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A political minefield: southern loyalists, the Irish Grants Committee and the British government, 1922–31

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Niamh Brennan
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Extract

All classes of the loyalist community ... [are] victims.

Irish Grants Committee report, 3 Nov. 1930

I

‘A considerable number [of refugees] have left on a plea of compulsion without any justification whatever for that plea,’ declared the secretary to the Provisional Government in 1922, referring to the departure from the twenty-six-county area of disbanded members of the R.I.C., British ex-servicemen and civilians believed to have been loyal to the British régime in Ireland. Such a claim was greeted with scant belief in Britain in the spring of 1922 as perhaps as many as 20,000 people, some with their entire families, arrived on British shores and were given refugee status by the British government through its Irish Distress Committee, founded to aid Irish loyalist victims of the Civil War. The committee first sat in May 1922 under the chairmanship of Sir Samuel Hoare, a Conservative, and its function was to give loans of money to refugees from Ireland until they either found work in Britain or decided it was safe to return home. At first it had a budget of £10,000, which was fairly meagre, even by the standards of the early 1920s, considering that it dealt with 3,349 applicants in its first six months. Relief was available to claimants through loans and grants. Even at that early stage when the Civil War was far from over, the Irish Distress Committee realised that its work ‘only touches the fringe of the bigger question of compensation’, though perhaps it did not realise just how big that question was to be in the aftermath of Irish independence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 119 , May 1997 , pp. 406 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1997

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References

1 P.R.O., CO 762/212.

2 Liability for the relief of Irish refugees (Diarmuid O’Hegarty to Lionel Curtis, secretary to Provisional Government of Ireland Cabinet Committee, 18 May 1922), p. 3 [Cmd 1684], H.C. 1922, xvii, 534.

3 Hrish Times, 9 Nov. 1922.

4 Irish Grants Committee second interim report, p. 3 [Cmd 2032], H.C. 1924, xi, 360.

5 Hansard 5 (Commons), clvi, 1434–5 (13 July 1922).

6 Healy to Devonshire, 31 Mar. 1923 (N.A.I., Department of the Taoiseach files, S 112).

7 Brennan to Collins, 24 Apr. 1923 (ibid.).

8 Devonshire to Healy, 17 July 1923 (ibid.).

9 Dixon to Percy, 24 Oct. 1923 (RR.O., T160/136/F5016/02).

10 Upcott to Anderson, 20 Nov. 1923 (ibid.).

11 Whiskard to Upcott, 31 July 1925 (ibid.).

12 Waterfield to Sir Malcolm Ramsay, 21 May 1926 (ibid.).

13 Extract from conference between British and Irish ministers, 16 May 1924 (ibid.).

14 The Times, 22 Oct. 1922.

15 Lipsett to Dominions Office, n.d. (P.R.O., CO 905/17); Whiskard memo, n.d. [1925] (ibid.).

16 Irish Grants Committee second interim report, p. 5 [Cmd 2032], H.C. 1924, xi, 362. “Hansard 5 (Lords), lxi, 983–6 (2 July 1925).

18 Ibid., lxii, 90–126 (15 July 1925).

19 Amery to Cosgrave, 17 July 1925 (N.A.I., Department of the Taoiseach files, S 4583).

20 Executive Council minutes, 22 Aug. 1925 (ibid.); Cosgrave to Amery, 24 Aug. 1925 (ibid.).

21 Amery to Cosgrave, 12 Sept., 6 Oct. 1925 (ibid.).

22 Kennedy to Healy, 5 Aug. 1925 (U.C.D. Archives, Kennedy papers, P/483/29).

23 Amery memo, Mar. 1925 (P.R.O., DO 35/343/50162).

24 Hansard 5 (Commons), ccxiii, 1907 (23 Feb. 1928).

25 Minutes of first meeting of Dunedin Committee, 20 Jan. 1926: submission by S.I.L.R.A. and I.C.C.A. (P.R.O., CO 905/17).

26 Ibid.; Dominions Office memo, 27 Jan. 1926 (P.R.O., CO 905/18).

27 Percy to Whiskard, 9 June 1926 (P.R.O., CO 905/18).

28 Compensation: report of a committee presided over by Lord Dunedin, pp 11–12 [Cmd 2748], H.C. 1926, ix, 476–7.

29 Sanders to Jamieson, 28 Oct. 1926 ( P.R.O., CO 762/1).

30 Irish Loyalist, 1 June 1927 (copy ibid., CO 762/3).

31 White to Jamieson, 19 Oct. 1926 (ibid., CO 762/1).

33 Hansard 5 (Commons), ccxiii, 1197–8 (20 Feb. 1928, Churchill).

33 Ibid., cols 1905–19 (23 Feb. 1928).

34 Irish Grants Committee report, 3 Nov. 1930 (P.R.O., CO 905/18).

35 Dual claimants included E.A. Maude, Dame F. Power, Lieut.-Col. L.A. Bryan, Lord and Lady Mayo, Sir John Dillon, Lady E.A.J. Bury, Baron Castlemaine, Ernest de Browne, Lord Lansdowne, the Hon. Charles Guinness, Viola Tighe and Col. Charles Warden.

36 Hansard 5 (Commons), ccxiii, 1910 (23 Feb. 1928).

37 Carson to Lord Danesfort, 3 Dec. 1927(P.R.O.N.I., Carson papers, D1507 A/46).

38 Lunn memo, n.d. [1928] (P.R.O., DO 35/343/10159/10).

39 Hansard 5 (Commons), ccxiii, 1920 (23 Feb. 1928).

40 Ibid., col. 1927.

41 Lunn memo, n.d. [1928] (P.R.O., DO 35/343/10159/10).

42 Batterbee to Lunn, 5 June 1931 (ibid., DO 35/343/10159/16); Warner to Antrobus, 18 May 1931 (ibid.).