Coogan’s particular focus is on Ireland’s nationalist/independence movement in the 20th century, a period of unprecedented political upheaval. He blames the Troubles in Northern Ireland on “Paisleyism.”
In 2000, Irish writer and editor Ruth Dudley Edwards is awarded £25,000 damages and a public apology by the High Court in London against Coogan for factual errors in references to her in his book Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora (2000). In the book, he writes that Dudley Edwards had “groveled to and hypocritically ingratiated herself with the English establishment to further her writing career.” He also alleges that Dudley Edwards “had abused the position of chairwoman of the British Association for Irish Studies (BAIS) by trying to impose her political views on it” and that her commission to write True Brits had been awarded because of political favouritism.
When TaoiseachEnda Kenny causes confusion following a speech at Béal na Bláth by incorrectly claiming Michael Collins had brought Lenin to Ireland, Coogan comments, “Those were the days when bishops were bishops and Lenin was a communist. How would that have gone down with the churchyard collections?”
Coogan has been criticised by the Irish historians Liam Kennedy and Diarmaid Ferriter, as well as Cormac Ó Gráda, for a supposed lack of thoroughness in his research and bias:
“Well, I waited in this book to hear some great revelation, and it just isn’t there. It’s anticlimactic. I could not see the great plot, and indeed there is no serious historian who … I can’t think of a single historian who has researched the Famine in depth – and Tim Pat has not researched it in depth” (The Famine Plot).
“Coogan is not remotely interested in looking at what others have written on 20th-century Irish history…. he does not appear interested in context and shows scant regard for evidence. He does not attempt to offer any sustained analysis in relation to the challenges of state building, the meaning of sovereignty, economic and cultural transformations, or comparative perspectives on the evolution of Irish society. There is no indication whatsoever that Coogan has engaged with the abundant archival material relating to the subject matter he pronounces on. There is no rhyme or reason when it comes to the citation of the many quotations he uses; the vast majority are not referenced. For the 300-page text, 21 endnotes are cited and six of them relate to Coogan’s previous books, a reminder that much of this tome consists of recycled material…. Tim Pat Coogan… he is a decent, compassionate man who has made a significant contribution to Irish life. But he has not read up on Irish history; indeed, such is the paucity of his research efforts that this book amounts to a travesty of 20th-century Irish history” (1916: The Mornings After).
O’Connor is one of five children of Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) Supreme Council member and later MPJames O’Connor. He is IRB treasurer in 1870 and party to the discussions on the New Departure, a collaboration between constitutional and physical force nationalists, the open and the secret movements. Her uncle, John O’Connor, is a leading member of the Supreme Council.
In 1890, when O’Connor’s father is a journalist, her mother, Mary O’Connor, and four of her sisters – Annie, Aileen, Kathleen and Norah – die after eating contaminated mussels gathered on the seashore near where they lived in what became known as the Seapoint tragedy. She becomes violently ill, but survives.
O’Connor travels to London after a falling out with her stepmother six years later. She finds work as a civil servant and a paid speaker for the Liberal Party, through which she meets Crompton Llewelyn Davies, adviser to David Lloyd George and solicitor to the General Post Office, brother of Arthur Llewelyn Davies and uncle of the boys who inspire the creation of Peter Pan. They marry on December 8, 1910. The marriage produces two children: Richard and Catherine.
Davies is an orthodox home ruler but is radicalised by the 1916 Easter Rising. Davies and her husband raise funds for Roger Casement‘s legal defence and later lobby for his death sentence to be commuted. She is saluted as one of the “fond ones” in a letter from Casement to Margaret Gavan Duffy on the eve of his August 3, 1916, execution in Pentonville Prison.
Following the Easter Rising, Davies takes her two children to Ireland and purchases Furry Park, a crumbling mansion near Dublin. She collaborates with Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence and her home in Clontarf becomes one of Collins’ many safe houses as he directs the war. She is arrested and imprisoned in 1920. Collins also stays at her Portmarnock house, using it as a safe house.
Davies says in later life that she and Michael Collins had been lovers, but the historian Peter Hart claims her to be a stalker. It has been suggested that Collins is the father of her son Richard. Historian Meda Ryan denies this saying “Letters from him and a phone call confirmed that he was born December 24, 1912, before his mother met Collins.”
Historian Tim Pat Coogan in his book Michael Collins says that Davies claimed on the night that Collins learned that Éamon de Valera was going to reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty “he was so distressed that I gave myself to him.” Coogan refuses to give a source and in the footnotes, he says, “Confidential source.”
Davies makes a lasting contribution to Irish literature with a translation, with George Thomson, of the Muiris Ó Súilleabháin book Fiche Bliain faoi Bhláth as Twenty Years a-Flowering. She is thought to have helped Collins write his book The Path to Freedom.
Mac Thomáis comes from a staunch Republican family. His father, a fire-brigade officer, dies when he is five years old and his family moves to Goldenbridge, Inchicore, Dublin. He leaves school at thirteen to work as delivery boy for White Heather Laundry, learning Dublin neighbourhoods with great thoroughness. He says he found work to help his mother pay the rent. He later works as a clerk and is appointed credit controller for an engineering firm.
At the November 1959 Ardfheis Mac Thomáis is elected to the Ardchomhairle of Sinn Féin and edits and contributes to the Sinn Féin newspaper United Irishman. He is a close friend of Tomás Mac Giolla and is deeply affected by the 1970 split in Sinn Féin. He takes the Provisional side, opposing Mac Giolla.
Mac Thomáis takes over as editor of An Phoblacht in 1972. In July 1973, he is arrested and charged with IRA membership at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. He refuses to recognise the court, but he gives a lengthy address from the dock. The following month he is sentenced to 15-months imprisonment. Within two months of completing his sentence he is again before the court on the same charge and again receives a 15-month sentence. Editors of six left-wing and Irish-language journals call for his release, as do a number of writers, and hundreds attend protest meetings – to no avail. He serves his full sentence.
Tim Pat Coogan, editor of The Irish Press, claims the charges against Mac Thomáis are politically motivated to a large degree as his activities are confined strictly to the newspaper An Phoblacht. Under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, due to his membership in Sinn Féin in the 1970s he is removed from his position in making some of the RTÉ historical programmes. As a historian he makes numerous contributions to various historical publications such as the Dublin Historical Review.
From 1974 Mac Thomáis writes a number of books on old Dublin. They sell well and remain in print for over 20 years. He also starts a number of walking tours of Dublin, which prove very popular.
Spence, the sixth of seven children, is born and raised in the Shankill Road area of West Belfast in Northern Ireland, the son of William Edward Spence, a member of the Ulster Volunteers who fought in World War I, and Isabella “Bella” Hayes. The family home is 66 Joseph Street in an area of the lower Shankill known colloquially as “the Hammer.” He is educated at the Riddel School on Malvern Street and the Hemsworth Square school, finishing his education at the age of fourteen. He is also a member of the Church Lads’ Brigade, a Church of Ireland group, and the Junior Orange Order. His family has a long tradition of Orange Order membership.
Spence takes various manual jobs in the area until joining the British Army in 1957 as a member of the Royal Ulster Rifles. He rises to the rank of Provost Sergeant (battalion police). He is stationed in Cyprus and sees action fighting against the forces of Colonel Georgios Grivas. He serves until 1961 when ill-health forces him to leave. He then finds employment at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where he works as a stager (builder of the scaffolding in which the ships are constructed), a skilled job that commands respect among working class Protestants and ensures for him a higher status within the Shankill.
From an early age Spence is a member of the Prince Albert Temperance Loyal Orange Lodge, where fellow members include John McQuade. He is also a member of the Royal Black Institution and the Apprentice Boys of Derry. Due to his later involvement in a murder, he is expelled from the Orange Order and the Royal Black Institution. The Reverend Martin Smyth is influential in his being thrown out of the Orange Order.
Spence’s older brother Billy is a founding member of Ulster Protestant Action (UPA) in 1956, and he is also a member of the group. He is frequently involved in street fights with republicans and garners a reputation as a “hard man.” He is also associated loosely with prominent loyalists such as Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal and is advised by both men in 1959 when he launches a protest against Gerry Fitt at Belfast City Hall after Fitt had described Spence’s regiment as “murderers” over allegations that they had killed civilians in Cyprus. He, along with other Shankill Road loyalists, break from Paisley in 1965 when they side with James Kilfedder in a row that follows the latter’s campaigns in Belfast West. Paisley intimates that Kilfedder, a rival for the leadership of dissident unionism, is close to Fine Gael after learning that he had attended party meetings while a student at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). The Shankill loyalists support Kilfedder and following his election as MP send a letter to Paisley accusing him of treachery during the entire affair.
Spence claims that he is approached in 1965 by two men, one of whom was an Ulster Unionist Party MP, who tells him that the Ulster Volunteer Force is to be re-established and that he is to have responsibility for the Shankill. He is sworn in soon afterward in a ceremony held in secret near Pomeroy, County Tyrone. Because of his military experience, he is chosen as the military commander and public face of the UVF when the group is established. However, RUC Special Branch believes that his brother Billy, who keeps a much lower public profile, is the real leader of the group. Whatever the truth of this intelligence, Spence’s Shankill UVF team is made up of only around 12 men on its formation. Their base of operations is the Standard Bar, a pub on the Shankill Road frequented by Spence and his allies.
On May 7, 1966, a group of UVF men led by Spence petrol bomb a Catholic-owned pub on the Shankill Road. Fire also engulfs the house next door, killing the elderly Protestant widow, Matilda Gould (77), who lives there. On May 27, he orders four UVF men to kill an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member, Leo Martin, who lives on the Falls Road. Unable to find their target, the men drive around in search of any Catholic instead. They shoot dead John Scullion (28), a Catholic civilian, as he walks home. Spence later writes “at the time, the attitude was that if you couldn’t get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig, he’s your last resort.” On June 26, the same gang shoots dead Catholic civilian Peter Ward (18) and wounds two others as they leave a pub on Malvern Street in the lower Shankill. Two days later, the government of Northern Ireland uses the Special Powers Act to declare the UVF illegal. Shortly after, Spence and three others are arrested.
In October 1966, Spence is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Ward, although he has always claimed his innocence. He is sent to Crumlin Road Prison. During its July 12, 1967, march, the Orange lodge to which he belongs stops outside the prison in tribute to him. This occurs despite him having been officially expelled from the Orange Order following his conviction. His involvement in the killings gives him legendary status among many young loyalists and he is claimed as an inspiration by the likes of Michael Stone. Tim Pat Coogan describes Spence as a “loyalist folk hero.” The murder of Ward is, however, repudiated by Paisley and condemned in his Protestant Telegraph, sealing the split between the two.
Spence appeals against his conviction and is the subject of a release petition organised by the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee, although nothing comes of either initiative. Despite the fact that control of the UVF lay with his closest ally, Samuel “Bo” McClelland, from prison he is often at odds with the group’s leadership, in particular with regards to the 1971 McGurk’s Bar bombing. Spence now argues that UVF members are soldiers and soldiers should not kill civilians, as had been the case at McGurk’s Bar. He respects some Irish republican paramilitaries, who he feels also live as soldiers, and to this end he writes a sympathetic letter to the widow of Official IRA leader Joe McCann after he is killed in 1972.
Spence is granted two days leave in early July 1972 to attend the wedding of his daughter Elizabeth to Winston Churchill “Winkie” Rea. The latter had formally asked Spence for his daughter’s hand in marriage during a prison visit. Met by two members of the Red Hand Commando upon his release, Spence is informed of the need for a restructuring within the UVF and told not to return to prison. He initially refuses and goes on to attend his daughter’s wedding. Afterward a plot is concocted where Jim Curry, a Red Hand Commando member, will drive Spence back to prison but the car is to be stopped and Spence “kidnapped.” As arranged, the car in which he is a passenger is stopped in Springmartin and he is taken away by UVF members. He remains at large for four months and during that time gives an interview to ITV‘s World in Action in which he calls for the UVF to take an increased role in the Northern Ireland conflict against the Provisional IRA. At the same time, he distances himself from any policy of random murders of Catholics. He also takes on responsibility for the restructuring, returning the UVF to the same command structure and organisational base that Edward Carson had utilised for the original UVF, with brigades, battalions, companies, platoons and sections. He also directs a significant restocking of the group’s arsenal, with guns mostly taken from the security forces. He gives his permission for UVF brigadier Billy Hanna to establish the UVF’s Mid-Ulster Brigade in Lurgan. His fugitive status earns him the short-lived nickname the “Orange Pimpernel.” He is arrested along with around thirty other men at a UVF drinking club in Brennan Street, but after giving a false name, he is released.
Spence’s time on the outside comes to an end on November 4 when he is captured by Colonel Derek Wilford of the Parachute Regiment, who identifies him by tattoos on his hands. He is sent directly to Long Kesh Detention Centre soon afterward, where he shares a cell with William “Plum” Smith, one of the Red Hand Commandos whom he had met upon his initial release and who had since been jailed for attempted murder.
Spence soon becomes the UVF commander within the Long Kesh Detention Centre. He runs his part of Long Kesh along military lines, drilling inmates and training them in weapons use while also expecting a maintenance of discipline. As the loyalist Long Kesh commander, he initially also has jurisdiction over the imprisoned members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), although this comes to an end in 1973 when, following a deterioration in relations between the two groups outside the prison walls, James Craig becomes the UDA’s Maze commander. By this time Spence polarises opinion within the UVF, with some members fiercely loyal to a man they see as a folk hero and others resenting his draconian leadership and increasing emphasis on politics, with one anonymous member even labelling him “a cunt in a cravat.”
Spence begins to move toward a position of using political means to advance one’s aims, and he persuades the UVF leadership to declare a temporary ceasefire in 1973. Following Merlyn Rees‘ decision to legalise the UVF in 1974, Spence encourages them to enter politics and support the establishment of the Volunteer Political Party (VPP). However, his ideas are abandoned as the UVF ceasefire falls apart that same year following the Ulster Workers’ Council strike and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The carnage of the latter shocks and horrifies Spence. Furthermore, the VPP suffers a heavy defeat in West Belfast in the October 1974 United Kingdom general election, when the DUP candidate, John McQuade, captures six times as many votes as the VPP’s Ken Gibson.
Spence is increasingly disillusioned with the UVF, and he imparts these views to fellow inmates at Long Kesh. According to Billy Mitchell, Spence quizzes him and others sent to Long Kesh about why they are there, seeking an ideological answer to his question. When the prisoner is unable to provide one, Spence then seeks to convince them of the wisdom of his more politicised path, something that he accomplishes with Mitchell. David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson are among the other UVF men imprisoned in the mid-1970s to become disciples of Spence. In 1977, he publicly condemns the use of violence for political gain, on the grounds that it is counterproductive. In 1978, he leaves the UVF altogether. His brother Bobby, also a UVF member, dies in October 1980 inside the Maze, a few months after the death of their brother Billy.
Released from prison in 1984, Spence soon becomes a leading member of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and a central figure in the Northern Ireland peace process. He initially works solely for the PUP but eventually also sets up the Shankill Activity Centre, a government-supported scheme to provide training and leisure opportunities for unemployed youths.
Spence is entrusted by the Combined Loyalist Military Command (CLMC) to read out their October 13, 1994, statement that announces the loyalist ceasefire. Flanked by his PUP colleagues Jim McDonald and William Plum Smith, as well as Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) members Gary McMichael, John White and David Adams, he reads the statement from Fernhill, a former Cunningham family home on their former Glencairn estate in Belfast’s Glencairn area. This building had been an important training centre for members of Edward Carson’s original UVF. A few days after the announcement, he makes a trip to the United States along with the PUP’s David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson and the UDP’s McMichael, Adams and Joe English. Among their engagements is one as guests of honour of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He goes on to become a leading advocate for the Good Friday Agreement.
In August 2000, Spence is caught up in moves by Johnny Adair‘s “C” Company of the UDA to take control of the Shankill by forcing out the UVF and other opponents. Due to his involvement in the peace process and the eventual Good Friday Agreement, the authorities insist against his wishes to install additional security measures to the doors and windows. As a result, when Adair’s men try to force their way into Spence’s Shankill home, they only manage to push a long stick through a partially open window of the bungalow and dislodge a few of his military frames off the opposite wall. There is no other damage and other than that small disruption no one is able to gain any physical entry into the property. When Spence’s wife dies three years later, he says that C Company is responsible for her death, as the events had taken on her health.
On May 3, 2007, Spence reads out the statement by the UVF announcing that it will keep its weapons but put them beyond the reach of ordinary members. The statement also includes a warning that activities could “provoke another generation of loyalists toward armed resistance.” He does not specify what activities or what is being resisted.
Spence marries Louie Donaldson, a native of the city’s Grosvenor Road, on June 20, 1953, at Wellwood Street Mission, Sandy Row. The couple has three daughters, Elizabeth (born 1954), Sandra (1956) and Catherine (1960). Louie dies in 2003. Spence, a talented footballer in his youth with Old Lodge F.C., is a lifelong supporter of Linfield F.C.
Spence dies in a Belfast hospital at the age of 78 on September 25, 2011. He had been suffering from a long-term illness and was admitted to hospital 12 days prior to his death. He is praised by, among others, PUP leader Brian Ervine, who states that “his contribution to the peace is incalculable.” Sinn Féin‘s Gerry Kelly claims that while Spence had been central to the development of loyalist paramilitarism, “he will also be remembered as a major influence in drawing loyalism away from sectarian strife.”
However, a granddaughter of Matilda Gould, a 74-year-old Protestant widow who had died from burns sustained in the UVF’s attempted bombing of a Catholic bar next door to her home, objects to Spence being called a “peacemaker” and describes him as a “bad evil man.” The unnamed woman states, “When you go out and throw a petrol bomb through a widow’s window, you’re no peacemaker.”
Spence’s funeral service is held in St. Michael’s Church of Ireland on the Shankill Road. Notable mourners include Unionist politicians Dawn Purvis, Mike Nesbitt, Michael McGimpsey, Hugh Smyth and Brian Ervine, UVF chief John “Bunter” Graham and UDA South Belfast brigadier Jackie McDonald. In accordance with his wishes, there are no paramilitary trappings at the funeral or reference to his time in the UVF. Instead, his coffin is adorned with the beret and regimental flag of the Royal Ulster Rifles, his former regiment. He is buried in Bangor, County Down.
Born in Blackwater Street off Grosvenor Road in west Belfast in 1916, White is one of ten children (five sons and five daughters) of Billy White, water technician with Belfast Corporation, and his wife Kathleen (née McKane). As a boy he sings in the choir of Clonard Monastery. He plays in a céilí band as a teenager and is a lifelong aficionado of Irish music and plays the banjo and other string instruments (often smuggling guns in their cases). As a young man he is also an active member of Granuaile GAA club, playing hurling and Gaelic football.
White works as a plumber and joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at an early age, being imprisoned several times during the 1930s. He travels to England to take part in the IRA’s “S-Plan” bombing campaign of 1939 to 1940, then returns to Dublin to pass his bomb-making skills on to new recruits, including Brendan Behan. He then returns to England to become the IRA’s Manchester Operations Officer but, after a bomb he is working on goes off in the flat he is renting, he flees to Glasgow, then back to Ireland.
Shortly after returning to Ireland, White is arrested while giving a lecture on explosives in County Offaly and is interned at the Curragh Camp. The republican prisoners are split into two groups, one led by Pearse Kelly, and the other by Liam Leddy. White is unhappy with the situation and refuses to take sides. Shortly after his arrival, IRA Chief of StaffSeán McCool is also interned, and is concerned that the locations of many of the IRA’s arms caches are known only to him. McCool asks him to get the information to the new leadership by “signing out,” declaring that he is no longer involved with a paramilitary group. He refuses as doing so would be breaking IRA orders, but McCool persists, suggesting that he could resign from the army before signing out, thereby not contravening IRA rules. Once released, he immediately rejoins the IRA and passes on the information. He is also made IRA Quartermaster General by Chief of StaffCharlie Kerins. However, he is suspected of involvement in the killing of a police officer, Dinny O’Brien – something which he always denies – and has to go on the run.
In October 1942, White and a comrade are cornered in a house. Here the details are unclear. Tim Pat Coogan claims that White is in a house in Donnycarney in County Dublin with Maurice O’Neill (executed in Mountjoy Prison on November 12, 1942), while Danny Morrison claims that White is at a wedding reception in Cavan with Paddy Dermody. Both agree that there is a shoot-out in which one officer is killed, enabling White to escape, but he falls down a railway embankment and hides for two days before emerging, hoping that the police hunt is over. In Coogan’s version, he catches a bus to Dublin, covered in blood and mud; while, according to Morrison, he is assisted by a sympathetic soldier who helps him recover and cycles to Dublin with him. They agree that he reaches a safe house once in the capital. Morrison claims that the Donnycarney shootout occurs four months later and that White travels north, rather than returning to Dublin a second time.
On arrival in the north, White is made Officer Commanding of the IRA Northern Command. Kerins is arrested in Dublin in June 1944 and later tried for murder and hanged. White becomes the only member of the IRA leadership still free. A wanted man, he travels around until work is arranged for him by supporters in Altaghoney, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. There, he works as a handyman and barber and sets up a dance band, also managing to acquire some explosives from a local Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer who wants rocks cleared from his field. For at least part of his time in Altaghoney, he serves as the IRA Chief of Staff.
White is finally captured and tried in October 1946 and is handed over to the Irish authorities. He is sentenced to death, but this is reduced to twelve years’ imprisonment on appeal, a defence in which his former comrade Seán MacBride is involved. He is actually released early in 1948 following a change in government which leaves Mac Bride in a ministerial post.
Following his release, White remains active in the IRA, but in a less high-profile way, as he is married and settles in Dublin. He supports the Provisional IRA following its split in 1970 and is involved in smuggling weapons across the border.
White publishes his autobiography in 1985, actually ghostwritten by Uinseann MacEoin. Entitled Harry, it attracts press attention for naming the IRA members who killed Kevin O’Higgins, names which Peadar O’Donnell separately confirms. White’s nephew, Danny Morrison, becomes a prominent Irish republican from the 1970s onward.
The idea for a new party is discussed at a meeting in Dublin on February 21, 1940, attended by 104 former officers of the pro- and anti-Treaty wings of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The inaugural meeting of the new party takes place on March 2, 1940. Simon Donnelly, who had fought in Boland’s Mill under Éamon de Valera in the 1916 Easter Rising, the former leader of the Dublin section of the IRA, and former chief of the Irish Republican Police (IRP), is elected as president of a central committee of fifteen members. Other leaders are Seán Fitzpatrick, another Irish War of Independence veteran; Con Lehane, who had recently left the IRA; Séamus Gibbons; Tom O’Rourke; Seán Dowling, one of Rory O’Connor‘s principal lieutenants in the Irish Civil War; Colonel Roger McCorley, one of the principal IRA leaders in Belfast during the Irish War of Independence who had taken the Irish Free State side in the Irish Civil War; Frank Thornton, one of Michael Collins‘ top intelligence officers; Roger McHugh, a lecturer in English at University College Dublin (UCD) and later professor; Captain Martin Bell and Peter O’Connor.
Also in attendance at the first meeting is Seamus O’Donovan, Director of Chemicals on IRA Headquarters Staff in 1921 and architect of the IRA Sabotage Campaign in England by the IRA in 1939–40. Indeed, O’Donovan proposes several of the basic resolutions. Additionally, the meeting is attended by Eoin O’Duffy and several former leaders of the Irish Christian Front.
Many members of the Irish far-right join Córas na Poblachta including Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, who becomes the leader of the party’s youth wing Aicéin and goes on to found Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, Alexander McCabe, Maurice O’Connor and Reginald Eager from the Irish Friends of Germany, George Griffin, Patrick Moylett, his brother John and Joseph Andrews of the People’s National Party, Dermot Brennan of Saoirse Gaedheal, and Hugh O’Neill and Alexander Carey of Córas Gaedhealach. As a result, the party assumes a pro-German and antisemitic attitude which is frequently expressed in party functions, and Gardaí suspects Córas na Poblachta members of daubing the walls of Trinity College Dublin in antisemitic slogans following the visit of British politician Leslie Hore-Belisha to Ireland in 1941.
Socialist republicans Nora Connolly O’Brien and Helena Molony take an interest in the group. Reflecting divisions within the IRA, a minority of the party’s leaders sympathise with communism rather than fascism.
The main aim of Córas na Poblachta is the formal declaration of a Republic. It also demands that the Irish language be given greater prominence in street names, shop signs, and government documents and bank notes. It proposes to introduce national service in order that male citizens understand their responsibilities. The party’s economic policy is the statutory right to employment and a living wage. It proposes breaking the link with the British pound, the nationalisation of banks and the making of bank officials into civil servants. In the area of education, the party espouses free education for all children over primary age as a right, and university education when feasible. It also calls for the introduction of children’s allowances. In addition, Córas na Poblachta advocates for “the destruction of the Masonic Order in Ireland” and during its founding meeting reporters are told that the party will be ready to take over the government of Ireland “on either a corporate or fascist basis.”
The party has close ties with the Irish nationalist and pro-fascist party Ailtirí na hAiséirghe, whose leader, Gearóid Ó Cuinneagáin, had led Córas na Poblachta’s youth wing Aicéin until its independence is terminated in 1942. There is talk of a merger, however, while the majority of the party’s executive committee, noted by G2 to be made up of “four ex-Army men, old IRA, ex-Blueshirts and a number of IRA who had been active up until comparatively recently”, desires a combination of Ireland’s extreme nationalist movements, the three most prominent leaders, Simon Donnelly, Sean Dowling and Roger McCorley, oppose one due to the fear that the party will be submerged in a joint organisation. Ó Cuinneagáin is dismissive of Córas na Poblachta’s prospects and discussions between him and the party’s leaders reinforce their fears that Ó Cuinneagáin seeks an outright takeover by Ailtirí na hAiséirghe. Proposals for a merging of the two parties are dropped though they continue to maintain cordial relations and co-operate in the 1943 Irish general election.
The party is not successful and fails to take a seat in a by-election held shortly after the party’s foundation. The party slowly falls apart, and Tim Pat Coogan notes that: “Dissolution occurred because people tended to discuss the party rather than join it.” Importantly, the party is not supported by the hardcore of republican legitimatists, such as Brian O’Higgins, who views the IRA Army Council as the legitimate government of an existing Irish Republic. Indeed, in March 1940, O’Higgins publishes a pamphlet entitled Declare the Republic lambasting the new party as making what he regards as false promises that will be compromised on following the party’s election to the Oireachtas.
Córas na Poblachta fields candidates in the 1943 Irish General Election but none are elected, receiving a total of 3,892 votes between them.
Although a failure, Tim Pat Coogan argues Córas na Poblachta was the “nucleus” of the Clann na Poblachta party which emerges to help take power from Fianna Fáil in 1948.
(Pictured: IRA veteran Simon Donnelly who serves as President of Córas na Poblachta)
Tobin is the eldest son of Mary Agnes (nee Butler) and David Tobin, a hardware clerk. He has two younger siblings, Katherine and Nicholas Augustine Tobin, also born in Cork. His family moves to John Street in Kilkenny and then to Dublin. He goes to school in Kilkenny and is an apprentice in a hardware shop at the time of the 1916 Easter Rising. As a participant in the Rising, he fights in the Four Courts garrison under Edward Daly. He is arrested, court martialed, and sentenced to death but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. He is a prisoner in Kilmainham, Mountjoy, Lewes, Dartmoor, Broadmoor and Pentonville prisons. He is released in June 1917.
In October 1921, Tobin travels with the Irish Treaty Delegation as part of Collins’ personal staff.
Tim Pat Coogan and James Mackay have examined Tobin’s involvement in the assassination of British Field MarshalSir Henry Wilson. Wilson’s public tirades about Collins is evidence of mutual personal dislike between the two men. In May 1922 Collins tells Tobin “We’ll kill a member of that bunch” to the news of “bloody pogroms” in Belfast. Wilson is intimately involved with the Ulster loyalist cause, including the Curragh Mutiny and the establishment of the Ulster Special Constabulary. Just before the shooting, Coogan places Tobin in London. He meets courier Peig Ni Braonain at Euston Station collecting a document that has been sent from Dublin. Returning to Dublin before the incident, he is jubilant when he tells defence ministerRichard Mulcahy about Wilson’s death. Mulcahy is appalled and threatens to resign.
In October 1922, Tobin’s brother Nicholas, a Free State captain, is accidentally shot dead by his own troops during the raid and capture of a bomb making factory at number 8 Gardiner’s Place, Dublin.
Tobin believes in the steppingstone doctrine which sees the Treaty as a stage towards full independence. With the outbreak of the Irish Civil War he remains loyal to Collins and takes the Pro-Treaty side. He leads in the fight against the Anti-Treaty IRA in the south. Disillusioned with the continuing hostilities and in the aftermath of the death of Collins, he forms an association called the IRA Organisation (IRAO) or “Old Irish Republican Army” to distinguish themselves from the anti-treaty insurgents.
Richard Mulcahy, the new Irish defence minister, proposes to reduce the army from 55,000 to 18,000 men in the immediate post- Civil-War period. Tobin knows his own position is to be affected and shares the perception that the Irish Army treats former British officers better than former IRA officers. On March 7, 1924, Tobin, together with Colonel Charlie Dalton, sends an ultimatum to President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free StateW. T. Cosgrave demanding an end to the army demobilisation. The immediate response is an order for the arrest of the two men on a charge of mutiny. The cabinet, already wary of the Irish Army, orders an inquiry and appoints Garda CommissionerEoin O’Duffy to the army command.
On March 18, the mutineers assemble with hostile intent at a Dublin pub. An order is made to arrest the mutineers and the cabinet demands the resignation of the army council. The generals resign, affirming the subservience of the military to the civilian government of the new state.
In later years, Tobin rebuilds relations with his Civil War foes and joins Éamon de Valera‘s Anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil party. He joins up with Joseph McGrath to form the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake in the 1930s. Many other former army comrades find work in this lottery. He leaves the Sweep in 1938. After World War II, he becomes Superintendent of the Oireachtas for the Irish Dáil.
On October 14, 1929, Tobin marries Monica “Mona” Higgins at the Church of the Holy Family, Aughrim Street, Dublin. They have two daughters, Máire and Anne Tobin. Following the death of his father, David, in 1956, Tobin’s health declines, resulting in his death in Dublin on April 30, 1963.
Mac Thomáis comes from a staunch Republican family. He is born Edward Patrick Thomas in the Dublin suburb of Rathmines on January 13, 1927. His father, a fire-brigade officer, dies when he is five years old and his family moves to Goldenbridge, Inchicore. He leaves school at thirteen to work as delivery boy for White Heather Laundry, learning Dublin neighbourhoods with great thoroughness. He says he found work to help his mother pay the rent. He later works as a clerk and is appointed credit controller for an engineering firm.
At the November 1959 Ardfheis Mac Thomáis is elected to the Ardchomhairle of Sinn Féin and edits and contributes to the Sinn Féin newspaper United Irishman. He is a close friend of Tomás Mac Giolla and is deeply affected by the 1970 split in Sinn Féin. He takes the Provisional side, opposing Mac Giolla.
Mac Thomáis takes over as editor of An Phoblacht in 1972. In July 1973, he is arrested and charged with IRA membership at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. He refuses to recognise the court, but he gives a lengthy address from the dock. The following month he is sentenced to 15-months imprisonment. Within two months of completing his sentence he is again before the court on the same charge and again receives a 15-month sentence. Editors of six left-wing and Irish-language journals call for his release, as do a number of writers, and hundreds attend protest meetings – to no avail. He serves his full sentence.
Tim Pat Coogan, editor of The Irish Press, claims the charges against Mac Thomáis are politically motivated to a large degree as his activities are confined strictly to the newspaper An Phoblacht. Under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, due to his membership in Sinn Féin in the 1970s he is removed from his position in making some of the RTÉ historical programmes. As a historian he makes numerous contributions to various historical publications such as the Dublin Historical Review.
From 1974 Mac Thomáis writes a number of books on old Dublin. They sell well and remain in print for over 20 years. He also starts a number of walking tours of Dublin, which prove very popular.
The road and castle are on the northern bank of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Republic’s side of the river, the Cooley Peninsula in County Louth, is an ideal spot from which to launch an ambush. It is thickly wooded, which gives cover to the ambushers, and the river border prevents British forces from giving chase.
On the afternoon of August 27, a British Army convoy of one Land Rover and two four-ton lorries carrying soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment is driving from Ballykinlar Barracks to Newry. The British Army is aware of the dangers of using the stretch of road along the Newry River and often declares it out of bounds. However, they sometimes use it to avoid setting a pattern. At 4:40 p.m., as the convoy is driving past Narrow Water Castle, an 800-pound fertiliser bomb, hidden among bales of straw on a parked flatbed trailer, is detonated by remote control by IRA members watching from across the border in County Louth. The explosion catches the last lorry in the convoy, hurling it onto its side and instantly killing six paratroopers, whose bodies are scattered across the road. There are only two survivors amongst the soldiers traveling in the lorry, both of whom receive serious injuries. The lorry’s driver, Anthony Wood (19), is one of those killed. All that remains of his body is his pelvis, welded to the seat by the fierce heat of the blast.
According to the soldiers, immediately after the blast they are targeted by rifle fire from the woods on the Cooley Peninsula on the other side of the border, with this view supported by two part-time firefighters assisting the wounded. Shortly afterwards, the two IRA members arrested by the Garda Síochána and suspected of being behind the ambush, are found to have traces of gunsmoke residue on their hands and on the motorbike they are riding. The IRA’s first statement on the incident, however, denies that any shots had been fired at the troops, and according to Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) researchers, the soldiers might have mistaken the sound of ammunition cooking off for enemy gunfire. Nevertheless, at the official inquiry the soldiers declare on oath that they had been fired on.
The surviving paratroopers radio for urgent assistance, and reinforcements are dispatched to the scene by road. A rapid reaction unit is sent by Gazelle helicopter, consisting of Lieutenant Colonel David Blair, commanding officer of the Queen’s Own Highlanders, his signaler Lance Corporal Victor MacLeod, and army medics. Another helicopter, a Wessex, lands to pick up the wounded. Colonel Blair assumes command once at the site.
William Hudson, a 29-year-old from London, is killed by the British Army and his cousin Barry Hudson, a 25-year-old native of Dingle, is wounded when shots are fired across the Newry River into the Republic of Ireland about 3 km from the village of Omeath, County Louth.
The pair are partners in ‘Hudson Amusements’ and had been operating their amusements in Omeath for the duration of the Omeath Gala. When the first explosion is heard across the Lough, the pair go down to the shore to see what is unfolding. The pair makes their way to Narrow Water on the southern side of the border to get a better view of what is happening on the northern side. Barry Hudson is shot in the arm and as he falls to the ground he sees his cousin, who is the son of a coachman at Buckingham Palace, fall to the ground, shot in the head. He dies almost immediately.
The IRA had been studying how the British Army behaves after a bombing and correctly predicts that they would set up an incident command point (ICP) at the stone gateway on the other side of the road. At 5:12 p.m., thirty-two minutes after the first explosion, another 800-pound bomb hidden in milk pails explodes at the gateway, destroying it and hurling lumps of granite through the air. It detonates as the Wessex helicopter is taking off carrying wounded soldiers. The helicopter is damaged by the blast but does not crash.
The second explosion kills twelve soldiers, ten from the Parachute Regiment and the two from the Queen’s Own Highlanders. Lieutenant Colonel Blair is the second Lieutenant Colonel to be killed in the Troubles up until then, following Lieutenant Colonel Corden-Lloyd of the 2nd Battalion Royal Green Jackets in 1978. Only one of Colonel Blair’s epaulettes remains to identify him as his body had been vaporised in the blast. The epaulette is taken from the scene by BrigadierDavid Thorne to a security briefing with Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher to “illustrate the human factor” of the attack. Mike Jackson, then a major in the Parachute Regiment, is at the scene soon after the second explosion and later describes seeing human remains scattered over the road, in the water and hanging from the trees. He is asked to identify the face of his friend, Major Peter Fursman, still recognisable after it had been ripped from his head by the explosion and recovered from the water by divers from the Royal Engineers.
Press photographer Peter Molloy, who arrives at the scene after the first explosion, comes close to being shot by an angry paratrooper who sees him taking photographs of the dead and dying instead of offering to help the wounded. The soldier is tackled by his comrades. Molloy says, “I was shouted at and called all sorts of things, but I understood why. I had trespassed on the worst day of these fellas’ lives and taken pictures of it.”
The Warrenpoint ambush is a victory for the IRA. It is the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles and the Parachute Regiment’s biggest loss since World War II, with sixteen paratroopers killed. General Sir James Glover, Commander of British forces in Northern Ireland, later says it was “arguably the most successful and certainly one of the best planned IRA attacks of the whole campaign.” The ambush happens on the same day that Lord Mountbatten, a prominent member of the British royal family, is killed by an IRA bomb aboard his boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, along with three others.
Republicans portray the attack as retaliation for Bloody Sunday in 1972 when the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 unarmed civilians during a protest march in Derry. Graffiti appears in republican areas declaring “13 gone and not forgotten, we got 18 and Mountbatten.” The day after the Mountbatten and Warrenpoint attacks, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) retaliates by shooting dead a Catholic man, John Patrick Hardy (43), at his home in Belfast‘s New Lodge estate. Hardy is targeted in the mistaken belief that he is an IRA member.
Very shortly after the ambush, IRA volunteers Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan are arrested by the Gardaí. They are stopped while riding a motorbike on a road opposite Narrow Water Castle. They are later released on bail due to lack of evidence. Burns dies in 1988 when a bomb he is handling explodes prematurely. In 1998, former IRA member Eamon Collins claims that Burns had been one of those who carried out the Warrenpoint ambush. No one has ever been criminally charged.
According to Toby Harnden, the attack “drove a wedge” between the Army and the RUC. Lieutenant General Sir Timothy Creasey, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, suggests to Margaret Thatcher that internment should be brought back and that liaison with the Gardaí should be left in the hands of the military. Sir Kenneth Newman, the RUC Chief Constable, claims instead that the British Army practice since 1975 of supplying their garrisons in south County Armagh by helicopter gives too much freedom of movement to the IRA. One result is the appointment of Sir Maurice Oldfield to a new position of Co-ordinator of Security Intelligence in Northern Ireland. His role is to co-ordinate intelligence between the military, MI5 and the RUC. Another is the expansion of the RUC by 1,000 members. Tim Pat Coogan asserts that the deaths of the 18 soldiers hastens the move to Ulsterisation.
Tobin is born William Joseph Tobin at 13 Great Georges Street in Cork, County Cork, on November 15, 1895, the eldest son of Mary Agnes (nee Butler) and David Tobin, a hardware clerk. He has two younger siblings, Katherine and Nicholas Augustine Tobin, also born in Cork. His family moves to John Street in Kilkenny and then to Dublin. He goes to school in Kilkenny and is an apprentice in a hardware shop at the time of the 1916 Easter Rising. As a participant in the Rising he fights in the Four Courts garrison under Edward Daly. He is arrested, court martialed, and sentenced to death but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. He is a prisoner in Kilmainham, Mountjoy, Lewes, Dartmoor, Broadmoor and Pentonville prisons. He is released in June 1917.
In October 1921, Tobin travels with the Irish Treaty Delegation as part of Collins’ personal staff.
Tim Pat Coogan and James Mackay have examined Tobin’s involvement in the assassination of British Field MarshalSir Henry Wilson. Wilson’s public tirades about Collins is evidence of mutual personal dislike between the two men. In May 1922 Collins tells Tobin “We’ll kill a member of that bunch” to the news of “bloody pogroms” in Belfast. Wilson is intimately involved with the Ulster loyalist cause, including the Curragh Mutiny and the establishment of the Ulster Special Constabulary. Just before the shooting, Coogan places Tobin in London. He meets courier Peig Ni Braonain at Euston Station collecting a document that has been sent from Dublin. Returning to Dublin before the incident, he is jubilant when he tells defence ministerRichard Mulcahy about Wilson’s death. Mulcahy is appalled and threatens to resign.
In October 1922, Tobin’s brother Nicholas, a Free State captain, is accidentally shot dead by his own troops during the raid and capture of a bomb making factory at number 8 Gardiner’s Place, Dublin.
Tobin believes in the stepping stone doctrine which sees the Treaty as a stage towards full independence. With the outbreak of the Irish Civil War he remains loyal to Collins and takes the Pro-Treaty side. He leads in the fight against the Anti-Treaty IRA in the south. Disillusioned with the continuing hostilities and in the aftermath of the death of Collins, he forms an association called the IRA Organisation (IRAO) or “Old Irish Republican Army” to distinguish themselves from the anti-treaty insurgents.
Richard Mulcahy, the new Irish defence minister, proposes to reduce the army from 55,000 to 18,000 men in the immediate post- Civil-War period. Tobin knows his own position is to be affected and shares the perception that the Irish Army treats former British officers better than former IRA officers. On March 7, 1924, Tobin, together with Colonel Charlie Dalton, sends an ultimatum to President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free StateW. T. Cosgrave demanding an end to the army demobilisation. The immediate response is an order for the arrest of the two men on a charge of mutiny. The cabinet, already wary of the Irish Army, orders an inquiry and appoints Garda CommissionerEoin O’Duffy to the army command.
On March 18, the mutineers assemble with hostile intent at a Dublin pub. An order is made to arrest the mutineers and the cabinet demands the resignation of the army council. The generals resign, affirming the subservience of the military to the civilian government of the new state.
In later years, Tobin rebuilds relations with his Civil War foes and joins Éamon de Valera‘s Anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil party. He joins up with Joseph McGrath to form the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake in the 1930s. Many other former army comrades find work in this lottery. He leaves the Sweep in 1938. After World War II, he becomes Superintendent of the Oireachtas for the Irish Dáil.
On October 14, 1929, Tobin marries Monica “Mona” Higgins at the Church of the Holy Family, Aughrim Street, Dublin. They have two daughters, Máire and Anne Tobin. Following the death of his father, David, in 1956, Tobin’s health declines, resulting in his death in Dublin on April 30, 1963.
seamus dubhghaill 