it is only the few
who take up arms.
Nominally, the IRA has 100,000
volunteers in its ranks.
But weapons shortages mean
fewer than 3,000 actually
engage in armed conflict.
Those not fighting support
in other ways.
They were doing intelligence work.
They were following people.
They were opening letters.
They were cutting wires.
They were digging trenches.
They were blocking bridges,
cutting down trees.
They were doing all sorts
of support work,
basically to make Ireland
ungovernable.
Cumann na mBan women
also provide vital support.
"Out activities included
carrying dispatches,
arms and intelligence work.
We visited the IRA prisoners
and supplied them with
such comforts as warm clothing,
tobacco and papers".
IRA attacks occur throughout
the country.
The heaviest concentration
is in Munster.
Particularly County Cork.
Where IRA volunteers are frustrated
for having failed to rise
in the rebellion of 1916.
It was right across the board
in terms of rank and file.
The sense of frustration.
The sense of shame, that they had failed.
There was a steely determination
not to let that happen again.
March 1920. Eight RIC officers
are killed in IRA attacks.
Across Ireland, the RIC become
increasingly concerned
for their lives and safety.
When these attacks quicken and when
individual constables are being killed,
a whole portion of the force
want to have nothing to do with it.
So resignations go through the roof.
About a third of the force resign.
The government sees a lot of its
posts as extremely vulnerable.
And so they withdraw from hundreds
of barracks across the country,
just in about 3 or 4 months.
By the end of 1920,
700 barracks are evacuated,
as the RIC retreats to the relative
safety of large towns.
And that leads us to a situation
where the British state
is no longer as visible
or as powerful
or as able to assert its control
and authority in Ireland,
on a daily basis.
Though Britain has tens of thousands
of soldiers stationed in the country,
it is reluctant to be seen as
officially going to war in Ireland.
Instead, war secretary Winston
Churchill develops an alternative plan.
"Decided to meet force with force,
terror with terror."
Churchill recruits World War I
veterans into a new armed auxiliary
police force known as the
Black and Tans.
Their orders are to support the RIC
and reassert British control in Ireland.
They're told take them out, kill as many as
you have to, torture as many as you have to.
You are released from the normal
rules of war because you are not
fighting the normal rules of war
and this is entirely their
responsibility.
I joined it because there were no
jobs about and things were pretty
rough.
I went up to Whitehall for an
interview and I went to Ireland the
same night.
They'd seen the horrors of World War
I and within a year they were being
dispatched to Ireland to fight a
guerrilla war.
You can't imagine something so
different.
The IRA used to dig trenches in the
road around the corners.
You'd come across this and down
would go your front wheels.
Wallop. Straight in.
That's when they used to throw one
or two homemade bombs.
In the bombs there was gelignite but
pieces of iron and scrap metal.
And all you could do is say here,
share that amongst you.
Human beings are going to stand so much
and you're going to retaliate, aren't you?
If your life is at stake, the other
fella's going before you.
They're incredibly badly led and
disciplined.
And a context of fear causes
ordinary men to behave in really
abhorrent and repugnant ways.
They become extremely violent.
The IRA men are all hiding.
You can't find the men, so who do
you attack?
You attack the family home.
In the course of the war, thousands
of homes and properties
throughout Ireland are attacked.
We were ruthless to the marked
degree of going to the limit of law and order.
We'll put it that way.
The pattern is usually that a
Crossley Tender would arrive
in the middle of the night with
maybe 12 to 20 Black and Tans on
board.
(BANGING/SMASHING)
They would kick the door in, stick a bayonet up
against you and then they'd search the house.
The search was really quite brutal.
The children would be crying,
terrified and sometimes the women
were dragged outside and had their
hair cut off with razor blades.
We see several cases of women who
reported being raped,
where the women's names and their
full addresses were reported
to add veracity to these stories,
that this was actually really happening.
Local elections in early 1920
confirmed the strong support of Irish
nationalists for the republican
cause.
Sinn Fein wins control of many local
councils.
In Cork, IRA leader Tomas MacCurtain
is elected as the city's Lord Mayor.
MacCurtain's term as Mayor will prove
short lived.
March 19th, 1920.
RIC officer Joseph Murtagh is
returning home from the theatre
in Cork city when he is shot dead by
the IRA.
(GUNSHOT)
Hours later, RIC officers, their
faces blackened in disguise
break into MacCurtain's home in Cork
and shoot him dead in front of his
wife and son.
The killing of MacCurtain, a democratically
elected public representative sparks outrage.
100,000 people line the streets of
Cork for his funeral.
What the republicans were very good
at was propaganda.
The propaganda value of funerals.
Newsreels and correspondence from
around the world come and cover his funeral.
What Irish civil society is showing
is that they have no appetite for
British assassinations of republican
officials, even republican officials
who are involved in the IRA.
Days later, the writer and IRA leader
Terence MacSwiney stands in City Hall
as Cork's new Lord Mayor.
He's not a stereotypical Irish
gunman.
He has a young family. He has
beautiful wife, a baby.
He's pretty much the best front man
the republicans can put forward.
"One day the consciousness of the
country will be electrified
by a great deed or a great sacrifice
and the multitude will break from
lethargy and march with a shout for freedom
in a true, brave and a beautiful sense."
Easter Sunday, April 4th 1920.
Two weeks after MacCurtain's death,
IRA men march out across the land.
Within hours, they have set 400 of
the evacuated RIC barracks on fire.
The flames confirm Britain's weakened
authority over Ireland.
The next day, Easter Monday, fourth
anniversary of the 1916 Rebellion,
50 republicans go on hunger strike in
Dublin's Mountjoy Prison
demanding immediate release.
When prison authorities refuse to
negotiate, hundreds of Cumann na mBan
women descend on the prison to
support the hunger strikers.
One of the most iconic photographs
was that photograph of women
on their knees praying outside of
Mountjoy Gaol in that period in 1920.
They use the power of prayer to make
mass civil acts of disobedience.
From the point of view of the
government in keeping public order,
it's easier to deal with a crowd of
restless men than it is to deal with
a crowd of restless women.
You cannot really break up a
demonstration of people
who have come together ostensibly
simply to pray.
It's religion as a weapon.
The Rosary as a weapon.
The women are not alone.
The Irish Labour Trade Union
Congress decides to call a national
strike to force the British hand to
release the hunger strikers.
Across Ireland, hundreds of thousands
join the national strike.
It was energy workers, water
workers, road workers.
Basically the country couldn't
operate without all these people.
Lord French argues that the British
government must ignore the prisoners'
demands.
The prisoners should be left to die.
But Britain is nervous,
fearing a social revolution like that
led by Vladimir Lenin in Russia.
For the British government, this is
a scary moment.
They don't know what's going to
happen next.
After just two weeks, the government
caves.
The prisoners are released from
Mountjoy Prison.
People within the British
administration in Dublin Castle,
in the police, in the military, are
horrified.
What is going to be the deterrent if
you can go into prison
and you can just not take food and
you can be cut loose.
Emboldened by their success,
nationalists boycott the Crown courts
and Dail Eireann establishes its own
alternative court system.
Nationalists take control of most
administration in Ireland.
People stop paying government taxes,
giving their money instead to republican funds.
Railway workers embark on a six month
strike causing major disruption
to British military operations.
A body of soldiers got on the train.
Crews walked off.
I suppose it was their attempt at
patriotism.
There's a Gandhian quality to this.
We exist as a distinct people and
ultimately there is nothing
you can do to stop us from being the
Irish nation.
Only in Ireland's northern province
of Ulster, does British authority
continue virtually unchallenged.
Here unionists, loyal to the United
Kingdom, want nothing to do with
Irish independence.
Unionist politicians Edward Carson
and James Craig have some degree
of influence with Prime Minister
Lloyd George.
They urge him to find a political
solution to the Irish question.
The British Cabinet resolves to
establish two Home Rule parliaments
in Ireland.
One for the North, one for the South.
The partition of Ireland is underway.
Summer 1920.
With IRA attacks increasing, British
authorities move to reassert control
over southern Ireland.
Lloyd George and his government
realise by the middle of 1920,
that large parts of the island have
gone over to the enemy,
are being controlled by the enemy;
we must strike back.
Somebody Churchill knew as a hard
man, General Hugh Tudor, is sent to
Ireland.
"This country is ruled by gunmen.
They must be put down."
Tudor unleashes a new parliamentary
group of elite British officers
to support the Black and Tans and the
RIC.
They are known as the Auxiliaries.
"Police and military will patrol the
country roads at least fives times a
week.
When civilians are seen approaching,
shout 'Hands up'.
Should the order be not obeyed,
shoot with effect."
"The Auxiliaries were dangerous
because they were really courageous.
There were absolutely no cowards in
them and they didn't care what they
did."
They regard Ireland as England's
Wild West and they're the new
sheriffs in town.
Crown forces resort to collective
punishment against local communities
to discourage support for the IRA.
During 1920, they destroy 48 farm
creameries throughout the country.
That collective punishment though,
that's pretty much the last thing
you want to do.
The one only thing that does is
create a lot of animosity.
It doesn't normalise conditions. It
makes them worse.
It destabilises things even more.
September 20th 1920.
An IRA unit enters a pub on Drogheda
Street in Balbriggan north of Dublin,
where RIC inspector Peter Burke is
drinking with friends.
The IRA opens fire killing Burke.
His death sparks an immediate
reprisal.
140 Black and Tans and Auxiliaries
descend on Balbriggan intent on revenge.
The town will be destroyed.
"To realise the full horrors of that
night, one has to think of bands of men
inflamed with drink, raging about
the streets,
firing rifles wildly, burning houses
here and there.
Loudly threatening to come again
tonight and complete their work."
By Morning, Balbriggan lies in ruins.
Two local Republicans, Seamus Lawless and
Sean Gibbons, have been bayoneted to death.
Churchill basically says, 'It's
regrettable but we have no
alternative '
'but to meet fire with fire in this
way'.
Over coming months, in response to
IRA killings and ambushes,
Crowned forces continue to conduct
reprisals against civilians.
Hundred of towns are looted and
burnt.
The policy of 'Reprisals' hardened
and toughened public opinion against
the British occupation.
It made them see that these are not
our well meaning rulers,
these are our occupiers, these are
our enemies.
Though Britain is resolved to
suppress the Irish Republican
challenge to the bitter end,
one man is about to make a sacrifice
so great, that it will cause people
throughout the world to condemn
British mis-rule in Ireland.
August 9th 1920.
In a further attempt to control
Ireland,
the British Government enacts the
'Restoration of order in Ireland', act.
The act grants Crowned Forces special
powers to arrest Irish Republicans.
Hundred of IRA volunteers are rounded
up.
Those who slip the net are forced to
go on the run.
And what eventually what ends up
happening,
is they start to gather in groups of
10, 30 or 40.
And these become the nexus points of
what will ultimately be
'The Flying Columns'.
The members of The Flying Columns
are the most zealous of The
Republicans.
The number of ambushes doesn't
dramatically increase, however,
the casualties inflicted increases
significantly.
The Flying Columns rely on the
people to hide and feed them
as they live rough in ditches, hills
and mountains across the land.
Now, partly as a result of British
counter measures,
British repression, there's a
feeling that there's us against them.
'We will support them, we will
protect them, we will disguise them
and put them up and so on'.
So, they had the support of the
community, they were able
to disappear back into the community
and re-emerge from it
and of course, that's what
frustrated the British so much,
the fact that they couldn't
'get them'.
On August 12th 1920, Cork Lord Mayor,
Terrance MacSwiney is arrested,
charged with sedition, he is sentenced
to 2 years hard labour in Cork jail.
In prison, MacSwiney joins 11 other
Republican prisoners on hunger strike.
In an effort to break his resolve,
the authorities transfer MacSwiney to
London's Brixton Prison.
Here, McSweeney continues his refusal
to eat.
As an elected mayor and member of
Dail Eireann,
MacSwiney's action captures global
attention.
So the press from all over the
world, came to London,
and they watched day by day, and every
morning they would send out a bulletin.
'The Lord Mayor's condition today'.
He's talked up as a sort of Christ
like figure,
sacrificing himself for the good of
the people.
Sacrificing himself for Ireland,
just as Christ sacrificed himself
for the salvation of the world.
Appeals for his release are made by
international governments
and by Pope Benedict the XV, in Rome.
But the British Government remembers
its humiliation by IRA hunger
strikers in April,
and refuses to yield.
The release of The Lord Mayor would
have disastrous results in Ireland.
And would probably lead to the
mutiny of both military and police
in the south of Ireland.
As McSweeney endures his hunger
strike, on August 22nd,
a unit of the Cork IRA travels
north.
In Lisburn, they assassinate
District Inspector Oswald Swanzy,
in revenge for suspected involvement
in the murder of Thomas Mac Curtain.
Hours later, local loyalists
retaliate by attacking Catholic
homes and businesses in the town.
Communal violence across much of
Lisburn.
300 Catholic houses are burned and
most of the Catholic population is
expelled.
But it then actually spreads to
other towns.
In Belfast, Catholic workers are
attacked by Loyalists in the city's
ship yards.
The Catholics flee.
They were running but there wasn't
actually anyone in chase.
Whatever had happened in the
shipyard, they were so terrified
they started to run and they just
kept on running.
Belfast IRA units retaliate, sparking
the worse violence of the war in Ulster.
After 3 weeks of fighting, 7,000
Catholics have been expelled from their jobs,
22 people are dead, hundreds wounded.
By Winter 1920, Ireland has been
flooded with British military re-enforcements,
making it even more difficult for the
IRA to operate.
With Dublin City under curfew,
resentment grows on both sides.
Shopkeepers boycott Crown forces,
raids on private homes and businesses
take place almost every day.
With 9,000 troops in Dublin, British
military cordon off entire city blocks
to conduct room by room searches.
Innocent civilians are shot dead.
It's a surreal world.
You've got ordinary men and women
and children, going about their lives.
But erupting into that world, is this
other world of a grenade being thrown,
of a shooting, of a squad
assassination.
You'd raids, arrests, you had
counter assassinations by auxiliaries.
This is taking place in a city that
officially is still part of the
United Kingdom!
In constant fear of arrest, Dail Eireann
meets in secret rooms and basements.
It wasn't a normal parliament by any
stretch of the imagination.
There was at times an element of
'Scarlet Pimpernel' about the
activities of the Dail government.
W.T. Cosgrave, was on one occasion,
about to leave his office on Wicklow
Street in Dublin,
and he checked in the mirror, to make
sure that his disguise was impenetrable
and his staff approved his
appearance.
"Nobody will recognise you,
Minister."
And out he went into the street, and
was accosted by a beggar who said,
'Spare a copper, Mr. Cosgrave'.
There was a conspiracy to protect
these underground ministers
because they were seen as the
leaders in our fight against the British.
And by now, the demarcation lines
were clear, it is Irish against British.
With 55,000 troops and 15,000 armed
police on the ground,
by October 1920, Crown forces feel
that they have finally regained
control of Ireland.
Lloyd George announces that
he has 'Murder by the throat'.
But Lloyd George has failed to take
account of how Terrance MacSwiney
hunger strike has captured the
world's attention.
There were demonstrations around the
world, Barcelona, South America,
all across The States.
When you see the protesters outside
the White House in Washington D.C.,
that's when we begin to see Lloyd
George really worrying
about how the perception of Ireland is
undermining his legitimacy on a global stage.
Even the Stevedores in New York
Harbour wouldn't empty British cargo ships.
So the King asked the Priminister,
'Could he not put an end to this?'
And the Priminister said, 'No'.
What MacSwiney does, he manages to
encapsulate the drama,...
and it's one in which the Irish are
positioned as heroically suffering
and enduring for something that's
right, over might.
Each day, friends and family stand in
solidarity with MacSwiney's wife,
Muriel, at Brixton prison.
Terrance asked me to remain friends
with his wife
and I was trying to re-assure him
that, we would look after her.
At this time, the weight of the bed
clothes was too much,
to lift his finger was agony.
On October 25th, having survived 74
days without food,
Terrance MacSwiney dies.
His death elicits a global outcry.
It is one of the great propaganda
coups of the history of any
nationalist movement, I think.
The international interest that
follows MacSwiney is absolutely
extraordinary.
His name is known all over the world.
MacSwiney body is met by huge crowds
and is returned home to Cork City.
Tens of thousands march behind the coffin,
with acting President, Arthur Griffith at the head.
MacSwiney becomes this story which
other oppressed people
identify as a heroic moment of
resistance to Empire.
MacSwiney's heroism, fortitude in
the face of inevitable death,
it instils a spirit of resistance into a lot of
people who would have previously said,
'Well I'm against British Government
in Ireland but what can be done?'
A sufficient number of young people
would have gone so far as to say,
'Well, I'm not going to do it myself
but I'm going to have more
understanding'
'and help as far as I can, those who
are prepared to do it.'
In the months that come, the war
escalates as British Crown Forces
try to excerpt their power over the
Irish people.
Britain has the IRA on the run.
In America, while having raised
millions for 'The Struggle',
De Valera has failed to gain
recognition for the Irish Republic.
But MacSwiney's death had changed
something,
the majority of Irish people are now
resolved to stand for freedom and
face the inevitable consequences
of war.
'It is not those who can inflict,
but those who can suffer the most'
'who will conquer.'
# Maidin moch do ghabhas amach.
# Ar bhruach Locha Léin.
# An Samhradh 'teacht san chraobh
len' ais.
# Is ionrach te ón ngréin.
# Ar thaisteal dom trí bhailte poirt.
# Is bánta míne réidhe.
# Cé a gheobhainn le m'ais ach an
chúileann deas
# Le fáinne geal an lae.
Subtitling Team
RTE 2019