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LOYALISTS AND LOYALISM IN A SOUTHERN IRISH COMMUNITY, 1921–1922*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

BRIAN HUGHES
BRIAN HUGHES*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
*
Department of History, College of Humanities, University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, tr10 9ez[email protected]
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Abstract

A second Irish Grants Committee met for the first time in October 1926 to deal with claims for compensation from distressed southern Irish loyalists. By the time it had ceased its work, the committee had dealt with over 4,000 applications and recommended 2,237 ex-gratia grants. The surviving files constitute over 200 boxes of near-contemporary witness testimony and supplementary material making them an incomparable, if problematic, source for the study of the southern loyalist experience of the Irish Revolution – a topic of much current historiographical interest. Applicants had to prove that they had suffered loss on account of their ‘allegiance to the government of the United Kingdom’, and by applying labelled themselves as both ‘loyalist’ and ‘victim’. A study of the claim files from one district, Arva in County Cavan, offers unique perspectives on the loyalist experience of revolution in a southern Irish community, personal definitions of loyalty, and the relationship between behaviour and allegiance during war. The Arva applicants often struggled to present their financial losses as resulting directly from their ‘loyalty to the Crown’. Their statements, and the way they were treated by the committee, serve to complicate an often over-simplified understanding of civilian behaviour and popular support.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 1075 - 1105
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Dr Anne Dolan, Professor David Fitzpatrick, and the anonymous referees for guidance and comments on earlier drafts of this article. I would also like to thank the organizers of the ‘Loyalism and Loyalists in the British Empire’ workshop at the University of Northumbria for allowing me to present some of this research, and the workshop participants for helpful comments and suggestions. This article draws on research funded by a Trinity College Dublin School of Histories and Humanities studentship and an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship.

References

1 R. B. McDowell, Crisis and decline: the fate of the southern unionists (Cambridge, 1997).

2 For recent statistical studies of this ‘flight’, see David Fitzpatrick, Descendancy: Irish Protestant histories since 1795 (Cambridge, 2014); Bielenberg, Andy, ‘Exodus: the emigration of southern Irish Protestants during the Irish war of independence and the Civil War’, Past and Present, 218 (2013), pp. 199–233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an earlier discussion of the same process, see Enda Delaney, Demography, state and society: Irish migration to Britain, 1921–1971 (Liverpool, 2000).

3 In southern Ireland, it is the Protestant population that is most closely associated with loyalism, that is a preference for the maintenance of British rule in Ireland, but this relationship is complex, as will be seen below. Not all southern Protestants were loyalist, while many Catholics were. This is most obviously the case with Catholics who served in the Royal Irish Constabulary (a force made up overwhelmingly of Catholics) or the British army. For the purposes of this article, the term ‘loyalist’ will be applied using the criteria of the Irish Grants Committee: ‘disbanded members of the RIC, ex-servicemen and civilians believed to have been loyal to the British connection’.

4 Wilson, Tim, ‘Ghost provinces, mislaid minorities: the experience of southern Ireland and Prussian Poland compared, 1918–1923’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 13 (2002), pp. 61–86 Google Scholar; T. K. Wilson, Frontiers of violence: conflict and identity in Ulster and Upper Silesia, 1918–1922 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 75–117.

5 Charles Townshend, ‘In aid of the civil power: Britain, Ireland and Palestine, 1916–1948’, in Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian, eds., Counterinsurgency in modern warfare (Oxford, 2010), pp. 21–38. For the creation of Palestinian identity, see, for example, Noah Haiduk-Dale, Arab Christians in British Mandate Palestine: communalism and nationalism, 1917–1948 (Edinburgh, 2013); Weldon C. Matthews, Confronting an empire, constructing a nature: Arab nationalists and popular politics in Mandate Palestine (London, 2006); Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian identity: the construction of modern national consciousness (New York, NY, 1997).

6 Halabi, Awad, ‘Liminal loyalties: Ottomanism and Palestinian responses to the Turkish war of independence, 1919–1922’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 41 (2012), pp. 19–37 Google Scholar.

7 Wilson, ‘Ghost provinces’, pp. 64–5.

8 See, for example, Allan Blackstock and Francis O'Gorman, eds., Loyalism and the formation of the British world, 1775–1914 (Woodbridge, 2014); Philip Gould, Loyalists and the literature of politics in British America (Oxford, 2013); Maya Jasanoff, Liberty's exiles: how the loss of America made the British empire (London, 2011).

9 Halabi, ‘Liminal loyalties’, p. 20.

10 Among the best examples are David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish life, 1913–1921: provincial experience of war and revolution (Cork, 1998; 1st edn Dublin, 1977); Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and its enemies: violence and community in County Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998); Marie Coleman, County Longford and the Irish Revolution, 1910–1923 (Dublin, 2003); Terence Dooley, The plight of Monaghan Protestants, 1912–1926 (Dublin, 2000).

11 Gemma Clark, Everyday violence in the Irish Civil War (Cambridge, 2014); Wilson, Frontiers of violence.

12 Peter Hart, The I.R.A. at war, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 2003), p. 5.

13 Clark, Everyday violence, pp. 18–53.

14 For the origins and work of the IGC and its predecessors, see Niamh Mary Brennan, ‘Compensating southern Irish loyalists after the Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1922–1932’ (Ph.D. thesis, UCD, 1994); Brennan, Niamh, ‘A political minefield: southern Irish loyalists, the Irish Grants Committee and the British government, 1922–1931’, Irish Historical Studies, 30 (1997), pp. 406–19Google Scholar. See also McDowell, Crisis and decline, pp. 130–62, and Clark, Everyday violence, pp. 18–53.

15 Based on a survey of IGC claim files catalogued for County Cavan, this potentially excludes applicants who were incorrectly catalogued or moved from Cavan and were listed under their county of current residence and whose files were not consulted. Nine applicants from townlands in the small Bruce Hall and Drumcarban DEDs have also been included owing to their proximity to Arva and their close identification with the Arva community.

16 Eunan O'Halpin, ‘Problematic killing during the war of independence and its aftermath: civilian spies and informers’, in James Kelly and Mary Ann Lyons, eds., Death and dying in Ireland, Britain and Europe: historical perspectives (Dublin, 2013), p. 328.

17 Monthly Confidential Reports (MCRs), County Inspector (CI), Longford, Apr. 1921, London, The National Archives, Kew (TNA), CO 904/115; Seamus Conway, Bureau of Military History Witness Statement (BMH WS) 440; Francis Davis, BMH WS 496; Sean Sexton, BMH WS 396; James McKeown, BMH WS 436; Richard Abbott, Police casualties in Ireland, 1919–1922 (Cork, 2000), pp. 227–8.

18 Late district inspector, RIC Cavan, to Joseph Fegan, solicitor, 30 Aug. 1929, in William Jackson claim, TNA, Irish Grants Committee (IGC), CO 762/175/13). IGC claims are hereafter cited by box and file number. For a detailed report on the night of the attack see Anglo-Celt, 2 Oct. 1920.

19 MCRs, CI, Cavan, Dec. 1920, TNA, CO 904/113.

20 MCRs, CI, Cavan, Jan. 1921, TNA, CO 904/114.

21 Ibid., Feb. 1921. ‘Black and Tans’ was the nickname given to the temporary constables recruited to the RIC from Britain as a remedy to the manpower shortage, based on their initially mixed khaki and bottle green uniforms. An officer class formed a separate and distinct Auxiliary Division.

22 Sean Sexton, BMH WS 396; Francis Davis, BMH WS 496.

23 Housing and Building Return Forms, digitized 1911 census returns, Arva DED, www.census.nationalarchives.ie.

24 Not unusually for the time, there are often discrepancies between the age provided on an applicant's 1911 census return and that submitted on their IGC application. For the purposes of this study, the age provided on the application form has been used as the closest to the events in discussion.

25 There are ninety-five application files catalogued for County Cavan but several have been excluded here (as well as some files potentially incorrectly catalogued and therefore not consulted). Three applicants requested a form but subsequently failed to submit, while six were catalogued as Cavan applicants but claimed for losses suffered in other counties. One box containing one Cavan applicant is missing and that applicant has been excluded. Two single files for losses suffered by two individuals (a married couple and two neighbours) have been enumerated as four individuals.

26 In Cavan in 1911, 30 per cent of the population were categorized as in agricultural employment, 6 per cent industrial, 2 per cent professional, 2 per cent domestic, and 59 per cent ‘indefinite’ or ‘non-productive’: ‘Population (Ireland): census returns, 1911’, Province of Ulster, County of Cavan, Table xix, Occupations, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (HCPP), Cmd 6051, vol. cxvi.1, iii, pp. 58–68. Based on information given on their claim forms and census returns, 60 per cent of the IGC applicants worked in agriculture and 30 per cent in commerce and industry.

27 Department of Finance Compensation Claims, Cavan, Dublin, National Archives of Ireland (NAI), Department of Finance (DF), FIN/COMP/SHAW/381/1–460; Department of Finance Compensation Claims, Post-truce, Cavan, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/A381/1(2)–A381/412(2); Compensation (Ireland) Commission Register of Claimants, Cavan, TNA, CO 905/1.

28 ‘Compensation for injury to persons or property. Memorandum’, 1923, cited in Clark, Everyday violence, p. 19.

29 Anglo-Celt, 15 Apr. 1922. Cartwright's wife told the IGC that the case had been defended in court in 1924 and compensation reduced to £879 and again reopened in 1925 with a further reduction to £600: George Cartwright claim, 98/1.

30 Anglo-Celt, 28 Jan. 1922.

31 Brennan, ‘A political minefield’, p. 416.

32 John Lang claim, 186/6; James Young claim, 175/22; William Irwin claim, 174/4; James Black claim, 172/3.

33 James McCabe claim, 29/13; Harriet Johnston claim, 103/2.

34 Thomas Smith claim, NAI, FIN/COMP/SHAW/381/435, and Thomas H. Smith claim, 21/10; O'Donnell Brothers claim, 63/2. A claim by the O'Donnell Brothers is listed in the Compensation (Ireland) Commission Register of Claimants, Cavan, TNA: CO 905/1, but no claim file exists.

35 William Pinkerton, 183/19, husband of claimant Katie Pinkerton, submitted a letter to the IGC describing his loss of employment having been forced to leave his job at the local mill where he was the only Protestant but did not submit a claim form in time and is not included in this sample.

36 John Scott claim, 175/17.

37 Mary Sheridan claim, 51/9.

38 Harriet Johnston claim, 103/2.

39 James Johnston claim, 41/4.

40 George Cartwright claim, 98/1; George Cartwright claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/A381/30(2).

41 William Carleton claim, 78/6; William Carleton claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/A381/336(2).

42 Reverend W. A. MacDougall to IGC, 6 Sept. 1928, in Johnston Hewitt claim, 168/11. William Alcorn MacDougall (1868–1943) was, unusually, educated at the Royal University of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin. He was ordained in 1893 and had been a curate in Donegal and the incumbent in parishes in Leitrim and Cavan before appointment to Arva. In 1934, he became canon of Drumleas.

43 James Black claim, 172/13; William Irwin claim, 174/4; Charles Woods claim, 74/9; Thomas Johnston claim, 169/6; Wilson Johnston claim, 173/15.

44 George Jackson claim, 175/12.

45 Martha Jackson claim, 175/11.

46 Charles Woods claim, 74/9. Woods claimed that another man was also kidnapped on the same night and later died in a lunatic asylum but no claim was submitted to the IGC by the family.

47 Thomas Johnston claim, 169/6.

48 Anglo-Celt, 15 Apr. 1922.

49 Lizzie Anderson claim, 174/30.

50 Mary Anne Curtis claim, 170/4.

51 Lizzie Anderson claim, 174/30.

52 R. N. Thompson to IGC, 24 Sept. 1928, in John Lang claim, 186/6.

53 William John McCaughey to IGC, 20 Sept. 1928, in Richard Kemp claim, 187/10.

54 Adjutant, West Cavan Brigade to divisional adjutant, 1st Midland Division, 24 Oct. 1921, Dublin, Military Archives of Ireland (MAI), Collins papers, A/0678.

55 Brennan, ‘A political minefield’, p. 417.

56 William Irwin claim, 174/4.

57 Wilson Johnston claim, 173/15.

58 Fitzpatrick, Descendancy, p. 212 and n. 106.

59 Ibid., p. 212.

60 MacDougall to IGC, 9 July 1928, in William Irwin claim, 174/4.

61 Hart, The I.R.A. at war, pp. 229–30.

62 Mary Anne Curtis claim, 170/4.

63 Simon Hewitt claim, 196/13.

64 Johnston Hewitt claim, 168/11.

65 Bernard Matthews claim, 23/1.

66 Michael Farry, The aftermath of revolution: Sligo, 1921–1923 (Dublin, 2000), p. 193. Farry does not tabulate this but does write that the religion of an applicant was only ‘sometimes given’: p. 247 n. 60.

67 Bielenberg, ‘Exodus’, pp. 203, 213.

68 Clark, Everyday violence, p. 50.

69 Bielenberg, ‘Exodus’, pp. 205, 220–3.

70 Fitzpatrick, Descendancy, pp. 215–17.

71 Jessie Hunter claim, 51/13; Jessie Hunter, digitized 1911 census returns, www.census.nationalarchives.ie.

72 Fitzpatrick, Descendancy, pp. 181, 212.

73 Clark, Everyday violence, p. 48.

74 Richard Kingston claim, 183/4.

75 Henry & George Smith claim, Belfast, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Southern Irish Loyalist Relief Association Papers (SILRA), D989/B/3/13; Elizabeth Sydes claim, PRONI, SILRA, D989/B/3/13. Population figures and religion of applicants are taken from the digitized 1911 census returns: www.census.nationalarchives.ie.

76 Thomas W. Good claim, 32/18.

77 Hart, The I.R.A. and its enemies, pp. 308–15; Jane Leonard, ‘Getting them at last: the I.R.A. and ex-servicemen’, in David Fitzpatrick, ed., Revolution? Ireland, 1917–1923 (Dublin, 1990). See also O'Halpin, ‘Problematic killing’, pp. 322–3.

78 The most dominant example concerns the victims of the ‘Bandon Valley massacre’ in April 1922. For recent scholarship, see Fitzpatrick, Descendancy, pp. 221–9, Barry Keane, Massacre in West Cork: the Dunmanway and Ballygroman killings (Cork, 2014), Regan, John M., ‘The “Bandon Valley massacre” as a historical problem’, History, 97 (2012), pp. 70–98 Google Scholar. For Peter Hart's description of the killings, the work that has prompted the literature above, see Hart, The I.R.A. and its enemies, pp. 273–92.

79 Hart, The I.R.A. at war, pp. 228–32; Farry, The aftermath of revolution, p. 186.

80 MCRs, CI, Cavan, June 1921, TNA, CO 904/115; O'Halpin, ‘Problematic killing’, p. 328.

81 MCRs, CI, Cavan, June 1921, TNA, CO 904/115.

82 Michael J. Culley claim, 171/12.

83 William Jackson claim, 175/13; Martha Jackson claim, 175/11; George Jackson, 175/12; Maggie Masterson claim, 175/16; James McCabe claim, 29/13; William Scott claim, 170/13.

84 McDowell, Crisis and decline, p. 87

85 IGC Report of Committee, Nov. 1930, TNA, CO 762/212.

86 Simon Henry Hewitt claim, 196/13.

87 Richard Hewitt claim, 168/12.

88 For UIL agitation, see Charles Townshend, Political violence in Ireland: government and resistance since 1848 (Oxford, 1983); Fergus Campbell, Land and revolution: nationalist politics in the west of Ireland, 1891–1921 (Oxford, 2005).

89 Miriam Moffitt, ‘Protestant tenant farmers and Land League in north Connacht’, in Carla King and Robert McNamara, eds., The west of Ireland: new perspectives on the nineteenth century (Dublin, 2011), pp. 104–5; MCRs, CI, Cavan, Jan. 1910, TNA, CO 904/80.

90 MCRs, CI, Cavan, Feb. 1910, TNA, CO 904/81.

91 Moffitt, ‘Protestant tenant farmers’, p. 106.

92 MCRs, CI, Cavan, Jan. 1910, TNA, CO 904/80; MCRs, CI, Cavan, July 1910, TNA, CO 904/81; Moffitt, ‘Protestant tenant farmers’, p. 106.

93 Brennan, ‘A political minefield’, p. 416.

94 Philip O'Connor, ed., Coolacrease: the true story of the Pearson executions – an incident in the Irish war of independence (Cork, 2008), p. 157.

95 Ibid., p. 352.

96 2,237 of 4,032 claims had grants recommended. 895 were rejected as they were outside the scope of the committee and a relatively small number were rejected as bogus: IGC Report of Committee, Nov. 1930, TNA, CO, 762/212.

97 Garda Thomas Cassidy to superintendent, Cavan, 5 Aug. 1923, and report for Office of Public Works by inspecting officer in George Cartwright claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/A381/30(2).

98 Moffitt, ‘Protestant tenant farmers’, pp. 108–9.

99 Jamieson in Charles Woods claim, 74/9.

100 Johnston Hewitt claim, 168/11.

101 William Scott claim, 170/13.

102 Reid to IGC, 1927, in Michael J. Culley claim, 171/12.

103 MacDougall to IGC, 16 May 1927, in Peter McBrien claim, 58/13.

104 John Scott claim, 175/17.

105 MacDougall to IGC, 6 Sept. 1928, in Johnston Hewitt claim, 168/11.

106 Ellen Reilly claim, 54/2. Ellen Reilly, digitized 1911 census returns, www.census.nationalarchives.ie.

107 Ellen Reilly claim, 54/2.

108 Clark, Everyday violence, p. 26.

109 John Scott claim, 175/17.

110 White to Jamieson, 17 Apr. 1928, in Maggie Masterson claim, 175/16.

111 Maggie Masterson claim, 175/16.

112 Patrick Drumm, digitized 1911 census returns, www.census.nationalarchives.ie; Patrick Drumm claim, 170/24. Drum gives his age as seventy-four on his claim form.

113 Breaches of the truce, Cavan, TNA, CO 904/151.

114 James McCabe, digitized 1911 census returns, www.census.nationalarchives.ie. McCabe's return states that he had four children but only two of his sons, Patrick and James, are listed.

115 Breaches of the truce, Cavan, TNA, CO 904/151.

116 James McCabe claim, 29/13.

117 James McCabe claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/SHAW/381/445.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid. For the amendment to the act, see Fergal Peter Mangan, ‘Compensation in the Irish Free State 1922–1923’ (MA thesis, UCD, 1994), p. 63.

120 James McCabe claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/SHAW/381/445.

121 James McCabe claim, 29/13.

122 MacDougall to IGC, 9 July 1928, in William Scott claim, 170/13.

123 For a recent study on loyalty and allegiance in this period, see Justin Dolan Stover, ‘Redefining allegiance: loyalty, treason and the foundation of the Irish Free State’, in Mel Farrell, Jason Knirck, and Ciara Meehan, eds., A formative decade: Ireland in the 1920s (Dublin, 2015).

124 Irish Times, 11 Sept. 1922.

125 Rural dean's reports, parish of Arva, 1919–21, Dublin, Representative Church Body Library (RCB), D3/1/27, 28A, 28. In 1919, enrolment and average attendance was, respectively, 57 and 30 for the school in Arva and 36 and 20 in Bruse; 36 and 29 in Arva and 24 and 21 in Bruse in 1920; and 45 and 30 in Arva and 24 and 19 in Bruse in 1921.

126 Rural dean's report, parish of Arva, 1922, RCB, D3/1/29.

127 Dooley, Terence, ‘Protestant migration from the Free State to Northern Ireland, 1920–1925: a private census for Co. Fermanagh’, Clogher Record, 15 (1996), pp. 88–132 Google Scholar.

128 Fitzpatrick, Descendancy, pp. 159–240; Bielenberg, ‘Exodus’, pp. 199–233.

129 Farry, Aftermath of revolution, pp. 178–81; Bielenberg, ‘Exodus’, pp. 205, 220–3.

130 Mary Sheridan claim, 51/9; Lizzie Anderson claim, 174/30; George Cartwright claim, 98/1; James Black claim 172/13.

131 Charles Woods claim, 74/9; James McCabe claim, 29/13.

132 James Johnston claim, 41/4. Johnston's brother had originally been allowed to buy the land for a ‘nominal’ fee and James had subsequently secured the land for the same fee.

133 George Cartwright claim, 98/1; George Cartwright claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/A381/30(2).

134 James Johnston claim, 41/4.

135 William Carleton to IGC, 2 Jan. 1928, in William Carleton claim, 78/6.

136 William Carleton claim, NAI, DF, FIN/COMP/A381/336(2).

137 Garda Thomas Cassidy to superintendent, Cavan, 5 Aug. 1923, in George Cartwright claim, NAI, FIN/COMP/A381/30(2).

138 Church of Ireland Gazette, 13 Jan. 1922.

139 See, for example, Kurt Bowen, Protestants in a Catholic state: Ireland's privileged minority (Montreal, 1983), p. 34.