The abandonment of the Republic for which he fought in return for a partitionist settlement proved not to be a settlement at all but remains a cause of conflict one hundred years on from his death.
Like the Easter Rising, Lynch’s stance remains unfinished business which makes contemporary political manifestations wary of commemorating them. Indeed revisionism was always deeply rooted in party politics wherein the green must be worn but only under several layers of more expedient garments.
With that in mind, a minor alarm bell rang in the Prologue where the author references Provisional Sinn Féin’s “unashamed ideological Irish republicanism.” Is that a kite flying exercise to ameliorate that party’s decidedly shameful departure from the aforementioned ideology via his study of Lynch?
Whilst not judging the book by the prologue its niggling effect was amplified in the first chapter’s reference to John Redmond seeking British favour by urging the National Volunteers to be loyal Irish and become cannon fodder on the Somme. The parallels with Sinn Féin representatives attending the royal coronation leapt from the text.
Lynch’s evolution from nationalist Home Ruler to republican separatist is carefully mapped out with particular emphasis on the emotive impact that the arrest and execution of Thomas Kent made upon him. And again this seems to be setting the tone that Lynch’s judgements were emotively based rather than a self-assurance that many of his peers testified that he had.
This perception of him was translated into other areas, most notably his seeming disappointment at not being arrested. The inference made that Lynch felt less important than those who were arrested, and this conclusion was reached from correspondence with his brother. Yet there are also references to his place of work being raided several times by the British Army and his due diligence in avoiding arrest to ensure his training of the Volunteers continued apace.
Lynch is also portrayed as a militarist in his rise in the Volunteers citing examples of his indifference to the Sinn Féin project. But Lynch was driven by his political belief in the absolute necessity of Irish freedom and firmly believed that disciplined armed conflict could achieve this goal. Moreover having been reared in the Fenian tradition and agrarian unrest the politics of the secret society were strong within him.
The book seems competent in its research material and documents well Lynch’s organisational abilities and tireless efforts to transform the IRA under his control into an effective military outfit. It also traces out Lynch’s changing relationship with IRA GHQ in Dublin as the realities of war and peace making unfold from both a national and regional perspective.
Just under halfway into the text we are introduced to the problematic complexities of the relationships involved between membership of both the IRA and the IRB and raises the question of ultimately where loyalties lay. Michael Collins, as a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB, (as was Lynch) once remarked that his loyalty lay with the IRB because he feared that one day Dáil Eireann could betray the Republic.
Maybe due to contradiction or a failure to fully grasp Lynch’s view on politics at the time but reference to a conversation that Lynch had with a comrade, and in tandem with a lengthy document which he submitted after a request from Richard Mulcahy, Lynch clearly sees the role of the Sinn Fein organisation and Dáil Eireann as intertwined wings of the overall armed struggle, but severely criticises them for their inadequacy in this role. This leads to his premise that ‘the politicians will let us down’ in their dealings with the British just as they had let him down in practical support for the war effort.
There appears to be no insight on Lynch’s view of the truce itself, yet he welcomed it as a hiatus to rebuild and replenish his command area, but he moved forward on the basis that the resumption of the war was inevitable. Like recurring echoes those who favoured negotiations were less than forthcoming about the extent of the compromises which would have to be made; and those who were in IRA leadership, like Mulcahy, expected a compliant silence from those who were actually fighting the war.
Here’s where the competing loyalties (IRA/IRB) for Lynch came to the fore. The IRB Supreme Council approved the Treaty as did Dáil Eireann. Lynch and others who rejected the Treaty sought legitimacy in the auspices of the IRA, more specifically the Army Executive as had been the case prior to any loyalty being ceded to the Ministry of Defence.
Lynch’s main priority was to maintain a unity grounded in the authority of the Republic being vested in the Army Executive and any manifestations from the Treaty, political or military, were to be subordinate to that authority. As a compromise it made perfect sense if the ‘stepping-stone’ argument was to be believed. The Shelling of the Four Courts brought clarity to that.
The book explores in some detail not just the divisions between pro and anti-Treaty factions but also divisions amongst the anti-Treaty volunteers themselves. The bleak dichotomy of loyalty to the Republic and the inevitability of Civil War loomed large. On the pro-Treaty side the dichotomy was loyalty to what they signed up for and the stern and deliberate expectations the British demanded of them because they did. The manipulation of division is the essence of imperial conquest.
Despite numerous efforts to reach compromise and avoid civil conflict the inevitable occurred as the political momentum in the country rallied behind the Free State. It soon became apparent to Lynch that this reality, combined with a deep-rooted reluctance on behalf of his Volunteers to actually press the fight home against former comrades, called for a drastic re-evaluation of tactics.
This is competently documented in the book as is Lynch’s overall distrust of DeValera’s approach to subordinate the IRA to some form of political control under the auspices of a Republican Government, with DeValera as its President. The earlier assertion of Lynch’s disinterest in politics is now firmly translated into his mistrust of it and, arguably, wholly justified.
What permeates the politics of the Civil War was the viciousness of it. It was abundantly clear that the newly found political power of the Free State establishment was not going to be ceded, as witnessed by the executions of republican prisoners. The book duly notes Lynch’s and the IRA’s Executive response to this by issuing the edict that any elected Free State TD who supported such executions would themselves in turn face similar reprisal.
Whilst several high-profile republicans like Tom Barry and Liam Deasy made separate efforts to secure peace terms, rejected by Lynch, the book could have gone further in demonstrating that Lynch was not acting alone but in the most part had the full support of the IRA Executive.
That said, the inevitability of defeat was beginning to be measured in the extent of that defeat and if anything for the republican side could be salvaged. For Lynch that meant negotiations on an equal footing; for the Free State/British it meant the complete opposite.
On the 10th of April 1923 General Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, was shot dead by Free State Forces at the foot of the Knockmealdown Mountains. In the wake of his death military hostilities in the Civil War came to an end. The question remains of his legacy and those who would lay claim to it.
The niggling fears alluded to in the Prologue began to re-emerge. Quoting Micheal Martin on Lynch he (Martin) lauded the anti-Treaty origins of Fianna Fail, singularly failing to distinguish the very different grounds upon which DeValera and Lynch opposed that pact. Is there any difference between shelling the Four Courts and bringing over the English hangman as a means to address the existence of the IRA?
The Provisional IRA’s claim to the revolutionary tradition reaches its zenith in partnership with Fianna Fail and the Good Friday Agreement and the promise of a Border Poll, but one is left unclear if that also required the death of a metaphorical Liam Lynch to facilitate it.
Either way the book is relatively competent in both structure and research but lacks the political insight into precisely what Liam Lynch believed in and fought for. It certainly wasn’t a Border Poll.
Gerard Shannon, 2023, Liam Lynch: To Declare A Republic. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: 978-1788558211
⏩ The Fenian Way was a full time activist during the IRA's war against the British.
"We have declared for an Irish Republic. We will live by no other law" Liam Lynch was emphatic about that. Don't possess the emotional strength required to examine how that could ever be reconciled with support of a Six-County poll ordered by a Westminster parliament. Do wonder though whether there's a plan B,C or D.
ReplyDeleteyet a border poll is the only mechanism let to republicanism, having been routed on everything else. The strategic question is what to do in the event of one being called.
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