Steven Donovan
History

1
As the leaders of the Easter Rising began their battle for Irish independence on
April 24 th
, 1916, they proclaimed that the freedom of their people could never:
“be extinguished except by the destruction of the
Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty: six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.”
1
For centuries Ireland rebelled against England, its conqueror and supposed master. For centuries significant rebellions challenged British rule on the island, including the
Rebellion of 1641, the Williamite War and the United Irishmen’s Revolt. Although each of these events warrants consideration when discussing Irish sovereignty, this essay will focus primarily on the Easter Rising of 1916 and the ensuing Irish War of Independence.
While the Irish Republican Army utilized terrorism as a means to resist British control, British forces employed terrorism in order to complete the conquest of Ireland and subdue the Irish nationalist movement during the Irish War of Independence. British forces attempted to crush the remaining separatist sentiments after the Easter Rising through terror. However, once the War of Independence began, the Irish Republic Army embarked upon its own campaign of terrorism. In response, British forces in Ireland were reinforced with the units known as the Black and Tans, who themselves committed the most heinous of terrorist actions in the fight to subdue Ireland. The events of Bloody
Sunday will also be analyzed to illustrate how both the Irish and the British forces used terrorism to achieve their respective goals of independence and subjugation during the
Irish War of Independence.
The Easter Rising of 1916 was the first incident in this period in which British forces utilized terrorism in order to quell Irish nationalist sentiment. In response to the uprising, British General Maxwell declared martial law on April 26 th
with the whole of
Irish forces and 130 000 British troops at his disposal.
2
Having no experience or qualifications for dealing with this type of insurrection, Maxwell decided to court martial and execute the leaders of the Rising.
3
From May 3 rd
to May 12 th
, fifteen of the leaders were killed by firing squad, including Sean MacDermott who, crippled with infantile paralysis, had limped out to face the gunmen.
4 James Connolly was shot while tied to a chair because the shrapnel in his ankle prevented him from standing.
5
With such displays of brutality, the British attempted to use terror to strike fear in the hearts of any remaining nationalists in Ireland. Maxwell’s executions were meant to strike terror that would resonate throughout the country, thereby preventing any further rebellions.
However, the British reign of terror in response to the Easter Rising lasted long after the rebellion was quelled. Martial law persisted for several months, under which
1 John Lloyd “Ireland’s Uncertain Peace,” ( Foreign Affairs 77, 5 [1998]: pp. 109 – 122): p. 113.
2 Tony Gray, The Irish Answer (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1966), p. 62.
3 Edgar Holt, Protest in Arms: The Irish Troubles 1916 – 1923 (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc.,
1960), p. 1118.
4 Gray, p. 60.
5 Ulick O’Connor, A Terrible Beauty is Born (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975), p. 89.

burning raids by British forces were daily occurrences.
6
In the weeks that followed, 3,
226 men and authorities, men were rounded up and arrests by British 1, 826 of whom were interned without trial.
7 These numbers can only be understood in context; although roughly 3, 500 were arrested, only 1, 600 people had any part in the Rising.
8
Ironically, killing the Easter Rising Leaders radicalized Irish public opinion and roused further nationalism—the exact opposite of the British intent.
9
Throughout the Irish War of Independence, the Irish Republican army utilized terrorism as a means to resist British control. The typical IRA member was male, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, came from a lower-middle class background and was fairly well-educated.
10
Men joined the IRA for recreational and social reasons in addition to political motivations.
11
The IRA began the war with a series of murderous attacks against the Royal Irish Constabulary, the British police force in
Ireland. Under the direction of Michael Collins, the 11, 000 men of the RIC were harassed, ambushed, fired upon, raided by flying columns, and had their barracks besieged and burned.
12
In fact, shooting a British informant on the street had become a familiar type of violence by the end of the war.
13
Terrorism and brutality were at the very roots of the Irish independence campaign. The nationalist newspaper An-t-Oglach published an article (approved by
Michael Collins himself) on the eve of the war in late 1918 which called on the Irish forces to:
“acknowledge no limit and no scruple in resistance to the British…we must recognize that anyone, civilian
or soldier, who assists directly or by connivance in this crime against us, merits no more consideration than a wild beast, and should be killed without mercy or hesitation as opportunity offers…the man who voluntarily surrenders when called for…the man who drives a police car or assists in the transport of army supplies, all these having assisted the enemy must be shot or otherwise destroyed with the least possible delay.” 14
The IRA’s campaign of terrorism was so extensive that it quickly spread beyond the RIC and British soldiers to anybody who interacted with the enemy in any way, even civilians and non-combatants. In June 1919, an Irish detective sergeant named Smyth—a
6 Timothy Patrick Coogan, Ireland Since the Rising (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p.
31.
7 Holt, p. 122.
8 Oonagh Walsh, Ireland’s Independence 1880 – 1923 (New York: Routeledge, 2002), p. 50.
9 Nick Pelling, Anglo-Irish Relations 1798 – 1922 (London : Routledge, 2003), p. 71.
10 Michael Hopkinson,. The Irish War of Independence (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press, 2002), p. 106.
11 Hopkinson, p. 106.
12 Gray, p. 69.
13 Anne Dolan, “Killing and Bloody Sunday, November 1920” ( The Historical Journal 49, 3
[2006]: pp. 789 – 810): p. 794.
14 Holt, p. 163.
2

3 man with seven children—was shot in the back by the IRA only a few feet from his home.
15
The job of Alan Bell, a magistrate working at Dublin Castle (RIC headquarters), was to track down Sinn Fein funds in Dublin banks and take control of them for the
British.
16
On March 27 th
, 1920, while sitting in a crowded tram in broad daylight, six IRA members pulled the elderly man off to the side of the road and shot him in full sight of the tram and its occupants.
17 These examples illustrate how the IRA sought to terrorize both military personnel and civilians who supported the British in their quest to resist
British control.
IRA terror was so effective that the British representatives in the courts, police, magistrates and local authorities all eventually ceded the authority of their positions to their Irish counterparts, who, with the support of the Dial Eireann, were already running large portions of Ireland.
18
It is important to remember that the IRA had distinct goals in mind which (in their minds) justified the use of terrorism. The function of the rebels’ armed struggle was:
“not to destroy the enemy, for that is utopian, but it is indeed to force him, through a prolonged war of psychological and physical attrition, to abandon our territory due to exhaustion and isolation.” 19
Some IRA members believed that since the British were still traumatized from fighting a war of attrition in Europe, then fighting a war of attrition against them in Ireland would lead to success, while other members felt that the British would simply get tired of the money and manpower necessary to put down the guerrillas and give in.
20
Chief Secretary of the Ballinasloe Police, Sir John Anderson, wrote in August 1920 that “the strain on the force is so great, by the daily assassination of our comrades who are ruthlessly butchered and murdered by the roadside.” 21
Such brutality and mental anguish was the aim of the
IRA terrorists, with the ultimate goal of resisting the British being autonomy and independence.
During the Irish War of Independence, the British forces in Ireland—specifically the Black and Tan units—used terrorism to crush nationalist sentiment. The Black and
Tans were fearful of the fact that any civilian could be a guerrilla fighter, so they unleashed a campaign of terror against the entire civilian population, as well as the IRA.
The sole purpose of their terrorist actions was to “make an appropriate hell for rebels” in an effort to reduce support for Sinn Fein and the IRA.
22
15 Pelling, p. 72.
16 Holt, p. 200.
17 Holt, p. 200.
18 Tom Bowden, “The Irish Underground and the War of Independence 1919 – 1921”
( Journal of Contemporary History 8, 3 [1973]: pp. 3 – 23): p. 4.
19 Ignacio Cuenca-Sanchez,. “The Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism: ETA and the IRA.”
( Terrorism and Political Violence 19 [2007]: pp. 289 – 306): p. 295.
20 Walsh, p. 66.
21 Bowden, p. 6.
22 Frank Pakenham, Peace by Ordeal (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1935), p. 50.

4
Officially, the Black and Tans were sent in to reinforce the RIC. Advertisements to join were circulated around Britain in 1920, and it was unemployed ex-soldiers of the
Great War that made up the force known as the Black and Tans.
23 While their acts of terrorism were due in part to their lack of discipline, it is clear that the terrorist methods employed by the Black and Tans were due to British policy rather than the passion of the soldiers.
24 The targets of their attacks testify to this fact.
The Black and Tans burned and looted key economic locations in an effort to impoverish the Irish people, illustrating what the cost of fighting Britain would be.
25
Starting in April 1919, creameries became a prime target. The destruction of creameries caused severe food shortages in the winter, leaving many Irish families starving in the cold.
26
In addition to this fact, The Black and Tans burned down creameries because they viewed them as recruiting agencies for the IRA.
27
In total, over 100 were burned to the ground by war’s end.
28
In September 1920, a scorched earth policy began when a Black and Tan detachment burned the town of Balbirggan in County Meath.
29
In addition to the death of two suspected IRA men, the local hosiery factory was burned down, forty-nine houses and four pubs were destroyed.
30
Within the next three days, the economically prosperous towns of Tuam, Carrick-on-Shannon, Ennistymon, Lahinch, and Malbay in Western
Ireland were looted and destroyed.
31
In December 1920, the Black and Tans sacked
County Cork and its capital, Cork City, in a “wild orgy of looting, wrecking, burning, and drinking.” 32
They set fire to the whole of Patrick Street (the main business district in
Cork) and when the fire brigade came to put it out, the Black and Tans cut the hoses with bayonets and turned off the hydrants in order to allow for the complete destruction of the business district.
33
In total, the Black and Tans caused 2.5 million pounds of damage in
Cork alone.
34
These examples demonstrate how the British forces used terrorism to crush
Irish nationalism by illustrating the debilitating economic consequences of fighting
England.
The Black and Tans also committed terrorist acts against the Irish civilian population in an effort to quell the independence movement on behalf of Great Britain.
1921 saw the British Government’s outright acceptance of an official policy of terror reprisals against the IRA and the Irish people.
35
This official authorization of terrorist acts confirms the long-held sympathy that the British forces had with the violent and unruly actions of the Black and Tans.
36 Raiding parties would roam the cities and countryside at night in an effort to seek out and kidnap Sinn Fein and IRA members. These terrifying
23 O’Connor, p. 135.
24 Hopkinson, p. 79.
25 Walsh, p. 70.
26 Holt, p. 234.
27 Hopkinson, p. 80.
28 Hopkinson,, p. 80.
29 O’Connor, p. 136.
30 Hopkinson, 80.
31 O’Connor, p. 136.
32 Holt, p. 232.
33 Holt, p. 232.
34 Walsh, p. 70.
35 Walsh, p. 71.
36 Hopkinson, p. 83.

5 affairs would start with loud banging on doors and the smashing of windows, reminiscent of Gestapo arrests in Nazi Germany.
37
Men would then be dragged outside, stripped, beaten, and often brought back to RIC headquarters for questioning and further torture.
38
One recorded incident details how a raiding party captured six IRA members in Kerry
Pike (near Cork) and proceeded to cut out the tongue of one, the nose of another, the heart of another and bashed in the skull of a fourth.
39 These episodes of terror were meant to strike fear in the hearts of Irishmen and make them give up their quest for a free
Ireland.
Civilians who had no part in the Irish independence movement also became victims to British terror at the hands of the Black and Tans. Lord Mayor McCurtain of
Cork, Mayor O’Callaghan and ex-Mayor Clancy of Limerick—just to name a few—were all murdered by the Black and Tans in the presence of their wives.
40
Canon Magner, a resident of County Cork, was shot and killed while talking to a friend on the street for refusing to toll his church bells on Armistice Day; when the friend protested, the Black and Tans shot him dead as well.
41
Before a single court in County Clare, Judge Bodkin reported that there were 139 cases in which it was proven that criminal injuries had been committed by British forces and that “in no case was there any evidence to suggest that the victims had been guilty of any offence.” 42
The best example of the terror and counter-terror that Ireland experienced at the hands of the IRA and the British forces during the War of Independence is the events that occurred on November 21 st
, 1920, thereafter referred to as Bloody Sunday. By this time,
Michael Collins had eliminated most of the RIC detectives, however a special group of
British Army intelligence officers known as the “Cairo Gang” for their covert operations in Egypt still operated undercover against the IRA.
43
On the morning of November 21 st
, Collins sent columns of IRA men to assassinate these officers. In total, fourteen of the Cairo Gang were shot and killed, all of whom died in the presence of their wives and children.
44
The fact that nine of the men killed were shot while still in their pyjamas made the killings all the more terrifying to the public.
45
For several weeks after, the wife of one of the victims claimed she was haunted by the sounds of gunfire and the laughing of the gunmen, and by the image of one of the killers washing her husband’s blood from his hands in her sink; three weeks after the events of Bloody Sunday she died giving birth to a stillborn.
46
This horrifying display of terrorism on the part of the IRA was designed to show the British that the IRA was an organized and effective fighting force capable of resisting British control.
The British response was swift and brutal. Retaliatory terror began with the restoration of internment based on suspicion, extended curfews, new roadblocks, and 500
37 Holt, p. 215.
38 Holt, p. 217.
39 Pakenham, p. 49.
40 Pakenham, p. 51.
41 O’Connor, p. 165.
42 Pakenham, p. 51.
43 Holt, p. 226.
44 Coogan, p. 30.
45 Dolan, p. 794.
46 Dolan, p. 792.

6 arrests in the following week.
47
On the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, a crowd of nearly 8,
000 people had gathered at Croke Park for a rugby match where it was suspected that a number of Irish rebels were in attendance.
48 While the initial plan was to merely search the crowd for firearms, upon hearing of the events that occurred that morning, a squad of
Black and Tans began recklessly firing into the crowd.
49
Twelve men and women were shot dead and over sixty left with bullet wounds.
50 One woman was shot while holding her baby in her arms.
51
One drunken Black and Tan soldier had the rugby teams lined up while he paced back and forth in front of them with his revolver in hand while another soldier whispered in their ears, “he means to finish you all off!” 52
While the IRA proudly announced their successful assassinations, the RIC never denied that its members had fired a considerable number of shots into the crowd, the official account recording British forces firing into the crowd for the entirety of three minutes.
53 Both parties—the IRA and the British forces—committed terrorist acts on
Bloody Sunday; while the former did so in an effort to resist conquest, the latter employed terrorism as a means of subjugating that Irish nationalist movement.
Throughout the history of Anglo-Irish relations, England has sought to fully conquer Ireland while the Irish continued to resist its subjugation. During the Irish War of
Independence, the IRA utilized terrorism as a means to resist British control, while
British forces employed terrorism in order to subdue the Irish nationalist movement.
Specifically, historians can examine the events of Bloody Sunday as a microcosm of the terror-counter-terror nature of the conflict. Even though many of the Easter Rising participants were killed, the words of fallen leader Patrick still rung true:
“If you strike us down now we shall rise again and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland; you cannot extinguish the
Irish passion for freedom.” 54
47 Charles Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919 – 1921 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1975), p. 130.
48 Holt, p. 229.
49 Townshend, p. 130.
50 Coogan, p. 30.
51 Pakenham, p. 51.
52 O’Connor, p. 164.
53 Townshend, p. 131.
54 O’Connor, p. 87.

7
Bibliography
Bowden, Tom. “The Irish Underground and the War of Independence 1919 – 1921”
Journal of Contemporary History 8, 3 (1973): pp. 3 – 23.
Cuenca-Sanchez, Ignacio. “The Dynamics of Nationalist Terrorism: ETA and the IRA.”
Terrorism and Political Violence 19 (2007): pp. 289 – 306.
Coogan, Timothy Patrick. Ireland Since the Rising . New York: Frederick A. Praeger,
1966.
Dolan, Anne. “Killing and Bloody Sunday, November 1920.”
The Historical Journal 49,
3 (2006): pp. 789 – 810.
Gray, Tony. The Irish Answer . London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1966.
Holt, Edgar. Protest in Arms: The Irish Troubles 1916 – 1923.
New York: Coward-
McCann, Inc., 1960.
Hopkinson, Michael. The Irish War of Independence . Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 2002.
Lloyd, John. “Ireland’s Uncertain Peace,” Foreign Affairs 77, 5 (1998): pp. 109 – 122.
O’Connor, Ulick.
A Terrible Beauty is Born . London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975.
Pakenham, Frank. Peace by Ordeal . London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1935
Pelling, Nick. Anglo-Irish Relations 1798 – 1922 . London : Routledge, 2003.
Townshend, Charles. The British Campaign in Ireland 1919 – 1921 . Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1975.
Walsh, Oonagh.
Ireland’s Independence 1880 – 1923
. New York: Routeledge, 2002.