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CHAPTER 4

Assiduous

Volunteer Command, 1917–19

The long-awaited Volunteer national convention met in the GAA’s pavilion on Jones’ Road at the tail end of a similar Sinn Féin gathering in the Mansion House on Saturday, 27 October 1917. The IRB was in almost complete control of it,1 certainly in comparison to what transpired in the Mansion House when Béaslaí, Boland, Fionán Lynch, Diarmuid Lynch, de Blaghd and Collins, who was the last to be voted in,2 accounted for a mere quarter of the executive seats. For example, all of the organising committee – except for de Valera, newly elected president of Sinn Féin,3 and Brugha – were members of the IRB, i.e. Lynch, McGarry, Collins and Mulcahy.4 Similarly, in the matter of security, entry could not be gained without a nod from Collins, Lynch or Diarmuid O’Hegarty:5 ‘nobody was present who was not entitled to be present.’6 Indeed, so secretive were they, having changed venue twice in Parnell Square, that the meeting was already three hours behind schedule when de Valera, as chairman, opened proceedings at 8 pm.7

The meeting lasted more than ten hours in all and everyone considered the attendance ‘very large’, with estimates ranging from a minimum of 300 to a maximum of 1,100. The final figure was more than likely closer to the maximum because the unit of organisation, which was allowed for representation purposes, was that of the company.8 Either way, ‘All of the prominent men in the republican physical force movement of that time were present.’9

There were two long discussions. The first resulted from a proposal that, because his countermand so negatively affected turnout for the Rebellion, MacNeill should be court-martialled.10 (Others had already been held to account by the Volunteers for non-attendance, resulting in, for example, the two Cork city brigades being cleared of all wrong doing. In a similar manner, the IRB had conducted its own inquiries. For example, its Dublin audit yielded the counterintuitive result that, if anything, the IRB had excelled itself.11) The following is the likely pattern of that debate. Brugha initially spoke strongly in favour of court martial.12 But de Valera refused to allow any censure of MacNeill, revealing that he, MacNeill, possibly as a token of goodwill, had forwarded to him the pre-1916 Volunteer funds.13 (From as early as his imprisonment in Dartmoor de Valera seemed intent on securing as united a front as possible,14 apropos of which strategy it would appear that he also shelved the usual rules of formal debate during the convention.15) Brugha then rose and praised MacNeill’s integrity, but nonetheless argued that MacNeill should never again hold any position of responsibility in the Volunteers.16 Even so, vis-à-vis the motion which was proposed, no agreement was secured. Instead, the issue was forwarded to the incoming national executive for solution.17 Then, in the second debate, which was a long one, the topic up for discussion was the inter-relationship between the Volunteers and party politics. Clearly many Volunteers had already shown a desire to help promote Sinn Féin.18 Even so, once again, the incoming executive was laboured with a solution.19

The next item on the agenda was the matter of the membership of the executive and, in comparison to the previous two items, this was dealt with quickly.20 The assembly divided into five groups, representing the four provinces and the Dublin area.21 Each group then elected its own members.22 However, the evidence is not compatible on the numbers allocated to the provinces. For example, an important authority like Florrie O’Donoghue provides no numbers at all.23 Richard Walsh (Mayo), a man who, on face value, was endowed with an alert mind and a good memory, tentatively suggested that each province was allocated three members.24 However, his opinion takes no account of local circumstances. This is why Mulcahy’s own figures are probably the most trustworthy, namely Munster (4), Ulster (4), Leinster (2) and Connacht (3).25 In any event, the three men agree that Dublin elected seven members, i.e. when de Valera, as president, is included. All told, therefore, the executive was composed of twenty members.

But, in terms of the unit where the most power would repose on a week by week basis,26 all three commentators were agreed that, with de Valera included, the resident executive contained seven members who were elected by the whole convention.27 Other than that, there were two additional groupings, called directors (specialists, e.g. DT) and co-opted members. Walsh did not refer to either of them. But O’Donoghue and Mulcahy did. And Mulcahy’s evidence, though contradictory, is probably the most reliable:

Cathal Brugha was appointed Chairman of the Resident Executive which would consist of the members of the National Executive elected for the Dublin area together with the persons from outside that area who had been appointed directors, and such co-opted persons as were considered necessary by the Resident Executive [in acknowledgement of probable absences during testing times, and, intermittently, to fill the need for particular skills and talents?].28

Given those complexities, the full complement of dramatis personae was as follows: de Valera, President; Brugha, Chairman, due to de Valera being absent so often on other business; Mulcahy, DT; Staines, Director of Supply and Treasurer; McGarry, Secretary; O’Connor, Director of Engineering (DE), and M.W. O’Reilly, all from Dublin; Collins, Director of Organisation (DO), and Lynch, Director of Communications, both elected from Cork to the Munster panel; and Eamon Duggan, Deputy Chairman; along with Gearóid O’Sullivan, Fintan Murphy, Diarmuid O’Hegarty, Dick McKee and Paddy Ryan, all nominally from Dublin.29

Eight days later, on 4 November, at its inaugural meeting which was held in Fleming’s Hotel, the national executive, in addressing the topic that the upcoming members of the GHQ should work full time and be paid a wage,30 was faced for the first time with the organisational consequences of the current feeling that the Volunteers were becoming, both by accident and design, the nucleus of the army of an emerging Irish State. Quite a number of the members were not happy with that development.31 Whatever their reasons were, one meeting did not solve the matter. Hence, two weeks later, it was agreed that a sub-committee should be formed for the purpose of interviewing suitable Volunteers and forming a list of ‘men of outstanding ability and integrity … [who would] eventually be prepared to give up their civil occupations and devote all their time and ability to staff work’. Also, because the organisation of itself could not finance a professional command, it was decided that the best agency to approach for the necessary cash was the IRB. Bizarrely, then, Brugha vouched for the Organisation’s bona fides and Collins chipped in that he personally knew some IRB sources who could be productively contacted!32

The membership of the subcommittee is uncertain. One opinion was that it was made up of de Valera (as interviewer), along with Brugha, Collins, Staines and Rory O’Connor.33 And another opinion, Mulcahy’s, suggested that it was composed of ‘the military directors’, i.e. Collins, Mulcahy, Staines, O’Connor and Lynch.34 But, either way, there was a flaw in the interview process, in that some of the main candidates, who were eligible for high office, remunerated or otherwise, were part of the shortlisting panel. Also, the best part of five months had to pass before findings were presented to a meeting of the national executive.

Regardless, it transpired, according to Mulcahy, that, on the evening before said executive meeting, he, Collins, Staines35 and O’Connor, i.e. four from the list of military directors, together with O’Hegarty, O’Sullivan, Seán MacMahon and Dick McKee, made their preparations, one alleged decision of which was that they would put Mulcahy’s name forward for the CS position.36

The following is Mulcahy’s account of that chain of events:

The Resident Executive invited the military directors to prepare proposals for submission to a meeting of the National Executive which was called for the early part of March at the Dublin Typographical Society’s rooms at 35 Lower Gardiner Street. The evening before a small group of men met at the Keating Branch of the Gaelic League, 46 Parnell Square, to frame their recommendations … [And,] When the National Executive of the Volunteers met on the following night, our proposals were unanimously accepted. The General Headquarters Staff was constituted and suitably empowered and appointments made: Chief of Staff, Richard Mulcahy; Adjutant General [AG] and Director of Organisation, Michael Collins; Quartermaster General, Seán MacMahon; Director of Training, Dick McKee; and Director of Engineering, Rory O’Connor.37

Yet, there has been a general acceptance that it was Brugha who became CS.38 In particular, Béaslaí, in his 1926 biography of Collins, maintained that Mulcahy had been appointed Deputy Chief of Staff (DCS).39 Ernie O’Malley held the same opinion.40 Even Mulcahy himself ended up making the appointment a much more complex issue than it already was, when he later acknowledged that Collins, sometime during May, which was three months after the event, could have referred to him as DCS.41 Also, once again years later, he even said, rather confusingly, that his promotion was down to ‘Availability … [being] as important as suitability’42 and that it was an amicable settlement as to whether he himself or Collins would be nominated.43

But, at that time, unlike during November 1921, when three auxiliary Chiefs existed, there could have been only one DCS and Stack was the man who almost certainly occupied that position. The following are the reasons why. Firstly, Mulcahy himself said so: ‘as he [Stack] was there at the [national executive] meeting and had not been assigned any position on the staff I mentioned that I “would like to have Austin on the Staff”, and for want of some definite position for him I suggested that we might call him “Deputy Chief of Staff”’.44 Secondly, Stack was accorded that title in the GHQ correspondences of November 1919. Thirdly, his biographer placed him at GHQ meetings in that capacity for the eight to nine months previous to him resigning his position during the autumn of 1920 on the grounds of pressure of work in Home Affairs; and fourthly, his two-and-a-half-year stint as DCS gave him the excuse to return to GHQ in July 1921 with the same military rank as heretofore, but, in reality, as observer for de Valera and Brugha during their power struggles with Collins and Mulcahy (see Chapter 6).

Therefore, it is not an outlandish possibility that Mulcahy could have been appointed CS. However, if he was appointed, Brugha, despite his display of extraordinary physical bravery during the rebellion and despite his Trojan work in reforming the Volunteers during the previous two years, had been bypassed. More so, Brugha must have felt uncomfortable witnessing, as he considered it, the undesirable influence of the IRB manipulating national events yet again. On the other hand, Brugha was certainly not attracted by the prospect of a fulltime, albeit remunerated, position, preferring instead to continue to work and to draw a salary as salesman for ecclesiastical candle makers, Lawlor Ltd.45

Be that as it may, the rise to prominence of another problem, which had been pending for quite a while and which would demand a unique display of public unity in order for it to be solved, sent shock waves throughout society.46 On 10 April, Lloyd George introduced another Military Services Bill to the Commons.47 This Bill was broader in its reach than the original Military Services Act of 27 January 1916. As a consequence then, should the Bill be enacted and should it be applied to Ireland by the signing of an Order in Council, Irish men between the ages of eighteen and a half and fifty years of age, rather than between nineteen and forty-two, as heretofore, would become eligible for call-up.

In response, the following events, involving the leaders of church and politics, produced a virtuous circle of mass pacifistic protest: the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s public statement of opposition to the measure made through the medium of their standing committee, on 9 April,48 and, due to distrust in Lloyd George’s Home Rule/conscription quid pro quo, especially when it flew in the face of recent, unconditional, self-government negotiations, the IPP returned home from Westminster in protest to side with Sinn Féin on 18 April.49

But, in actual fact, the body, which might conceivably have had the biggest say ultimately in the outcome of those proceedings, was the first to respond. On 3 April, at a meeting which was held in Mulcahy’s house, the members of the Volunteer resident executive, of their own accord, formally decided to continue to implement their own version of passive resistance. This is to say that brinkmanship would be indulged in with the purpose of convincing Lloyd George that he would have a fight on his hands, should he decide to proceed further: ‘If arrested they had orders to be defiant of authority and … If, while in possession of arms their arrest was attempted, the arms should be used in an effort to prevent their loss.’50

As can be gathered, therefore, brinkmanship proved to be a difficult and potentially divisive strategy to operate. Robert Brennan’s take on it indicates as much: ‘The Volunteers in general were hoping that the British would go ahead with their conscription plans. They would have cheerfully faced a fight in which they would have the backing of the whole Irish people, but there was a great deal of misgiving when rumours began to fly that the Volunteers would strike first without giving the British time to complete their conscription plans.’51

The sort of happenings to which Brennan was referring had been evident for quite a while. For example, as early as 2 March, an instruction had to be promulgated prohibiting the raiding of private houses for arms.52 Even so, another very obvious and very rich source was found. On St Patrick’s Day, the first raid on an RIC barracks attempted by the post-Rebellion Volunteers occurred at Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula. And, on 13 April, at Gortatlea between Killarney and Tralee, the second was conducted, this time causing the death of two Volunteers.53

Then, two surprising and significant events materialised, events which gave greater freedom of manoeuvre to Collins and Béaslaí, who were in favour of those types of actions. On 30 April, by permission of a clause emanating from the Volunteer convention of the previous October whereby the executive was empowered ‘to “declare war” if it was thought necessary’,54 Brugha travelled to London on a six-month mission to exterminate the members of the British Cabinet, should conscription be peremptorily introduced.55 And de Valera, together with most of the Sinn Féin leadership, was arrested on 17 May on the wrongful accusation that he was involved in the importation of arms from Germany, otherwise known as the German Plot; this was an accusation for which he received a nine-month period of detention in Lincoln Jail.56

From the point of view of Collins and Mulcahy, Brugha’s absence was a far more significant event than de Valera’s was. If nothing else, for the time being at least, his edgy watchfulness did not have to be endured. But also, seemingly, in hatching and bringing forward the assassination idea for the unanimous acceptance of the Volunteer national executive, his contradictory, extreme, physical force radicalism might have momentarily been an embarrassment to Collins, who otherwise was enthusiastic,57 and to Mulcahy, who harboured mixed views.58 For example, according to Sceilg, who admittedly was not a neutral observer of events, Collins and Mulcahy ignored Brugha’s request of them to accompany him on the venture: ‘I asked three times of those who were alongside me if they wanted to make the journey; but the big heroes let on that they did not hear me, and [so] I had to go in their absence.’59

The reality, however, was that Brugha needed Collins and Mulcahy, or rather he needed their IRB connections.60 The upshot was that Mulcahy was saddled with the job of getting men to sign up. He managed to locate thirteen – four from Ireland and nine from England. He personally interviewed the first four. His approach was capable but not authoritative, as if he was in awe of such physical courage:

Mulcahy gave me to understand that the chances of any of the party of Volunteers surviving subsequent to those executions would be one in a million … without saying so, [he] gave me the impression that I had the option of withdrawing from the venture should I wish to do so. Needless to say, I was appalled by the task we were expected to undertake but having volunteered I was not withdrawing now.61

In a way, therefore, Brugha and Collins were not poles apart on a number of issues. For example, both men were under no illusions about the inevitability of defeat if another insurrection was forced on the country. Also, like Brugha, Collins envisioned a role for violence, but admittedly during and not at the end of the process of brinkmanship. And there was no escaping the fact that Collins greatly admired Brugha as a fighter. (Ernie O’Malley also admired Brugha as ‘the most uncompromising of all the army officers’.62) For that reason, he prevented the IRB from publicising Brugha’s expulsion from the IRB (Brugha had already left anyway) on the grounds of his public allegations of cowardice on the part of the Organisation during the Rebellion: ‘the organisation would lose its prestige by expelling a man like Cathal Brugha’.63 He also became indignant when such a pre-eminent Volunteer as Brugha, now ‘a white man … half crippled with English bullets’, came a long way down the list in the election of the new, but moderate, Sinn Féin executive.64

Nonetheless, considerations of that type were not enough for the two to be close. A clash of temperaments was a problem, what with Collins’ bustling dynamism and Brugha’s saturnine doggedness. Much more fundamentally, Brugha, especially now that it was obvious that Sinn Féin was developing a catch-all appeal, was not a bit happy that Collins and a small group of senior Dublin-based officers were starting to bond together and to use their own version of the IRB’s traditional conspiratorial techniques. Brugha perceived this as a particularly threatening development, more especially when most members of that clique, Collins and Mulcahy especially, were now moving steadily towards becoming tribunes in a prospective Irish professional army.

But, in comparison to de Valera, who was anxious too, Brugha did not keep his thoughts to himself:

Later in the Summer of that year (1917) … I was in Limerick at Daly’s … when Cathal Brugha … came in … a discussion arose over the IRB … he got very excited and said that he was out to destroy it. He went on to say that if that organisation had ever been necessary, which he doubted, it was now unnecessary and even dangerous if it got into the hands of the wrong people.65

And, as good as his word, during a meeting of the Volunteer executive, which must have happened just before Brugha went abroad on 30 April and which makes it possible that the British had good reason for the German Plot arrests a few weeks later, he asked Michael Collins did he know of any intercourse the Volunteers or any other political group [IRB?] had with German representatives here … Collins was emphatic in his denial … Brugha stated that, ‘my friend in the Castle…warn[ed] me that the Castle knew everything …’ Brugha also stated that ‘it may be easy to fool us, but not so easy to fool the British.’66

Hence, given such a tense atmosphere, it is most likely that Collins and Mulcahy thrived during de Valera’s and, especially, Brugha’s absence. For example, even if he had not been appointed CS in March, Mulcahy was now de facto CS,67 in which capacity he was both diligent and habitual:

At this time [May–June 1918] weekly meetings of the General Headquarters staff, and the resident Executive were held, sometimes in Cullenswood House, Ranelagh … and sometimes in a room in the offices of the Dublin Typographical Society … at 35 Lower Gardiner Street, a place that had been used by the IRB for many years previously.68

Additionally, he tried to inculcate the ethos of a professional chain of command by cutting a dash and by taking himself seriously, having been, like other veterans, ‘toughened – mentally rather than physically – by his prison-camp experiences’:69

He was in a grey-green uniform. It fitted well. He wore a soft, slouch hat, one side pinned up by the Fianna Fail badge of the Dublin Brigade. He looked neat and trim, quiet. He had a shrewd cold look. There was little expression on the muscles of his mouth or cheeks when he spoke. He spoke slowly, stressing words nasally. His face was of the thin type, clean-shaven with bushy eye-brows.70

In contrast to Mulcahy, the nicer points of bureaucracy and oligarchy were not so important to Collins. Primarily, at a point of time when he was already beginning to move towards a position of near total control,71 he was interested in acquiring as many arms and ammunition as possible from IRB contacts in New York and Liverpool, sometimes rerouting the supplies through Belfast or on to the coast of Galway and then distributing them to a ‘good commandant who would fight … [in] Cork, Clare, Mayo and places where the fighting was done afterwards’.72 To those ends, he personally travelled on a number of occasions to Liverpool to meet Neil Kerr, the same IRB contact who first met Brugha on his arrival in England.73 Another interest of his, during the summer of 1918, was the creation of a county brigade system, a concept which, because of its overarching authoritative nature, challenged the well-rooted sense of independence of the local companies and accordingly slowed down the introduction of the vertical chain of command.74 Furthermore, similar to the way the Volunteers picked up on a worthwhile idea, like when the Brennan brothers of Clare, having been arrested, spontaneously refused to recognise the court75 – ‘Irish Volunteers must as heretofore refuse to recognise the jurisdiction of the court’76 – so Collins was probably impressed by the topographically based, shock tactics introduced by his own West Cork people, as referred to above:

Forget the Company of the regular army. We are not establishing or attempting to establish a regular force on the lines of the standing armies of the small independent countries of Europe. If we undertake any such thing we shall fail. Our objective is to bring into existence, train and equip as riflemen scouts a body of men, and to secure that these are capable of acting as a self-contained unit, supplied with all the services that would ordinarily be required in the event of martial action in the country.77

On the other hand, and perhaps much more importantly in the long run, though paradoxical in the circumstance of Collins’ military preparations and Béaslaí’s rhetorical muscle flexing, a steady drift towards conventional politics within the entire Collins group began to gather momentum. Take, for instance, the slow but definite change of mind on the question of electioneering. Initially, as has already been suggested, GHQ did not approve of the Volunteers becoming involved: ‘they were not created for … political activities’.78 Eventually, however, GHQ became ambiguous: ‘but that must not be taken as absolving Volunteers from their individual duties as Irish citizens’.79 Finally, GHQ, along with the national executive, issued a detailed order on how the Volunteers were to behave during the pending general election campaign: ‘You will appoint a Volunteer Officer in each constituency within your Brigade area to take charge of all Volunteer activities therein.’80

That development was more than a reluctant acknowledgement of the realities on the ground. It was also a result of the fact that Collins and his closest IRB colleagues willingly took leadership roles in Sinn Féin so as ‘to see that the work of Sinn Féin was carried on pending the release of its elected officers [after the German Plot imprisonments]’.81 Thus willy-nilly did these men come into infectious contact with the conservative, procedural methodologies of negotiation and compromise traditionally associated with the world of party politics.

Mulcahy is a good example of that process. He had not bothered with party politics prior to 20 May, the date of the first Sinn Féin executive committee meeting after the German Plot arrests.82 But, typically of him, never doing things by half once he made a commitment, he assiduously joined its weekly meetings for the remainder of the year.83 Also he became a standing committee member.84 And, on 14 October – after Harry Boland decided to contest South Roscommon instead of the Dublin City Clontarf constituency, and even to try to deceive Kathleen Clarke, who wanted to replace him, into believing that there was a place for her at home in Limerick85 – he was selected by the Clontarf Sinn Féin district council to run in the general election, which, because the war in Europe lingered on longer than expected, did not happen until 14 December. In the meantime, the IRB campaigned strongly on his behalf.86

Even so, when targeting first-time voters87 from among the aforementioned, young, migrant inhabitants of the north inner city, rational considerations of self-interest, rather than moral and emotional appeals to nationalist sentiment, were the weapons of choice in his campaign against the IPP: ‘“The [Irish Parliamentary] Party” opposed the extension of the franchise, [so,] why should you, having secured the vote, support the Party candidate? Vote for Mulcahy.’88

Next, on 19 December, pending a positive electoral result for him, he was appointed a member of Sinn Féin’s Foreign Affairs committee, which was chaired by Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh, and which, in addition to communicating with other peoples and governments, was principally instituted to ready Ireland’s case for presentation to the Paris Peace Conference.89 On 28 December, having defeated the IPP’s Patrick Shortall, a well-known building contractor, municipal corporation member for the Rotunda ward, high sheriff and honorary knight of the British crown, by 2,746 votes, i.e. by nearly 30 per cent of the total votes cast, he became Member of Parliament (MP) for Dublin City Clontarf, a result which was all the more surprising – even with the possibility of bullying and multiple voting factored in90 – due to the fact that Clontarf was a constituency which traditionally favoured Unionist candidates.91

Once again, on 19 December, he was present when the executive committee of Sinn Féin decided to set up a native parliament. Furthermore, he attended at some of the plenary and sub-committee meetings which prepared the way for that momentous event. For instance, he was part of the joint meeting of the Sinn Féin executive and the newly elected Sinn Féin MPs which was held in the Mansion House on New Year’s Day, 1919; was chosen in his absence as a member of a committee of those MPs on 7 January; and chaired a meeting of the same committee on 14 January when the documents, which were considered suitable to be put before the inaugural assembly, were discussed.92

Overall, then, the final decision was that the new legislature, called Dáil Éireann (Parliament of Ireland), and its members called Teachtaí Dála (Dáil Deputies, i.e. parliamentary representatives), or TDs for short, would meet for the first time in the Mansion House on Tuesday, 21 January, and would adopt four constitutional documents, namely the Constitution of Dáil Éireann, the Declaration of Independence; the Message to the Free Nations of the World; and the Democratic Programme.93

The following are the general circumstances surrounding the creation and the adoption of the latter document. In the first place, having been proposed by Ó Ceallaigh,94 subsequent to the opening phase of haggling over the control of constituencies, it became the price which Sinn Féin was prepared to pay in order to get Labour to abstain from the general election, thereby leaving one side with the advantage of a free run and the other without a split in its ranks.95 It also became the incentive for Cathal O’Shannon and Thomas Johnson, Labour’s delegates at the International Socialist Congress, which was due to be held on 3 February 1919 at Berne, Switzerland, to dress up abstention as being as good for the future of Irish socialism as for the future of Irish sovereignty.96 More than that, the document was meant to serve as an indication of the altruistic value system aspired to by the fledgling state, not as a dogmatic or a contractual statement of intent. And, finally, there was the fact that Labour Party officials were its principal authors, hence its left-wing tones.97

The negotiations which begot that document were conducted in private, with Mulcahy assisting Boland, then nominal president of the IRB, as the principal, but overtaxed, fixer on the Sinn Féin side.98 Mulcahy’s involvement, similar to Ó Ceallaigh’s, was probably facilitated by him being a member of Sinn Féin’s Foreign Affairs committee. In any event, he devoted more time and energy to this project than he did to the other preparations. For instance, on 18 September, he and Rory O’Connor conferred with some of the elite members of the Irish Trade Union Council and Labour Party, as Labour was then called, namely Johnson, O’Shannon, William O’Brien, J.J. (Séamus) Hughes and Thomas Farren,99 who, at that time, were still dithering before eventually deciding to abstain eleven days later.100 (Evidence that these meetings were not all sweetness and light can be found in Boland’s belated discovery, sometime in October, that he had been ‘outmanoeuvred’ by Cathal O’Shannon.101) And, of the eight private meetings which were held between representatives of Sinn Féin and Labour, within the period 13 December–21 January, Mulcahy and Collins attended four times, in comparison to Rory O’Connor who attended three times; Brugha once and, after mid-January, Gavan Duffy, almost certainly because of his legal training, three times.102 Also, in the same period, Mulcahy and O’Brien met each other on 13 December.103 They met again on 1 January, along with Hughes.104 In any event, an agreement of sorts was not reached until 14 January when, ‘at the request of the Sinn Féin leaders’, O’Shannon and Johnson produced the first draft of the document.105

However, from the pared-down, militarist and separatist Fenian perspective, the socio-economic emphasis of the draft proved unacceptable to Collins in particular, who, on the morning of 20 January, called an impromptu meeting of a small number of his IRB people – Ó Ceallaigh, Boland and Mulcahy included almost certainly – in order to discuss the proposal.106 As a consequence, during the early hours of the inauguration morning, Ó Ceallaigh altered the document to the form of a compromise which was acceptable to both sides and it was that document, with the title, the Democratic Programme, which was presented to the assembled dignitaries during the afternoon.107

Nonetheless, on balance, even though the document managed to bring together the republican principles emanating from Pearse’s GPO proclamation – ‘the Nation’s sovereignty extends not alone to all men and women of the Nation, but to all of its material possessions’ – and the socialist dogmas of the left – ‘to a general and lasting improvement in the conditions under which the working classes live and labour’108 – its aspirational emphasis still favoured the latter constituency to such an extent that, during its exposition in the Mansion House, a tearful Johnson only barely managed to refrain from applauding, so proud was he of the document, modifications and all.109 This meant that, conversely, for appearances sake, Collins and his IRB associates finally opted to accept a document which, at the time, was not in accord with their own image as dyed-in-the-wool, physical force, separatists.

Arguably the process of keeping up appearances was most evident in Mulcahy’s own contribution. Speaking exclusively through the medium of Irish, the principal language of the ceremony, he, with Con Collins seconding, proposed the acceptance of the document and, in the process, even though he himself had no interest in socialism, flexibly delivered a speech which, in the opinion of a historian of the left, was worthy of James Connolly himself:110 ‘A Nation cannot live and function while any part of its people are denied the right to the assets and riches which God bestowed on all of us … I ask you to accept this motion. Let us enshrine it in our laws, and, in our actions, let us remember those whom it is our duty to teach and to defend.’ At the same time, to be fair to him, his speech was genuine to the extent that its other sentiments were in the nature of a nationalist prayer of praise, an attribute which was not to be found in Connolly’s anti-clerical oeuvre: ‘this country … is beautiful like God made her, rich from the toil of her people, bright with laughter, blissful with mirth, holy with religion and benevolence’.111

Next day, in secret session and in the absence of de Valera et al., the Dáil provisionally appointed the following Aireacht or Cabinet (hereafter simply cited as the Cabinet, a term which will also be used to describe the executive of the merged Dáil Cabinet and Provisional Government for the period, 9 September–6 December 1922): President (Brugha); Defence (Mulcahy); Finance (MacNeill); Foreign Affairs (Plunkett); and Home Affairs (Collins), This Cabinet lasted roughly two months and Liam de Róiste had this to say of it: ‘I find in the papers that “The Republican Government” has done this; that “Dáil Éireann” has done that; that such and such has been authorised by the “Republican Headquarters” or by the “Sinn Féin Executive” – things which I, as a fact, know have not been discussed by any such bodies … Isn’t it great to be a public representative!!’112

It is understandable that de Róiste felt irritated. The Dáil did not sit during the period 23 January–31 March due to the worsening violence throughout the country. Nonetheless, de Róiste’s complaints do indicate that Brugha, Collins and Mulcahy were able to exercise a great deal of political power in a tough adroit manner: ‘bossism’.113 Also, Collins and Mulcahy, much more than Brugha, interested themselves in Sinn Féin’s political routine as an adjunct to their Cabinet responsibilities. They attended virtually all of the standing committee meetings. Mulcahy, along with Brugha, Collins, Boland and Mrs Wyse Power, partook in a sub-committee to formulate the agenda and suggest a scheme for a new standing committee to be presented to the Sinn Féin Executive on 20 February. On 6 March, he seconded Collins’ motion that an advertisement should be placed in the Sunday Independent seeking funds for Dáil Éireann and, in the same month, he and Boland organised public meetings throughout the country for the release of the German Plot prisoners. Apart from de Valera, whose escape from Lincoln Jail had successfully been engineered by Collins and Boland on 3 February, these prisoners were eventually released thirty-two days later on humanitarian grounds due to the ravages of the flu pandemic.114

And so, on the eve of the establishment of the Dáil’s first permanent Cabinet, 1–2 April 1919, at a time when he was approaching the age of thirty-three and when the country was on the verge of war, Mulcahy occupied a politico–military position of significant importance. Effectively, the act of hitching his star to Collins and his military-based IRB group facilitated, if not guaranteed, his promotion on to the Volunteer resident executive as DT and on to GHQ, maybe as CS, but certainly soon afterwards as acting CS in Brugha’s absence. Also, without de Valera, but, more so, without Brugha, he was given the opportunity to morph into the deal-making world of party politics, an opportunity he grasped with both hands by becoming a senior member of Sinn Féin, winning a seat in parliament and negotiating an agreement on the Democratic Programme with Labour.

All of those events contributed to his new-found status as an eager, astute, quiet-mannered, but somewhat aloof, achiever. So, even though, as yet, he had not reached the very top of the nationalist elite, the circumstances of the imminent military independence struggle would improve his standing still further. However, that war was also to end a decade of romantic nationalism for him. Instead of confirming him in the bold radical image which he had lately acquired, it exposed him as a conservative individual. Indeed, deep down, during the previous nine months, while practicing the art of politics as an IRB member but also as an increasingly prominent member of Sinn Féin, he might have already begun to think that way. But, for certain, during his mid-thirties he became socially distant, politically complex and militarily circumspect.