Richard Mulcahy From the Politics of War to the Politics of Peace, 1913-1924

Timothy D. Hoyt reviews a new biography of a key figure from Irish republican history.

Padraig O’Caoimh’s new biography of Richard Mulcahy is a labor of love – the product of a decades of research into the beliefs, philosophy, and personal and political evolution of one of Ireland’s most important but understudied (and, the author might argue, misunderstood) figures.

O’Caoimh focuses on the 1913-1924 period, covering Mulcahy’s involvement with the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Republican Army, and the National Army and the beginnings of his transition from military leader to political figure. This period coincides with the timing of what many scholars call the “Irish Revolution”, and benefits from a wealth of relatively new material - primary sources and secondary studies released, uncovered, or published in this century. It also makes important use of some sources in Irish.

Biographies of Mulcahy are startlingly rare, given his role in the War of Independence, the Treaty debates, the Civil War that followed, and as a major figure in Irish politics from 1923-1961. Maryann Gialanella Valiulis’ Portrait of a Revolutionary: General Richard Mulcahy and the founding of the Irish Free State (University Press of Kentucky, 1992) is almost thirty years old. Two other major works are both by Mulcahy’s son Risteard: My Father the General (Liberties Press, 2009) and Richard Mulcahy (1886-1971): A Family Memoir (Aurelian Press, 1999). Curiously, none of these are cited in O’Caoimh’s select bibliography, although they are referenced in the footnotes and the author graciously thanks Risteard Mulcahy (and his son Risteard, Richard’s grandson) for access to his father’s papers and other assistance.

By focusing on the 1913-1924 period, O’Caoimh highlights Mulcahy’s evolution as a military and, eventually, political figure. During this period, Mulcahy joined the Irish Volunteers, rose in the ranks, and by 1919 had become Chief of Staff of what would eventually become known as the Irish Republican Army. Elected to represent Dublin Clontarf – traditionally a Unionist district – in December 1918, he served as a TD in the First and Second Dail Eireann, and after taking an important role in the contentious Treaty Debates, he became Minister for Defence in January 1922, and stayed in that position until his resignation in the spring of 1924 – the end of O’Caoimh’s study.

Mulcahy began his political life as a relatively traditional Irish nationalist of the Irish-Ireland community. He studied the Irish language, mastering it, and joined the Gaelic League. He read widely, including The United Irishman, The Resurrection of Hungary, and The Republic. This exposed him not just to the occasionally esoteric ideas of Arthur Griffith – the founder of Sinn Fein – but also to the more radical views of Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough, who later would become important figures in the revitalization of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and the Irish Volunteers. On moving to Dublin as a postal service worker, Mulcahy joined the IRB in 1908. Mulcahy’s relationship with the IRB was something he rarely spoke of, but as we shall see below it is a major focus of this volume.

Mulcahy was one of the original members of the Irish Volunteers – an armed paramilitary group formed to defend nationalist ambitions during the Home Rule Crisis of 1912-1914. He remained with the radical wing of the Volunteer organization when it split in 1914, and showed initiative, leadership qualities, and tactical expertise during the Easter Rising, when the operations of his small unit leading up to the battle of Ashbourne were a rare moment of military success for the rebels. Imprisoned at Frongoch, Wales after the Rising, he participated in the re-evaluation of the Rising by the Volunteers, the radicalization of nationalists who had Not participated in the Rising but were still imprisoned in its aftermath, and was at least present and aware of the reorganization of the IRB under Michael Collins’ leadership.

On his return to Ireland, he emerged as an important leader in the Dublin Volunteers, at least in part because of his relationship with Thomas Ashe (then President of the IRB). Mulcahy was one of 20-30 people present at the “National Convention” of the Volunteers, held in Dublin in March 1917. This meeting decided to hold a much larger convention within six months, and included figures who would play leading roles in the struggle to come (Brugha, Collins, Staines, Austin Stack, Sean McGarry, and Liam Lynch were among the participants). When Ashe perished on hunger strike in September 1917, Mulcahy played a major role in funeral ceremonies, which were executed without a hitch. O’Caoimh’s discussion of this incident (pp. 36-40) is well-written, evocative, and an interesting look at the early Collins-De Valera dynamic.

When the Volunteer convention was held (immediately after the Sinn Fein convention, on 27 October 1917), Mulcahy was well positioned to be considered for important posts. His actions in and since the Rising demonstrated dedication, initiative, and both tactical and administrative skills. Unlike the March assembly, many Volunteers – perhaps as many as 1000 – had assembled. Mulcahy was appointed Director of Training for the Volunteer Organization, and a member of the 20-person Executive. When the Executive met in early 1918, a General Headquarters Staff was created, and Mulcahy was appointed Chief of Staff, along with Collins (Adjutant General and Director of Organisation), Sean MacMahon (Quarter Master General), Dick McKee (replacing Mulcahy as Director of Training), and Rory O’Connor (Director of Engineering). Mulcahy was now the effective leader of the Volunteer Organization.

This role became much more important after the results of the 1918 election became known. Mulcahy was elected as a TD, and confirmed as Chief of Staff (and, briefly, Acting Minister of Defense). An inexperienced politician, he demonstrated the same dedication and administrative skills in his political work – especially the sensitive shaping of the Democratic Programme – that he was known for in the Volunteers. His military work was far more sensitive and absorbing. It was also critical.

Mulcahy’s son Risteard, in his two biographies. performed a great service in emphasizing the role of the GHQ in the war of independence. Understandably, he was keen to highlight the role of his father, and to correct some of the historical bias in the biographies of others, including those that resulted from the brutal divisions of the civil war. It is, however, quite possible that the importance of GHQ is still under-valued.

The IRA was not a highly centralized organization, and much of the military side of the war of independence was run at a local level. Units elected or appointed their own commanders, planned many of their own actions, and innovated in the field in response to local terrain and conditions. Brigades in some of the most active areas – Cork, Tipperary, Limerick – operated with a great deal of autonomy, and often resented interference from Dublin (particularly in the form of paperwork).

However, the war could not be won solely by guerrilla operations in the further reaches of Munster. The complaints from the brigade commanders about lack of support from GHQ are familiar to students of other armies in other wars. No unit ever has adequate arms, sufficient munitions, or enough autonomy. Higher ranks never understand the unique difficulties of each unit or region, and they always criticize too much and praise too little.

GHQ was trying to run a nationwide rebellion with extraordinarily limited resources. Like staffs in other armies, GHQ had to make decisions about apportioning those resources – generally choosing to reinforce activity rather than reward passivity (something the leaders in Munster did not appreciate – they were receiving a larger share of available resources than they knew). GHQ would approve, and sometimes replace, officers based on their performance. It passed on “lessons learned” in terms of effective military innovations learned in the struggle. Other regions learned of the effectiveness of the flying column and the training utility of the Active Service Unit through GHQ memos, and the staff would analyze after action reports of ambushes and disseminate the findings and recommendations.

Mulcahy helped shape the direction of the military campaign, even though the first action at Soloheadbeg was (famously) a local initiative. Mulcahy’s influence on the opening stages of the guerrilla war were particularly critical. GHQ attempted to limit early military activity, until after Sinn Fein was banned in September 1919. Mulcahy used his personal relationship with Terence MacSwiney to veto the “rolling rising” concept (which would have crippled the small IRA in 1919). Together, they found an approach to broaden the conflict, launching coordinated attacks on police stations in multiple districts, escalating pressure until much of the countryside was temporarily liberated in 1920.

Because of its location in Dublin, GHQ effectively served as a coordinating mechanism between political, economic, intelligence, and military efforts. Mulcahy, Collins, and others were members of the Dail, and Mulcahy met regularly with Cathal Brugha, Minister for Defence and his civilian superior. This created an informal chain of command, later formalized by an IRA oath of allegiance to the Dail and a corresponding Dail assumption of responsibility for IRA violence. It also linked the IRA with carrying out Dail policy, including the creation of Dail courts and the enforcement of Dail law through the recruitment of Republican police. GHQ orders helped standardize critical policies like executions, ensuring closer conformity to the operations of the Dail. GHQ also was involved in military efforts in Dublin, including establishing the Squad, eliminating the G Division as an asset for British intelligence, coordinating with the Dublin Brigade for sophisticated operations (Bloody Sunday, the attack on the Customs House), and managing (as much as it could) the escalation of violence and the information campaign that accompanied it.

GHQ, under Mulcahy, had great responsibilities, and did many things – none of them perfectly, some of them well, some of them less effectively. This shouldn’t be surprising. GHQ was trying to coordinate and contribute to a nation-wide effort, while constantly improvising or inventing new processes. Comparing it to established staffs in professional militaries is unfair, both because many of the members were eager amateurs and because they utterly lacked resources and basic security (Mulcahy tried never to have more than three or four of the staff in the same place). At the same time, however, the Irish side would not have succeeded if it had not been able to mobilize and sustain a nationwide rebellion, to modulate violence to continue pressure on the British government, and to coordinate political, military, and economic efforts with an aggressive information campaign in Ireland, Great Britain, and the international community. GHQ played an important role in all these areas.

Ultimately their efforts were good enough despite escalating British pressure, increasing British military effectiveness, and a disappointing lack of support from hoped-for allies in the United States. In 1921, the IRA had as many as 115,000 members (most part-time), but only 3000 rifles. Thousands were in prison. As Mulcahy commented in the Treaty debates, despite its successful resistance, the IRA was probably not capable tactically of doing much more than take over a modestly defended police station. British counterinsurgency efforts improved enough that flying columns were less effective, and control of the countryside was again contested. GHQ began putting together a divisional system, both to coordinate operations across brigade areas and to hedge against a collapse or capture of GHQ and the Sinn Fein leadership. As the military situation became increasingly tenuous, however, British over-commitment abroad and a realization of the likely costs of successfully defeating the IRA and national resistance led to an offer of a truce and negotiations in July 1921.

O’Caoimh focuses his attention, and the structure of the book, on the evolution of Mulcahy as first a military and later a political figure. The first five chapters of the book (1913-1921) detail his growth, both intellectually and formally in terms of rank and responsibility, as one of the key military leaders in the Republican movement. As a result of his unique position in the war of independence, however, he also had to develop political ideas, approaches, and skills. By the time of the Truce, Mulcahy had developed a set of views on the role of the army, its relationship to civilian leaders, and its symbolic and ideological importance in advancing Irish nationalism that shaped his behavior in the crises that followed.

Many of the crises that followed were the result of personality and policy disputes between important leaders. O’Caoimh does a good job of outlining these disputes, and of characterizing the key personalities. Mulcahy’s relationship with Brugha, which was cordial and effective in 1919-1920, became much more difficult after De Valera’s return in December 1920, and overlapped with a parallel dispute between De Valera and Collins. This led to the “New Army” crisis in late November 1921, where De Valera and Brugha attempted to assert authority over GHQ and the army – and were rejected by a near-unanimous coalition of GHQ and important field commanders. Army autonomy, at this time, was a priority because of the possibility of renewed conflict with Britain.

The unity of the IRA, and of the Republican movement, was quickly shattered when the negotiating team in London (including Collins and Griffith) signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921. De Valera’s immediate public statements of displeasure and rejection, combined with the broader anger over the oath to the King and the achievement of only part of the Republican vision, split the movement and the Army. Weeks of acrimonious debate, interrupted by a Christmas holiday, ended in a 64-57 vote in favor of the Treaty, and shortly thereafter a 60-58 vote saw Arthur Griffith replace De Valera as President. GHQ split as well, with most of the staff supporting the Treaty, and four (Mellows, O’Connor, O’Donovan, and Russell) choosing the anti-Treaty side.

Mulcahy’s story from this point is well known – and is particularly notable for the tension between his loyalty to the army as an institution and his commitment to democratic rule and governance. He supported Collins on the Treaty and became the Minister of National Defence in the Second Dail Government headed by Griffith. He made sincere efforts to keep the army together including frequent negotiations with the anti-Treaty leaders, agreeing to a Volunteer Convention, taking a non-confrontational approach to the occupation of the Four Courts, coordinating efforts with anti-Treaty forces to wage a Northern Campaign in the spring of 1922 (that included arms transfers to anti-Treaty forces), and last minute negotiations with the anti-Treaty leaders in an effort to re-unite the IRA. His hopes that he could somehow use the comradeship of the army to heal the political divisions of the Treaty dispute proved futile. O’Caoimh highlights Mulcahy’s intervention to facilitate the Collins-De Valera election pact – an act that led to enormous friction within the Provisional Government, which was increasingly concerned with the independence of Collins and, by extension, Mulcahy.

At the same time, however, Mulcahy was building an army, and building it in a hurry. The majority of IRA Volunteers opposed the Treaty, as well as the most successful operational leaders in Munster. Mulcahy had access to non-traditional sources of supply and recruitment – Irish veterans of British military service in the First World War, sophisticated weapons provided by Britain including armored cars and artillery – but also had to professionalize the force so that it could represent the new Irish state. The Free State Army, expanding from about 5000 in the spring of 1922 to about 50,000 a year later, was wracked by indiscipline throughout the conflict. When civil war broke out, however, the army cleared Leinster quickly, launched a series of successful amphibious landings in Munster, and by early autumn had secured control of all the major cities and towns, driving anti-Treaty forces into the countryside. This is, again, evidence of good staff work, creative planning, and solid administration – factors that were notoriously absent from the anti-Treaty side.

With the death of Michael Collins in August 1922, Mulcahy took up the role of Commander in Chief of the Army for the duration of the civil war. In this role, the friction between his duties as head of the army and as a member of the government became increasingly evident. Defying the cabinet, he met with De Valera in September, attempting again to reconcile with old comrades and find a quick ceasefire. The Public Safety Bill later that month gave the Army the right to hold military courts and execute members of the anti-Treaty forces, and Mulcahy also became an advocate of press censorship. In response, the Cabinet asked that the Minister of Defence be present at all future Cabinet meetings, and that army business take precedence – in effect, trying to exert more authority and engage more in security issues.

As a result, Mulcahy was deeply involved in two of the most tragic and terrible events of the civil war. In November, Mulcahy and the Cabinet approved the execution of Erskine Childers, a veteran Republican who was charge with possession of a pistol that had been presented to him by Michael Collins. O’Caoimh comments that:

Mulcahy’s performance in this instance was actually quite typical of the way he would react during times of great personal stress. Becoming self-righteous, he would close down debate, as if to imply that enough was enough now that he had exhausted all avenues of compromise, at which point, as he said of himself vis-à-vis his subsequent difficulties with O’Higgins, he would become ‘snappy and shut up in myself and almost bad-mannered’… Despite his formidable patience and self-control, he therefore had a breaking point or, to be more correct, a turning point. (p. 144)

O’Caoimh notes that this type of behavior is evident in other confrontations, with Brugha in 1921 and with anti-Treaty leaders at pre-civil war discussions. It also was evident again after the Civil War, as Mulcahy was increasingly constrained by other Cabinet officials and his absolute authority over military matters was deliberately eroded.

Mulcahy’s role in the decision the next month to execute four anti-Treaty leaders – Mellows, O’Connor, Barrett, McKelvey – as reprisals for the assassination of Sean Hales is also highlighted. The executions were abrupt and deliberate, intended to demonstrate government resolve and act as a deterrent to future assassinations. They were also illegal – done without a trial, to figures who could not have played a role in Hales’ murder - and sowed a generation of hatred. Mulcahy took responsibility for his participation in the decision, but O’Caoimh goes much farther. Relying in part on the Bureau of Military History testimony of Earnest De Blaghd (Blythe), the author argues that Mulcahy played the major role in moving the executions forward. To quote De Blaghd, this was “…an act of counter-terror, not of vengeance, and though just, not primarily an act of justice but an extreme act of war.” (p. 242, note 5 – from De Blaghd’s BMH Witness Statement 939, p. 192).

O’Caoimh concludes, in a remark that will surely rile some readers, that:

…the man [Mulcahy] had a resolute ruminative streak in him but, possibly due to that quality, he was also capable of acts of singular bravery, especially in defence of values he deeply believed in. In that regard, possibly the bravest, though equally the severest, act of a politico-military career…was his decision, on 8 December 1922, to execute four of the Four Courts’ prisoners who were then incarcerated in Mountjoy jail. (p. 242)

As the civil war continued, Mulcahy was forced to dismiss or sideline some of his old colleagues for lack of effectiveness and discipline. The conflict dragged on, with anti-Treaty forces trying to wreck the economy in a vain effort to drum up public opposition to the government. Despite the “appointment” of De Valera as president of the anti-Treaty side, he had no real political platform, and more importantly no authority. The Free State army continued to show indifferent discipline, sometimes tilting towards atrocity (as at Ballyseedy), and despite great advantages in numbers and weaponry was unable to crush the anti-Treaty guerrillas. It took the capture (Liam Deasy) and death (Liam Lynch) of key anti-Treaty leaders to force the anti-Treaty side to reconsider their options. The “dump arms” decision, however, deprived the Free State government of an observable victory or surrender.

The next year saw Mulcahy slowly and methodically demobilize the army, dissatisfying both his Cabinet colleagues and his former Dublin comrades in the army. The creation of the Irish Republican Army Organization, which attempted to interfere in promotion and demobilization efforts, and eventually may have been organizing a mutiny, created the last challenge in this period of Mulcahy’s life. Unsurprisingly, he acted to defend the institution he had spent many years building. Equally unsurprisingly, when the Cabinet intervened because of his institutional overreach, he chose to resign, accepting the authority of the democracy he had done so much to build. His choice contributed to the limiting of a strong streak of militarist exceptionalism in the Republican movement, evident in the Collins clique (on the pro-Treaty side) and in the negligence of politics on the anti-Treaty side and many of its Republican off-shoots.

O’Caoimh paints an interesting, but limited portrait of Mulcahy. The author’s PhD is in political history, and this is a political historian’s biography – focused on broad trends, rather than personal details. He has a fine sense of Mulcahy’s personality – a complex mixture of shyness and certitude, a man who made close friendships but lacked the charisma of the more garrulous Collins, whose clarity of thought clashed with complicated and sometimes inarticulate phrasing, but overall a man of purpose and service, content (as his son remarked) to be “a bit of a back room boy.” The book almost begs a sequel, to study Mulcahy the politician, shorn of his military mantle, and his very important role in Irish politics from 1924-1960.

As the author notes (p.3), he really is looking at three leitmotifs of Mulcahy’s life in this period: the formation of a national army over the course of a rebellion and two wars; the ambiguous role of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in his life and in Irish politics of the period; and the overlapping military and political roles he played simultaneously as part of a revolutionary movement and an emerging state. The first of these issues is discussed thoroughly and takes advantage of new sources. The third is also well-researched, although it might have been interesting to contrast Mulcahy’s competing commitments to democracy and to the Republic. O’Caoimh notes that during the war of independence, Mulcahy was already demonstrating both a skill and a willingness to make short-term compromises in pursuit of longer-term ends. The tension between idealism and pragmatism, and between a notional Republic and a functional democracy, haunted many of the leaders of the war of independence. Mulcahy seems to have weathered that tension better than many of his colleagues and compatriots.

It is the second of these motifs where O’Caoimh makes his most important contribution. Mulcahy was always reticent about his relationship with the IRB, acknowledging membership but saying little else. His son states that all of Mulcahy’s papers verify that “…the council of the IRB, and the leaders of the IRB as such, had no part to play in formulating military policy during the war.” (Mulcahy, My Father the General, p. 70).

Risteard further states that:

Mulcahy was conscious and appreciative of the part that IRB members played in Collins’s intelligence work before and during the War of Independence, and in establishing communications channels with the country forces and with contacts in Great Britain. As far as I can ascertain from his papers and recordings, he had no formal contact with the IRB during the entire period from 1913 to 1924, although he was always thought of as an IRB man, even as late as 1924. (Mulcahy, My Father the General, p. 70)

O’Caoimh challenges these conclusions, based on statements and evidence provided by others who worked with him. This analysis raises a whole series of questions about Mulcahy’s formal and informal relationship with the IRB, and of some of the testimony surrounding the Army Mutiny, the IRAO, and the efforts to resuscitate the IRB after the civil war.

It is not unreasonable, given Mulcahy’s constant contact with major IRB figures in the Republican and later Free State leadership, to assume that there may have been some meeting of the minds regarding the ends, ways, and means of the independence struggle, whether Mulcahy was formally a member of the IRB or not. He was constantly in close contact with IRB leaders. Ashe was a president of the IRB, and Mulcahy was his aide. Harry Boland, Collins and Diarmuid O’Hegarty were leaders of the IRB, carrying great weight in the selection of Volunteer and Sinn Fein leadership in 1917, and of political candidates in the 1918 election. Mulcahy, a man with no political experience, was selected for each.

During the war of independence, IRB members played important roles in GHQ – particularly Collins, but also O’Hegarty, Beaslai, O’Sullivan, and others. IRB contacts were critical for covert arms smuggling from the United States and the United Kingdom. As political lines began to be drawn after the return of De Valera, one major fissure was the conflict between those who saw the IRB as useful and those who thought of it as a threat. Mulcahy, at a minimum, appears to be in the former camp.

So O’Caoimh’s hypothesis that Mulcahy was more closely involved in the IRB is plausible. He was a man, as we know, who could keep a secret. He frequently acted independently, meeting covertly with adversaries in violation of official directives, for purposes that conflicted with official policy. He was also a man who could balance potentially contradictory tendencies – he might, as a result, have been able to reconcile the potential contradictions between his deep religious faith and a radical secret organization condemned by the clergy. His position on the Treaty conveniently mirrored the position of the majority of GHQ and all of the IRB Supreme Council (except for Liam Lynch). And O’Caoimh makes good use of the perspectives of others to build a case for a closer relationship with the IRB than Mulcahy ever acknowledged. The book cites many different observers commenting on how Mulcahy attended meetings of IRB leadership at critical times, when key decisions were being discussed or made.

That said, there is still much to be uncovered, and some assumptions may be overdrawn. Referring to Mulcahy as a “member of the Squad management team” (p. 149) may overstate his role in the operations of that force, which is generally considered closely controlled by Collins. New sources may provide us more evidence on that issue. Similarly, claims that Mulcahy was a member of the IRB Supreme Council in late 1921 (p. 238) deserve more investigation. Leon O’Broin, for instance, makes no mention of a formal role for Mulcahy in his classic study of the IRB (Revolutionary Underground, Rowman & Littlefield, 1976). Owen McGee’s more recent The IRB (Four Courts Press, 2005) does not mention Mulcahy at all, although the focus of that book is on the pre-Sinn Fein period.

Finally, the author states that Mulcahy led the revival of the IRB (in 1922-1923) to create a

…group of [military] men, along with civilian members, [who] would ginger up certain societally influential non-IRB people in order to generate a cultural revolution similar to that of Irish-Ireland, after the attainment of which the Organisation’s clandestine role would gradually go into decline as a new political party began to emerge in its stead with the resultant forward motion of the people. (p. 239)

This may be overinterpreting the available evidence. It is, however, an intriguing argument - perhaps because it mirrors, in some ways, the steps De Valera was already taking at that time in his own pursuit of political power.

Ultimately, the work of the IRB – and Mulcahy’s role in it – remain cloaked in mystery. O’Caoimh has, however, presented us with a plausible and intriguing hypothesis that bears further testing, and has utilized recently uncovered sources to support his argument. It is at least possible that Mulcahy was more engaged in the IRB than he admitted and chose to keep that secret for reasons of his own. As we see in modern Ireland, leading figures may choose to deny their involvement in revolutionary organisations even if the evidence points strongly in a different direction.

Overall, the author’s labor of love has succeeded on many levels. He has presented a complex, readable biography that makes excellent use of old and new sources to improve our understanding of one of modern Ireland’s most important figures. Richard Mulcahy: From the Politics of War to the Politics of Peace, 1913-1924 is an outstanding contribution to the study of the Irish revolution, the foundations of the modern Irish state, and the profiles of key leaders in the Irish independence movement.

Padraig O’Caoimh, 2019, Richard Mulcahy: From the Politics of War to the Politics of Peace, 1913-1924. Newbridge: Irish Academic Press. ISBN-13: 978-1788550987.

➽ Timothy Hoyt has a PhD in strategic studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and a lifelong interest in Irish history.