seamus dubhghaill

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Tag Archives: Irish War of Independence


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Michael Collins Accepts Control of Dublin Castle

michael-collins-castle-handoverMichael Collins, the Chairman of the Provisional Government of Ireland created under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, accepts control of Dublin Castle from Lord Lieutenant Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard on January 16, 1922.

Once the Treaty is signed and ratified by Dail Eireann on January 7, the British quickly prepare to leave the Irish Free State and hand over this sprawling monument to British rule in Ireland. The new rulers of Ireland are advised to be ready to take over Dublin Castle in mid-January. The turn over symbolizes the end of British rule in Ireland, although the Irish Free State remains part of the Commonwealth until 1949.

Dublin Castle is first founded as a major defensive work by Meiler Fitzhenry on the orders of King John of England in 1204 and is largely complete by 1230. For centuries Ireland has been governed from “The Castle.” Everything British that moves and has its being in Ireland has emanated from the Castle.

It was from the Bermingham Tower in the Castle that the legendary escape of Red Hugh O’Donnell and Art O’Neill takes place in January 1592. Art O’Neill perishes in the Dublin Mountains but O’Donnell manages to make his way to the sanctuary of the O’Byrnes in Glenmalure, County Wicklow.

Just over two hundred years later, in 1907, the Insignia of the Order of St.Patrick, known as the Irish Crown Jewels, are stolen from the Bedford Tower in an audacious robbery that has never been solved.

The Castle could have fallen during the upheavals of 1641 but it did not succumb to rebel control. Robert Emmett could have taken it in 1803 but failed to do so. The Castle was even more vulnerable during the 1916 Easter Rising but the Volunteers failed to capitalize on it.

Considering the 700-year history of the Castle, Michael Collins, dressed impressively in his military uniform, must have savoured the moment when his staff car drives into the precincts of the complex of buildings whose fabric he has successfully managed to infiltrate during the Anglo-Irish war while, all the while managing to keep himself out of the clutches of its more sinister and homicidal operatives.

When Collins steps out of his staff car at the Castle, Lord Lieutenant FitzAlan-Howard is reported to say, “You are seven minutes late, Mr. Collins” to which Collins replies, “We’ve been waiting over seven hundred years, you can have the extra seven minutes.”


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Éamon de Valera Resigns as President of the Republic

eamon-de-valeraThe Anglo-Irish Treaty is introduced to replace the Republic with a dominion of the British Commonwealth with the King represented by a Governor-General of the Irish Free State. The Treaty is finally signed on December 6, 1921.

Éamon de Valera does not join in on the negotiations. His opponents say that he does so because he knows that the British will only allow an Irish dominion, not a republic, and does not want to be blamed for giving up the idea of a republic. De Valera says he is angry because the delegates working out the treaty had not asked him before signing the treaty. But at a secret session of the Dáil during the Treaty debates and publicised in January 1922, de Valera’s ideas for a treaty include dominion status, the “Treaty Ports,” a veto by the parliament in Belfast, and the king as head of the Commonwealth. Ireland would pay a share of the imperial debt.

On January 9, 1922, when the Treaty is accepted by a vote of 64 to 57, de Valera resigns as President of the Republic and a large minority of Sinn Féin Teachta Dálas (TDs) leave Dáil Éireann. De Valera  states, “In view of the vote that was taken here on Saturday and which I had definitely to oppose as one that was tending to subvert the Republic which I was elected to my present position to defend and maintain; and as it appeared to me also to be a vote which would tend to subvert the independence of the country, I could no longer continue— as I was beaten in that — I could no longer continue in my present office feeling I did not have the confidence of the House. I therefore wish to place my resignation in the hands of the Assembly.”the-day-01-09-1922

A motion to re-elect De Valera as President is defeated along pro and anti-treaty lines by 60 votes to 58. Arthur Griffith, de Valera opponent and former colleague, is elected President of Dáil Éireann in his place.

Following the vote, Griffith says, “Before another word is spoken I want to say: I want the Deputies here to know, and all Ireland to know, that this vote is not to be taken as against President de Valera. It is a vote to help the Treaty, and I want to say now that there is scarcely a man I have ever met in my life that I have more love and respect for than President de Valera. I am thoroughly sorry to see him placed in such a position. We want him with us.”


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Birth of Daniel “Dan” Keating

dan-keatingDaniel “Dan” Keating is born in Castlemaine, County Kerry, on January 2, 1902. Keating is a life-long Irish republican and patron of Republican Sinn Féin.

Keating is educated in local schools, including the Christian Brothers School in Tralee, where he does his apprenticeship. During this time he also becomes a skillful Gaelic football player.

In 1918, Keating joins Fianna Éireann and two years later, during the Irish War of Independence, he joins the Boherbee B Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Kerry Brigade, Irish Republican Army (IRA). On June 1, 1921, Keating is involved in an ambush between Castlemaine and Milltown which claims the lives of five Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) men. On July 10, 1921, on the eve of the truce between the IRA and British forces, Keating’s unit is involved in a gun battle with the British Army near Castleisland.

Keating opposes the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and fights on the Republican side in the Irish Civil War. During the Civil War, he is involved in operations in Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary, before his column is arrested by Free State Forces. Keating spends seven months in Portlaoise Prison and the Curragh Prison before his release in March 1923.

Keating remains an IRA member for a long time after the Civil War and is arrested several times during the 1930s on various charges. Keating is also active in London during the 1939/1940 IRA bombing campaign.

In 1933, he is involved in an assassination attempt on the leader of the Irish Blueshirts, Eoin O’Duffy, during a visit to County Kerry. The attack is to happen at Ballyseedy, where Free State forces had carried out the Ballyseedy Massacre during the Irish Civil War. However, the plot fails when the person travelling with O’Duffy refuses to divulge what car O’Duffy would be riding.

Keating retires and returns to his native Kerry in 1978, living out the rest of his life with relatives in Knockbrack. After the death of former IRA volunteer George Harrison in November 2004, Keating becomes patron of Republican Sinn Féin until his own death on October 2, 2007 at the age of 105 years. At the time of death he is Ireland’s oldest man and the last surviving veteran of the Irish War of Independence. He is buried in Kiltallagh Cemetery, Castlemaine.