Caoimhin O’Muraile ✒ One of the most popular misconceptions in Irish history I regularly come across, and is annoying, is the popular story that James Connolly was the founder or a founder of the Irish Citizen Army in 1913. 

It is true the Citizen Army – later to become the Irish Citizen Army – was formed in November 1913 but James Connolly had little if anything to do with this formation. This was not because Connolly disagreed with the formation of a worker’s defence force, the initial purpose of the Citizen Army, but because generally he believed more important Irish Transport and General Union (ITGWU) work needed to be done. 

It was at the time of the Dublin Lockout and police violence against locked out and striking workers was brutal, so some defence was needed but Connolly believed other work more important at the time. Pickets needed to be organised, demonstrations planned, correspondence with the British unions for support needed to be drafted and men were needed for other work, which did not include drilling for the Citizen Army.

The Army’s drill instructor was Captain Jack White and Connolly often enraged him by taking men away for other union activities when he, White, wanted them drilling in Liberty Hall. White’s fists would often turn white as he clenched them in rage at Connolly for taking what he perceived as his men away on union business or a political meeting. Nora Connolly:

recalls White once in a terrible rage, his hands clenched and fairly gnashing his teeth at some misinterpretation of a command he had given and her father remonstrating with him, easy now Captain, remember, they’re volunteers - A Descriptive History of the Irish Citizen Army 2012, Kevin Morley P.20.

The formation of what would become the Irish Citizen Army from its inception through to fruition, though not full potential, could be described as a staggered process. 

On 12th November 1913 a meeting of the Industrial Peace Committee took place in the rooms of the Reverend R.M. Gwynn at 40 Trinity College. Here the idea of a worker’s defence force was discussed, having been ruled out of order at a previous meeting, and arrangements were made for a drilling scheme for the locked-out workers’ - ibid P 7). 

Funds were to be raised for the purchase of boots and staves and Professor David Houston of the Royal College of Science appointed treasurer. 

If this idea formulated by the Industrial Peace Committee, which also included Captain Jack White a former British army officer, had stopped at its initial intention of bringing discipline into the ranks of the locked-out workers and defending pickets from the excesses of the police then it is perhaps unlikely that it would have ever developed any further than this. (ibid).

It is perhaps reasonable to assume that when the industrial conflict ended in 1914 then so too would the Citizen Army. The last thing Reverend Gwynn and the Industrial Peace Committee had in mind was the formation of what has been described as the first Red Army of the 20th century, certainly in Western Europe. It could be argued the events in Wexford, 1911, a precursor to the Dublin Lockout when a worker’s police force was established predated the Citizen Army, but whether it this police force could be described as an army is questionable. Had more aggressive and progressive people, Jim Larkin and, almost a year later James Connolly - after the former’s departure for the USA - not taken the reins then the [by then] Irish Citizen Army would not have taken part in the Easter Rising of 1916. Larkin was the General Secretary of the ITGWU and Commandant of the ICA, the two posts appear to have complimented each other.

During the Dublin Lockout Jim Larkin was more than aware they were in the battle for their lives against the titans of capitalism. Larkin realised the workers must become disciplined and using the embryonic Citizen Army would be the perfect vehicle to bring about the discipline: they must be organised, made of one substance and loyal to each other. While addressing a gathering of early Citizen Army recruits, all of whom where practical had to be card carrying trade union members, he told them:

they must no longer be content to assemble in hopeless, haphazard crowds, in which a man does not know and cannot trust the man that stands next to him, but in all their future assemblies they must be so organised that there must be a special place for every man, and a particular duty for each man to do’ (James Connolly: A Full Life Donald Nevi ed: P254). 

These were some of the fighting words Larkin uttered that evening which would lead to the popularisation of the ideas which would form the Irish Citizen Army. The workers were to be given a military training, and their instructor would be Captain Jack White, which filled the men with a feeling of great optimism. In these early days uniforms and weaponry were non-existent but enthusiasm would more than compensate for this short fall. On one occasion the Aungier Street branch of the ITGWU had formed a band using instruments paid for by themselves. On this occasion they annoyed the police by playing the “Peeler and the Goat”, prompting the police to threaten to smash their instruments. The workers then formed a guard using Hurley sticks to defend their band and this was one of the first actions of the Citizen Army:

The first drilling sessions took place using Hurley sticks in place of rifles, and these same hurlies were carried on route marches and would carry a kick to match any policeman’s truncheon’ (Morley P. 20-21).


As 1913 gave way to 1914 the strikers and locked-out workers were beginning to feel the effects. Demoralisation was beginning to creep in and this affected the Citizen Army greatly. As Captain White was beginning to give up hope, Sean O’Casey came up with an idea. He proposed the army should have a constitution written [later the similarities between this constitution and the 1916 proclamation would be apparent] and an army council elected.

The council would be responsible, among other matters, for the revival of systematic drills, to open a fund in order to procure equipment, to arrange for public meetings, to form companies of the army wherever labour was at its strongest’ (Morley P. 29). 

A meeting was called and was attended by James Connolly, Constance Markievicz, William Partridge, P.T. Daly and was presided over by Captain White with Sean O’Casey as Secretary, and arrangements were made for a public meeting for 22nd March 1914 at Liberty Hall. At this meeting, presided over by Jim Larkin, who announced the army would have a standard uniform and a constitution to be drafted by Sean O’Casey. Larkin reiterated his demand that every member of the Citizen Army must be, where applicable, a member of a trade union. It was at this point an Army Council was elected consisting of; Chairman Captain White, Vice Chairman Jim Larkin, P.T. Daly, William Partridge, Thomas Foran, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and Honorary Secretary Sean O’Casey with Honorary Treasurers Richard Brannigan and Constance Markievicz. Noticeable to see James Connolly at this stage was not a member of the Army Council somewhat dispelling the myth he was a founder of the army. It was now five months into its existence and since the idea was first muted and early drilling In Liberty Hall took place, and Jim Larkin had given his oration about discipline and trust.

It should be pointed out at this stage the relationship between the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, formed about ten days after the Citizen Army, was at very best cool, at worst freezing. The Irish Citizen Army once requested from the wealthier and larger volunteers the use of a hall for drilling one evening and were politely but firmly rebuffed. The Citizen Army emphasised victory of labour over capital while the volunteers, many of them employers, ridiculed this, claiming there was no room for trades disputes in the national question. Even though the two organisations were allies during the Easter Rising these ideological tensions continued.

On 25th October 1914 Jim Larkin left Ireland for the United States, at which point James Connolly took over as the General Secretary of the ITGWU, initially on a temporary basis until Larkin returned, and Commandant of the Irish Citizen Army. It was at this point the ICA entered its truly revolutionary stage of development under Connolly’s stewardship. Route marches became longer and harder as Connolly had in mind using the ICA as an instrument which far outreached defending picket lines, important though such work was. 

As any student of Irish history will be aware the ICA were one of the two armies which took part in the Easter Rising of 1916, the other organisation being the Irish Volunteers, or the revolutionary wing of them under Padraig Pearse. Connolly commanded the ICA during Easter week, in fact he was commander of all Irish forces during the rising. The ideological differences between the two allies alluded to earlier may be summed up by a short speech Connolly made to the ICA prior to the rebellion:

The odds are a thousand to one against us, but in the event of victory hold onto your rifles, as those with whom we are fighting may stop before our goal is reached. We are out for economic as well as political liberty. Hold onto your rifles he repeated - (Morley 2012 P. 56). 

This was in clear reference to Pearse and the Irish Volunteers, though some argue he was referring to Eoin MacNeill [nominal head of the Volunteers] who by this time had made it clear he was not prepared to sanction, let alone partake in the rising. Can any similarities be drawn with today’s variants of republicanism, for example Republican Socialism and main stream republicanism? That is in the eye of the reader to decide!

In three short years the Citizen Army, becoming the Irish Citizen Army, had gone from being primarily a picket and freedom of assembly defence force to becoming a revolutionary socialist army with its own political and economic agenda. That agenda was far longer reaching than merely defeating the occupying enemy, the British. Commandant James Connolly was executed on 12th May 1916 after the rising was defeated. He was succeeded as Commandant by James O’Neill, a Carpenter, who lacked all of his predecessor’s attributes and political knowledge of Marxism leading to a separate agenda to those of the volunteers. O’Neill left a lot to be desired and the words, “in for his own ends” come to mind, he was no James Connolly or for that matter, Jim Larkin.

James Connolly perhaps the ICAs most famous Commandant, and certainly the man who developed on the work of his predecessor after Larkin departed for the USA was not a founder of the army. He was not a member of the first Army Council and it was not until later on he took the reins carrying out sterling work in the development of the Irish Citizen Army. Perhaps certain historians who claim Connolly to have been a founder, as do the twenty-six-county state it would appear, find this false interpretation of history nice and convenient. 

What a great pity such an organisation does not exist today. Imagine if the British coal miners during the 1984/85 Miners Strike, lasting one year, could have called on a modern equivalent of the Irish Citizen Army!!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is a Dublin 
based Marxist and author. 

The Irish Citizen Army & James Connolly ➖ Revising History And Reality

Caoimhin O’Muraile ✒ One of the most popular misconceptions in Irish history I regularly come across, and is annoying, is the popular story that James Connolly was the founder or a founder of the Irish Citizen Army in 1913. 

It is true the Citizen Army – later to become the Irish Citizen Army – was formed in November 1913 but James Connolly had little if anything to do with this formation. This was not because Connolly disagreed with the formation of a worker’s defence force, the initial purpose of the Citizen Army, but because generally he believed more important Irish Transport and General Union (ITGWU) work needed to be done. 

It was at the time of the Dublin Lockout and police violence against locked out and striking workers was brutal, so some defence was needed but Connolly believed other work more important at the time. Pickets needed to be organised, demonstrations planned, correspondence with the British unions for support needed to be drafted and men were needed for other work, which did not include drilling for the Citizen Army.

The Army’s drill instructor was Captain Jack White and Connolly often enraged him by taking men away for other union activities when he, White, wanted them drilling in Liberty Hall. White’s fists would often turn white as he clenched them in rage at Connolly for taking what he perceived as his men away on union business or a political meeting. Nora Connolly:

recalls White once in a terrible rage, his hands clenched and fairly gnashing his teeth at some misinterpretation of a command he had given and her father remonstrating with him, easy now Captain, remember, they’re volunteers - A Descriptive History of the Irish Citizen Army 2012, Kevin Morley P.20.

The formation of what would become the Irish Citizen Army from its inception through to fruition, though not full potential, could be described as a staggered process. 

On 12th November 1913 a meeting of the Industrial Peace Committee took place in the rooms of the Reverend R.M. Gwynn at 40 Trinity College. Here the idea of a worker’s defence force was discussed, having been ruled out of order at a previous meeting, and arrangements were made for a drilling scheme for the locked-out workers’ - ibid P 7). 

Funds were to be raised for the purchase of boots and staves and Professor David Houston of the Royal College of Science appointed treasurer. 

If this idea formulated by the Industrial Peace Committee, which also included Captain Jack White a former British army officer, had stopped at its initial intention of bringing discipline into the ranks of the locked-out workers and defending pickets from the excesses of the police then it is perhaps unlikely that it would have ever developed any further than this. (ibid).

It is perhaps reasonable to assume that when the industrial conflict ended in 1914 then so too would the Citizen Army. The last thing Reverend Gwynn and the Industrial Peace Committee had in mind was the formation of what has been described as the first Red Army of the 20th century, certainly in Western Europe. It could be argued the events in Wexford, 1911, a precursor to the Dublin Lockout when a worker’s police force was established predated the Citizen Army, but whether it this police force could be described as an army is questionable. Had more aggressive and progressive people, Jim Larkin and, almost a year later James Connolly - after the former’s departure for the USA - not taken the reins then the [by then] Irish Citizen Army would not have taken part in the Easter Rising of 1916. Larkin was the General Secretary of the ITGWU and Commandant of the ICA, the two posts appear to have complimented each other.

During the Dublin Lockout Jim Larkin was more than aware they were in the battle for their lives against the titans of capitalism. Larkin realised the workers must become disciplined and using the embryonic Citizen Army would be the perfect vehicle to bring about the discipline: they must be organised, made of one substance and loyal to each other. While addressing a gathering of early Citizen Army recruits, all of whom where practical had to be card carrying trade union members, he told them:

they must no longer be content to assemble in hopeless, haphazard crowds, in which a man does not know and cannot trust the man that stands next to him, but in all their future assemblies they must be so organised that there must be a special place for every man, and a particular duty for each man to do’ (James Connolly: A Full Life Donald Nevi ed: P254). 

These were some of the fighting words Larkin uttered that evening which would lead to the popularisation of the ideas which would form the Irish Citizen Army. The workers were to be given a military training, and their instructor would be Captain Jack White, which filled the men with a feeling of great optimism. In these early days uniforms and weaponry were non-existent but enthusiasm would more than compensate for this short fall. On one occasion the Aungier Street branch of the ITGWU had formed a band using instruments paid for by themselves. On this occasion they annoyed the police by playing the “Peeler and the Goat”, prompting the police to threaten to smash their instruments. The workers then formed a guard using Hurley sticks to defend their band and this was one of the first actions of the Citizen Army:

The first drilling sessions took place using Hurley sticks in place of rifles, and these same hurlies were carried on route marches and would carry a kick to match any policeman’s truncheon’ (Morley P. 20-21).


As 1913 gave way to 1914 the strikers and locked-out workers were beginning to feel the effects. Demoralisation was beginning to creep in and this affected the Citizen Army greatly. As Captain White was beginning to give up hope, Sean O’Casey came up with an idea. He proposed the army should have a constitution written [later the similarities between this constitution and the 1916 proclamation would be apparent] and an army council elected.

The council would be responsible, among other matters, for the revival of systematic drills, to open a fund in order to procure equipment, to arrange for public meetings, to form companies of the army wherever labour was at its strongest’ (Morley P. 29). 

A meeting was called and was attended by James Connolly, Constance Markievicz, William Partridge, P.T. Daly and was presided over by Captain White with Sean O’Casey as Secretary, and arrangements were made for a public meeting for 22nd March 1914 at Liberty Hall. At this meeting, presided over by Jim Larkin, who announced the army would have a standard uniform and a constitution to be drafted by Sean O’Casey. Larkin reiterated his demand that every member of the Citizen Army must be, where applicable, a member of a trade union. It was at this point an Army Council was elected consisting of; Chairman Captain White, Vice Chairman Jim Larkin, P.T. Daly, William Partridge, Thomas Foran, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and Honorary Secretary Sean O’Casey with Honorary Treasurers Richard Brannigan and Constance Markievicz. Noticeable to see James Connolly at this stage was not a member of the Army Council somewhat dispelling the myth he was a founder of the army. It was now five months into its existence and since the idea was first muted and early drilling In Liberty Hall took place, and Jim Larkin had given his oration about discipline and trust.

It should be pointed out at this stage the relationship between the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, formed about ten days after the Citizen Army, was at very best cool, at worst freezing. The Irish Citizen Army once requested from the wealthier and larger volunteers the use of a hall for drilling one evening and were politely but firmly rebuffed. The Citizen Army emphasised victory of labour over capital while the volunteers, many of them employers, ridiculed this, claiming there was no room for trades disputes in the national question. Even though the two organisations were allies during the Easter Rising these ideological tensions continued.

On 25th October 1914 Jim Larkin left Ireland for the United States, at which point James Connolly took over as the General Secretary of the ITGWU, initially on a temporary basis until Larkin returned, and Commandant of the Irish Citizen Army. It was at this point the ICA entered its truly revolutionary stage of development under Connolly’s stewardship. Route marches became longer and harder as Connolly had in mind using the ICA as an instrument which far outreached defending picket lines, important though such work was. 

As any student of Irish history will be aware the ICA were one of the two armies which took part in the Easter Rising of 1916, the other organisation being the Irish Volunteers, or the revolutionary wing of them under Padraig Pearse. Connolly commanded the ICA during Easter week, in fact he was commander of all Irish forces during the rising. The ideological differences between the two allies alluded to earlier may be summed up by a short speech Connolly made to the ICA prior to the rebellion:

The odds are a thousand to one against us, but in the event of victory hold onto your rifles, as those with whom we are fighting may stop before our goal is reached. We are out for economic as well as political liberty. Hold onto your rifles he repeated - (Morley 2012 P. 56). 

This was in clear reference to Pearse and the Irish Volunteers, though some argue he was referring to Eoin MacNeill [nominal head of the Volunteers] who by this time had made it clear he was not prepared to sanction, let alone partake in the rising. Can any similarities be drawn with today’s variants of republicanism, for example Republican Socialism and main stream republicanism? That is in the eye of the reader to decide!

In three short years the Citizen Army, becoming the Irish Citizen Army, had gone from being primarily a picket and freedom of assembly defence force to becoming a revolutionary socialist army with its own political and economic agenda. That agenda was far longer reaching than merely defeating the occupying enemy, the British. Commandant James Connolly was executed on 12th May 1916 after the rising was defeated. He was succeeded as Commandant by James O’Neill, a Carpenter, who lacked all of his predecessor’s attributes and political knowledge of Marxism leading to a separate agenda to those of the volunteers. O’Neill left a lot to be desired and the words, “in for his own ends” come to mind, he was no James Connolly or for that matter, Jim Larkin.

James Connolly perhaps the ICAs most famous Commandant, and certainly the man who developed on the work of his predecessor after Larkin departed for the USA was not a founder of the army. He was not a member of the first Army Council and it was not until later on he took the reins carrying out sterling work in the development of the Irish Citizen Army. Perhaps certain historians who claim Connolly to have been a founder, as do the twenty-six-county state it would appear, find this false interpretation of history nice and convenient. 

What a great pity such an organisation does not exist today. Imagine if the British coal miners during the 1984/85 Miners Strike, lasting one year, could have called on a modern equivalent of the Irish Citizen Army!!

Caoimhin O’Muraile is a Dublin 
based Marxist and author. 

4 comments:

  1. Caoimhin - I found that a very good read.
    However, I doubt very much such a movement today would have much success. The state is shaped in such a way that it can absorb that type of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AM

    That would depend how such a force would be organised. If a group based on the ICA were formed to defend workers involved in a strike - the ISTC and NUM, SOGAT in Britain during the eighties - it would have to be on the understanding that the strike is the first ingredient to taking on and crushing capitalism. The strike, civil disobedience backed by armed resistance, all three equally important, would be needed to address and rectify the problems inflicted on the proletariat by high finance capitalism. As things stand, the state in all probability could "absorb that type of thing". The revolutionary situation must exist. Back in 1984/85 in my experience such a situation potentially did exist. Not brought about by the NUM, but by the right-wing administration of Thatcher. At Orgrave the police, if that is what they were (reference Striking Similarities, by Kevin Morley), if they had been faced by snipers and armed pickets, as may have been the case in the USA the outcome could have been different. The NUM played by traditional British rules of industrial conflict, it was the state - army and police on Thatchers orders - who moved the goalposts nearer to a revolutionary situation. A modern ICA would have equalled things out, in a situation not of the Miners choosing or creating.

    Caoimhin.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Caoimhin - I don't see revolution working in the West. I think this is why Gramsci and later Poulantzas worked so hard in examining Western societies are actually ruled. Had the miners armed in 84 the military would have crushed them.
      Today, it is even harder - if you look at how ridiculous the application of armed struggle has become in the North where there has been a history of it.
      Society might need revolutionised but it will never be if left to the revolutionaries.

      Delete

  3. AM

    I see your point and yes, the British Army would have been in the field, no doubt about it. The object of having a revolutionary army is indeed to engage the state in all its manifestations, including the army. The idea is to have a workers armed wing capable of fullfilling this task. Back in 1984, remembering the strike was called by the government who were the employers - as William Martin Murphy called the strike and lockout in 1913 - and the NUM, which had revolutionaries in their ranks (not the SWP or any other joke woukd be revolutionary party) but face workers who whould, if called on take up arms. That said, such a move would have to be thought out, an alternative to liberal democracy and free market economics put in place and there was no such plan, there was no time. As in 1913 when the ITGWU had revolutionaroes in the leadership, Connolly the best known there were others like William Partridge who was less known. The lockout like the miners strike was not, and even Connolly recognised this, about revolution, it was about union recognition, and the right of workers to join a union of their choice. It was also about the right of the unskilled to organise in trade unions. The miners dispute was about pit closures and the NUM had little prior notice of Thatchers "hit list". It developed into a potential revolutionary situation and arms, on top of everything else going on perhaps was not considered. A small group of NUM activists toyed with the idea but reportedly were talked out of it by, none other than Martin McGuinness who was no communist revolutionary.

    The next opportunity was the anti-polltax demos, when the army were on standby, I saw them. This time being caught by short notice was no excuse, plenty of notice was given by Thatcher.

    The first the NUM knew of pit closures was at a monthly meeting between the NCB management and the NUM. George Hayes, NCB area manager, dropped this on the union Cortonwood was closing, a pit with huge reserves of coal.The NUM had to fight at very short notice and inporting weapons woukd not have been on the agenda, certainly in the early months. As the strike dragged on it became apparent that the only way to stop police brutality and, perhaps more importantly, the onslaught by the state was the armed overthrow of that state. Thatcher employed every devious move she could, even members of her own party were privately questionibg the legality of her strategies. She had planned the showdown with the miners as far back as 1974 - again I reffer you to Striking Similarities, the book by Kevin Morley, which provides quotes from people like David Hart, a multi-millionaire who helped form and finance the scab UDM. It is obvious as society, certainly in Britain, moves further away from the pluralist form of Industrial Relations and more towards pre Second World War unitarism, and Ireland will follow, in fact they are following suite - take your own dispute Anthony, refusing to recognise the IWU by the employers and riding roughshod towards privatisation - unitarism which does not involve trade unions is on the horizon. Workers had to break the rich mans law to form unions, now they must do the same to defend them. This time though, no half way agreements which the bosses can break anytime they wish, as they did to the NUM, the machinery in place sinse 1945 involving consultation over closing exhausted pits was scrapped over night. This time, if the opportunity ever arises it must be us or them. The problem is one of leadership, or lack of.

    The situation in the six counties was a little different, we must discuss it at some point mo chara. Battery low.

    Caoimhin

    ReplyDelete