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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2015
1 ‘From martial law to martial lawlessness’ in Irish Bulletin, 5 Oct. 1920, p. 1.
2 Boyce, D.G.Englishmen and Irish troubles: British public opinion and the making of Irish Policy, 1918–1922 (Cambridge, MA, 1972), p. 54.Google Scholar See also Townshend, CharlesThe British campaign in Ireland 1919–1921: the development of political and military policies (Oxford, 1975);Google ScholarAugusteijn, JoostFrom public defiance to guerrilla warfare: the experience of ordinary volunteers in the Irish War of Independence 1916–1921 (Dublin, 1996);Google ScholarLeeson, D.M.The Black and Tans: British police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence (Oxford, 2011).Google Scholar
3 See, for example: Fitzpatrick, DavidPolitics and Irish life 1913–1921: provincial experience of war and revolution (Dublin, 1977);Google ScholarBowden, TomThe breakdown of public security: the case of Ireland 1916–1921 and Palestine 1936–1939 (London and Beverly Hills, 1977)Google Scholar;Hopkinson, MichaelThe Irish War of Independence (Montreal, Kingston, and Ithaca, 2002).Google Scholar
4 Borgonovo, John and Doherty, Gabriel ‘Smoking gun? RIC reprisals, summer 1920’ in History Ireland, 17, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 2009), pp 36–9, at p. 39.Google Scholar
5 Borgonovo, and Doherty, ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 38.Google Scholar
6 C. Prescott-Decie to assistant under-secretary, 1 June 1920 (N.A.I., Crime Special Branch other papers, Box 24), reproduced in Borgonovo, and Doherty, ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 37,Google Scholar and below.
7 Borgonovo, and Doherty, ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 37.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., p. 38.
9 Fitzpatrick, , Politics and Irish life, pp 29–30.Google Scholar The Prescott-Decie letter was also discussed in the 1970s by Bowden, Tom in his article ‘Bloody Sunday – a reappraisal’ in European Studies Review, 2, no. 1 (1972), pp 25–42,Google Scholar at p. 34 and his book The breakdown of public security, p. 119. It was also mentioned briefly by Charles Townshend in his reply to Bowden, , ‘Bloody Sunday – Michael Collins speaks’ in European Studies Review, 9, no. 3 (1979), pp 377–85,Google Scholar at p. 383, n. 6. Twenty years later, Fitzpatrick, mentioned the Prescott-Decie letter in The two Irelands 1912–1939 (Oxford and New York, 1998), p. 91.Google Scholar The passage in question was even quoted in Béaslaí, PiarasMichael Collins: soldier and statesman (Dublin, 1937), p. 182.Google Scholar
10 Fitzpatrick, David ‘RIC reprisals, summer 1920’ [letter to the editor], in History Ireland, 17, no. 3 (May/June 2009), pp 12–13.Google Scholar
11 Borgonovo, John and Doherty, Gabriel ‘Prescott-Decie letter’ [letter to the editor], in History Ireland, 17, no. 4 (July/Aug. 2009), p. 12.Google Scholar
12 Leeson, , The Black and Tans, pp 42–5.Google Scholar
13 Ibid., p. 45.
14 Ibid., p. 49.
15 Ibid., p. 52.
16 Borgonovo, and Doherty, ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 36.38.Google Scholar
17 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, pp 76–81;Google ScholarHopkinson, , Irish War of Independence, pp 36,Google Scholar 59–63. Both of these works are included in the suggestions for further reading at the conclusion of Borgonovo and Doherty’s article.
18 ‘Changes at Dublin Castle,’ The Times, 24 May 1920, p. 8; ‘SirRetires, J. Taylor’ Manchester Guardian, 24 May 1920, p. 5.Google Scholar
19 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, p. 99.Google Scholar Cope’s appointment as Taylor’s replacement is reported in both of the news articles mentioned above.
20 Jones, ThomasWhitehall Diary, ed. Middlemas, Keith (3 vols., London, 1975), 3, 25 note.Google Scholar
21 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, p. 80;Google ScholarHopkinson, , Irish War of Independence, p. 62.Google Scholar
22 Finola Morrison to J. R. W. Goulden, 7 December 1971, (T.C.D., Goulden Papers, no. 175). Morrison even accuses Cope (on her father’s authority) of warning Michael Collins about an impending police raid, and allowing the I.R.A. leader to escape.
23 To make matters worse, the authors also refer to ‘Dublin Castle senior civil servant Mark Sturgis’ and ‘his superior, under-secretary Andy Cope.’ In fact, both Alfred Cope and Mark Sturgis were assistant under-secretaries: the joint under-secretaries – the most senior civil servants in the Irish government – were Sir John Anderson and Sir James MacMahon; see Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, p. 80;Google ScholarHopkinson, , Irish War of Independence, p. 62.Google Scholar.
24 Borgonovo, and Doherty, ‘Smoking gun,’ pp 37–8.Google Scholar
25 Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 3,Google Scholar 26: ‘Mr. Churchill thought a formidable feature was the unanimity of the experts, with the exception of General Tudor’.
26 ‘The situation in Ireland. Notes of a conference with the officers of the Irish government held at 10, Downing Street, S.W. on Friday, 23rd. July 1920, at 11.30.a.m. and 3.30.p.m.’ [Henceforward Cabinet conference 23 July 1920] (T.N.A., CAB 24/109 f. 445).
27 Cabinet conference 23 July 1920 (T.N.A. CAB 24/109 f. 450). This passage is misquoted in the hardcover edition of Leeson, , The Black and Tans, p. 33:Google Scholar somehow, ‘strong’ became ‘stern’.
28 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, pp 47–59.Google Scholar
29 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, pp 72–83.Google Scholar
30 Cabinet conference 23 July 1920 (T.N.A. CAB 24/109 f. 448).
31 ‘To fight the terror,’ The Times, 19 May 1920, p. 16.
32 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, pp 83–5.Google Scholar
33 Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 3, 18.Google Scholar Macready had the full support of the chief secretary, who told the cabinet that the first order of business was to ‘fulfill all military requisitions made by General Macready’ and explained that, instead of proclaiming martial law, he would rather ‘try to wait for Macready’s requisitions and go on trying to get moderate opinion on our side’.
34 ‘To fight the terror,’ The Times, 19 May 1920, p. 16.
35 Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 3, 16–23.Google Scholar
36 Cabinet conference 23 July 1920 (T.N.A. CAB 24/109 f. 449).
37 Cabinet conference 23 July 1920 (T.N.A. CAB 24/109 f. 448).
38 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, pp 87–92.Google Scholar. At the Cabinet conference of 31 May 1920, when asked if the authorities were ‘getting a better type of evidence’, Macready replied: ‘Quite the other way’, and admitted that his men were ‘at present in very much of a fog’. ‘Our old source of intelligence, raids, has been stopped’: Jones, , Whitehall Diary, 3, p. 22.Google Scholar
39 Leeson, , The Black and Tans, pp 10–11, 43–4.Google Scholar
40 Quoted in Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, p. 83.Google Scholar
41 Borgonovo, and Doherty, , ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 38.Google Scholar
42 Philosopher David Coady has defined conspiracy theories as ‘conspiratorial explanations that are inconsistent with official explanations of the time and place in question’: Coady, David ‘An introduction to the philosophical debate about conspiracy theories’ in David, Coady (ed.) Conspiracy theories: the philosophical debate (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2006), pp 1–12, at p. 3.Google Scholar
43 Bowden, , Breakdown of public security, pp 118–21.Google Scholar
44 On 14–16 May 1920, a number of T.D.s received threatening letters, typed on official Dáil Eireann stationery. These letters were traced back to the typewriter of a British military intelligence officer working in Dublin Castle. In addition, this officer’s captured correspondence included a cryptic reference to a ‘little stunt’. From these few facts, Irish republicans concluded that they had uncovered a military murder plot – a carefully-planned false-flag operation, in which the murders of republican leaders would be blamed on republican ‘extremists’. See ‘An amazing series of documents’ in Irish Bulletin, 10 Sept. 1920, pp 1–5; Gallagher, FrankThe four glorious years (Dublin, 1953), pp 89–94;Google ScholarBowden, , Breakdown of public security, pp 118–21.Google Scholar
45 Borgonovo, and Doherty, , ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 39.Google Scholar
46 The memoirs of Constable Jeremiah Mee, R.I.C., ed. Gaughan, J. Anthony (Dublin, 1975), p. 104.Google Scholar Borgonovo and Doherty quote a slightly different version of this passage in ‘Smoking gun,’ p. 39.
47 Townshend, , ‘Bloody Sunday,’ p. 383 note 6.Google Scholar
48 Fitzpatrick, ‘R.I.C. reprisals’. Fitzpatrick is less definite on this point in The two Irelands: ‘According to an alternative reading,’ he says, ‘this statement refers to the secret murder of (rather than by) terrorists and so confirms the alleged use of secret-servicemen to pursue and assassinate rebel ring-leaders.’ (p. 91)
49 Fitzpatrick, , Politics and Irish life, p. 30.Google Scholar
50 Fitzpatrick, , The two Irelands, p. 91.Google Scholar
51 Fitzpatrick, ‘R.I.C. reprisals’.
52 Townshend, , British campaign in Ireland, p. 56.Google Scholar
53 Memoirs of Constable Jeremiah Mee, p. 91.
54 Ibid., pp 93–9.
55 Ibid., pp 99–104.
56 Jeremiah Mee’s account of Smyth’s remarks was published in the Freeman’s Journal newspaper on 10 July 1920. In response, Smyth produced a report that contradicted Mee’s version in several places, dated 13 July 1920, four days before the divisional commissioner was assassinated by the I.R.A. In particular, Smyth’s report gives a completely different interpretation for the phrase ‘no policemen will get into trouble for shooting any man.’ According to the divisional commissioner’s version, he told the police at Listowel that the names of constables involved in shootings would not be revealed at inquests, to protect them from being targeted by the I.R.A. (ibid., pp 294–301).
Borgonovo and Doherty have rejected any suggestion that Mee’s account of this incident has been distorted or exaggerated. ‘The British government’, they say, ‘was aware of the problem of contradicting the sworn testimony of its own policemen, trained by it in the art of recording verbatim speech, whose testimony in such matters had for decades been relied upon without question by its own courts. It therefore concocted a (mercifully transparent) whispering campaign, the thrust of which was that the constables involved (experienced policemen all) had wilfully misrepresented Smyth’s words for nefarious and selfish purposes’ (Borgonovo and Doherty, ‘Prescott-Decie letter’).
In fact, it was not uncommon for the police to give false witness during the War of Independence: indeed, the problem eventually grew so serious that Assistant Under¬Secretary Mark Sturgis complained in his diary that some Castle officials were assuming that ‘every single report of every single police man must be lies from start to finish’: The last days of Dublin Castle: the diaries of Mark Sturgis, ed. Michael, Hopkinson (Dublin, 1999), p. 136.Google Scholar On 21 February 1920, Deputy Inspector General Walsh even issued a circular on the subject. ‘It has been said and suggested in the House of Commons that some Police reports are not true and are intended to mislead. The Chief Secretary regards this as incredible but he desires to make it clear that if any policemen, no matter what his rank, makes any report intended to mislead his authorities, he will be dismissed from the Force and lose all pension and other rights.’ R.I.C. circular, ‘Alleged false police reports’, 21 Feb. 1921 (T.N.A., HO 184/126).
Some aspects of Mee’s account do seem problematical. According to Mee, for example, the divisional commissioner hinted that the government was planning to drown Irish revolutionaries at sea: ‘A ship will be leaving an Irish port in the near future with lots of Sinn Féiners on board. I assure you, men, it will never land’ (Memoirs of Constable Jeremiah Mee, p. 104). No such noyade ever took place. Finally, as the leader of the Listowel police mutiny, Jeremiah Mee can hardly be considered an impartial witness to these events, any more than Smyth can. My own sense is that neither version of the divisional commissioner’s remarks is entirely trustworthy.
57 Memoirs of Constable Jeremiah Mee, pp 101–2.
58 Ibid., pp 107–8.
59 Leeson, , The Black and Tans, pp 45–6;Google Scholar see also Leeson, D.M. ‘The curious case of Constable Krumm,’ Canadian Journal of Irish Studies (forthcoming).Google Scholar
60 Last Days of Dublin Castle ed. Hopkinson, p. 95: according to Sturgis, ‘these men have undoubtedly been influenced by what they have taken to be the passive approval of their officers from Tudor downwards to believe they will never be punished for anything.’
61 In a memorandum on discipline dated 12 Nov. 1920, Tudor told his men that ‘there must be no wild firing from lorries,’ that ‘there must be no arson or looting,’ and that the cutting of women’s hair would not be tolerated, R.I.C. circular, ‘Discipline,’ 12 Nov. 1920, (T.N.A., HO 184/126). In a further circular, dated 6 Dec. (less than a week before the burning of Cork), the Police Adviser said: ‘I wish again to impress on all members of Police Force the absolute necessity of stopping burnings whatever the provocation’: R.I.C. circular, ‘Burning of houses &c.’, 6 Dec. 1920 (T.N.A., HO 184/126). There was, however, no mention of any punishment for police who did not follow the Police Adviser’s ‘guidance’
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