The Irish Civil War - Seán Enright

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real power was exercised by Liam Lynch Chief of Staff of the anti-Treaty army.

      Liam Lynch at only 29 was chief of staff of the anti-Treaty army. He had formerly been a Divisional Commander during the War of Independence. He kept the civil war going long after it had been lost. On 10 April 1923, during a National Army sweep across the Knockmealdown mountains he was wounded and died later that day. This precipitated the end of the civil war.

      The lawyers

      Sir Charles O’Connor, Master of the Rolls. During the War of Independence, he gave judgment against the British Army and in favour of the prisoners in a landmark case that brought executions to a halt in the martial law area: Egan v Macready [1921] IR 265. He was one of the judges kept on by the new provisional government after the Treaty. It was said rather cynically, he had ‘acquired merit’ in the eyes of the new administration. He also gave judgment in the case which resulted in the execution of Childers: R (Childers) v the Adjutant General of the forces of the Irish Free State [1923] 1 IR 5. He was a member of the O’Connor clan – a subject on which he would bore anyone who cared to listen.

      Cahir Davitt. Son of the land leaguer, Davitt had been a judge of the Dáil courts in 1920-1. In the summer of 1922, he was recruited by Collins to be judge advocate general of the new National Army. He had a supervisory role in respect of all trials by military courts.

      Thomas Francis Molony – a long-time home ruler. He was appointed chief justice of Ireland in 1918 and steered the law through the most difficult times. The courts over which he presided were partially supplanted during the War of Independence by the new Dáil courts and also by the martial law courts set up by the British Army to try those captured with arms. In this era he gave judgement in many of the leading cases, notably R v Allen [1921] 2 241. During the civil war the new Irish Army would also set up military courts to try civilians and once again the courts over which Molony presided were marginalised. It was not until after the civil war in the summer of 1923 that Molony was able to reassert the rule of law.

      Michael Comyn, KC. Comyn was anti-Treaty. He used his legal skills to try and discredit the actions of the provisional government through a series of inquests into the deaths of men killed in the custody of the state.

      Tim Healy, KC. A pro-Treatyite from west Cork. Healy was an author, journalist, barrister, MP. Small in build and red haired with a foul temper he was a formidable defence advocate with a pungent wit. At an early stage in his career he was responsible for the Healy Clause in the Land Act of 1881 which meant that increases in rent could not be levied as a result of improvement to land made by a tenant. He helped bring down Parnell. He made his career as a constitutional nationalist politician although there were long-standing suspicions that he was an IRB man and also a British spy. He was one of a handful of lawyers who helped shape the policy of the provisional government and the drafting of the Irish Constitution. He would become the first governor general of the Irish Free State in December 1922.

      It was the worst possible start for a small state that had just secured a measure of independence. After the death of Collins, the new commander in chief of the National Army, General Mulcahy, urged his men not to retaliate, and, on the anti-Treaty side, Liam Lynch also urged his men to adhere to recognised standards of warfare. Both sides fell far short of this ideal.

      The war was a complex and multi-layered event that cannot be recorded in a single volume and this book deals only with one dimension – deaths in custody of the state. By focussing on the execution policy and the fate of prisoners killed in custody, it should not be thought that the death and suffering of so many others is considered less important or not highly relevant to the context in which these events took place. One distinguished historian has argued that all that took place allowed the losing faction to assert ‘victimhood’ and the full context of all that took place should be acknowledged.1 The anti-Treaty forces perpetrated killings that still shock. Not just civilians shot in the crossfire but during attacks on the National Army in Dublin that sometimes showed a reckless disregard for civilians. Others were killed in the flood of robberies that overtook the country although not every robbery or even most robberies can be safely ascribed to the anti-Treaty faction.

      The attacks on the railways also claimed the lives of civilians: the Liscahane train derailment is an example. At Ballyconnell, a column of anti-Treaty fighters killed two civilians, wounded a third and left a trail of arson and robbery in their wake before disappearing into the hills. There were also occasional killings of unarmed national soldiers on leave like National Army Private Denis McCarthy who was shot in the back as he was taking leave of his wife, and the assassination of Commandant Peter Doyle at Wexford Cathedral. In a final category was the occasional shooting of prominent or outspoken Free State supporters like Old Doctor Higgins, the Coroner of King’s County. This perhaps gives the flavour of events, but what follows is not a comparison of the conduct of both sides.

      This book explores the execution policy and unauthorised killings in custody which were closely connected. It examines how a climate emerged in which prisoners could be tried by rudimentary military courts and then executed, how so many other prisoners were killed without any trial and why so much of what took place was simply blanked out of the public consciousness.

      Jock McPeake

      His name was Jock McPeake. He had been the machine-gunner on the armoured car Slievenamon on the day Michael Collins was killed.

      A few months later, McPeake drove the Slievenamon out of the barracks and handed it over to anti-Treaty fighters. One cynical account implied that he was a good-looking young man with an eye for the ladies and he had been suborned by a girl from a local Cumann. Others said that McPeake had become disillusioned with the civil war; he had taken part in some hard fighting in the summer of 1922.1 He witnessed a landmine explosion in west Cork that killed seven National Army soldiers and afterwards watched as an anti-Treaty prisoner was put to death by officers of the Dublin Guard. Although McPeake had served in the British Army he was still only 20. He had been recruited in Glasgow and seems to have realised, too late, that he had got himself involved in a war with few rules. McPeake made contact with anti-Treaty fighters and did a deal: in exchange for getting him out of Ireland he would hand over the Slievenamon. When the time came, he drove the Slievenamon out of Bandon barracks and delivered it to anti-Treaty fighters. McPeake was forgotten while the National Army tried to recover the armoured car.

      The fate of the Slievenamon became tangled up in myth and legend. According to the judge advocate general (JAG) a team of officers from General Headquarters (GHQ) went down to Cork and quickly recaptured the armoured car and brought it back to Portobello barracks where they held a party in the officers’ mess. Late that night, as the party was winding up, a gun was discharged and Bob, one of the mess orderlies was mortally wounded. The barracks chaplain rushed in still in dressing gown and pyjamas and was about to administer the last rites when Bob spoke his last words: ‘Tell Father Concannon to go and fuck himself. I’m a protestant.’

      The account about Father Concannon is entirely true, but in fact more than one armoured car was captured during the war and the JAG seems to have mixed them up. The real story is that the Slievenamon was brought into action against the National Army again and again with telling effect.2 Eventually, riddled with punctures and lacking spare parts, it was driven into the furze where it gathered rust.

      Jock McPeake hid out in the hills and took no further part in the war. In the summer of 1923 he escaped to Scotland in the hold of a cattle boat. After the civil war was over and at the request of the Free State government, he was deported back to Ireland on a charge of larceny of the Slievenamon. McPeake appeared before the District Court in Cork. A slim young man in a blue suit, he gripped the rail of the dock and looked about for a friendly face as the district judge remanded him for seven days. When he next appeared before the court, he had acquired a young and quite inexperienced solicitor.3

      State Prosecutor Captain Healy told the court that the witnesses were all soldiers and could not be traced and the state wanted to drop the case. McPeake’s solicitor informed the district judge that his client would plead guilty. ‘No,’ said the state prosecutor, ‘we are dropping the case.’ McPeake’s

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