by Joe Power
The war had taught a terrible lesson … it has been carried out with a horrible and shocking brutality … one of the greatest curses of modern European life is what we know as conscription … An attempt was made to foist this blood-stained horror on our country against its will … but she confronted this horrible thing with a heart of Christian fortitude, determined to die rather than submit to this tyranny.16
However, while the majority of Irish nationalists supported the anti-conscription campaign, a few loyalists and others were opposed to it. It took a brave and perhaps foolhardy person to publicly oppose the general consensus in the county. A police report for County Clare stated that ‘nobody publicly supports the conscription proposal, as the scattered loyalists, while ready to submit to it themselves, can hardly be expected to make themselves unpopular by advocating it publicly. Fr Maguire, PP of Flagmount near Lough Graney, County Clare was rash enough to denounce the signing of the anti-conscription covenant on 21 April, so an attempt, fortuitously, unsuccessful, was made to burn the church three days later’.17
Cumann na mBan
The women of Clare also played a role in the anti-conscription campaign. A special day, the feast of St Columbcille, was set apart to give the women of Ireland an opportunity to demonstrate their opposition to conscription by signing an anti-conscription pledge. Because of Martial Law the meetings had to be conducted under the guise of religious gatherings, which were most useful for this political purpose, when Church and nation were united in a common cause.
The women of Ennis and district turned out in large numbers. They assembled at the cathedral at 1 p.m. after Mass and from there a procession was marshalled by the leading members of the Ennis Cumann na mBan under Mrs Roughan and Miss Begley. Led by the cathedral altar boys carrying a large crucifix, they marched through the main streets to the Franciscan church. The members of the Women’s Sodality were in their own sections with separate banners. The women sang hymns and recited prayers. At the Franciscan church they offered prayers for the purpose of their procession and the women then returned to the cathedral for solemn Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament by V. Revd Fr Hogan, Administrator.
There was also a large demonstration by the women of Miltown Malbay. After Mass, the women from all the surrounding districts marched in procession following a large green flag. They walked to St Joseph’s Holy Well about a mile away. They sang sacred songs as they marched through the streets. The women were accompanied by two priests, Fr Enright, CC, and Fr Lalor, CC. At the holy well the rosary was recited, followed by the prayer of St Joseph and by the singing of hymns. On the return journey through the town of Miltown Malbay the women sang ‘A Soldier’s Song’.
In addition to their opposition to conscription, young women were also discouraged by members of Sinn Féin from courting British soldiers. One Ennis man, Paddy Reidy, a member of the Sinn Féin Club, was fined 21s at the Ennis Petty Sessions in January for assaulting his sixteen-year-old sister, who had been going out with a member of the Welsh Fusiliers. When he found her in College Road with a soldier he, allegedly, slapped her and knocked her to the ground.
Katie and Peg Barrett of Cragbrien, Mid-Clare Brigade Cumann na mBan.
(Courtesy of Peadar McNamara collection, per Prof. David Fitzpatrick)
Fr O’Kennedy, president of the Sinn Féin Club in Ennis, publicly denounced at a Sinn Féin meeting the ‘savage’ sentence imposed by the RM, Mr McElroy:
She was a slip of a thing, sixteen and a half years old. She had got out of her mother’s control and, like too many Ennis girls, got a craze for running after soldiers. On one occasion he snatched her from the company of a Welsh Fusilier. Several times he followed her to the Watery Road and the College Road, where he found her in the company of other women, who were evidently not out for recreation.
He said that the ‘Irishman loves the purity of the Irish woman’. He stressed that Paddy Reidy would not pay the fine for ‘protecting the morals of his sister from becoming the playthings of Welshmen and Scotchmen and that he would go to Limerick Jail for a month to herd with criminals of every kind rather than pay the fine’.18
“ENGLAND HAS NO MORAL RIGHT TO ENFORCE CONSCRIPTION” His Lordship Most Rev. Dr. Fogarty, Lord Bishop of Killaloe, has addressed the following letter to the Ennis Sinn Féin Club:
Ennis, 5 April 1918
Dear Mr Guinane,
I must thank you and the Sinn Féin Executive for the resolutions you have sent me, and which I highly value.
Sinn Féin needs no vindication from me or anyone else. We had almost ceased to be Irish until Sinn Féin arose and struck the English rust from the soul of Ireland. Unfortunately, that rust had eaten deep, and spoiled many a good Irish heart.
For one thing, I hope we are done forever with that mockery of a constitution: the English House of Commons.
The self-control maintained by the young people of Ireland, and especially of Clare, in spite of the callous provocations to which they are being subjected is beyond all praise. Everything truly Irish is being oppressed with a tyranny, both brutal and scandalous. Young men, the flower of the country, are being arrested wholesale, degraded, insulted, imprisoned, shot or bayoneted like poor Thomas Russell, of Carrigaholt, the killing of whom is, in all its circumstances, one of the most horrid and atrocious things I ever heard of. Were these things done in Belgium how the world would be made to ring with the cry of German atrocities.
But this policy of oppression and provocation will not succeed in its purpose, which is obvious enough to clear the ground by the extermination of national spirit for the ‘English friendlies’ of the ‘sanity’ Party, and, if possible, prepare the way for conscription – which, by the way, no government, in my opinion, has the moral right to inflict on any nation without that nation’s clearly expressed consent.
Martial law has not shaken the hand of Clare, which still holds in firm grasp the Sinn Féin banner of Irish Independence, and will continue to hold it until that independence is fully realised. No scheme of federation, which leaves Ireland as a morsel swallowed in the British stomach will be accepted here.
I enclose, with my good wishes, a cheque for the support of the Clare prisoners.
I am, yours sincerely,
M. Fogarty
Closure of the Clare Champion
The Clare Champion gave prominence to Sinn Féin activities and propaganda, with ‘seditious and subversive’ articles, which annoyed the authorities. One provocative and cheeky small advertisement was placed in the edition of 2 February 1918, announcing a ‘GRAND DANCE to be held at Rath on Sunday 3 February, in aid of the Rath Company of the I.R.A. Admission: Gents 2s. Ladies 1s.’
Advertisement for the IRA in the Clare Champion.
The editor of the Clare Champion refused on principle to comply with the censorship rules imposed by the British authorities and as a result the newspaper was closed down for about six months from 30 March until 28 September 1918 under DORA regulations. Part of the printing press was ‘dismantled’ by police and soldiers.
Now, there was only one local Clare newspaper left to inform the public of what was happening in the county, the ‘unionist’ Saturday Record. Of course, there were national papers circulating also, such as the Irish Independent, as well as some Limerick papers, which had some circulation in the county, perhaps in Ennis, Killaloe and Kilkee. This lack of a local publicity forum did not deter the republicans, in Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan, who grew from strength to strength, despite arrests and harassments of leading republicans throughout the year. Because of the void in the local press the power and influence of the Catholic clergy probably became more prominent in the county at this time.
The banned newspaper, the Clare Champion, re-appeared on the streets again on 28 September 1918. In an editorial, Mr Sarsfield Maguire defiantly stated, ‘We need not say that where we stood previous to our enforced silence we stand today. The best return is to give a clear and honest journal, which true to the motto, and having arisen
to complete its tasks, will remain firm to the cause until our people become free men and victory is won’.19
‘The German Plot’
One extraordinary event occurred early on 13 April, when a stranger landed mysteriously from a canvas canoe on Crab Island, near Doolin, County Clare, having been brought to Ireland on a German submarine. Sub-headings in the local paper referred to ‘The Crab Island Visitor’ or ‘The Man in the Collapsible Boat’. The landing at Doolin sparked off a sequence of events leading to the internment of the Sinn Féin leadership under what became known as the ‘German Plot’. The man was arrested and it was revealed in the House of Commons that he was Joseph Dowling, a former lance-corporal in the Connaught Rangers, who had been incarcerated in Limburg Prison, Germany, after being captured early in the war during the retreat from Mons in 1914. He was one of the fifty-two prisoners who had allegedly volunteered to join Sir Roger Casement’s ‘Irish Brigade’. L-Cpl Joseph Dowling was a native of Bantry and had apparently been in the RIC before the war. After interrogation in Ireland he was taken to the Tower of London, where he was put on trial. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment. He was released following representations from the Irish Government on 2 February 1924.
The arrest of Joseph Dowling in Doolin, along with the arrest of two Sinn Féiners in Dublin allegedly trying to contact a German submarine, provided ‘moral proof’ for the government that the Sinn Féin Party were plotting and co-operating with Germany to launch an armed uprising. These events spurred the authorities in Dublin Castle and the British Government in London to arrest and intern the Sinn Féin leaders. The ‘German Plot’ was used as a propaganda excuse to discredit the Sinn Party in America, suggesting that the Sinn Féiners were co-operating with the enemies of the USA as well as Britain, France and Belgium. One hundred and fifty members of Sinn Féin, including de Valera, were arrested on the night of 16-17 May and interned in England. It is widely believed that there was no substance to the allegations, but they were used by the British authorities for propaganda purposes to discredit Sinn Féin, especially in the USA.20
A New Recruitment Campaign
As the war slowly dragged on the military authorities in Ireland embarked on a new voluntary recruitment campaign, seeking 50,000 new Irish recruits to fill the gaps in the ranks. Large advertisements appeared in the papers, urging Claremen to enlist. Subtle differences in advertising referred to ‘fighting alongside the American and French allies’. There was no mention of the fate of ‘gallant little Belgium’ on this occasion.
Selected letters were also published in the only local paper in circulation at the time, the Saturday Record, referring to the fate of Irish prisoners in Germany.
Mr Thomas Ryan, a member of Kilrush Urban Council, received a letter from a prisoner of war, Pte J. Manning from Kilrush, who had been imprisoned in Germany. It was selected for publication in the local paper in August, obviously for propaganda purposes:
Dear Mr Ryan – just a few lines to thank you for your kindness and generosity, referring to parcels sent by you early in 1915, which were distributed amongst the Kilrush men. I can say you were an exception. I think you were the only one who tried to help. I am now myself in Holland and I shall never forget my sufferings in Germany. They are an inhuman race of people. You can well believe that we were suffering severely that time I wrote to you for help; but a little after that our parcels started coming. Then we were not badly off, but the ‘Gerrys’ still kept beating us. But if I was to fight again in the morning, I would not take a square head prisoner, I would knife him. It is these people that has caused all the trouble in our land. God help Ireland if she should be under German rule, then we would be slaves. They would do the same with us as they have done with Belgium, Servia and Russia. I know what the German is, he is worse than the beast in the field. You would hardly believe that was true until you had seen it. So, dear Mr Ryan, I will close now, thanking you once more.
I remain, your sincere friend, J. Manning.21
Postcard sent by a prisoner of war, Cpl T. Kelly, Royal Munster Fusiliers, to Miss Maunsell, Island Magrath, Clare Castle. The card was sent from a camp in Holland. It is dated 22 May 1918. (Courtesy of Brian Honan Collection)
Another former prisoner of war, J.F. O’Connor, a member of the Gordon Highlanders, wrote a letter of thanks to Mrs Isabel Studdert, honorary secretary of the County Clare Prisoners of War Committee, Bindon Street Ennis. The letter was posted on 31 May from Schevingen, Deplaan, Group No 5, Holland:
Madam, I am sure you will be pleased to hear from me, and that I am enjoying good health since my arrival here. I am having quite a good time, and find the people very nice, and ever ready to help us enjoy ourselves. I assure you my treatment here is a thousand times better than in Germany. I wish to thank you and all good friends in Clare for your kindness to me and other Clare prisoners in our very hard and trying times in Germany. I firmly believe were it not for the help of the Prisoners of War Fund, I would not have lived. Thank God those days of torture, starvation, hard marches in Russia with nothing to eat for days, bullying and prison life in Cologne in Germany are all over. Now that I am in a friendly country, I have the pleasure of enjoying my much longed-for freedom. Who knows, but I may be back soon again in France fighting those barbarous Huns, and getting a little of my own back. I hope this finds you in the best of health.
Again, thanking you for your kindness, which will live in my memory for years.
Yours, very sincerely, JF O’Connor.22
Another letter was published in the Saturday Record, allegedly written by an Irish priest in Paris to Mr P. Howard, honorary secretary, Maj. Willie Redmond Memorial Fund. The letter was sent to the paper by Mr Pat McInerney, a district councillor from Doora:
Dear Sir,
For many reasons, but above all being Irish, I admire the beautiful and heroic death of Major Wm Redmond. I hope it will be a good example to those who must join in the great struggle of war, if they wish Ireland to be free and a great nation.
Your, faithfully, L’Abbe Flynn PP.23
Capt. J.F.J. Fitzpatrick, assistant organiser of recruitment, appeared before Kilrush Urban District Council in June and appealed for volunteers to help the Allied cause. ‘Volunteers’, he said, ‘would prevent conscription’. He was given a polite but courteous reception, but no resolution in favour of recruitment was passed this time. In a follow up letter to the Saturday Record in September, Capt. Fitzpatrick, describing himself as a Catholic, an Irishman and as a home ruler, emphasised the ‘folly, the hopelessness and therefore the wickedness of active resistance to recruitment’. In October the local recruitment committee sent a delegation to address Clare County Council. They also got a polite hearing, but little support, and no resolution in favour of voluntary recruitment was passed on this occasion.24
In the middle of September, Lt Abraham, assistant organiser at the recruitment office, Ennis, wrote a letter to the Saturday Record suggesting the formation of a local committee to promote recruitment:
Recruiting Office,
Ennis, co. Clare,
Sir,
12th September, 1918
May I be allowed to intrude upon your space to invite the assistance of the people of Clare in the campaign for the voluntary enlistment of the 50,000 recruits asked for by the Lord Lieutenant? For this task the support of public opinion is essential, and in connection with this out-station a local committee will be set up to advise upon the local organisation of publicity and the supply of information to prospective recruits. I shall be grateful if all who are prepared to join the committee, or to assist in any way, will communicate with me.
Yours faithfully,
L.A. Abraham, Lieut.,
Assistant Organiser, I.R.C.
During October and early November Lt Abraham hired a car from M.F. Tierney of Abbey Street, Ennis and toured around the county meeting significant people as part of his work seeking more recruits. On 28 October he
travelled to Kildysart, Lissycasey and district, a total of 45 miles. On 2 November he took a longer journey, travelling to Ruan, Corofin, Ballyvaughan, New Quay, Lisdoonvarna and Kilfenora, a total round trip of 68 miles. Finally, on 8 November, he took a journey to the districts of Crusheen, Carrahan, Quin and Newmarket-on-Fergus, a total of 34 miles. The rate for hiring the car was one shilling per mile, plus the cost of the petrol.25
Col Arthur Lynch, always sensitive about urging Irishmen to fight for the British Army, ever since his anti-British activities during the Boer War, where he was a ‘colonel’ of an Irish pro-Boer ‘brigade’, tried a new tack. He sought to set up an Irish Brigade of his own to fight alongside the ‘gallant French and American allies in Europe’. Though, he said, that they had spurned his offer to form an Irish regiment in 1914, in June 1918 the British Government granted him a commission in the army as a colonel and he swallowed his pride and accepted it for a greater cause. He came to Ireland to raise a regiment. He proposed that they would fight under Irish officers and that they would form a distinctive Irish Brigade with Irish colours and fight alongside the American and French allies. This concession of a distinctive Irish Brigade was sought by John Redmond in 1914, but denied to him then. The French Prime Minister, Mr Clemenceau, sent a special message to Col Lynch, MP, who had lived in Paris for many years and had been a well-known journalist, as well as being a well-known Francophile: ‘I am deeply touched by the evidence of personal friendship for France conveyed in your letter. I send you ardent vows for success in the new task which your patriotism has induced you to accept as well as the expression of my most cordial good wishes’.26
