by Joe Ambrose
In the fraught months ahead there were many similar public missives involving Breen. The fact that this once overtly silent character was now effectively issuing edicts and seeking to influence public opinion marked a substantial change in his style. He was one of the first of the hard-liner gunmen to enter politics. Within a decade he would be an entirely political, as opposed to a military, figure.
The Third Tipperary Brigade was vocal during the dáil debates which took place between December 1921 and January 1922. Séamus Robinson had been a Sinn Féin TD since 1921 and, naturally, he had a great deal to say about the Treaty and its signatories. His bitter attack on Michael Collins caused disruptions in the chamber: ‘Arthur Griffith has called Collins “the man who won the war”. The press has called him the commander-in-chief of the I.R.A. He has been called “a great exponent of guerrilla warfare” … There are stories going round Dublin of fights he had all over the city – the Custom House in particular … What positions exactly did Michael Collins hold in the army? … Did he ever take part in any armed conflict in which he fought by shooting; the number of such battles or fights; in fact, is there any authoritative record of his having ever fired a shot for Ireland at an enemy of Ireland?’
Breen, accompanied by Seán Hogan, travelled to the United States via London and Montreal. According to My Fight for Irish Freedom he met up with Ghandi while passing through London. This seems deeply improbable unless the Indian leader made a secret unrecorded trip to the English capital at this time. A more plausible yarn suggested that efforts were made in London to recruit this now-famous gunman to the cause of Abdel Krim, the Riffian leader who’d established an independent state in the Rif Mountains of Morocco. Krim was busy fighting Morocco’s Spanish occupiers, having established what he regarded as a real country with a flag and a name. Such a struggle was very much to Breen’s taste – and the people of the Rif were in many ways similar to the community from which he sprang – but he was being recruited as a mercenary gun for hire. He soon found out that Krim’s London agent was also hiring former Black and Tans for the North African war. Breen couldn’t see himself fighting alongside former Tans, no matter how noble the cause.
In America, Breen and Hogan were reunited with Ned O’Brien, one of the Knocklong rescuers who’d been exiled to America because of his role in that affair. They also spent time with Joe McGarrity, lynchpin of Irish-American support for the IRA. They went to Menlo Park, a small California city which had, during the Great War, developed into an important American military base. The opportunity to purchase guns or ammunition would seem to have been the attraction of Menlo Park.
As things began to heat up back in Ireland, Breen received a telegram from a worried Liam Lynch, asking him to come home as soon as he could. By the time Hogan and Breen were smuggled into Cobh in March 1922, the country was unravelling and the drift towards civil war was clear.
The pro-Treaty dáil had established a Provisional Government and the Provisional authorities were enthusiastically building a proper army, partially equipped by the British. They sought to rule over a twenty-six county Irish Free State. Richard Mulcahy was appointed minister for defence and put in charge of this new force, the National Army.
De Valera, opposing the Treaty, resigned as president of the dáil. On 16 January, the first IRA division – the Second Southern Division led by Ernie O’Malley – repudiated the authority of GHQ. On 18 February, Thomas Malone (Seán Forde) in Limerick issued a communiqué stating that: ‘We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic.’
As the British army pulled out of Ireland, barracks were taken over by local IRA units, some pro-Treaty and some opposed. This led to substantial skirmishes and minor hostilities. Breen’s first mission, on his return to Ireland, was to go to Limerick where an aggressive stand-off involving mercurial personalities such as Mick Brennan (pro-Treaty) and Ernie O’Malley (anti-Treaty) looked like boiling over. Breen, along with Liam Lynch, De Valera, Richard Mulcahy and countless other national players strove to prevent hostilities breaking out.
By April, the IRA was occupying Dublin’s Four Courts, determined to make a 1916-style grand gesture in defence of the republican ideal. The approaching split caused real despondency on both sides. The dark mood of the republicans was well reflected in Ernie O’Malley’s recall, in The Singing Flame, of time spent in Dublin with Liam Lynch and Séamus Robinson. ‘Liam Lynch was square and determined looking. He tightened his pince-nez glasses as he muttered, “My God, it’s terrible, terrible.”
‘Séamus Robinson was dogged. His hair was tousled. He held his clenched fist underneath his underlip. Somehow he had sensed that one day something would go wrong. There was an old antagonism between Mulcahy and himself. Séamus had too much of the French kind of inquiring, critical logic.
‘I sat there white-faced, feeling as if I would like to cry.’
Arthur Griffith, the new president of the dáil, could only address a meeting in Sligo under armed guard. During April and May fruitless efforts were made to establish some sort of pact which could avoid the conflict which was now staring everybody in the face.
Breen was deeply involved in the only initiative which ever looked like avoiding trouble. On 1 May, he was one of the most prominent IRA officers to sign what became known as the Army Document. Endorsed by five pro-Treaty and five anti-Treaty major IRA figures – including Collins, Breen, Mulcahy and Florrie O’Donoghue – the statement said that war seemed all the time more inevitable and that such a war would be a calamity which would leave Ireland broken for generations to come:
To avert the catastrophe, we believe that a closing of the ranks all round is necessary.
We suggest to all leaders, army and political and to all citizens and soldiers of Ireland, the advisability of a union of forces on the basis of the acceptance and utilisation of our present national position in the best interests of Ireland; we require that nothing shall be done that would prejudice our position or dissipate our forces.
We feel that on this basis alone can the situation best be faced, viz:
1. The acceptance of the fact – admitted by all sides – that the majority of the people of Ireland are willing to accept the Treaty.
2. An agreed election with a view to
3. Forming a government which will have the confidence of the whole country.
4. Army unification on this basis.
This partial shift in attitude was, from a republican perspective, deviant thinking on the part of Breen and the others. Conversely, it was equally unorthodox behaviour on the part of government members like Mulcahy and Collins, who was minister for finance in the new administration. Acting as supposed commonwealth rulers, they were making a pact with rebels who sought the destruction of that connection.
One republican paper, The Plain People, said that Breen was a Judas who hadn’t even received his thirty pieces of silver. In The Singing Flame, Ernie O’Malley angrily recalled: ‘Another little crisis occurred. Some of our officers, including Seán O’Hegarty from Cork and Dan Breen, had entered into negotiations with Mulcahy. A statement was published in the press which was signed by both groups, appealing for a unification of the army on the basis of the acceptance of the Treaty. Our officers had no authority from the executive to negotiate. They evidently meant to work the Treaty and allow the army to gain strength until it could declare for independence. They could not substantiate any agreement arrived at and their action tended to show how disorganised we were and how individual attempts at a settlement would whittle away our resistance. No action was taken by Liam Lynch at this breach of discipline.’
The anti-Treaty men who signed up to the Army Document did not, in any way, represent the IRA. Neither, in all likelihood, was their plan likely to win universal approval from the IRA rank and file. Iconic names like Michael Collins and Dan Breen, nevertheless, still had a touch of magic about them. The initiative did take root and was grateful
ly grasped by a pro-Treaty dáil anxious for peace. De Valera was equally enthusiastic.
The dáil agreed, on 3 May, to see an ‘army deputation’ made up of signatories of the Army Document. Breen made his first appearance in the dáil as a non-elected private citizen, a member of a suddenly disorganised and disillusioned IRA.
Parliaments are naturally disinclined to invite active members of armies – of any hue – into their chambers. Eoin MacNeill, who chaired the session, commented: ‘Is there any suggestion as to what course the discussion ought to take? It is unprecedented.’
Arthur Griffith, encouraging the dáil to hear the delegation, said: ‘The time is one of grave national emergency and it is of the first importance that these officers should be heard.’
It was decided that Seán O’Hegarty, commandant of the Cork No. 1 Brigade, would speak on behalf of the others. His speech gave some hint of the frantic backroom negotiations which had preceded their initiative: ‘I have been in Dublin for perhaps three weeks and almost continually in that time public and private efforts were made to bring the two parties here together on some basis. They all failed. I was here myself last week at two meetings of the dáil. What did I find? I found an atmosphere of absolute hostility, personalities indulged in across the room and a sense to me of utter irresponsibility as to what the country was like and the conditions in it … It was only when I realised that it was impossible for the leaders themselves to come to any agreement or, in fact, as I believed, to meet on any basis, that I as a humble individual endeavoured to do what I could. I met Mr Michael Collins on Friday and we talked over the situation generally. I met him again on Saturday with one other signatory to that statement – himself and Mr Mulcahy – and we agreed that we would get together half a dozen men on each side – unofficially, as I took it – to endeavour to come to some agreement upon what appeared to me and to every man who signed that statement a condition appalling to contemplate. I think at the meeting it was I who suggested that a public statement be made and a statement was drafted by two of the signatories, two who have been associated with the anti-Treaty side.’
The plan was generally well received but the IRA director of purchases, Liam Mellows, spoke for the faction which was unimpressed: ‘This to me is plainly another political dodge. It is not an attempt to gain unification of the army, because the basis upon which unification is urged is not a basis that is going to secure unity in the army … the cause of disunity in the country and in the army was the signing of the Treaty and so long as that Treaty remains, as long as it is tried to be forced down the throats of people who will not become British subjects, so long you cannot hope for unity either in the army or in the country.’
O’Hegarty responded that two members of the IRA delegation were Dan Breen and Tom Hales from Cork, who, ‘were the first two men to start the fight and I will say this, that the suggestion made here that this document which appeared in the papers is a political dodge, is an infamous one and it should be withdrawn. This is an honest attempt to settle a situation that is drifting to disaster.’
The drift towards disaster needed the immediate attention of Breen the following day. Yet another volatile confrontation was now developing in Kilkenny concerning control of former British quarters. In his speech to the dáil, O’Hegarty had spoken emotionally of hundreds of men already being dead as a result of sporadic violence and mentioned, ‘another appalling condition of affairs down in Kilkenny, where another big battle is raging. What is the cause of it? One party sent down troops to try and put the republicans out of Kilkenny.’
Breen led a delegation of IRA officers to Kilkenny. They met in the Imperial Hotel with J. T. Prout, the Kilkenny mayor who would, very soon, become the Third Tipperary Brigade’s conquering enemy in the Civil War. While the meeting was going on, Provisional Government troops were brusquely dislodging IRA men from an RIC barracks a few miles outside the city. An uneasy ceasefire was put in place but real war would not be long delayed.
The Army Document initiative led directly to a formal pact between De Valera and Collins. Fresh elections were called for 16 June. The idea was that both sides in the dispute would put forward a jointly agreed panel of Sinn Féin nominees, either for or against the Treaty. The contenders would be designated Coalition Republican or Coalition Treaty. Collins, under pressure from the British, repudiated the deal two days before the election but Dan Breen went before the Waterford/Tipperary East electorate, for the very first time, as a joint Coalition Republican/Coalition Treaty candidate. Michael Laffan, in The Resurrection of Ireland, says that Breen was ‘courted by both sides and his name was the only one to feature on both panel lists’. The idea was that Breen would take the place of Frank Drohan from Clonmel, who had been unceremoniously booted out of public life because the IRA was unhappy with him.
‘The Treatyites secured the honour of paying Breen’s nomination expenses,’ Laffan says, ‘but this proved to have been a dubious achievement when he took up arms against them a month later.’
On the campaign trail Breen ‘invited’ various independent candidates to withdraw from the race in the interests of national unity. One Farmer’s Party candidate was invited to withdraw while being besieged in his house for hours by a group of armed men. Eventually he was wounded by a gunshot and, when he tried to leave home to go to hospital, he was abducted. He subsequently accepted Breen’s invitation to withdraw.
When the Farmer’s Party held a convention in the lead up to the election, Breen asked permission to address the gathering. M. R. Heffernan, the local Farmer’s Party big wig, reported in the Clonmel Nationalist that, ‘Comdt Breen guaranteed that he would take personal responsibility for seeing that the government took every step for the preservation of life and property. He stated that he would place himself at the head of an auxiliary force which would see that strict adherence to law and order was maintained throughout the country.
‘Taking into account Comdt Breen’s well known reputation as a peace-maker and the great results he had already achieved in the direction of producing harmony between the contending sides in our national parliament, we agreed to withdraw our candidates.’
The Labour Party man, however, was having none of this. He announced that he was ‘not afraid of Dan Breen or of his gun levelled at my temple’.
When some Tipperary republicans decided that they would not permit elections to be held in their county, the Provisional Government authorised Breen to calm them down. Laffan describes this decision on the part of the government as ‘a remarkable act of faith’.
On 28 June, at 4 a.m., the Provisional Government’s army attacked the republican forces occupying the Four Courts. The Civil War began.
Shortly before this, Eamon O’Duibhir met up with Michael Collins for the last time: ‘He said jocosely to me, “Eamon, do you know what was the worst thing you ever did in your life?” I told him I could not pick one out of the many and then he said, “Bringing Séamus Robinson to Tipperary”.’
16 – The Civil War
The Civil War was bad but it saved us this much – it saved us from the government of Maynooth. The people were split on the issue of the Treaty but the hierarchy went out and attacked the Republic, threw bell, book and candle at it in every pulpit in the country. And they drove one half of the people against them with the result that they never regained the power they once had.
Dan Breen
On 29 June 1922 – the day after the attack on the Four Courts – the anti-Treaty IRA executive issued a declaration asserting that ‘our rightful cause is being treacherously assailed by recreant Irishmen.’ The statement was signed by, amongst others, Séamus Robinson, and it called on former comrades to ‘guard the nation’s honour from the infamous stigma that her sons aided her foes in retaining a hateful domination over her.’
By mid-July, Cathal Brugha had been killed and Collins had been appointed to head a government war council. Dublin had more or less been cleared of anti-Treaty forces.
Havin
g all but accepted the Treaty when he signed up to the Army Document, Breen drifted back towards the republicans when he saw the no-nonsense line being taken by Collins and Mulcahy. No doubt the ghost of Seán Treacy seemed to whisper in his ear as he watched their vision of a thirty-two county republic fade away.
His overt annoyance about the way things were going led to an open letter, published in The Southern Star on 15 July, which was addressed to those ex-IRA men who were now joining the National Army:
Comrades – are you aware that you are fighting against the Republic that you fought to establish in 1916 and that was maintained and is going to be maintained?
Are you aware that England tried to disestablish the Republic through a reign of Black and Tan terror? … Are you aware that the death of Cathal Brugha is a damnable and eternal stain on the uniform that you wear? Are you aware that Cathal Brugha died as my comrade Seán Treacy died? No surrender to the enemies of the Republic was their cry. Are you aware that there are hundreds of men who will die as Brugha and Treacy did in defence of the Republic? Are you aware that I did my best to maintain the army of the Republic, but I failed because your section took orders from only our enemy – England?
Comrades, I thought my term of soldiering was over but duty has again called me to defend the Republic, which I will do, or die in the attempt.
Will you stand with me and my comrades in arms or will you continue to fight with England against me?
A group of Tipperary republican leaders issued a proclamation, probably written by Séamus Robinson, signed by people like Dinny Lacey, Jerome Davin, Robinson and Seán Fitzpatrick. Breen, significantly, did not add his weight to a decree which claimed that the dáil, ‘having contrived at the creation of the Free State government, has by that act forfeited the allegiance of all citizens of the Republic, soldier and civilian alike.’ It accused the Provisional Government of, ‘using the army which is the mainstay of the Republic to protect the Provisional Government which is determined to subvert the Republic.’ All of this new government’s orders, decrees and acts had, ‘no binding force on the people of the south Tipperary Brigade area, or any other part of Ireland and as such are to be resisted by every citizen of the Republic living in the area by every means in his power.’
