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CHAPTER 1

Behold the Mysteries of Faith: Liam Mellows, A Life in Search of the Heroic

On a wet afternoon in October 1924, the body of Liam Mellows reposed alongside ten of his republican comrades in the Carmelite Church, Whitefriar Street, in Dublin’s south-inner city.1 He would shortly depart on his final journey to be laid to rest among the Jordans, his mother’s people in Castletown, Co. Wexford. Mellows would have appreciated the choice of location as the Carmelite Priory in New York had been his refuge during four years of turmoil while exiled in the United States.2 Over the previous days, with no advance notice, the bodies of the seventy-seven republicans executed by the Free State in 1922–3 were exhumed and handed over to their families to be laid to rest among those who loved them, the defeated of the Irish Civil War.3

Following Mass, the hearses formed up in front of the church while throngs of onlookers crammed the surrounding streets; similar scenes were being enacted in towns and villages across Ireland. A republican guard of honour flanked the coffins, followed by small groups of relatives, clergy and sympathisers. At 2.45 p.m. the motorcade began its silent procession through the rain-drenched streets and north to Glasnevin Cemetery, the scale of the crowds forcing the authorities to close the city to traffic.4 The hearse carrying Mellows’ remains broke off early from the procession and made its way through the south of the city and on towards the Wexford countryside. Countess Markievicz would later deliver the graveside eulogy while the National Army surrounded the mourners to prevent a final salute by the Irish Republican Army to their fallen commander.

Liam Mellows was a central figure in the republican movement in both Ireland and the United States from his first involvement with the Fianna Éireann republican boy scouts in 1911, until his execution at the height of the Civil War in December 1922. A full-time organiser for the Fianna, a movement that was to provide a coterie of officers for the republican movement, he championed the concept of national salvation through an insurrection of the young. A member of the first executive of the Irish Volunteers in November 1913, he was appointed a national organiser and was at the forefront of the organisation’s preparations for the 1916 Rebellion. Dispatched to Galway in October 1914, he was to lead over 500 Volunteers in the doomed Galway Rising, where he commanded an army bereft of desperately needed rifles from the ill-fated German steamship, the Aud. It was the first bitter disappointment among a litany of personal disasters that was to follow.

In the aftermath of the rebellion, Mellows spent four years as a representative of the Irish Volunteers in New York where he was tasked with helping secure money, arms and political support for revolution in Ireland. Styled ‘Commandant Mellows’, his time in the United States was unhappy and he suffered emotionally, confined to his bed and malnourished at one point; jailed in the infamous Tombs Prison while his comrades in Clan na Gael dithered over his bail; vilified and shunned by the American Fenians, and worst of all, labelled an informer in 1917 by no less than the Mayor of New York, John P. Mitchel, grandson of the famed nineteenth-century revolutionary and Young Ireland leader, John Mitchel.

Upon his return to Ireland in November 1920, Mellows became a member of the GHQ of the Irish Volunteers and was responsible for the procurement of arms during the War of Independence. The role entailed dangerous liaisons with European arms dealers and supporters in Britain. Distrustful of Michael Collins, who he felt was undermining him, the position demanded absolute secrecy and his activities during this period remain shrouded in mystery. Bitterly opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the War of Independence, Mellows was one of the most influential opponents of the agreement. His role in occupying the Four Courts with the anti-Treaty IRA leadership in April 1922 was central to the events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War. Captured in the bombardment of the building in June, his execution in December, alongside Richard Barrett, Joseph McKelvey and Rory O’Connor in Mountjoy Jail, in retaliation for an attack on two pro-Treaty members of Parliament in which TD Sean Hales was killed, was among the most divisive acts of the new state. During the decades that followed the disastrous Civil War, Mellows and his comrades in the Four Courts Executive of the IRA were frequently singled out for blame for their role in instigating the conflict.5

Elected a member of Parliament for two constituencies in the 1918 general election, and again for Galway in the uncontested election of May 1921, Mellows never pretended to be a politician; he loathed politics and, above all else, espoused physical force as the engine of the Irish revolution.6 Like his idol, Patrick Pearse, Mellows was unmarried, puritanical in habits and ruminated profoundly over his own actions, putting the cause of the republic before all else. While he was a senior figure among the revolutionary elite, he remained an outsider within the coterie of leading militants. A gifted but reluctant public speaker, he published his writings anonymously, heaping credit upon his subordinates while privately suffering profound self-doubt.

Beginnings and Reinvention

Born in Hartshead Military Barracks in Ashton-Under-Lyne, Lancashire, in 1892, to Sergeant William Mellows of Callan, Co. Kilkenny, and his wife Sarah Jordan of Monalug, Co. Wexford, Liam Mellows’ life was a triumph of reinvention. Christened William Joseph, after both his father and grandfather, and known as Willie to his family, he adopted the Irish version of his Christian name in adolescence. Liam’s father, William, attested at the Curragh Camp with the 20th Regiment of Foot in 1871, spending thirty-two years in the army, seven of which he served overseas.7 William was also born in a military barracks, when Liam’s grandfather was serving overseas in Gonda, India, and it was his father’s hope that Liam would be the third generation of the family to serve in the British military.

The origins of the Mellows family are unclear and it is probable they were descended from Protestant English stock. The Mellows name originates in Nottinghamshire and at the turn of the twentieth century there were just two families with the surname in Ireland.8 In 1901, William, Sarah and their four children, Jane, Liam, Frederick and Herbert, were living in Cork City where William was stationed.9 Their eldest daughter Jane, aged fourteen, was considerably older than Liam, aged eight; with younger brothers, Herbert and Frederick, aged five and six respectively. Over the preceding years, the family had lived a transient existence as their father was transferred from Fermoy to Manchester and Glasgow. A sickly child, Liam was sent to stay for long periods with his maternal grandparents in North Wexford. His schooling was interrupted by the family’s constant uprooting and his formative education was gained at British military schools attached to Wellington Barracks, Cork, Portobello Barracks, Dublin, and the Royal Hibernian Military School, Dublin. By 1911, the family had moved again, this time to Fairview, a respectable northern suburb of Dublin.10 Aged eighteen, Liam had already turned his back on his father’s military aspirations, however, and rather than apply for a commission, he found work as a book-keeper, with his brother Fred, then aged sixteen, employed as a clerical worker.11

The two Mellows brothers, William and Herbert, reinvented themselves as Liam and Barney, republican revolutionaries, in adolescence through their involvement in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Fianna Éireann boy scouts. Despite the boys’ political conversion, there is no evidence of rancour within the family and the walls of their final family home on Mount Shannon Road in the south of the city were bedecked in photographs of their father’s and grandfather’s military adventures. Wexford republican Robert Brennan recalled a place of warmth, ‘we often stayed at the Mellows home in Dublin and, I must say, if ever there was ever a happy family, it was the Mellows in those days’.12

Tragedy struck the family in 1906 with the death of eldest daughter Jane from tuberculosis, compounded by the subsequent death of younger brother Frederick. The family had previously lost a third child, Patrick, as an infant, while living in England. The loss of his siblings had a profound effect on Liam and throughout his life, friends observed his sense of fatalism. Mellows’ close comrade Alfred White noted the contrast between Liam and his younger sibling, ‘his brother Barney, volatile, nimble-minded, was in sharp contrast to Liam, on whom the responsibilities of life as the elder brother were thrust at an early age’.13 Cumann na mBan member Annie Fanning, who helped Mellows escape to the United States, was warned by Liam that ‘people who helped him always got into trouble or died’.14 A comrade from the War of Independence concluded that Mellows ‘felt it was his duty to give himself for Ireland’15 and following the Truce with Crown Forces in July 1921, Mellows told senior IRA commander Sean Moylan, ‘many more of us will die before an Irish Republic is recognised’.16

‘The sword and its allies’: Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Volunteers

Fenian leader Tom Clarke became an influential early mentor for the young Mellows, who instinctively shared the older man’s admiration for physical force and contempt for politics. Clarke was revered by younger militants in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) for having spent fifteen years between 1883 and 1898 in English prisons for his role in the Fenian dynamite campaign.17 Clarke and Mellows shared a family heritage in the British army that consolidated an instinctive bond. Like the much younger Mellows, Clarke grew up in a British military garrison in South Africa where his father, who like William Mellows was also a sergeant, was stationed. Following his release from jail, Clarke spent almost ten years in New York where he purchased a small farm before returning to Ireland with his family in 1907 and establishing a tobacco shop on Parnell Street, which was to become a hub of activity for younger members of the IRB eager to earn his approval.

Under Clarke’s influence, Mellows joined the circle of young militants under his guidance who established the republican boy scouts, Na Fianna Éireann, in 1909, and began publishing the IRB newspaper Irish Freedom in November 1910. With Con Colbert, Pádraig Ó Riain and Eamon Martin, Mellows entered the company of like-minded, serious young men who had for several years, along with Denis McCullough, Patrick McCartan and Bulmer Hobson, been in the process of transforming the IRB from a drinking club for old Fenians to a conspiratorial anti-imperialist sect. The group shared an energy and commitment to direct action that shocked the romantic nationalists of older generations and in Patrick Pearse, Seán MacDiarmada and Clarke, they found leaders for whom abstract notions of Ireland’s destiny were to be distilled into a commitment to violent insurrection.

Mellows’ military background and education saw him take on a series of time-consuming roles within the emerging movement, first as a travelling organiser for Na Fianna in April 1913, and, subsequently, as regional organiser for the Irish Volunteers in 1914. His military bearing and sincere approach won him plaudits among sceptical activists, but it was his personality that won him the enduring friendship of republicans around the country. Athlone organiser Tomás Ó Maoileoin recalled, ‘I have rarely met anyone with such an attractive personality.’18 Mellows’ lifelong friend Fr Henry Feeney recalled, ‘Mellows was well below average height, frail looking with fair, almost white hair. He wore rimless glasses of the pince-nez type and did not, at first sight, inspire great respect or confidence. But the thin, frail body was tough and sinewy, immune to cold and hardship.’19 A compulsive worker, Mellows’ fondness for practical jokes and his penchant for rebel songs was the highlight of many evenings among comrades. Fenian leader Jeremiah O’Leary sought out his company after his release from jail in New York, as ‘Mellows was an accomplished bard with a repertoire of Irish folk songs, war and love songs which was inexhaustible which made me forget the shadow which the Tombs’ bars and the poison which its bad ventilation had cast upon my mind.’20 Mellows’ first taste of prison life came at the end of July 1915 when he served three months’ imprisonment in Mountjoy, under the Defence of the Realm Act, after speaking at a Volunteer meeting in Tuam, Co. Galway.

‘The desert of exile’: New York

Mellows, along with Ernest Blythe, was deported from Ireland under the Defence of the Realm Act at the beginning of April 1916 and forced to lodge in the town of Leek in Staffordshire, only to be smuggled back into Ireland, via Belfast, disguised as a priest by his brother Barney and Nora Connolly in the days before the Rising. In Galway, he was to lead a force of over five hundred rebels, without sufficient arms or ammunition, for one week in the Galway countryside attacking the police at Clainbridge, Oranmore and Carnmore. Following the rebellion, Mellows spent several months hiding out in the remote countryside on the Galway–Clare border before making his way to Cork and on to Liverpool from where, under Volunteer orders, he crossed the Atlantic for New York City. Upon arrival in America, he made an immediate impact on John Devoy, the leader of the American Fenian network, Clan na Gael, who regarded him as ‘the most capable man who had so far arrived in America’.21 His four years in New York were to be the unhappiest of his life, however, and he became a victim of perpetual intrigue between rival factions within Clan na Gael. Exasperated to the point of despair, the experience was to test his commitment and emotional limits. In his role as representative of the Volunteers, Mellows initially worked closely with Devoy and his close circle centred around the Gaelic American newspaper where he was initially employed. Following a succession of clashes with the American-born leadership of the Clan, however, Mellows was politically marginalised and personally shunned, and he subsequently defected to the Irish Progressive League.22 The personal abuse directed towards him was such, however, that he dropped out of revolutionary politics altogether for a time and sought work as a labourer; however, as a comrade explained, ‘the Clan hounded Liam systematically, procuring his dismissal from one job after another, even from labourers’ work on the docks’.23

Mellows’ time in the United States started badly and went rapidly downhill. As the leading ‘Commandant of the Rising’, as he styled himself, he was in high public demand, making his first of many public appearances in January 1917 at a meeting organised by Cumann na mBan, where he spoke alongside Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.24 Mellows was one of a coterie of high profile ‘1916 Exiles’ in the city, including James Connolly’s daughter, Nora, and Margaret Skinnider, Irish Volunteer officers Robert Monteith and Paddy and Hugh Holohan, and Frank Robbins of the Irish Citizen Army, who drew enthusiastic crowds to prestigious venues, including Madison Square Garden and the Central Opera House. Both Cumann na mBan and the Volunteers were organised in the city, renting premises on the Upper East Side.25 The Irish-American community supported republican events in significant numbers and eight thousand people attended a Gaelic football tournament under the auspices of the Volunteers at Celtic Park in August 1917.26 Mellows regularly inspected the New York Volunteers, who were commanded by Major Thomas J. Nolan; however, he ended his association in April 1917, when, with America’s entry into the war, the New York Volunteers pledged ‘to make a tender of the services of the regiment to President Wilson’.27 The New York Volunteers’ decision to support the burgeoning American war effort was the first manifestation of the cleavage in revolutionary circles that was to emerge between Irish-Americans, whose primary allegiance was to their country of birth, and the Irish in America, who saw America’s wartime alliance with Great Britain as a betrayal of Ireland’s claim for independence. America’s ‘duty to Ireland’ and her apparent betrayal of that debt through her alliance with Britain was to be one of the abiding themes of Mellows’ public speeches, making him a problematic figure for Clan na Gael, who wholeheartedly supported America’s war effort during a time of heightened national patriotism.

Mellows’ attitude to American life was coloured by the US government’s approach to Ireland’s claim for independence, which was dictated by their wartime alliance with Britain. Unlike most speakers at Irish-American political meetings, Mellows made no effort to conceal his contempt for the stance of the US government. His comrade Alfred White recalled, ‘at his first public meeting in America, he refused to use the “safe” speech written for him and spoke as he thought’.28 White even claimed the Clan tried to send Mellows and fellow Sinn Féin TD Patrick McCartan to Germany, ostensibly in search of arms; however, ‘it was an easy way of getting rid of both of them in the awkward situation brought about by the war’.29 Mellows’ closest personal friend in New York, Fr Peter Magennis, provided a succinct summation of his comrades in the Clan, ‘again and again the question comes into my mind can men who stoop so low to hit so meanly be really sincere in their major works and yet I think they are sincere, in so far as they can see’.30

In January 1918, William J. Flynn, Chief of the United States Secret Service, tendered his resignation from the force he had led for six years to loud approval from the Irish community in New York. The Gaelic American newspaper claimed credit for helping ‘run Flynn the brute out of town’ for his attempts to ‘hurt the Irish people’ by labelling them ‘disloyal’ and ‘traitors to America’.31 Flynn earned the ire of the city’s Irish-American revolutionaries for his aggressive campaign against them, and in particular, the manufacture of a ‘German Plot’ in 1917 that saw several senior figures imprisoned, central among them, the recently arrived Liam Mellows.32 The ‘plot’ was a component of a wider campaign, led, John Devoy claimed, by ‘Anglomaniac politicians and newspapers’ who ‘assailed the Irish cause’.33 As ever, the affair generated lingering suspicions and accusations of betrayal among the revolutionaries themselves that were to have lasting consequences.34

The Committee on Public Information led by George Creel was a powerful wartime governmental agency created to generate public support for America’s entry into the First World War.35 In late September 1917, the agency leaked information to the New York papers alleging that the Secret Service had uncovered a ‘German plot’ to attack England from Irish naval bases, facilitated by Clan na Gael in New York. The Gaelic American hit back at the allegations accusing the Mayor of New York, John P. Mitchel, and William J. Flynn of being the authors of the ‘plot’, claiming their ‘evident object is to help England in her hopeless endeavour to hold Ireland down, and to bolster up Mitchel’s tottering political fortunes’.36 The ‘revelations’ centred around the ‘discovery’ of cipher documents discussing a proposed German landing in Ireland, along with papers pertaining to Roger Casement’s attempt to organise German support for the 1916 Rising, found in the possession of German agent Von Igel. Implicated in the documents were Clan leaders, Judge Daniel Cohalan and John Devoy, along with the German ambassador, Von Bernstorff. The ‘plot’ was an obvious attempt to blacken the patriotic wartime credentials of the Clan and drive a wedge between Irish-Americans and the Fenian network by establishing a link between the German High Command and the Clan in New York. Devoy responded to the plot by pointing out ‘the purpose of the attack is plain. It is to injure the cause of Irish nationalism in the minds of the American people.’37 Likewise, Judge Cohalan countered by claiming ‘the loyalty of those of Irish blood is being attacked’ and, reaffirming Irish-Americans’ loyalty to their country of birth, ‘the record of the Irish throughout the entire history of the country has been one of unconditional and uncompromising loyalty, and whatever their sympathies in the great World War had been before our entrance into the struggle, they are now, as they always have been, for America, first, last and all the time’.38 While Cohalan’s denial represented a defence of Irish-America’s loyalty to the United States, implicit in his statement was a disavowal of Mellows, who repeatedly criticised America’s support for Britain in front of packed public meetings. For Irish-American leaders in New York, Mellows had become a potential threat to the patriotic credentials of the entire Irish-American community and, in particular, the Clan.

Events came to a head in October 1917 with Mellows’ arrest by the Secret Service: he was charged with being in possession of a forged seaman’s passport and purporting to represent himself as an American citizen.39 Imprisoned in the Tombs Jail, while his close associate Patrick McCartan languished in jail in Halifax, Canada, things went from bad to worse when none other than the Mayor of New York, John P. Mitchel, claimed at a public meeting in Brooklyn that Mellows had made a full confession concerning the activities of John Devoy and his associates. Incensed by the claim, Mellows wrote an indignant letter to the press repudiating the notion that he would ever become an informer and challenging the mayor to a fist fight, which alas, Mitchel ignored.40

Labelled a quisling and languishing in jail, Mellows’ situation was compounded by the suspiciously slow efforts of the Clan to provide the $7,000 bail money required to secure his release. In November, the plot thickened with the arrest of another Irishman, Thomas Walsh, who, it was claimed, was carrying ‘secret correspondence’ allegedly written by Mellows pertaining to the activities of the IRB in Ireland and New York.41 The Gaelic American believed the whole affair to have been contrived to re-enforce the guilt of ‘General Mellows’, as the Secret Service described him, and ‘manufactured for the purpose of making a frame-up’.42 The claims prompted Mellows to send another refutation of the evidence being presented against him to the press, claiming he had ‘never in his life seen’ the documents.43 Decrying the whole affair as ‘an attempt to prevent President Wilson from bringing pressure to bear on England to make her consent to Irish Independence’, Clan na Gael condemned ‘the literary output of falsehoods’ produced by a ‘literary ignoramus’ for a ‘reckless nincompoop’.44

Mellows and McCartan finally had their day in Federal Court in May 1919 when they were tried for securing seamen’s passports under assumed names with both men pleading guilty. The judge took the view that the ‘seriousness of the offense depended on the purpose for which the papers were procured’.45 The men’s defence claimed the court could not undertake to punish the duo ‘for any supposed intention which they might have affecting the British Empire’ and denied they had any ‘intent to conspire against the laws of the United States’. Judge Billings Learned Hand agreed with the defence that the men could not be charged under the Espionage Act with any act against the interests of the United States and found them guilty of possession of false passports and released them both with a fine of $250. The affair drove a wedge between the Irish ‘exiles’ in New York and Irish-Americans in the Clan, with both factions increasingly suspicious of the other’s intentions.

The arrival of Éamon de Valera in the US as President of Dáil Éireann, in June 1919, heralded sixteen months of frantic activity for Mellows, accompanying Dev on his extensive speaking tour, often travelling ahead of the ‘Chief’ to make advance arrangements for his public meetings. The purpose of the trip was to generate much-needed funds for the revolutionary state established in January 1919 with the founding of Dáil Éireann and to secure political recognition from President Wilson’s US administration for Ireland’s declaration of independence. Despite failing to secure official recognition of the republic, the tour was a remarkable success in terms of generating millions of dollars, with de Valera hailed a hero at a succession of packed public meetings, the highlight being an address to fifty thousand people at Fenway Baseball Park, Boston, at the end of June. The Boston Globe captured the atmosphere of the occasion:

Such a reception as only the head of a Nation is accorded – and it is certain that only one who had the love, respect and confidence of the Irish people could get any such reception. To say that it was thrilling is putting it mildly – it was electric. The heart and head of the people of Irish blood were in it. In Éamon De Valera was personified the fulfilment of their hopes, and the very mystery which attaches to this man, who was comparatively unheard of until recently, somehow fulfilled the dreams of the race, that some great figure would arise at the crucial moment and lead Ireland to freedom.46

On a clandestine level, the tour took place in the midst of a sustained campaign of personal vilification of de Valera and his trusted lieutenants, Mellows, Patrick McCartan, Diarmaid Lynch and Harry Boland – all elected members of Dáil Éireann – by the old vanguard of Clan na Gael, centred around Devoy and his powerful ally Cohalan.47 The split ostensibly emerged after an interview with the Westminster Gazette, carried by the New York Globe in February 1920 in which Dev made an analogy between the relationship between Cuba and the US, and potential future relations between Ireland and Britain.48 Dev’s clumsy wording was seized upon by the Clan leadership as a fundamental withdrawal from the demand for Irish sovereignty and he was attacked in the Gaelic American newspaper. The feud was damaging and unnecessary and fuelled by egos on both sides, particularly those of Devoy and Cohalan, who resented Dev’s instant fame and his usurpation of the leadership of the Irish in America. The affair necessitated a hasty return to Ireland for Patrick McCartan who assured the Dáil Éireann cabinet ‘the trouble is purely one of personalities’.49 The fall-out from the episode saw Mellows further ostracised by the Clan and failing to find manual work, he was employed as a teacher of Irish and history in the Carmelite Priory in Manhattan. The Carmelites were to offer sanctuary from the turmoil and during his subsequent ill health, he recuperated at the Order’s seminary, St Albert’s College, Middletown. De Valera’s supporters went on to establish the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic in Washington DC, in November 1920, as a means of circumventing the Clan’s controlling influence over the Friends of Irish Freedom.

Return: The War of Independence

On 10 October 1920, ‘Edward Moore’ disembarked at Southampton from the American vessel Philadelphia, on which he had worked the Atlantic crossing from New York as a stoker. ‘Moore’ was physically unsuited to the relentless labour, however, and took ten days to recover before departing for Ireland. Mellows, alias Edward Moore, had finally returned home after almost four unhappy years in exile, determined to make his mark on the burgeoning revolution. Mellows’ father died on 10 July, providing added impetus to his desire to return; Liam’s mother Sarah wrote, ‘Don’t grieve, never was there a more peaceful and happy death … He got a long glorious time with every possible attendance to fit and prepare him, that is all our consolation to know that he has died so happy a death and to the last his repeated saying was “keep Willie away or they’ll hang him like Casement.’”50

Mellows took lodgings at 131 Morehampton Road, the house of Mary Flannery-Woods and her husband Tony, a salubrious address nestled among the homes of the traditionally unionist upper-middle classes of South Dublin. Unknown to their neighbours, the Woods’ home was being used by Wexford TD Sean Etchingham as a safehouse and Mellows was to base himself there for the next eighteen months, developing a close bond with the family. With the War of Independence escalating and Crown Forces’ reprisals spiralling on a daily basis, the capacity of the republican leadership to adequately arm their active service units became problematic. The problem provoked a re-organisation of the Volunteer GHQ with James O’Donovan, a chemist, appointed director of chemicals, tasked with securing raw material for explosives; Sean Russell, as director of munitions, tasked with the manufacture of ammunition and bombs; and Mellows, as the new director of purchasing, charged with the sourcing and importation of arms and explosives.

The new roles were essentially complimentary and replaced the previously haphazard approach that was reliant on individual endeavour and a network of IRB contacts. Mellows’ new position demanded immense secrecy and it is unclear how successful he was, as a dire lack of weapons remained a serious problem with local units frequently reliant on their own ingenuity to arm themselves. As ever, however, Mellows threw himself into his new role with characteristic commitment; a comrade recalled, ‘Liam was plunged into a whirlwind of activity ranging not alone all over Ireland and England, but to Germany, where Robert Briscoe was buying automatics, Mauser rifles and ammunition, and when the truce came (he expected it to be short lived) he intensified his work.’51

Glasgow and Liverpool were the main ports of entry of arms into Ireland and to explain his frequent travels to suspicious customs officials, Mellows travelled under the name Anderson, and subsequently Nolan, posing as a respectable businessman, complete with dyed hair, moustache and a copy of the Times of London.52 Mary Flannery-Woods recalled that during the period he stayed at her home, Mellows rarely went to bed until 3 a.m. and with his associates ‘would talk till dawn which meant an hour or two hours sleep before another day’s work’.53 Cumann na mBan member Una Daly became Mellows’ secretary in June 1921 and remembered, ‘Mrs Woods’ house was an open house to everybody associated with the movement and there were people always coming in and out, sleeping and eating there at all hours. I don’t know how she fed all the people that came. Officially I had digs, but I slept often at Woods’ and I stayed up two whole nights typing work for Liam.’54

Mellows’ new role sat uneasily with him and his suitability for the appointment was probably assumed due to his previous experience in attempting, unsuccessfully, to import weapons to Ireland while in New York. Mary Flannery-Woods believed Mellows yearned to be at the cutting edge of the fight with the newly emerging flying columns but his characteristic sense of duty prevented him, ‘It was Liam’s fate to be attached to organisational details when his kind and heart were out in the thick of conflict. During the Tan War his eyes turned longingly toward the “Flying Columns” in the hills of Ireland. But though he dallied with the idea of joining one of them, he recognised that his duty lay in the line his ability demanded – organisation – and he with a soldier’s heart, stifled his longing and “kept to his last.”’55

In his role as director of purchases, Mellows was technically responsible to Cathal Brugha as Minister for Defence in Dáil Éireann but the two men barely tolerated each other; as Flannery-Woods recalled, ‘Liam often told us that Cathal would sit all night with his mouth like a rat trap over a half crown if it went wrong.’56 Although Brugha was also an out-and-out militant and shared Mellows’ suspicion of politics, the former’s austere and dictatorial manner alienated him from the more affable Mellows. Ernest Blythe claimed Mellows ‘always complained of Cathal’s rigidity, of his stinginess with official funds, and of his crankiness, and gave me the impression that he found him a most difficult man to work with’.57

Mellows’ relationship with Michael Collins also soured at this time and Flannery-Woods admitted that despite their working relationship, the two men ‘were not in each other’s confidences’ with Mellows even refusing to share a safe house with Collins as he was ‘interfering with his job as Director of Purchases by buying arms across the water and paying more for them than he was. He was buying them, he said, not to use them but to prevent him from getting them.’58 Mellows’ resentment extended to the IRB, over which Collins retained immense personal sway, and he ceased attending meetings of the Brotherhood at the height of the independence struggle.59 In doing so, Mellows placed himself outside the influential circle of IRB devotees of Collins who were to give unstinting support to the new Free State in 1922.

The procuring of arms involved dealing with sympathisers among the Irish community in England and Scotland, as well as shady arms dealers and criminals with the constant danger of being exposed, double-crossed or robbed.60 Mellows was frequently forced to exert his authority over republican units in Glasgow and Liverpool, which met with mixed success. Seamus Reader, officer commanding the Scottish Brigade, was summoned to a meeting in Glasgow in May 1921 where Mellows grilled him over plans to liberate Frank Carty, Sligo republican leader, from the clutches of the police.61 Mellows argued against the plan on the basis that it would disrupt the supply of arms from the city by antagonising the authorities.62 Despite Mellows’ disapproval, the attack went ahead and one policeman was killed. In subsequent round-ups, the ‘IRB purchasing committee’ in Glasgow were arrested alongside hundreds of suspects, resulting in the capture of several arms dumps.63

Catastrophe: Civil War

The Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiated by Michael Collins and the Irish delegation in London in late 1921 and ratified by a majority of 64 to 57 in Dáil Éireann in January 1922 brought the War of Independence to a conclusion but split the Volunteers into opposing factions that were to descend into a civil war that lasted from June 1922 until April 1923.64 Mellows was never going to contemplate supporting any political settlement short of the republic proclaimed at Easter 1916 and no amount of political assurances or bonds of comradeship would induce him to compromise. Mellows remained outwardly convinced that reconciliation was possible between both sides of the divide, while as a member of the negotiating panel of officers from each side of the army and Dáil Éireann, brought together in April and May 1922, he resisted attempts to preserve the unity of the republican army under the control of the National Army leadership.

For the wider community, the debate over the Anglo-Irish Treaty was framed by the Catholic Church and regional and national newspapers as a choice between peace and a return to stability, or a resumption of guerrilla warfare and the return of the Crown Forces. For republicans, the Church hierarchy’s condemnation of the anti-Treaty forces contributed to a political situation in 1922 where it was not simply a choice between Collins or de Valera, or even war or peace, but, as Donegal republican Peadar O’Donnell claimed, ‘God versus the Republic’.65

The Civil War was never simply about the Anglo-Irish Treaty and whether it was a stepping stone to a republic or a compromise unworthy of the sacrifice of the republican dead. From late 1921, the approach of most experienced Volunteers to the emerging split was dictated by their personal allegiances to senior officers. A narrow focus on the rival political analysis of de Valera and Collins obscures the reality that the Treaty split was fundamentally a dispute within the republican army dictated by loyalties to regional commanders. Active republican districts commanded by powerful local leaders, particularly in the west and south, overwhelmingly endorsed the republican stance of senior anti-Treaty officers centred around Liam Lynch and Rory O’Connor in the spring of 1922, and a regional dimension to the conflict was apparent from the beginning. In this respect, the influence on ordinary Volunteers of the political rhetoric of Collins and de Valera was not as significant as one might assume. For Volunteers who had been through the worst of the fighting, in Cork, Tipperary, Mayo and elsewhere, Collins was a distant figure and the republican campaign was a profoundly local war. Rather than a centrally directed campaign, co-ordinated by the Volunteer leadership, the flying columns represented local enterprise and local sacrifice. The intensely parochial nature of the republican struggle was originally an asset but would be brutally exposed by the divisions that emerged in 1922.

Senior army officers opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty formed the ‘Military Council’ at the beginning of 1922 and notified the Minister for Defence, Richard Mulcahy, that they intended to hold an army convention representing the entire membership if one was not forthcoming within two months. Republicans intended to use the conference, which was stipulated under the Volunteers’ constitution, to reaffirm the army’s ‘allegiance to the Irish Republic’ under the command of an executive to be appointed by the convention.66 Republican officers believed the army could revert to its original status as a volunteer force and be relieved of its obligations to the Free State leadership, who they maintained, by adhering to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, had reneged on the republic declared at Easter Week.67 Despite tension, however, links between the two sides remained cordial and republican representatives Oscar Traynor and Ernie O’Malley were permitted to attend Free State Army meetings in a bid to foster unity.

Mutual suspicion characterised the republican leadership and anti-Treaty officers were divided by strategy, geography and personal loyalties. Ultimately, three options presented themselves: prioritise unity within the army and endeavour to devise a joint strategy with the Free State Army leadership; commit to a renewed military campaign against the remaining British forces in the hope that former comrades would rally to their support, unifying the army and re-igniting the independence struggle; finally, reject the authority and legitimacy of the Free State and seek to ‘defend’ the republic as declared in 1916 by imposing IRA authority on a democratically elected government. No formal republican strategy was ever agreed, however, and distrust within the anti-Treaty leadership deepened as the first six months of 1922 passed, accounting for the remarkable failure of the republican forces to devise a coherent strategy for war.

A core of experienced Cork officers representing the First Munster Division under Liam Lynch, including Sean Moylan, Liam Deasy and Tom Hales, believed that unity between the opposing sides of the army would be forthcoming and made genuine endeavours towards reconciliation with their Free State counterparts. This group represented by far the largest, best armed and most experienced division in the anti-Treaty Forces and their support would be crucial to any republican strategy. A second group of officers, centred around Rory O’Connor in Dublin, including Mellows, Joe McKelvey of Belfast and Ernie O’Malley of the Second Munster Division, and supported by the Western Divisions under Tom Maguire, Frank Barrett, Liam Pilkington and Michael Kilroy, objected to the peace manoeuvres of the Cork officers and repudiated their attempts at reconciliation. To complicate matters further, the crucial Fourth Northern Division under Frank Aiken, that covered North Louth, South Down and South Armagh, initially declared themselves neutral. In a further sign of fragmentation, Ernie O’Malley was forced to return to Tipperary in February when his division, representing the republican stronghold of Tipperary and parts of surrounding districts, repudiated the authority of both Dáil Éireann and the republican leadership, declaring themselves independent.

Both Mellows and Michael Collins continued to import arms from Germany during the slide into Civil War, and Charlie McGuinness, an experienced seaman and member of the Volunteers from Derry City, had undertaken to bring a shipment of weapons into Ireland under direct orders from Collins while the Truce negotiations were ongoing. With £30,000 provided for the purpose, McGuinness purchased the Anita and a cargo of weapons and ammunition in Hamburg. McGuinness and his crew were almost immediately captured by German customs, however, after they left a dockside public house much the worse for drink. Arrested and fined, yet, characteristically undaunted, McGuinness had the ill-fated vessel returned to him by the German authorities, minus the arms, with the best wishes of the prosecuting judge. Impervious to danger, he purchased a second vessel, the Frieda, along with 1,500 rifles, 2,000 lugers and nearly two million rounds of ammunition. After an eventful passage, the Frieda made land off Hook Head in November 1921 and McGuinness and his German crew transferred their cargo at Cheekpoint, close to Waterford Harbour. With his German crew, McGuinness was placed in Mellows’ care. ‘Liam had given me up for dead and his joy at seeing me was unbounded’, McGuinness recalled.68 In return for his efforts, McGuinness was allowed by Mellows to do as he wished with the Frieda and he happily sold her for £1,000, leaving Mellows with a crew of bewildered, drink-addled German sailors to be housed, fed and returned to the fatherland. The German crew were disbursed to safehouses across the city but ‘under confinement were becoming intractable’.69

McGuinness subsequently delivered a second cargo of arms into Ireland, landing a consignment of weapons purchased in Bremen at Helvick Harbour aboard the Hanna in the first week of April 1922. After McGuinness declared his support for the Four Courts Executive, Mellows provided him with £10,000 for a third shipment of German arms; however, the capture of the Four Courts in July saw the deal fall through, in lieu of a further £40,000 needed to complete the transaction. ‘The deal was off’, McGuinness recalled, ‘I quit the Irish movement then and there. Incompetent meddling had destroyed my gun running organisation.’70

Peace Moves, Setbacks and Army Conventions

The split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty affected the army, Dáil Éireann, the IRB, Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan, and official and unofficial efforts at maintaining unity were attempted by a range of groups and individuals, including the Church and the Labour Movement. Uniquely among republican organisations, Cumann na mBan came out almost completely against political compromise and at its Ard Fheis, held in the first week of February, members voted 419 to 63 in favour of rejecting the Treaty. A small group of pro-Treaty members subsequently left to form Cumann na Saoirse under Jenny Wyse Power. Cumann na mBan went on to play a crucial role on the republican side during the Civil War with hundreds of members jailed.

The Sinn Féin Ard Fheis held on 22 February successfully delayed a split in the party with almost universal support for a motion to adjourn proceedings for a period of three months ‘to avoid a division of the Sinn Féin organisation and to avert the danger to the country of an immediate election, and give an opportunity to the signatories of the London Agreement to draft a constitution’.71 The motion was passed amid a spirit of hope and comradeship; however, the postponement worked to the advantage of the pro-Treaty leadership by delaying an open debate with the membership. In a similar vein, Dáil Éireann agreed, on 2 March, that no election should be held until the new Free State constitution was presented to the people and the Dáil was adjourned until the end of April, allowing the Free State leadership further time to consolidate power.

While the IRB was important in maintaining bonds of allegiance among republicans to Michael Collins and the National Army, outside Dublin, Collins’ control of the IRB did not give him the personal sway he anticipated. The South Munster Division of the IRB rejected the supreme council’s directive to support the Treaty in January 1922, with the entire Cork membership unwilling to obey the directive.72 In the west and north of the country, the IRB was weaker and had minimal influence over Volunteer officers.

The much anticipated army convention was formally announced by Richard Mulcahy at the end of February for 26 March, but as the strength of republican sentiment became apparent, it was banned by the Free State on 15 March and an order issued that any officer attending would be dismissed from the National Army. The republican ‘Military Council’ pressed ahead with preparations for the convention; however, the threat of dismissal from the Free State Forces scuppered hopes of unification, and, as Florence O’Donoghue reflected, ‘a disaster, worse than any defeat in the field, had struck the army’.73

The growing anxiety among the government that elements within the republican leadership were considering a military coup d’état was re-enforced by an interview to the press given by Rory O’Connor on 22 March, four days before the army convention.74 Fielding questions alone, O’Connor purported to speak for the anti-Treaty leadership and presented the most extreme republican position. Claiming the Irish Republican Army represented 80 per cent of Volunteer officers, O’Connor argued that the army would return to its original constitution at the upcoming convention as Dáil Éireann no longer had any moral authority. O’Connor claimed that by accepting the Treaty, the government had ‘abolished itself’ and ‘has done something it has no moral right to do’. Stating that the actions republicans were contemplating ‘are no greater than the men took in 1916’, O’Connor claimed ‘the army has overthrown the government in the same way in many countries’. When asked ‘if the parliament and the people go wrong, will they have to take the consequences?’, O’Connor replied, ‘Yes, that is so.’ When pressed further by reporters, ‘if the army executive refuses its consent to the government set up by the people, will we have a military dictatorship?’ O’Connor replied, ‘Yes, you can take it any way you like.’

Coming four days before the army convention that effectively established two rival armies, O’Connor’s reckless interview made it problematic for republicans to seek any political accommodation with the Free State and presented the republican leadership as being committed to the overthrow of a democratically elected government. O’Connor’s comments did not represent the views of the republican leadership, however, which contained a diverse range of opinion. For most republican officers, particularly in the crucial First Munster and Fourth Northern Divisions, unity within the army remained the priority, and O’Connor falsely presented the most extreme republican position as the agreed policy of the entire republican leadership. A point of no return had been established that was problematic for republicans to retreat from, and which ultimately benefitted the Free State, which now had carte blanche to take extreme measures against republicans.

Mellows presided over the army convention that was attended by 211 officers from 49 brigades and officially established the Irish Republican Army on 26 March. The IRA was controlled by an executive of sixteen members elected by ballot, from which an army council of five was elected. On 9 April, a second IRA convention elected an army council containing both militant and more conciliatory republicans: Liam Lynch (Cork, 1st Munster Division), Chief of Staff; Joseph McKelvey (Belfast, 3rd Northern Division), Deputy Chief of Staff; Florence O’Donoghue (Cork, 1st Munster Division), Adjutant General; Liam Mellows (Dublin/IRA GHQ), Quartermaster; Rory O’Connor (Dublin/IRA GHQ), Director of Engineering; and Ernie O’Malley (Tipperary, 2nd Munster Division), Director of Organisation. In terms of the balance of opinion within the army council, Lynch and O’Donoghue remained hopeful of achieving unity with the Free State Army, while O’Connor, supported by Mellows and O’Malley, represented uncompromising republicanism.

The establishment of the new governing body marked a definitive break and a further step towards conflict but did little to unify republicans; as Florence O’Donoghue conceded, ‘the Executive never fused into an effective unit. It never had a common mind or a common policy. There was not time. Many matters, not strictly the concern of the Army, obtruded in discussions, social theories were aired and debated, projects were considered in an atmosphere of unreality, stresses developed which weakened the fabric of authority.’75 Ernie O’Malley recalled executive meetings where ‘there was no attempt to define a clear cut policy. Words ran into phrases, sentences followed sentences.’ ‘A drifting policy discussed endlessly in a shipwrecked way.’76

The new IRA Executive occupied the extensive Four Courts complex on the Dublin Quays on 13 April but the decision was criticised by many senior officers, including Tipperary commander Seamus Robinson, who left after one week after ‘a whale of an argument’ with Mellows and O’Connor over the ‘foolishness of the Headquarters of the Army having all its eggs in one basket’.77 IRA officer Alfred White believed that Mellows hoped to consolidate control of the republican forces by establishing a ‘shadow government’ that would take ‘firmer control’ of the IRA; ‘Liam envisaged that the shadow government would be made a target for propaganda and persecution, but that this would keep the issue alive.’78 The occupation of the Four Courts was symbolic rather than tactical, providing republicans with a central point of focus to rival the Free State government. According to Ernie O’Malley, ‘we of the Four Courts were the centre of the armed republican resistance. We had to defend the independence of our country, and whether we made mistakes or not, we were going to make a last attempt to prevent the stampede of the nation.’79 Republican chief of staff, Liam Lynch, remained insulated from the precarious reality of their position and in a letter to his brother shortly after the occupation, he wrote, ‘I am absolutely certain that the Free State was sent to its doom by our action last week.’80

Ernie O’Malley recalled a change in Mellows after the occupation, ‘he seemed gayer, more cheerful now. Perhaps action, such as it was, after the long period of inaction had made him more light hearted.’ For O’Malley and his comrades, the decision to occupy the complex ‘counted for something. We had come out into the open; no more hole and corner work’.81 Senior anti-Treaty officers and their staff now worked, slept and ate in the compound, including typists, cooks and clerical staff. With scant regard for the nation’s heritage, Mellows converted the Records Office that housed priceless manuscripts of Irish civilisation into a munitions factory with explosives, grenades and other machinery. In early April, he drafted a memorandum on behalf of the IRA Executive, outlining the conditions under which the unity of the army might be attained. The IRA executive demanded that the army commit to the following:

1. To maintain the existing Republic.

2. That Dáil Éireann, as the Government of the Republic, be the only government of the country.

3. To maintain the army as the Irish Republican Army, under the control of an elected independent Executive.

4. Disbanding of the Civil Guard, the policing of the country to be carried out by the Irish Republican Army, as decided by the Executive of that Army.

5. All financial liabilities of the army to be discharged, and future requirements met by the Dáil.

6. No elections on the issue at present before the country to be held while the threat of war exists.

Mellows’ memorandum received no official response from the Free State leadership or Dáil Éireann but both the Dáil and the opposing military leaderships established joint committees committed to seeking unity. In early May, it emerged that five senior Munster IRA officers, Dan Breen, Sean O’Hegarty, Sean Moylan, Florence O’Donoghue and Tom Hales, were negotiating with the Free State Army leadership and called publicly for army unification based on ‘the acceptance of the fact, admitted by all sides, that the majority of the people of Ireland are willing to accept the Treaty’, and proposing a non-contested general election and the formation of a coalition government.82 The peace moves were immediately repudiated by the Four Courts IRA Executive and resulted in the resignations of O’Hegarty, O’Donoghue and Hales.

Mellows participated in army re-unification talks led by Liam Lynch and Eoin O’Duffy that brought together senior officers from both sides.83 This new round of talks saw prisoners released and the anti-Treaty forces agreeing to leave several positions it occupied around Dublin. The talks envisaged a unified army launching a joint offensive against the Crown Forces in Northern Ireland, if anti-Treaty republicans were willing to serve under a chief of staff nominated by the Free State Minister for Defence. For the militant faction within the republican executive, however, the offer was seen as tantamount to surrender. Mellows continued to attend meetings of Dáil Éireann until its dissolution in May, speaking on the failed attempts at army unity in two short speeches on 3 and 17 May. On 3 May, he made a short, defiant speech rejecting the terms the Free State Army leadership were offering to secure reunification of the army as ‘plainly another political dodge’:

As I stated here in this House last week, 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. This proposal that is put forward now would come very well indeed if it came from people who were acknowledged Free Staters, because it is a Free State document.

What is happening in the country? This threat of civil war, this dissension, is all the result of the political chicanery that is going on and of the attempt to turn this grand national movement, of which we heard some nice words from one of the Deputies a few moments ago, into a game of political humbug – this movement that was an honest movement and a straight movement, a movement of principle, to turn it into the sea of Party politics, to try to get the people of this country who are pledged to a Republic, to desert the Republic on the plea that they may get the Republic sometime, and overthrow the Declaration of Independence upon which Ireland’s claim for a Republic rests.

The blame lies on those who have deserted the Republic, who have betrayed the Republic and who would endeavour to make their comrades betray the Republic as well. Now the Republic exists. It is here still and the army, whether in whole or in part, will still stand by the Republic.

No man is going to die for hypocrisy. No man is going to throw his life away for humbug and if this is what the cause is going to come to, then certainly some of us will not have anything to do with it.84

In the first week of May, the so-called ‘committee of ten’, comprising five TDs from either side of the Treaty split, met to discuss ways of preventing a conflict. Mellows was appointed to the republican panel, alongside Harry Boland, Sean Moylan, Kathleen Clarke and P.J. Ruttledge, with Sean Hales, Pádraic Ó Máille, Joseph McGuinness, Seamus O’Dwyer and Sean MacEoin representing their pro-Treaty counterparts.85 The committee reported back to the Dáil on 10 May, having failed to reach any basis for national unity. Peace proposals were debated in the Dáil again on 17 May, with the so-called pact election agreed two days later, postponing a direct vote on the Treaty and declaring an undertaking on both sides to put forward an agreed panel of candidates to reflect their existing strengths in Dáil Éireann. It was proposed that a new constitution would be produced and a coalition executive formed comprising both pro- and anti-Treaty members. On this occasion, Mellows made another characteristically hard-line speech:

Our idea of a coalition was a coalition formed to save the national honour, a coalition formed to preserve the position of Ireland – the position she entered upon on the 21st January 1919. We went in, if possible to try and save that situation and reconcile it with the present situation we find in the country. We did not go there to make any bargain over seats in this Dáil, which we have no right to bargain about.

Seats mean nothing to us. The Republic meant everything to us. That Declaration of Independence meant everything to us. If it was a question of unity being based upon ten or eleven seats, the manly way for that to be done would be for those of us who are prepared, as I am, to resign in order to let anybody else have that seat, provided the principle is not impugned.

The nation’s honour comes before the nation’s life. Other nations have found themselves in such positions. Some have backed down and have gone the way that such nations deserve. Others have faced it and put their faith where we are prepared to put ours, despite the British Empire. We are prepared to put our faith in God and as long as Ireland did that in the last six years she won respect.86

While both sides of the Treaty divide moved further from agreement in the first six months of 1922, the anti-Treaty IRA was itself splintering with the decisive breach occurring at a hastily convened army convention on 18 June, called to discuss the progress of talks on the proposed army unification agreement. The urgency was explained by the executive’s anxiety that Liam Lynch ‘had agreed to certain proposals which, if accepted, would have given complete control of the army to the Free State government’.87 Mellows delivered a ‘very depressing speech which showed clearly that there was a very big split in the executive’ between a largely Cork-based group, including Lynch, Liam Deasy and Sean Moylan, and the Dublin-based faction that rejected Lynch’s proposals, centred around Rory O’Connor and Ernie O’Malley.88 The executive rejected Lynch’s proposal to allow the Free State to appoint the chief of staff of a unified army by a majority of fourteen votes to four. To counter the proposals, the West Cork flying column leader Tom Barry proposed a motion that an ultimatum be given to Britain to withdraw all its forces from Ireland within seventy-two hours of a given date. Barry’s proposal was designed to quash Lynch’s attempt to unify the army, which the militants perceived as an acceptance of the Treaty. Republican officer Sean MacBride believed that Barry ‘hardly realised to the full extent the meaning or importance of the proposals under discussion’ and Mellows and O’Connor ‘saw the huge mistake it had been for Barry to bring forward such a proposal to a convention; but who, at the same time, understood that this was the best, or rather the only policy, that could be consistently followed by us’.89 ‘Everybody was depressed and solemn’, MacBride recalled, but ‘it was far better to break off quits from those who were prepared to compromise on such a vital question, that of control of the army, and of the working of the Treaty’.

Barry’s motion was defeated, but upon Lynch’s compromise motion being proposed, the rump of hard-line republican officers stormed out of the meeting and reconvened in the Four Courts. Lynch and the other Munster officers who had supported the unity resolution were now excluded by the militant faction from even entering the Four Courts, with the latter ostensibly setting themselves up as a separate entity, electing Belfast republican Joe McKelvey as their chief of staff – there were now two rival IRA leaderships. Republican Todd Andrews initially pledged his allegiance to the Four Courts Executive but was disgusted with the turn of events, believing Barry’s motion to be ‘the daftest proposal yet conceived by a floundering executive, but to so many of the youthful, immature delegates it did not seem so lunatic’. ‘The Four Courts Garrison had amputated their most powerful limb, effectively isolating themselves in the last bastion of the Republic.’90 Mellows remained outwardly hopeful despite the split, however, and Sighle Bean Uí Dhonnchadha recalled that a week before the attack on the Four Courts by the Free State, which began the Civil War, he ‘seemed to be in an unusually cheerful mood. Outlining to me how the two sides hoped to sink their differences through united action on the North.’91

‘The end of sentimentality’

Following a series of incidents between the pro- and anti-Treaty Forces in the capital that saw both sides take rival officers prisoner, the National Army commenced the shelling of the Four Courts garrison in the early hours of 28 June.92 On the morning of the attack, Rory O’Connor issued a communique redolent of the language that would be employed by the IRA throughout the conflict, ‘the boys are glorious, and will fight for the Republic to the end. How long will our misguided former comrades outside attack those who stand for Ireland alone?’93 The Free State Army besieging the Four Courts were ‘mercenaries wearing Irish uniforms paid, equipped, and armed by England, and acting under England’s orders’, who were ‘attacking our brothers of the Irish Republican Army who defend the living Republic, and will defend it to the death’.94 A proclamation signed on behalf of Mellows and the IRA Executive was issued on the first day of the attack:

Fellow Citizens of the Irish Republic the fateful hour has come. At the dictation of our hereditary enemy our rightful cause is being treacherously assailed by recreant Irishmen. The crash of bombs and the boom of artillery reverberates in the supreme test of the nation’s destiny.

Gallant soldiers of the Irish Republic stand vigorously firm in its defence and worthily uphold their noblest traditions. The sacred spirits of the Illustrious Dead are with us in this great struggle, ‘Death before Dishonour’ being an unchanging principle of our national faith as it was of theirs, still inspires us to emulate their glorious effort.

We, therefore appeal to all citizens who have withstood unflinchingly the operations of the enemy during the last six years to rally to the support of the Republic and recognise that the resistance now being offered is but the continuance of the struggle which was suspended by the Truce with the British. We especially appeal to our former comrades of the Irish Republic to return to that allegiance and thus guard the nation’s honour from the infamous stigma that her sons aided her foes in retaining their hateful domination over her.

Confident of victory and of maintaining Ireland’s independence this appeal is issued by the Army Executive on behalf of the Irish Republican Army.95

Reflecting on the bombardment many years later, Sean MacBride ruefully recalled, ‘we were never a large enough garrison to have held such a building, nor did we expect to have to hold it’.96 Surrounded, out-gunned and out-numbered, detached from their Dublin comrades at Barry’s Hotel, and from the coterie of senior republican officers under Liam Lynch based in the Clarence Hotel, the Four Courts garrison was in a hopeless position. As the shells rained down in the early hours of 28 June, Rory O’Connor recited the refrain to his men, ‘How can man die better than facing fearful odds.’97 As the hours passed, stores of explosives caught fire, the roof began collapsing, fires broke out, the sewers flooded and the munitions block became an inferno. A hastily attempted sortie by the Dublin brigade of the IRA under Oscar Traynor met stiff resistance from Free State Forces. Ernie O’Malley recalled, ‘our nerves were getting taut, perhaps with strain, I felt emotional surges in myself and a desire to cry at times’.98 On the third day of the assault, the inevitable decision to surrender was supported by Joe McKelvey and Rory O’Connor, with Mellows alone holding out, ‘the Republic is being attacked here’, he told O’Malley, ‘we must stand or fall by it, if we surrender now, we have deserted it’.99 The decision to surrender was taken out of the hands of the garrison leadership, however, through a direct order from Oscar Traynor:

I have gone into the whole situation re your position, and have studied the same very carefully, and I have come to the following conclusion: To help me carry on the fight outside you must surrender forthwith. I would be unable to fight my way through to you even at terrible sacrifice. I am expecting re-enforcements at any moment. If the Republic is to be saved your surrender is a necessity. As Senior Officer outside I take it that I am entitled to order you to make a move which places me in a better military position. The order must be carried out without discussion. I take full responsibility.100

Mellows ignored the direct command from Traynor to the end and refused to even discuss it with his fellow officers. After conferring with O’Connor and other leaders, however, Ernie O’Malley took command of the garrison and surrendered unconditionally. ‘How hateful the green uniforms seemed now’, he recalled as he marched his garrison along the Dublin Quays to Jameson’s Distillery.101 The surrender deeply affected Mellows but for O’Connor, the symbolism of the battle, rather than strategic or tactical concerns, was paramount. As O’Malley later reflected, ‘the fight to him had been a symbol of resistance. He had built a dream in his mind and the dream was there; failure did not count and he evidently did not sense defeat.’102

Interned in Mountjoy Jail, Mellows was to languish in confinement as the stand-off between the National Army and the IRA descended into a squalid campaign of attrition with atrocities committed by both sides in an intermittent struggle that was to last until April 1923. The dispersed anti-Treaty forces under Liam Lynch fought localised campaigns in Munster, Connacht and parts of Leinster and Ulster. As the fighting escalated, Cahir Davitt, who was appointed Circuit Judge of the Dáil Courts in 1920, was charged in August with the establishment of a new section within the Adjutant General’s Department that would be responsible for the conduct and administration of military law. As the Civic Guard was still being organised and a system of district courts set up to replace the old petty sessions, Davitt believed ‘the only instrument at the immediate disposal of government with which to protect life and property was the National Army’.103

On 15 September, Richard Mulcahy sought the introduction of military courts from the provisional government and within ten days, the Army (Emergency Powers) Resolution was drafted and approved. Introducing the bill on 27 September, W.T. Cosgrave denounced ‘murderous attacks’ by republicans and assured TDs ‘we are not going to treat rebels as prisoners of war’.104 The ‘general regulations as to discipline’ were published in the first week of November, setting out procedures for arrests, investigations, detentions and punishments for military offences for the duration of the conflict; these were based upon the British manual of military law with adaptions and modifications.105

The bill granted the state the power to execute prisoners, which commenced with the execution of four IRA Volunteers in Kilmainham Jail on 17 November.106 Eighty-one prisoners (including four non-republican prisoners) would be executed in twenty-eight rounds of executions between November 1922 and May 1923. Executions took place in Kilmainham Jail, Mountjoy Jail and Beggars Bush Barracks (all Dublin), the Curragh Camp, Kilkenny, Dundalk, Roscrea, Carlow, Tralee, Limerick, Athlone, Waterford, Birr, Portlaoise, Cork, Mullingar, Wexford, Drumboe (Donegal), Tuam, Tralee and Ennis. Military courts could be convened by the general officer commanding any of the eight command areas of the National Army with sentences subject to the approval of a confirming authority composed of two members of the Army Council of the Free State. Trials were held in secret with news of the sentences communicated to relatives after the executions were carried out.

The IRA responded to the severity of the Free State’s new powers by warning that drastic measures would be taken against members of the Dáil who voted for the bill if the killings continued. The names of the TDs who originally voted for the bill were printed in the republican daily, Poblacht na h-Éireann: War News, under the heading ‘The Murder Members’, ‘Every one of these men, by his vote, supplied the murder gang with what they call their “authority” for the secret trials and executions. Every one of them is as much responsible for the deaths of these republicans as the Minister who devised the Courts, the men who constituted them, and the men who formed the firing parties.’107

The pretext for the executions of Mellows and his fellow commanders, Rory O’Connor, Joseph McKelvey and Richard Barrett was the shooting of Sean Hales TD by the IRA on the Dublin Quays on 7 December. A farmer’s son, Hales was at the forefront of the independence struggle as a member of the West Cork flying column and experienced some of the most brutal episodes of the War of Independence, including the torture of his brother, Tom. In retaliation for the destruction of their family home in the aftermath of the Crossbarry ambush in March 1921, he burned Castle Bernard, the residence of the earl of Bandon, with Lord Bandon held hostage until the British guaranteed that no more Volunteers would be executed in Cork Jail. Hales was exceptional in that he was the only senior republican commander in Cork to support the Anglo-Irish Treaty and during the Civil War he defied local sentiment by organising the expulsion of the anti-Treaty IRA from his native district. His brother Tom supported the anti-Treaty IRA and, along with Mellows, was a member of the IRA executive and imprisoned by the Free State in November 1922.

Hales’ shooting provoked the National Army leadership into a hastily convened crisis meeting, with Cahir Davitt brought before them in the hours after the killing:

Mulcahy had decided to set up a system of military committees to deal summarily with persons arrested in possession of arms, ammunition or explosives, while maintaining the military courts to deal with cases other than those caught red handed, so to speak, and where there might be a real and disputed question of fact to be decided. Such a person when arrested would be brought as quickly as possible before a Committee of Officers.108

The new ‘committee system’ was established alongside the pre-existing military courts and had the power to investigate and arbitrarily sentence chosen cases without recourse to the legal procedures provided for under existing legislation. All sentences of such committees were subject to Army Council approval only and the Council was entitled to impose any sentence, including death, as it saw fit. The new military committees represented the reactive, de-centralised operation of military, rather than judicial procedure. Davitt objected to the new committees on the grounds that they were not judicial in nature and his department would not take part in their operation.

For the National Army leadership, the execution of Mellows and his comrades was justifiable in terms of the threat posed by republicans to the foundation of the new state and the members of Dáil Éireann, in particular, and the potential collapse of the state itself in the face of a fracturing of its authority. Rather than protecting them from retribution, the military records of Mellows, O’Connor, McKelvey and Barrett, and their role in the establishment of the Four Courts IRA Executive, was to seal their fate. A senior member of the new administration defended the killings as ‘an act of counter-terror, not of vengeance, and though just, not primarily an act of justice but an extreme act of war’.109 Ernest Blythe believed his fellow government ministers ‘took the view that the lives of the men who had been in the Four Courts were forfeit as rebels’110 and the selection of the republican leadership was influenced by the desire to inflict reprisals upon ‘men whose execution would be most calculated to have the maximum warning effect on members of the irregular forces in all parts of the country. Personal feelings did not come into the matter at all. I was always myself on the best of terms with Liam Mellows.’111

The executions represented the determination of the new state’s leadership not to allow old ties of comradeship to blind the new state to its responsibility to protect itself from attack. In a wider sense, the killings signified, as Blythe described, ‘an end to sentimentality’ that had characterised the discourse of revolution and republicanism, ‘We had ourselves got over the various types of sentimentality and softness and regard for what might be called rebel tradition which had heretofore prevented us from discharging our full duty as independent Irish rulers in Ireland such as had not existed for centuries.’112 Davitt explained the prerogatives that determined the selection process for execution:

It was clear that it was punishment which was the main purpose of the executions; and their justification as a policy had to be sought in their efficacy in helping to crush their insurrection. This I think must have been quite considerable; but I have no doubt that even without them the Anti-Treaty forces would have been completely defeated in any event; though quite possibly it would have taken longer; and might have involved no less, and probably more, loss of life. The persons who were most responsible for the Civil War were, in my opinion, the members of the Four Courts Executive.113

This collection of writings is not a coherent body of work left by Mellows with the intention of creating a political legacy or justifying his actions, rather it is the disparate public and private utterances of a young man who lived an itinerant life during a time of rapidly changing political realities. Prone to depressive introspection, the contrast between the public face of Mellows, the fearless revolutionary, and the anguish and insecurities revealed in his private letters, highlights the personal toll the revolution took on a generation of young militants.

Mellows wrote articles for a series of republican papers, beginning with Fianna, the newspaper of the Republican boy scouts, Na Fianna Éireann, published between 1915 and 1916, and was part of the IRB milieu involved with the Brotherhood’s newspaper, Irish Freedom, published between 1910 and 1914. While in the United States, he was initially associated with the Gaelic American, edited by John Devoy in New York, and subsequently the Irish Press, edited by Patrick McCartan in Philadelphia. Over twenty of Mellows’ speeches and interviews while in the United States were published in the Irish Press and the Gaelic American. During the Civil War, he was involved in the initial foundation in January 1922 of An Phoblacht: The Republic of Ireland, the republican newspaper founded by anti-Treaty republicans but, again, it is unclear if we can attribute any particular articles with certainty to Mellows. The National Library holds a significant number of Mellows’ letters, deposited with the collections of fellow republicans; however, Mellows left no archive of private papers.