A History of Ireland.

Volume 2

by Eleanor Hull

1931

EPILOGUE.—(1922-1930)

The Free State began to function under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty. The country was seething with unrest, and bands of young men were wandering about the country in arms against the Free State. It is easier to put lethal weapons into the hands of young men and teach the use of them than to get them to lay them down again. Even during the Truce and while the discussions on the Treaty were going on at Downing Street, raids for arms were being carried out so near to the scene of the discussions as Windsor. The men who a year before had been engaged in a life and death struggle with the British forces now turned their arms against each other. A body of men, small in number, former friends and comrades in arms, often brothers in one family, but now divided as Treatyites and anti-Treatyites, went about their country ambushing, and terrorizing. All the horrors of the Black and Tan régime were resuscitated, but now by Irishmen against Irishmen.

As early as January, 1922, less than a month after the Treaty was signed by which it was hoped to bring peace to Ireland, the irregulars were organizing to resist the Provisional Government, and from that time forward until July 1, 1923, when Mr. de Valera announced that "the war was over" the country was given up to unrest. When the new Government took office, it was to be faced with a bill of over three millions as compensation for damage done to property, and for the wanton destruction of railways, roads, and bridges. Mr. T. M. Healy, the first Governor-General of the Free State and intimate with the conditions, puts the total losses as not less than thirty millions' worth of property.[1] It seemed to be the object of the men who now over-ran the country to dislocate the whole of its economic life. Transport was made difficult by the destruction of railroads; and a boycott of Belfast goods and armed bands along her borders did more to ensure the permanence of partition than any previous laws had accomplished. The country gentry who had their houses burned over their heads naturally fled the country and with them went money and credit.

[1] T. M. Healy, Letters and Leaders of my Day, ii, p. 658.
The men who had contributed most in recent years to the benefit of the people and who had served her faithfully appeared to be the special objects of hatred. Sir Horace Plunkett's beautiful house, the creation of his mind, the home of his treasures and the seat of his agricultural experiments, was twice burned down. The same fate befell the dwellings of the members of the Provisional Government and the life of every Minister was threatened. The Executive Council of the third Dail had to function from the underground cellars with barbed-wire windows in the building in Merrion Place [2] in which they took up their temporary offices, and some of them never dared to appear outside; they worked and slept in the same building. Kevin O'Higgins tells how one day, longing for a breath of fresh air, he mounted to the roof of the building; hardly was he seated than the cigarette between his fingers was split by a sharp-shooter stooping beneath the parapet of the roof at the opposite side of the street. Early in 1922 there were a million acres of land unfilled and 20,000 agricultural labourers out of employ. Over 130,000 other workmen were idle.

[2] A fine building just approaching completion and intended by the outgoing Government as the new Science and Art Department.
In January, 1922, a secret triumvirate [3] was formed to organize opposition and collect arms, and Rory O'Connor, their chief, seized the Four Courts and made it the headquarters of the new irregular army. In June, O'Connor captured General O'Connell, of the National Army, and this act determined Collins to resist. After a feeble stand "Rory" ran up the white flag and his resistance collapsed without the loss of a single man. But before he left, he laid landmines timed to go off two hours later. By the explosion of these mines, twenty Free State soldiers were maimed, many of them for life, and the Four Courts were shattered. The precious historical papers preserved in the Record Office were consumed in the blaze, and the family records of centuries were destroyed. Mr. de Valera betook himself to the Gresham and Hammam Hotels, from which he made his escape by a backway when these too went alight from gunfire. His comrade, Cathal Brugha, fought to the end, and fell, firing his last round.

[3] The other two were Ernie O'Malley and Oscar Traynor. In a letter of 30 June alluding to the blowing up of the Four Courts, the latter wrote: "Congratulations on your bomb. If you have any more of these, let me know."
At this critical moment, it can hardly be said that Griffith and Collins acted with the decision that the circumstances called for. Encompassed with difficulties and with a large section of Republicans still in the Dail, Griffith, on the resignation of Mr. de Valera, had agreed, by implication, that he was succeeding him as President of the Republic, thus confusing the issues and playing into the hands of Mr. de Valera's party. Collins, too, delayed to strike at the irregular forces and allowed them time to muster their army and commit several acts of open warfare without intervening. The English military authorities were withdrawing their regiments and disbanding the police with great rapidity and Collins had no organized army to replace them and no civil force. On Monday, January 16, Lord FitzAlan, the Viceroy, handed over Dublin Castle to Michael Collins who received it in the name of the Provisional Government.[4] Then, for the sake of peace, Collins concluded a Pact with Mr. de Valera, agreeing that the numbers in the Dail should remain as at the present moment and that elections were to be held with this arrangement in view.[5] The news of this "pact" was received with anger in England as a breach of the Treaty, and Collins was called over to explain. Fortunately this panel election, which would have been no election at all, resulted in the return of a more representative body than had been anticipated, owing to the appearance of 17 Labour men and 17 Farmers and Independents. Mr. de Valera had 34 followers and Griffith 58. It was a declaration in favour of the Treaty; for all parties accepted the Treaty except the followers of Mr. de Valera. But the "pact" did not bring peace to the country and unrest continued to increase to alarming proportions. Disturbances on the Ulster border added to the difficulties of the Provisional Government, culminating in the invasion of Pettigo and shelling of Belleek by English troops.

[4] Mr. T. M. Healy remarks that when the history of the relations of the Castle to the Irish people for 700 years are remembered, it is curious to find that Michael Collins forgot his engagement with the Viceroy to take it over, and when he was rung up by telephone it was found that he had gone elsewhere. Through the courtesy of Lord FitzAlan another day was appointed.
[5] Griffith never agreed to this panel election.
The main responsibility for all this destruction of life and property, from the results of which the country has hardly yet ceased to suffer, and for the spiritual demoralization which accompanied it, must be laid at the door of Mr. de Valera, under whose control the army was nominally acting and at whose command they finally laid down their arms. He had been one of the signatories to the Proclamation of Easter Week, 1916, and had been sentenced to death, but his sentence had been commuted to penal servitude for life; he was, however, released the following year in the General Amnesty. Since then he had been twice imprisoned for his activities in connection with the insurgent army. The resounding feat of his escape from Lincoln Gaol in 1919 had been carried out by the skill and courage of Michael Collins, who afterwards became the object of his attacks in the Dail. While he was interned he was chosen by his fellow-prisoners as President of the Sinn Fein organization, and in the first session of the Dail, held from January 21 to October 27, 1919, he was elected President, an office which he held till January 9, 1922, when, after the approval of the Treaty by a majority of the representatives, he resigned in favour of Arthur Griffith, and the pro-Treatyites. He then set himself to wreck the Treaty, in and out of the Dail. He represented himself and the country as having been deceived by the delegates they sent to London to negotiate a Treaty, and as "President of the Irish Republic," he did all in his power to make the Treaty unworkable.

Yet what his opinions really were is not clear from his public utterances. "I am not a Republican Doctrinaire," he said shortly before the Treaty was signed. "I interpret my oath to the Republic merely as a pledge to the Irish people to do the best for them in any circumstances that may arise";[6] and later in the year, while he was negotiating with Lloyd George with a clear understanding that a Republic would not be considered, he is said to have expressed a desire to be got "out of the straight-jacket of the Irish Republic. I cannot get it."[7] But Mr. de Valera was in the hands of young men and women more extreme than himself. That the sober elements in the country wanted the Treaty is shown not only by votes in the Dail, but in the honest efforts that have been made to work the Treaty ever since. "Many a man spoke in the Dail against the Treaty, and yet prayed God nightly that it would be carried."[8] But by his rhetorical utterances Mr. de Valera succeeded in carrying with him an opposition sufficiently formidable to make the business of settling the country almost impossible. To make any sort of Government unworkable was their avowed intention.[9] As an American Republican Journal said: "On the side of the Republic stood de Valera, the divisions of the Irish Republican Army, the most able of the women, and the Idealists. On the opposite side were the Unionists, the Bishops, even men like Dr. Fogarty who were practically 'on the run,' the Nationalists of property and position, the big farmers, the manufacturers, and the professional men."[10]

[6] Speech in August, 1921.
[7] Speech in October, 1921.
[8] P. S. O'Hegarty, The Victory of Sinn Fein, p. 84.
[9] "If they could make Government impossible in the South, they could make it impossible in the North." Speech in April, 1922.
[10] The Leader, San Francisco, March 18, 1922.
If we read "most noisy" in place of "most able" of the women, this is practically the division of opinion as it actually existed. On the one side de Valera, women and idealists, with the Army at their back; on the other, all the sound elements in the country, and any who had anything to lose by disorder. As time went on, Mr. de Valera's pronouncements became more threatening. "If the Treaty were not rejected, perhaps it was over the bodies of the young men he saw around him that day that the fight for Irish freedom may be fought," he announced to a body of 700 men of the third Tipperary Brigade, in March, 1922; and in the same month at Thurles, he declared that "if they accepted the Treaty, and if the Volunteers of the future tried to complete the work the Volunteers of the last four years had been attempting, they would have to complete it, not over the bodies of foreign soldiers, but over the dead bodies of their own countrymen. They would have to wade through Irish blood, through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government and through the blood of some of the members of the Government in order to get freedom."[11] Incitements to murder of this kind, addressed to men with weapons in their hands and trained to their use, were not without effect. On August 22, 1922, Michael Collins was ambushed and shot at Bealnablath, Bandon, Co. Cork by a party of the irregulars.

[11] Speech at Thurles, in March, 1922 ; he repeated the same words next day at a meeting at Kilkenny.
On August 13, Arthur Griffith, President of the Provisional Government, worn out with work and anxieties, fell dying at his own hall-door. Thus, at a critical moment, the country was left without its two chief leaders, the man of action and the man of thought, patriots and master-minds and prudent statesmen both.

But in this extremity, a number of men of very considerable ability and complete disinterestedness were found to carry on the arduous work of building up the young Free State and placing it on firm foundations. The new President of Dail Eireann, Mr. William Thomas Cosgrave, had for long been preparing for the administrative side of his present position by his connection with the Dublin Corporation, on which he acted as Chairman of the Finance Committee, and by his activities as Minister for Local Government under the earlier sittings of the Dail. His independence of mind and sagacity have carried the country steadily forward, and his quiet and practical administration and firmness of character have kept the debates in the Dail increasingly free from the verbiage which irresponsible members had introduced into the earlier debates. Able administrators were found in Kevin O'Higgins, Minister for Home Affairs, and later Minister of Justice, Mr. Patrick Hogan, Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Ernest Blythe, Minister for Local Government, and General Mulcahy, Minister for Defence, while Professor Eoin MacNeill became Minister for Education in the third Dail and Mr. Michael Hayes was elected Speaker.

All these Ministers retain portfolios in the present Dail, except Professor MacNeill, and the lamented Kevin O'Higgins, whose assassination in 1927 deprived the country of a man of brilliant parts. His representation of the Free State outside his own country, when he became Minister for External Affairs, did much to raise its prestige, and convince the world that counsels of wisdom and statesmanship were not outside the reach of an Irish Government. Like his Chief, the President, he had known what it was to be "on the run" in the days of the Black and Tans, and had been imprisoned for anti-conscription speeches in 1918; but when a fortunate fate brought him into power, his clear vision and sane judgment made him conspicuous among the delegates to the League of Nations Conferences at Geneva, as a man of special mark. His death by a bullet one Sunday when he was on his way to Mass near his home at Booterstown, Co. Dublin, was an irreparable loss to his country. Mr. Winston Churchill aptly describes him as "a figure out of antiquity, cast in bronze."[12]

[12] Kevin O'Higgins, in his capacity as Minister of Justice, had been obliged to give the orders for the execution of Rory O'Connor and others of the insurgents, who had formerly been his friends. The father of Kevin O'Higgins had been murdered by the Insurgents in the presence of his wife, in February, 1923, and thus shared the fate of his son. One of his brothers had been killed in France and another was in the Navy.
The third Dail, which met on September 9, 1922, was a meeting of great importance. To it fell the duty of drawing up the Constitution for the Free State for the purpose of implementing the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland. This Bill was introduced on September 18, 1922, and was finally passed on October 25 of that year. It laid down in its first Article that "The Irish Free State is a co-equal member of the community of Nations forming the British Commonwealth of nations"; and that "All powers of government and all authority legislative, executive, and judicial in Ireland, are derived from the people of Ireland." It decreed that all persons who are citizens of the Free State and over the age of 21, irrespective of sex, should have the vote for the Dail and all persons of the age of 30 and over should have the right to vote for Members of the Seanad or Senate; the Senate to consist of sixty members, thirty to be elected by Dail Eireann voting on principles of Proportional Representation, and thirty to be nominated by the President of the Executive Council, with the special aim of providing representation for parties or groups not adequately represented in the Dail.

The Statute thus passed by Dail Eireann sitting as a constituent assembly in the Provisional Parliament becomes the legal authority for the Constitution of the Irish Free State. That Statute contains the text of the Treaty of 1921, which is set out in the second schedule thereof. It gave the force of law to the Treaty of 1921 in the Irish Free State; while the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act, 1922, passed in the British Parliament, gave to the Treaty of 1921 the force of law in Great Britain. The Acts of the two Parliaments constitute their ratification of the instrument signed in December 1921 by the plenipotentiaries of the two countries. The Constitution of the Free State differs from that of the other self-governing Dominions in that it was established by resort to an international method, namely, by a Treaty concluded between representatives with plenipotentiary powers and ratified by Acts of Parliament. The other States of the Commonwealth were established as "Dominions" by Acts of the British Parliament only. And it would appear that in law the Canadian Parliament has not the power to amend the British North America Act, 1867, which contains the Constitution of Canada. The Oireachtas, on the other hand, could repeal the entire Free State Constitution, and the juridical and political relationships between Great Britain and the Irish Free State would still rest upon the mutual obligations of the Treaty of 1921, which is an international instrument and has been registered at Geneva as such at the instance of the Government of the Irish Free State. This international position of the Irish Free State is the mainspring, lever and support of the constitutional developments which have recently taken place in the British Commonwealth of Nations.

It would appear, therefore, that the Irish Free State stands in a privileged position among the Dominions of the British Empire both as to origin and constitution. It did not arise in a British Act of Parliament but by the Irish enactment of the Dail, though the British Act was necessary to give it the force of law in Great Britain. Thus the Irish view that all power resides in the citizen and that the political sovereignty of the people is also the legal sovereignty, gains a sanction from the terms of the Constitution. The Constitutional assembly had a free hand in drawing up the machinery of Government within the terms of the Treaty, and the admission of representatives of the Free State to the League of Nations,[13] and of her independent representatives at Washington, Paris, Berlin, and the Vatican, countries which also have sent their Ministers to Dublin, are a recognition of the equal status that she enjoys.

It is well to recall the words of Arthur Griffith, the man who more than any other made the Treaty acceptable to his nation. In moving the approval of the Treaty in the public session of Dail Eireann, on December 19, 1921, he said: "I signed the Treaty, not as an ideal thing, but fully believing what I believe now, as a Treaty honourable to Ireland and safeguarding the interests of Ireland. Now by that Treaty I am going to stand and every man with a scrap of honour who signed it will do the same. It is for the Irish people, who are our masters, not our servants, as some think, it is for the Irish people to say whether it is good enough: I hold that it is, and I hold that the Irish people, that 95 per cent. of them, believe it to be good enough...It is the first Treaty that admits the equality of Ireland. It is a Treaty of equality. We have come back from London with that Treaty, which recognised the Free State of Ireland. We have brought back the flag. We have brought back the evacuation of Ireland after 700 years by British troops, and the formation of an Irish army. We have brought back to Ireland her full rights and powers of fiscal control. We have brought back to Ireland equality with England, equality with all nations which form the Commonwealth, and an equal voice in the direction of foreign affairs in peace and war." And again: "This is what we brought back, peace with England, alliance with England, but Ireland developing her own life, carrying out her own way of existence, and rebuilding her own Gaelic civilization."[14] Griffith did not believe in finality: "this is no more a final settlement than this is the final generation," was one of his favourite sayings, but he believed in accepting the greatest measure of freedom that had come within the reach of Ireland for generations, and he believed in keeping his word.[15]

[13] The Dominions who are Members of the League of Nations are Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State India also is a member.
[14] For further quotations from this important speech, see Appendix vii, p. 467.
[15] Two of the signatories to the Treaty disowned their signatures on returning to Dublin.
The discussions on the Treaty in the Dail concentrated themselves chiefly, as was natural to a body that had lately been sworn to a Republic, on the question of the Oath of Allegiance, and much precious time in the earlier sessions was wasted in violent debates on this subject. Griffith believed that an oath of allegiance to the Free State of Ireland and of faithfulness to King George V in his capacity as head, and in virtue of the common citizenship of Ireland with Great Britain and the other nations comprising the British Commonwealth, was one which any Irishman could take with honour. The position of Mr. de Valera, who led the opposition, was an equivocal one. More than once he is reported to have said "We have no conditions to impose and no claim to advance but one, that we be free from aggression," and it is certain that when he commissioned the plenipotentiaries to go to London to discuss terms with the English Government, it was with the clear understanding that a Republic would not even be considered. Mr. Lloyd George had made this abundantly plain in one letter after another before the conference. Mr. de Valera's own Document No. 2 had contained an oath of allegiance no less full and binding than the oath incorporated in the Treaty; he had even gone farther by making an offer of an annual gift towards His Majesty's personal expenses.[16]

[16] For the two oaths see Appendix v, p. 463.
The question has a larger scope than the personal one, but it may be remarked in passing that the discussion was hardly gracious in consideration of the stimulus given to the proposals for the Treaty by the words of the King himself in his speech at the opening of the Ulster Parliament and his earlier offer of Buckingham Palace as the place of conference in the hope of bringing about a union between the North and South, a consummation desired by all Southerners, Republicans and Free Staters alike. The question has, however, been a subject of discussion since the acceptance of the Treaty and in April 1927, Mr. Dan Breen, one of the chief independent leaders in the civil war, introduced a Bill to secure the removal of the Oath by amending the Constitution by the repeal of Article 17. But Mr. Cosgrave stood firm and personally moved its rejection without even the formality of a first reading. "It proposes," he said, "to take out of the Constitution the Oath prescribed by the Treaty...The Government opposes this Bill. We oppose its First Reading because we believe in honouring our bond, we believe in the sanctity of international agreements. We oppose its First Reading because our honour as the representatives of a nation which has approved of that Treaty is bound to the carrying out of our part of the transaction."[17] During the earlier sessions of Dail Eireann, the Republicans, as objectors to the oath, honourably refrained from entering the house of representatives, but in the year 1927, they decided to take their seats in the fifth Dail as an alternative to being obliterated as a party, but with the reservation that they regarded the oath as an "empty formula."

[17] Speech quoted in Denis Gwynn, The Irish Free State, 1922-1927.
On July 26, the first of these Deputies entered the house and subscribed the roll, and on August 12 the Fianna Fail party, as they now styled themselves, complied with Article 17 and took their seats. They had secured 44 seats as against the 46 seats of the Treatyites (who adopted the name of Cumann na nGaedheal), Labour 22, Independents 14, and Farmers 11: the total membership being 153. The numbers have changed somewhat in the sixth or present Dail, the Government now numbering 61 supporters as against 57 of the Fianna Fail, 13 Labour and 12 Independents, but the farmers party has sunk to 6. It was the first occasion since the passing of the Constitution on which all the Deputies elected took the Oath and subscribed the roll.[18] It is to be remarked that there has been practically no discussion about the national Flag, such as has played a large part in the debates in South Africa. The flag now adopted by the Free State, a tricolour of Green, White and Orange, has superseded the old green flag bearing the harp, with or without the crown; but no one seems clear as to when or by whom it was brought into use. It stands as a symbol of a hoped for future union between the North and the South, bound together by the white bond of amity.

[18] For details as to the composition of the different meetings of the Dail, and other information regarding the departments of State, etc., see The Oireachtas Companion and Saorstat Guide, 1930.
A cognate question to that of the oath of allegiance was that of the right of appeal from the Irish Supreme Court to His Majesty in Council. Such an appeal to the English Privy Council seems to be a possibility contemplated in the Treaty and advantage has been taken of it to bring the final authority of the Irish Supreme Court into question. But any such position has been strenuously, and it would seem with justice, opposed by the Government of the Irish Free State, who hold that the continuance of the Judicial Committee is a menace to the judicial sovereignty of the Irish Free State, and that executive acts performed by His Majesty on the advice of that body are an infringement of the executive sovereignty of the Irish Free State. The application for leave to appeal to His Majesty has, in practice, not been a success. It has resulted in a series of bad legal advices to His Majesty and the Judicial Committee is regarded by the Government of the Irish Free State as an institution which is effete, undemocratic, and harmful. The Government take the view that the Judicial Committee is not a judicial tribunal or court in the strict sense; and that their decision given to His Majesty the King in a given case is an advice given by a number of Privy Councillors, and not the judgment of a Court of Law; yet such advice enables His Majesty to perform an executive act by making an Order in Council directing certain courses of action in uniformity with the advice tendered. The Government hold that the only authority competent to advise His Majesty to perform an executive act relating to the Irish Free State is the Executive Council of the Irish Free State.

All such questions relating to the several Self-Governing Dominions which arise in actual practice have to be examined one by one, for as Lord Haldane has said in giving an opinion on an Irish petition for leave to appeal which came up in 1923, "the status of the new Irish Dominion is one which, although it has been likened to a number of the Dominions in the Treaty Act and in the Treaty, is not strictly analogous to any one of them." There are certain wide differences of circumstance and outlook in the different Dominions which might lead some of them to regard as a precious privilege the very thing which another might regard as an infringement of a right. The experience and wishes of each Dominion have, in fact, to be taken into account in determining such cases, and the Imperial Conferences form a natural occasion for thrashing out questions which are of importance to all the Dominions in greater or less measure.[19] The Irish Free State entered the Commonwealth at a time when all the relations between the Self-Governing Dominions and the home Government were receiving a wide expansion in accordance with the growing power and independence of these Dominions, and sweeping changes and new adjustments were necessitated to meet the new conditions. The mutual interests of the group of States called for mutual adjustments because of the close economic and other relations actually existing between them. Mr. Fitzgerald, as Minister for External Affairs, in presenting a Report of the Conference of 1926, declared that "the attitude of the Government is, and will remain, that those mutual arrangements should be dictated by that mutual interest and by that only."[20]

[19] At the time of writing, this question is under the consideration of the Imperial Conference sitting in London.
[20] Denis Gwynn, The Irish Free State, where a large part of Mr. Fitzgerald's speech is quoted.
The composition of the Seanad (Senate), thirty members of which are nominated by the President of the Executive Council, proves on what wide lines of public policy Mr. Cosgrave bases his actions. The fears of the Southern Unionists that they would have no place in the government of the country proved to be without foundation. Its first Chairman was Lord Glenavy, who, as Mr. J. H. Campbell, K.C., took par with Lord Carson in the Unionist campaign against the Home Rule Bill; and such well-known Peers as Lord Mayo and Lord Dunraven and the Marquess of Lansdowne were among the nominations to the first Seanad. Business men of position, such as Mr. Andrew Jameson, and distinguished soldiers, such as Lieut.-General Sir Bryan Mahon and Major-General Hickie have sat in it. The Southern Unionists have, in return, shown their confidence in the survival of the Free State and their interest in its welfare, not only by their services in the Seanad but by subscribing largely to the loans floated from time to time by the Government; these loans having been more than once over-subscribed within a few days of their opening.

The first duty of the Government when it came into power was to raise an army competent to restore order. Ireland was in a peculiarly favoured position as regards man-power after the European war. In spite of the loss of 50,000 of her sons on the bloody plains of France and Flanders, the fact that Ireland had escaped conscription, together with the stoppage of emigration, had left the country with unusually large numbers of young men, thousands of them without regular employment. Ireland, too, was wealthy as it had seldom been before, owing to the high prices that had been paid for food stuffs and cereals through the years of the great struggle, as well as to extra employment given in munition work either at home or in England. The inevitable slump quickly followed the conclusion of peace and the farmers and fishermen were left with considerable debts to meet for fishing boats and tackle, or for agricultural implements, which had been purchased on credit when prices were high and were in many cases only partially paid for. The disbandment of the Royal Irish Constabulary after the establishment of the Free State, added to the numbers of the unemployed. The Constabulary had been a semi-military force, but the Government, in spite of the disordered state of the country, decided that the new Civic Guard should be unarmed. It was believed that the people at large would support the police, and so make armed men unnecessary; and the belief has been justified in the long run, though the men at first suffered attacks from the armed bands still going about the country. For the new regular army men were recruited rapidly, the conditions in the city and outlying districts alike demanding a force to withstand the continued activities of the irregulars. Over 50,000 men were raised, but the difficulty of securing efficient officers to train and command them was very great, for General Mulcahy, who was engaged in forming the National Army, refused to employ retired Irish officers who had served in the British Army.

With the gradual quieting down of the disturbed districts and the disbandment of the irregular forces the army has been much reduced. The army estimates had risen to over £10,000,000 in 1924, owing to the civil war; but by 1926, expenses had been reduced owing to the demobilization of troops, to little over £1,600,000. It is not proposed at present to increase the army, which is designed solely for home-defence and the maintenance of order; for it is believed that the necessity to maintain a considerable body of men under arms has now passed away. But during the earlier years of the new Government there was a constant fear of fresh outbreaks. A mutiny among the troops was suppressed and revolutionary propaganda heavily punished. Arms had been dumped but not surrendered, and efforts were being made to stir up the irregulars to fresh outbreaks. There still existed a head-quarters staff to direct operations and preparations were going on for revolutionary risings. Large quantities of arms and treasonable documents were found from time to time, even up to the year 1925, when the revolutionary forces seem to have cut themselves apart from the control of Mr. de Valera.

In the early years of its existence the Free State Government put down the insurgents with a strong hand and many of the most notable of the insurgent leaders, such as Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellowes, and Erskine Childers, who were their prisoners, were called upon to face the firing squad. In spite of the doctrinaire pronouncements of pacifists and well-meaning men, no Government has, as yet, found a method of suppressing anarchy without the use of force. In 1926 and again in 1927, in order to meet these revolutionary activities the Government passed two strong Coercion Acts. The second of these two Acts, entitled the Public Safety Act, was introduced immediately after the assassination of Kevin O'Higgins and in consequence of the anger of the Ministry at being deprived by the bullet of one of their most able members. It was pushed rapidly through, and though the period of its operation was to cease in 1929, it gave in the meantime drastic powers of suppression and punishment to the Government. But the powers given by these Acts were sparingly used; and by the entry into the Dail of Mr. de Valera and his Republican followers it was believed that danger from this source had ceased.

Another matter in which the Government took the high hand with excellent results was the clearing out of the corrupt Corporations of Dublin and Cork and replacing them by young and active Commissioners, who put in hand a number of improvements in housing, sanitation and the cleansing of these cities. Their example was speedily followed by other municipalities to the great advantage of the inhabitants. Hardly less important is the reorganization in the Poor Law and Workhouse system and the reduction, by badly-needed economies, of the excessive rates. More important still is the calling into being of a new Judiciary, the necessity for which had become apparent during the years of "the Terror," when all the courts of law had been disorganized and justice was administered over the country by simple means which had won the confidence of the people. A similar decentralization of the courts has been carried out under the new system for local disputes, many of which have been settled satisfactorily and with the minimum of expense. In the appointment of Judges, Mr. Cosgrave has shown the same impartiality and freedom from prejudice that he has manifested throughout his career. A number of the senior judges having retired on pensions under the terms of the Treaty, their places were filled by the Government with a complete disregard to party considerations or to differences in religious belief. The assistance of Lord Glenavy, former Lord Chancellor of Ireland, as Chairman of the Senate, has been of much value and has given confidence to Unionists and Protestants that their claims would not be overlooked. As a matter of fact, they have received a consideration which has been more than once gratefully acknowledged.

Efforts to effect greater efficiency have led to a reorganization of the old Government Boards, such as the Congested Districts Board, which was established under Lord Balfour's administration in 1891 and received Government grants for the development of agriculture and industries in the most neglected districts round the western sea-boards; the Fisheries Board, and the Department of Agriculture. Similar efforts to introduce greater economies in working have been applied to the railways and transport and to the improvement of roads. The work of the Land Purchase Act of 1923, completed the establishment of peasant ownership which was initiated by George Wyndham's Act of 1903, and the Department of Agriculture turned its attention to questions of marketing, grading of eggs and butter, and in general to the better management of farm produce. The participation of Irish Free State produce in the Empire Marketing Scheme may open new avenues for trade with the other self-governing Dominions and lead to a closer community of interest between them. At present the main trade of the South of Ireland is, as it has always been, with Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As a purchaser of British produce and manufactures, the Irish Free State ranks fifth, while it ranks tenth as a supplier of goods to Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In examining the statistics of other countries it is shown that there is no live stock trade between any two countries in the world which approaches the dimensions of that between the Irish Free State and Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In the group Cattle and Beef, it was second only to Argentina, and in the group Sheep and Mutton, the Irish Free State ranked fourth. Imports increased from £59,852,000 in 1928, to £61,302,000 in 1929, an increase of £1,450,000; and in the same year, exports increased from £45,591,000 to £46,803,000, an increase of £1,212,000. There has thus been a slight increase on both sides of the balance sheet. Nevertheless, there has only been a partial recovery of trade, for there was a steady decrease from 1924 to 1926 in both exports and imports, and neither have yet attained the total of the former year.[21]

[21] See Trade and Shipping Statistics, 1929, Department of Industry and Commerce, pp. iii, vi, xviii.
Every economic sign shows the necessity, if the Irish Free State is to hold its own in the world markets, of closer intercourse with Britain and Northern Ireland, and of the extension of its trade with other countries. The theory that Mr. de Valera has recently been developing in the Dail, of closing Ireland to outside trade and making her entirely self-supporting within her own borders, seems, in view of these figures, to be one of those picturesque but impossible ideals derived from the early years of the Gaelic League, when it was even held to be a highly patriotic act to discourage visitors, especially English visitors, from touring in Ireland, because Ireland was meant only for Irishmen, with its consequent impoverishment of the hotels and railways. The sound common sense of the present Ministers is opposed to all such doctrinaire theories, but much time that might be more profitably spent in the Dail is lost in discussing them.

The census returns of population cannot be considered satisfactory. In the fifteen years between April 2, 1911, to April 18, 1926, the population of the Irish Free State decreased from 3,139,688 to 2,972,802 or 5.3 per cent., while Northern Ireland showed a slight increase of 5,791, or 0.5 per cent.[22]

[22] Census of Population of Irish Free State on April 18, 1926 ; preliminary Report (1926).
There has been a rapid loss of population in the country districts and smaller towns while Dublin and its four urban districts have considerably gained in numbers. In other words, the trend of movements in Ireland, as elsewhere, has been from the country into the town. Emigration received recently a severe check in the United States, the numbers admitted from Ireland being drastically reduced, and the present tendency is to emigrate to Great Britain with the hope of getting work. The average net loss to Ireland during the period above mentioned was 33,468, but some part must be ascribed to unusual circumstances, such as the 50,000 soldiers killed in the war and those withdrawn with the British army after the Treaty along with the 8,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary. But there is no doubt that the conditions of life in Ireland were from 1916 to 1923 so terrible to young farmers and labourers that many fled the country along with those of another class who suffered the loss of their homes.[23] The great and crying need is for the establishment of industries sufficient to provide work for the youth of the population.

[23] The emigration returns sprang up from 2,975 in 1919, to 15,531 in 1920. and in the first quarter of 1921, 4,770 people emigrated. A Proclamation of Dail Eireann, then a Republican assembly, forbade emigration.
In spite of the great main manufactures, distilleries and breweries, biscuit manufacturies, and in the North shipbuilding and linen, there is not sufficient work of an industrial kind to keep the young people at home. It is for this reason that the bold effort of the Government to provide an ample supply of power for industry by the completion of the Shannon Scheme is to be warmly welcomed. This, the most ambitious undertaking hitherto set on foot by the Free State Government, owes its inception to the ability of a young graduate of the National University who was studying engineering in the firm of Siemens-Schuckert in Germany, and who single-handed worked out the details of the scheme. The Directors of the firm having conducted investigations at their own expense and proved its feasibility, the work was confided to this firm; they have now carried it through to completion. The capital cost has been about five million pounds, but for this outlay, it is believed that a sufficient electric current can be supplied both for domestic and for industrial purposes over the south of Ireland; it will in all probability be used also for the railways. All the superior electrical work of this vast scheme has been done by German experts, Irish labourers being only employed for the rougher work; but now that it is accomplished, it opens up wide new possibilities for industry in the Free State. The Ford factory in the city of Cork was at the end of last year (November, 1929) turning out large quantities of tractors, going to all parts of the world, and was paying a fortnightly wages bill of over £35,000 to its employees.

The other main industries of Southern Ireland, other than animal and dairy products, such as spirits, porter, biscuits, hosiery and woollen goods show—with the exception of porter, which is on the increase—a decline during the year 1929; it is possible that the new electrical power now at their disposal may help to reinstate them. In the North, linen and the shipbuilding trades are also suffering from the universal trade depression and its consequent unemployment; fresh impetus and more modern appliances and wider advertising are to be desired all over the country. The pressing problem is to find occupation for the population. So long as the old idea that Ireland is only fitted to be an agricultural and not an industrial country continues, there will always be a large surplus population, unable to find sufficient work by which to live. Yet to a traveller in the south of Ireland there is much to encourage hope for the future. In Dublin there are signs of increasing confidence in the cleaner streets, the rebuilding going on in parts of the city and the activity of the shops. In the country the acquisition of their own holdings has led to great improvements in the cottages and their surroundings, and the housing problem has been one of the first attacked by the Government, though, as yet, without very marked results. Ireland is gradually emerging from the period of disillusionment which followed upon the civil war and the five years of terror that preceded it. This mood of despondent self-criticism has left its mark upon the literature of the country in plays like those of Sean Casey or novels like those of Liam O'Flaherty, which hold up to the public a terrible side of Irish life, sordid and hopelessly corrupt. It will no doubt pass with the circumstances that gave rise to it.

One of the early clauses of the Constitution laid it down that "the national language of the Irish Free State is the Irish language but the English language may be equally recognised as an official language." Since then great efforts have been made to put this expression of opinion into practice. In January, 1925, a Commission was appointed to enquire into the preservation of the Gaeltacht or Irish-speaking districts of the South and West. It was found that these Irish-speaking districts corresponded to a large extent with the areas formally dealt with by the Congested Districts Board, in other words to the poorest and most isolated portions of the counties under consideration, and the report dealt in consequence almost equally with the question of employment and that of the language. The census of the Gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking districts in whole or in part, for the seven counties of Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry, Cork and Waterford, showed that while there was an apparent increase in the number of Irish speakers in these districts between the years 1871 and 1881, this was owing largely to the inaccurate returns made for the earlier date. Again in 1901, some counties, particularly counties Kerry, Cork, Waterford, and Clare, showed a slight rise in the number of Irish-speakers, but the Commissioners attributed this rise chiefly to the activities of the Gaelic League, which was beginning to be felt as an impetus to the preservation of the language from its foundation in 1892, rather than to a natural increase in the number of native speakers. From this onward the downward tend has been continuous and marked, especially in the partially Irish speaking areas; those districts where the Irish speakers formed over 70 per cent. of the population, having shown, on the contrary, a tendency to rise between 1911 and 1925.[24]

[24] Report of Coimisiún na Gaeltachta, 1925, pp. 10,106-108.
There are at the present time few or no areas where the English language has not to some degree penetrated, and of the three-quarters of a million persons who spoke Irish as their native tongue in the early eighties a large proportion have disappeared through emigration caused by agricultural, distress, in spite of the efforts of the Congested Districts Board, the Fisheries Board and other agencies, to ameliorate the conditions of life at home.[25] Professor Eoin MacNeill, as first Minister of Education, set himself to push forward the revival of the language by every possible means. It was made compulsory in the National University, and was ordered to be taught as a medium of instruction for not less than one full hour in every school in which there was a teacher found capable of giving such instruction. Summer classes and other means of acquiring the necessary knowledge of Irish were started and the teachers were required to attend them; gradually, in an increasing number of elementary schools, Irish is not only being taught as a part, of the curriculum but is being used, especially in the more Irish speaking districts, as a means of teaching other subjects on the programme. The secondary schools have been left free to arrange their own curriculum, but the necessity of qualifying in Irish for the entrance examination in the National University, is having its effect in an increasing number of schools of this type.

[25] In 1891 there were 690,000 Gaelic speakers, but in 1911 the number had fallen to 580,000. See Stephen Gwynn, Ireland (1924), p. 148.
In the debates in the Dail, both languages are used, but the necessity of translating speeches made first in Irish into English is becoming irksome as a waste of valuable time and the practice may fall into disuse. But the tendency to make a knowledge of Irish an essential qualification for all posts under the Government and in the civil service, is growing, even for membership of the civic guard. It is no doubt honestly believed by many enthusiasts that the existence of nationality is dependent on the survival of the nation's language. Cathal Brugha (Charles Burgess), the fighting right arm of the Irregular forces, is reported to have said that "if the language died, there would be an end to the ancient Irish nation." Yet Switzerland, though intensely national, has never evolved a language of its own; its individuality survives with the help of three foreign tongues. The same may be said of the United States of America. The prevalent idea that Ireland is sharply divided into a pure Gaelic race, naturally Irish speaking, and a race of English descent, speaking English, cannot in this day be seriously held. Cathal Brugha, though he conceals his descent under an assumed Irish name, must presumably be of English origin; and so were several of the leading signatories to the Proclamation of Easter week, beginning with Pearse himself.[26] The same remark applies to many of the leading figures in the Gaelic League.

[26] It is significant that all the three leaders in the 1916 rebellion were of "foreign" descent, if we are to judge by their names. Pearse was proud of his English father, Griffith must have been of Welsh descent and de Valera had a Spanish father. MacSwiney's mother was English. It is dangerous however, to judge entirely by proper names; for there is a constant tendency observable throughout Irish history to substitute English for Irish and Irish for English names.
Yet, though the two races are now so inextricably mixed that the English settlers or descendants of settlers often rank as the best Gaels, the instinct that led the Government to lay stress on the revival of the language was a sound one. A language enshrines as nothing else can do the thought and sentiments of a people. It is self-created, the outcome of a natural need for self-expression, and it cannot be lost without a corresponding loss of individuality. The acquisition of two languages is in itself a culture and it is right and natural that one of these languages should be the native tongue. It cannot now replace English but it can take its place beside it. The very geographical names call for its retention, for in them are enshrined the legends and traditions of the past, the imagination and affections of the race. As Laveleye, the Belgian economist has said, "As the culture of a people advances, race exercises less power over all people and historic memories more." To be united by common sympathies leading to co-operation between themselves more fully and more readily than with any other people, is that which constitutes a nation, and the outward expression of that nationhood is Government by themselves. "The Treaty," in the words of Arthur Griffith [27] "is a recognition of the Irish nation. It gave to Ireland such powers as she had not possessed for centuries, it gave to Ireland the power to root her own people and give them a foothold in their own country—a thing they never had for a century past; it gave them power to build up a Gaelic State, to de-anglicise the land and make it what it ought to be—a distinctive speaking nation, with a distinctive culture; it gave them the power to banish from their midst the miserable poverty they knew to exist in the country; it gave them the power to deal with all the social problems that to-day could not be dealt with by them but were dealt with by an external and non-understanding country." His dying message to his countrymen was this: "People of Ireland, stand by your Treaty. It is an economic necessity; it is for you political safety."

[27] Speech of February 21, 1922.
We end on the cheering words of Kevin O'Higgins, written to the French people shortly before his death, and when the Free State was still very young: "The impression that I would leave with you above all is of a nation that has no longer before it problems of the importance of those which she has resolved with success, of a nation which, having recognised its social and economic weaknesses, has set herself to surmount them, of a nation that views the future with tranquil confidence, persuaded that that future will be the best justification of her long struggle for independence."[28]

[28] Kevin O'Higgins, L'Irlande d'ajourd'hui (1925).
END OF EPILOGUE