LITMIR.BIZ

      INTRODUCTION

      The Political Life of Richard Mulcahy,

      1890–1959

      In a political life which spanned the spectrum of the three major political phases of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Irish history, namely the Irish–Ireland phase, the belligerent phase and the post-Civil War, party-political phase, Richard Mulcahy’s contribution to both the formative and the developmental processes of modern Ireland’s polity place him at the top of the country’s founding nationalist elite.

      The Irish–Ireland Phase, 1890–1913

      Mulcahy did not come from a radical political background, quite the opposite, in fact. His father, Patrick, a post office clerk, and conservative by nature, frowned on anything which might compromise his position in the postal service or might hinder the attainment of safe and respectable prospects for his children. Instead, it was in the strict practice of religion and learning that he, supported by his wife, Elizabeth, resided all of his hopes for his family’s future.

      Ironically, therefore, due to both local convenience and economic necessity, Mulcahy came to be educated within the ambient nationalist environment of the Christian Brother schools, starting in Waterford city and finishing in the town of Thurles. In particular, the patriotic content of some of the Brothers’ textbooks exerted an important influence over him. As a consequence, during the period 1890–1902, he began to develop an interest in Irish history and current affairs.

      But Mulcahy’s own powerful, self-reliant, autodidactic tendencies, especially on topics of special interest to him, came into play too. As a result, at the start of the new century, when he was about fourteen years of age, he took the opportunity to participate in extra-curricular, spoken Irish classes. Furthermore, at approximately the same time, his neighbour, Jim Kennedy, who was four years older than him and who became centre of the local circle of the clandestine, oath-bound, physical-force Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), began befriending and influencing him. In that event, by 1903, nationalism had become such an identifiable feature of his personality that, upon joining the postal service after his Intermediate Certificate examinations, some of his work colleagues during the short time he was in Tralee passed on their used copies of Griffith’s United Irishman to him. A year later still, he joined the Gaelic League in Bantry. And, in 1908, after a brief sojourn in Wexford, he moved to Dublin, where he immediately joined the IRB. Then, four years later, as an indication of the IRB’s early response to Asquith’s Home Rule Bill, he took part in military drill practice and maybe rifle practice as well.

      The Belligerent Phase, 1913–24

      Mulcahy joined the newly formed Irish Volunteer army during the winter of 1913. The following year, after the commencement of the First World War, saw him participate in the Howth gunrunning episode. Moreover, he was one of a small radical group, made up mostly of IRB members, whose plan, subsequently cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, was to occupy the Mansion House in order to disrupt a British army enlistment rally which was to be addressed by Asquith and Redmond.

      However, the full strength of his revolutionary political interests did not become apparent until the Rebellion of Easter Week 1916, when, after spiritual reflection at a retreat in the Jesuit House at Milltown Park during Holy Week, he unreservedly answered MacDiarmada’s call to arms. Undoubtedly this decision was a watershed moment in his life. It ended his career in the postal service and by the same token it resulted in him playing a conspicuous part in a five-hour-long confrontation with a detachment of Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in Ashbourne, County Meath, this being one of the few military success stories of the Rebellion. As a consequence, he was detained as an internee at Frongoch internment camp, North Wales and came into the company of Michael Collins, who was determined to reorganise the post-Rebellion independence movement using his own version of the IRB as the launch pad.

      As a result, Mulcahy, then in his thirtieth year, set out on what may be termed his professional politico–military career, a career which would bring him authority and power, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, as well as fame and infamy. The three principal leitmotifs of this particular phase were the following: the forging of the national army out of the furnace of change brought about by the further rise in the intensity of militarism and the advent of two wars, one of liberation, the other of brothers; the ambiguous role which the IRB played in the ignition, venting and modulation of that furnace; and the overlapping, military and political executive positions which Collins and Mulcahy came to occupy within the army-building and state-building processes.

      For example, by the time of his release from Frongoch, Christmas 1916, he had become an enthusiastic member of Collins’ IRB. Then, while on his tour of Munster for the Gaelic League (early 1917), he availed of the opportunity to help reorganise the Volunteers. He became Director of Training (DT) (1917); maybe Chief of Staff (CS), but certainly acting CS (most of 1918); and temporary Minister for Defence (MD) (January 1919). Next, in 1919–21, as CS of the emerging Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Assistant Minister for Defence (AMD), he helped mastermind a war of independence, at the end of which he pragmatically accepted a compromise Treaty settlement which involved, inter alia, an oath of allegiance to the English monarch and the splitting of the island of Ireland into two separate political states.

      Clearly, this was a pivotal time in the nation’s history when the overall process of establishing the norms of self-government, together with its attendant personal pecking order, engaged Mulcahy. The same process also engaged some of his fellow Ministers, the likes of de Valera, Collins, Brugha and Stack, followed later by Cosgrave, O’Higgins, de Blaghd and McGrath.

      For instance, de Valera and Brugha were convinced that Ireland, after the Rebellion, no longer needed the services of a clandestine revolutionary organisation in order to fulfil its destiny as an independent democratic state. For that reason, Brugha, more than de Valera for a while, viewed with great suspicion the rise of Collins’ IRB, or, more accurately, as it was centrally about to become, the IRB of the general headquarters (GHQ) staff of the IRA. Indeed, he regarded this cadre as being so exclusive, undemocratic and dangerous that, as early as January 1919, he set out to persuade the army to swear an oath of allegiance to the Dáil. This was a considerable challenge which he succeeded in achieving by

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