British Propaganda During the Tan War

[Basil Fawlty]

Aspects of British Propaganda during the War of Independence

A talk by Dr Brian Murphy OSB, Teachers Club, Dublin - 16th October 2003
by Mags Glennon (http://www.newrepublicanforum.ie/Republican%20Resources/history/documents/aspectsofbritpropaganda.htm)
Dr Murphy's lecture examining the operation and consequences of the British propaganda efforts during the Tan War started with an unambiguous statement about the conclusions of his research; that in addition to their contemporary political influence on the 1920s, they still influence historical accounts published ninety years later. Murphy claims that his examination of the historiography has revealed the over dependence of 'revisionist' historians - he named Roy Foster and Peter Hart in particular - on the 'official' version of events spun by Dublin Castle during the War.

A central function of the British propaganda efforts in the period under examination was the planting of stories in reputable journals which were supposedly from non-aligned sources. Murphy cited an article entitled 'Ireland under the New Terror, Living under Martial Law', which appeared in a popular London publication in the Summer of 1921. While purporting to be a series of travellers anecdotes from Ireland, it presented the IRA in a far less favourable light than the British forces. However it was not revealed that the writer, Ernest Dowdall, was in fact member of the RIC Auxiliary and the article was directly planted by the Propaganda Department in Dublin Castle to influence public opinion.

The main focus of British propaganda efforts was concentrated in the final year of the War, from the summer of 1920 until the Truce in July 1921. Prior to this there had been considerable official discontent at the hostile treatment of British forces in the press, which has been attributed to the success of Sinn Féin publicity efforts not only in Ireland but also by Republican supporters in the USA and Britain. By mid 1920 Ireland was administered under the 'Restoration of Order in Ireland Act' and the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries were active. However the activities of British forces were being exposed in the daily Sinn Féin produced 'Irish Bulletin', which provided a detailed chronicle of British actions and was distributed to internationally to press outlets and politicians. As a result the British government was coming under pressure in the Commons for it's actions in Ireland. In addition Erskine Childers' book 'British Rule in Ireland' had also been an influential publication.

In August 1920 Basil Clarke, a journalist, was appointed head of the Department of Publicity in Dublin Castle. Clarke had been a director of special intelligence after World War I. Assisting him in Dublin Castle was the new Press Officer, HBC Pollard. Pollard is perhaps best known now as the author of 'The Secret Societies of Ireland', in which he expressed strongly racist views of the Irish. He became editor of an internal newsletter circulated to each police barracks in Ireland, a publication which at times contained articles amounting to incitement of the Black and Tans to carry out reprisals.

On 30th August 1920 the new Propaganda Department produced the first issue of a 'Survey of the Weeks Activities', aimed specifically at countering the impact of the 'Irish Bulletin'. The archives reveal that the work of the Department was meticulously organised, with a card index system containing possible headlines, themes and outlines of anti-Republican articles. The cards did not contain any sources for the articles, no actual documentary evidence that any of the stories were grounded in fact.

Murphy described Clarke and Pollard as 'consummate wordsmiths' who pioneered the presentation of propaganda as 'News', rather than as 'Views'. Drawing on their experience as both war and political propagandists they developed the Department by ensuring that journalists became reliant on Dublin Castle as a source of news. Twenty or more journalists visited Dublin Castle daily, to be fed the 'official' news. These journalists became dependent on this source of news and they received subtly worded material, which had the appearance of truth. Special 'leaks' of papers and photographs were arranged. Great emphasis was placed on labelling the Dublin Castle sourced news as 'official', which gave it the illusion of being authoritative and truthful.

Having outlined the main parameters of the British propaganda mission Murphy cited several examples of how the department operated in a number of cases in the autumn of 1920.

One of the first cases was that of John Lynch, who was shot dead in a hotel bed at 3am on September 22nd 1920. Lynch was a civilian, a law clerk, and for years mystery surrounded who would have murdered him and why. The British denied any involvement, although some historians speculated that the man had been mistaken for the IRA leader Liam Lynch. What the Propaganda Department successfully covered up was that as part of his job John Lynch was working on the case for the defence of two IRA men arrested in connection with the escape of Sean Hogan at Knocklong station. In this context Murphy believes that John Lynch was murdered by an undercover British unit.

Another Clarke coup was his presentation of the British version of the torture of Tom Hales in October 1920. Hales had been badly tortured in British custody and Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith had prepared publicity material contrasting his treatment with that of the British General Lucas, who had been captured by the IRA and conceded after his release that he had been 'well treated'. The Irish version of the Hales story named the soldiers responsible for torturing Hales and his fellow detainee Harte. The Dublin Castle department issued strong denials of the Irish story and produced a document entitled 'Thomas Hales - fiction and fact'. It denied that any torture had taken place, backed up with supposed 'evidence' from a British enquiry. In his research Murphy could not find any evidence that such an enquiry had actually taken place. Nevertheless the Irish Times, among other publications, carried the Dublin Castle story as the official news, thus granting it credibility.

The Propaganda Department was also heavily involved in the news management around the various events on Bloody Sunday, 22nd November 1920. After the execution of 15 British intelligence agents by Collins' 'squad' an emergency meeting took place at Dublin Castle. The IRA action had had a devastating effect on the intelligence capacity of the police, later post War British accounts openly acknowledged that the assassinations had temporarily paralysed the Special Branch. However in the immediate aftermath of the attacks Basil Clarke crafted the news to present those killed as merely having had a legal role in the preparation of cases for courts martial. In fact only two of the men had any legal expertise at all, the remainder had elite intelligence roles.

In relation to the Croke Park shootings, on the same day, Clarke had a more hopeless task. He attempted to present the atrocity as being provoked by shots from an IRA picket at the entrance to Croke Park, to which British forces responded. Shades of a later Bloody Sunday cover up were obvious here. Even the London 'Times' found Clarke's version of events ridiculous, as did a British Labour delegation visiting Ireland at the time.

The third major event of Bloody Sunday was the mysterious deaths of Dick McKee, Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune, who died 'while trying to escape' from Dublin Castle. McKee and Clancy were senior officers in the Dublin IRA, Clune was an uninvolved civilian. They were actually killed as a reprisal for the deaths of the British intelligence men that morning. Basil Clarke presented and backed up the British version of the deaths. He claimed that, due to lack of accommodation, the three men had been held in a guardroom which contained arms and ammunition. When the men seized these items they were shot while 'trying to escape'. To back this up fake photographs were taken of the guardroom, with known Auxiliaries posing as civilians. Clarke's version went out as the 'official' story, though the 'Irish Bulletin' negated it.

The example of Propaganda Department action which prompted the most discussion at the lecture was the story surrounding the Kilmichael Ambush of November 1920. A number of audience members had obviously studied all aspects of the Kilmichael action very closely. Meda Ryan, author of the book ' Tom Barry IRA Freedom Fighter' made a number of contributions and answered questions from the floor.

Dr Murphy has engaged in long correspondence, much of it through the letters page of the Irish 'Times', with journalist Kevin Myers and Peter Hart, author of ' The IRA and Its Enemies'. Murphy claims that Hart's findings relating to the IRA during the War of Independence are suspect. Hart's work mainly relates to the war as fought in West Cork and repeats with little or no examination the 'official' British version of events. For example post-Kilmichael the British claimed that the district was peaceable and Pro-British, when in fact 2 IRA men had been shot in Macroom a few weeks previously. Murphy outlined the Propaganda Department's spin on the Kilmichael Ambush, in which 17 Auxiliaries died. The British presentation of this huge defeat at the hands of the IRA concentrated on presenting the Auxiliaries (really an Officer class division of the Black and Tans) as mere 'cadets'. The claim was that the 'cadets' were all killed by six shots to the head - implying execution rather than death in battle. In addition they had been 'terribly mutilated by axes'. The ambush and this 'official' version of events received huge publicity in 'The Times'. Within two weeks martial law was imposed in Cork.

Murphy was strongly critical of the Peter Hart narrative regarding Kilmichael, saying it depends almost exclusively on an acceptance of the veracity of the official British version of events. Hart accepts a 'report' of Kilmichael which was supposedly written by Tom Barry, despite the fact that the alleged document is not signed by Barry.

Murphy also claims that the only document he has found that could possibly have relevance to the mutilation of bodies claim was a report from an Auxiliary (who wrongly names the site as 'Kilpatrick') and reports that the bodies were 'butchered'. Murphy believes that this could have been the origin of an idea later embellished by Clarke. The doctor's report on the bodies makes no mention whatsoever of mutilation injuries.

The lecture, which was attended by about 60 people, concluded with an interesting and detailed question and answer session where several contributors offered further criticism of the writings of Peter Hart on the IRA in West Cork. A number of speakers were very insistent that the IRA in Cork was not sectarian against Protestants, but only took actions against those, of any religion, who actively aided the British. There was considerable criticism also of the refusal of Irish newspapers to review historical publications which do not have a 'revisionist' bias. This lack of mainstream coverage means the major bookshops are less likely to stock such books. Some speakers also made reference to the fact that the management and 'spin' of news by pro-British interests is not a development of the past 30 years of conflict but had it's origins in much earlier 'Troubles'.

Mags Glennon is a contributor to Fourthwrite Magazine.

[Basil Fawlty]

More on this.

An edited version of this piece appeared in 'The Village" magazine on October 9 2004 (http://www.indymedia.ie/article/66994?&condense_comments=false#comment88993)

Before departing for the US as EU Ambassador John Bruton questioned the War of Independence that saw the emergence of his party and that eventually paved the way to his becoming Taoiseach.

He effectively disowned his Fine Gael Party and claimed allegiance to the defunct Irish Parliamentary or Home Rule Party that had failed to secure a subsidiary Irish parliament under the Crown. He said that having southern MPs in Westminster would have tempered British policy, seeming to forget that it had little impact on what Professor Roy Foster once called the famine “holocaust”. Indeed Bruton admitted that it resulted in the slaughter of many of the thousands of Irishmen who followed John Redmond’s lead in the First World War, as Redmond was “obliged to support imperial policy”.

The undermining of Irish independence was not confined to Bruton's address to the ‘Reform Movement’, an idiosyncratic group hankering after the Crown connection. In a review of Diarmuid Ferriter’s new history of Ireland (Irish Independent, September 25) Bruton repeated a claim amplified by the Reform Movement and the Orange Order: that the IRA waged a sectarian campaign during the War of Independence. Bruton wrote quoting Ferriter: “The [IRA’s] Kilmichael ambush involved the "deliberate killing of already surrendered soldiers". In May 1922 "10 Protestants were shot dead in Cork in a single night".”

It is true that Protestants in Cork were shot, though in April 1922 and not in a single night, and they were not shot because they were Protestants. This allegation and the Kilmichael ambush claim repeats something first put forward by Canadian Academic Peter Hart in his ‘The IRA and its Enemies’. Hart, now Chair of Irish Studies in Memorial University Newfoundland, accused Kilmichael ambush leader Tom Barry of "lies and evasions".

Diarmuid Ferriter appears to have based repetition of the allegations on Hart's work and he appears not to have read or cited contrary evidence on the subject.

Irish Times letters

Hart’s findings were challenged in 1998 in the Irish Times letters pages. The allegation that Tom Barry had deliberately shot surrendered soldiers at Kilmichael was the main bone of contention. The ‘false surrender’, in which surrendering British Auxiliaries shot dead three IRA volunteers who stood up to take the surrender, is central to the Kilmichael ambush story. Questioning its veracity formed the starting point of Hart’s contention that the War of Independence was viciously sectarian. The correspondence between Hart and his critics, Padraig O Cuanachain and Meda Ryan, both of whom knew Tom Barry, and the historian Dr Brian Murphy, showed Hart retreating from his allegations. Despite this, Hart’s view prevailed through media repetition and promotion.

Hart Challenged

‘Tom Barry, IRA Freedom Fighter’ (2003), by Meda Ryan, demolished much of Hart's argument. Hart’s reconstruction of the Kilmichael Ambush was faulty, as was his claim that Tom Barry did not make the ‘false surrender’ allegation until the 1940s. Hart’s contention that Barry did not mention it in a major 1932 Irish Press article was answered by Ryan showing that the passage had simply been edited out. Details of the Kilmichael false surrender had In fact been published in the 1920s. It was common knowledge among Barry’s column and the subject of many conversations. Hart’s claim to have spoken to IRA Kilmichael participants was undermined by the fact that, from evidence now available, only one was alive at the time of Hart’s interviews, and too infirm to converse intelligibly. Hart's tendency to refer to his Interviewees anonymously was been criticised.

British sectarianism

Ryan examined the allegation of the wanton killing of Protestants contained in Hart’s misleadingly entitled chapter, “Taking it out on the Protestants”.

In Dunmanway after the 1921 Treaty, K Company of the British Auxiliaries left behind a list of “helpful citizens” or informers. The area surrounding Bandon was politically unique. Loyalists had formed “The Loyalist Action Group”, known locally as “The Protestant Action Group”. They passed on information about the IRA during the War of Independence. They also went out on raids, wearing facemasks, with the RIC and Auxiliaries to identify, shoot and torture suspected republicans and to burn houses. They claimed allegiance to the “County Anti Sinn Fein League” and to the “The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland”. British intelligence files confirmed the practice as unique to the Bandon area and bemoaned the fact that such sectarian collusion was not widespread. It was essentially a forerunner of unionist paramilitary activity seen years later in the North, and it was isolated.

It was standard British policy to foment sectarian tension. For instance shot spies or informers were referred to as “X, a Protestant” or, if the informer was a Roman Catholic, his/her religion was omitted. Barry said that in his area 15 informers and spies were shot: “Incidentally, for those who are bigots – 9 Catholics and 6 Protestants”.

Dunmanway killings

A post truce amnesty for informers broke down in West Cork during the period of April 26-28 1922, after the shooting dead of IRA officer Michael O’Neill by Captain Herbert Woods, and father and son Thomas and Samuel Hornibrook. All three had regularly supplied information to British forces. They soon after disappeared presumed killed and they were on the Dunmanway K Company list. Except for two individuals, the names of those shot were on the Dunmanway K Company list. The exception was, the brother of one informer and the son of another. It is not known who carried out these killings, which were not sanctioned by the IRA.

There was an immediate protest at these killings. Republicans, Including the Belfast Brigade of the IRA and Sinn Fein dominated Cork County Council, led it. Both pro and anti-treaty sides in Dail echoed the strong protests. Tom Barry, who was in Dublin attempting to stave off incipient civil war, rushed immediately to Cork. He issued orders for the protection of loyalists and posted members of the IRA at their houses to prevent attacks.

As in the case of Kilmichael, analysis of the facts bears little relation to revisionist propaganda. Contemporary statements from Protestants also undermine it. A Dublin convention of Protestant churches wished to place “on record” that apart from the Dunmanway shootings “hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion has been almost, if not wholly, unknown in the 26 Counties in which Protestants are in the minority”.

It is important to note that the fact that those shot were on a British list of informers and spies was not generally known at the time.

Protestant republicans

Dr Brian Murphy has pointed to Protestant supporters of Irish republicanism. He asked if they could “have acted in such a manner if their fellow religionists were the calculated targets of sectarian attacks?” Could the Protestant West Cork republican Sam Maguire, for whom the GAA all Ireland football trophy is named, have remained in the IRA? Could the Protestant Erskine Childers or subsequently his son have been part of such a movement?

Lloyd George’s imperial advisor, Lionel Curtis, admitted in 1921: “Protestants in the south do not complain of persecution on sectarian grounds. If Protestant farmers are murdered, it is not by reason of their religion, but rather because they are under suspicion as Loyalist. The distinction is fine, but a real one.”

Peter Hart is part of a trend of revisionist historiography in which essentially pro-British ‘evidence’ is found to question other versions of history. Its strongest argument has always been that it is based on facts properly and professionally researched. Meda Ryan has demonstrated that such historiography can have methodological feet of clay. Professor Roy Foster, the chief revisionist, sneeringly referred to “post-revisionist’ historiography as “nationalism with footnotes”. This is ironic since Jack Lane, Brendan Clifford and others argued In "Aubane Vs Oxford" that many of the Professor’s own footnotes are of dubious provenance.

Propaganda

Dr Brian Murphy has been researching the work of the British propaganda Department during 1919-21. One of his soon to be published findings will indicate the extent to which Peter Hart's work mirrors this industrious part of Britain's war effort.

Finally to Hart himself: the Canadian academic had a whirlwind introduction to Irish historiography. His book won the 1998 Ewart Biggs prize, named after the British Ambassador assassinated by the IRA. Professor Foster was chairman of the judging panel. The reception of Hart’s findings was helped by his non-Irishness. Here, apparently, was a disinterested foreigner come to discover uncomfortable truths about our past.

Canadian orangeism

However, Professor Hart's home, Newfoundland, is often remarked upon in terms of its connection to Ireland, mainly in terms of emigration, culture and even accent. But generally un-remarked upon is a similarity to northern rather than to southern Ireland. It was also the one part of Canada to which the Penal Laws applied. The Orange Order proudly recalled in 1963 that the roll call of Newfoundland leaders was also a roll call of Orange leaders and that Newfoundland was the first and most loyal outpost of the British Empire. The ‘Professional’ classes in the capital St Johns, where Hart was born and grew up, regarded themselves as ‘English’. The local Memorial University, where Peter Hart started at university and where he now chairs Irish Studies, expected students to ‘anglify’ their accents in special classes up to the mid 1960s.

The Protestant-Catholic breakdown splits two-thirds, one third, the former in the majority. Newfoundland’s 19th century tricolour flag was green, white and pink, symbolizing religious tolerance between the two groups. It was replaced by the Union Jack when Newfoundland achieved independent dominion under the crown. This period ended in economic stagnation and reunification with Canada. The current flag pays homage to the Union Jack.

This is the milieu from which Professor Hart emerged and which he may claim to have transcended. It is possible that his Irish researches may have been coloured by some of these Canadian tensions - unconsciously, of course.

Michael Collins

Hart has been conspicuous by his silence in not responding to the challenge of Meda Ryan’s book. It is possible that this keen player of war games with toy soldiers (literally, see www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/) is concentrating on a forthcoming biography of Michael Collins, in which he hopes to demolish the type of heroic portrayal seen in Neil Jordan’s film.

It will be curious to see whether John Bruton turns on this Fine Gael hero in the same way he has turned on Tom Barry. Hart claimed recently that no serious biography of Collins has appeared for nearly 70 years. This will come as news to Tim Pat Coogan who wrote an acclaimed biography of Collins a few short years ago.

[Jonathan]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Basil Fawlty again.

[Merriman]

Excellent post, a chara. Read Murphy's book on Patrick Pearse. Throw that Dudley Edwards "book" on him in the rubbish.