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Tag Archives: David Lloyd George


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Dáil Éireann Approves the Anglo-Irish Treaty

second-all-ireland-dail

Dáil Éireann votes to approve the Anglo-Irish Treaty on January 7, 1922, following a debate through late December 1921 and into January 1922. The vote is 64 in favour, 57 against, with the Ceann Comhairle and three others not voting. The Sinn Féin party splits into opposing sides in the aftermath of the Treaty vote, which leads to the Irish Civil War from June 1922 until May 1923. The treaty is signed in London on December 6, 1921.

Two elections take place in Ireland in 1921, as a result of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 to establish the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. The election is used by the Irish Republic as the basis of membership of the Second Dáil. The general election to the Northern Ireland House of Commons occurs on May 24, 1921. Of 52 seats, forty are won by unionists, six by moderate Irish nationalists, and six by Sinn Féin. No actual polling takes place in the Southern Ireland constituencies, as all 128 candidates are returned unopposed. Given the backdrop of the increasingly violent War of Independence, any candidates opposed to Sinn Féin, and their supporters can expect to be harassed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Supporters of the Irish Labour Party stand aside to allow the constitutional situation to run its course. Of these 128, 124 are won by Sinn Féin, and four by independent unionists representing the University of Dublin constituency. Only the Sinn Féin candidates recognise the Second Dáil and five of these have been elected in two constituencies, one in each part of Ireland, so the total number of members who assemble in the Second Dáil is 125.

During the Second Dáil, the government of the Irish Republic and the British government of David Lloyd George agree to hold peace negotiations. On September 14, 1921, the Dáil ratifies the appointment of Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Robert Barton, Eamonn Duggan, and George Gavan Duffy as envoys plenipotentiary for the peace conference in England. These envoys eventually sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty on December 6. After almost a month of acrimonious debate the treaty is formally ratified by Dáil Éireann on January 7, 1922.

To satisfy the requirements of the British constitution, the treaty also has to be ratified by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. Thus, Irish nationalists end their boycott of the home rule parliament to attend the southern House of Commons as MPs. This they do alongside the four Unionist MPs who had refused to recognise the Dáil. In this way the treaty is ratified a second time in Dublin, this time unanimously as the anti-Treaty TDs refuse to attend.

Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty a provisional parliament, considered by nationalists to be the Third Dáil, is elected in the 1922 general election on June 16. Collins and Éamon de Valera agree a pact between the pro- and anti-Treaty wings of Sinn Féin, and this pact and the elections are endorsed by the Second Dáil. The new assembly is recognised both by nationalists and the British Government and so replaces both the Parliament of Southern Ireland and the Second Dáil with a single body. The anti-Treaty groups of IRA members, TDs, and their supporters are still bitterly opposed the settlement, despite the election result, and this leads to the Irish Civil War.

(Pictured: Second All-Ireland Dáil Éireann, elected in 1921)


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Tomás MacCurtain Elected Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork

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Tomás MacCurtain is elected Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork on January 31, 1920.

MacCurtain is born at Ballyknockane in the Parish of Mourne Abbey on March 20, 1884. He attends Burnfort National School until the family moves to Blackpool on the north side of Cork city in 1897, where he attends The North Monastery School. He becomes active in numerous cultural and political movements and joins the Blackpool branch of the Gaelic League, becoming its secretary in 1902. He works in his early career as a clerk and in his free time teaches the Irish language. He joins the Fianna Éireann in 1911 and is a founding member of the Irish Volunteers.

At the outset of the Easter Rising in April 1916, MacCurtain commands a force of up to 1,000 men of the Irish Volunteers who assemble at various locations around County Cork. MacCurtain and his officers await orders from the volunteer leadership in Dublin, but conflicting instructions and confusion prevail, and the Cork volunteers never entered the fray. A tense week-long stand-off develops when British forces surround the volunteer hall. A negotiated agreement leads to the surrender of the volunteers’ arms to then Lord Mayor of Cork Thomas Butterfield on the understanding that they will be returned. The weapons are not returned and MacCurtain is jailed in the Frongoch Prisoner of War camp in Wales. Eighteen months later, after the general amnesty of participants in the Rising, MacCurtain returns to active duty as a Commandant of what is now the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

By 1918, MacCurtain is a brigade commander in the IRA. During the Conscription Crisis in the autumn 1918, he actively encourages the hiring of the women of Cumann na mBan to cater for Volunteers. MacCurtain is personally involved with Michael Collins‘ Squad that attempts to assassinate Lord John French, whose car is missed as the convoy passes through the ambush positions. Despite the setback he remains brigadier of No.1 Cork when he is elected the Sinn Féin councillor for NW Ward No. 3 of Cork in the January 1920 council elections and is chosen by his fellow councillors to be the Lord Mayor. He begins a process of political reform within the city.

On his 36th birthday, March 20, 1920, MacCurtain is shot dead in front of his wife and son by a group of men with blackened faces in retaliation for the shooting of a policeman. MacCurtain’s house in the city’s Blackpool area is also ransacked. The assassins are found to be members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) by the official inquest into the event.

The killing causes widespread public outrage. The coroner’s inquest passes a verdict of wilful murder against British Prime Minister Lloyd George and against certain members of the RIC. Michael Collins later orders his personal assassination squad to hunt down and kill the police officers involved in the attack. RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who had ordered the attack, is fatally shot with MacCurtain’s own revolver while leaving a Protestant church in Lisburn, County Antrim on August 22, 1920, sparking a “pogrom” against the Catholic residents of the town. MacCurtain is buried in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork.


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Birth of Thomas Patrick Ashe

thomas-patrick-ashe

Thomas Patrick Ashe, a member of the Gaelic League, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and a founding member of the Irish Volunteers, is born in Lispole, County Kerry, on January 12, 1885. Ashe enters De La Salle Training College, Waterford, in 1905 and begins a teaching career as principal of Corduff National School, Lusk, County Dublin, in 1908.

Ashe plays a major part in the 1916 Easter Rising outside the capital city commanding the Fingal battalion of the Irish Volunteers. Ashe is commandant of the 5th battalion of the Dublin brigade, a force of 60–70 men engaging British forces around north County Dublin during the rising. They are armed only with a few rounds, about a dozen service rifles, a dozen Mausers, and a dozen Martini-Henry carbines. Some of Ashe’s men are armed only with a shotgun against the well-equipped army regulars.

Ashe’s battalion wins a major victory in Ashbourne, County Meath, where they engage a much larger force. They capture a significant quantity of arms and up to twenty Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) vehicles. Eleven RIC members, including County Inspector Alexander Gray, and two volunteers are killed during the 5-1/2-hour battle. Twenty-four hours after the rising collapses, Ashe’s battalion surrenders on the orders of Patrick Pearse. On May 8, 1916, Ashe and Éamon de Valera are court-martialled and sentenced to death. The sentences are commuted to penal servitude for life. Ashe is imprisoned in Lewes Prison in Lewes, East Sussex, England.

De Valera, Ashe, and Thomas Hunter lead a prisoner hunger strike on May 28, 1917. With accounts of prison mistreatment appearing in the Irish press and mounting protests in Ireland, Ashe and the remaining prisoners are freed on June 18, 1917, by David Lloyd George as part of a general amnesty.

Upon his release, Ashe returns to Ireland and begins a series of speaking engagements. In August 1917, he is arrested and charged with sedition for a speech that he makes in Ballinalee, County Longford, where Michael Collins is also speaking. He is detained at the Curragh but is then transferred to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. He is convicted and sentenced to two years hard labour. Ashe and other prisoners, including Austin Stack, demand prisoner of war status. On September 20, 1917, Ashe again goes on hunger strike. He dies at the Mater Hospital on September 25, 1917, after being force fed by prison authorities. At the inquest into his death, the jury condemns the staff at the prison for the “inhuman and dangerous operation performed on the prisoner, and other acts of unfeeling and barbaric conduct.” His body lies in state at Dublin City Hall and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

Ashe is a relative of Catherine Ashe, the paternal grandmother of American actor Gregory Peck, who emigrates to the United States in the 19th century. The Ashe Memorial Hall built in 1928, housing the Kerry County Museum, in Tralee, County Kerry, is named after him while Nelson Street, also in Tralee, is renamed Ashe Street.