Irish Republican Army - Dáil Éireann and The IRA

Dáil Éireann and The IRA

Sinn Féin MPs elected in 1918 fulfilled their election promise not to take their seats in Westminster but instead set up an independent "Assembly of Ireland", or Dáil Éireann, in the Irish language. On 21 January 1919, this new, unofficial parliament assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin. As its first acts, the Dáil elected a prime minister (Príomh Aire), Cathal Brugha, and inaugurated a ministry called the Aireacht. In theory, the IRA was responsible to the Dáil and was the army of the Irish Republic. In practice, the Dáil had great difficulty controlling the actions of the Volunteers.

The new leadership of the Irish Republic worried that the IRA would not accept its authority, given that the Volunteers, under their own constitution, were bound to obey their own executive and no other body. The fear was increased when, on the very day the new national parliament was meeting, 21 January 1919, members of the IRA Third Tipperary Brigade led by Seán Treacy and Dan Breen seized a quantity of gelignite and two Royal Irish Constabulary constables (James McDonnell and Patrick O'Connell) were shot dead in the process.

Technically, the men involved were considered to be in a serious breach of IRA discipline and were liable to be court-martialed, but it was considered more politically expedient to hold them up as examples of a rejuvenated militarism. The conflict soon escalated into guerrilla warfare by what were then known as the Flying Columns in remote areas. Attacks on remote Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks continued throughout 1919 and 1920, forcing the police to consolidate defensively in the larger towns, effectively placing large areas of the countryside in the hands of the Republicans.

Moves to make the IRA the army of the Dáil and not its rival had begun before the January attack, and were stepped up. On 31 January 1919 the IRA organ, An tÓglách ("The Volunteer") published a list of principles agreed between two representatives of the Aireacht, acting Príomh Aire Cathal Brugha and Richard Mulcahy and the Executive. It made first mention of the organisation treating "the armed forces of the enemy – whether soldiers or policemen – exactly as a national army would treat the members of an invading army".

In the statement the new relationship between the Aireacht and the IRA was defined clearly.

• The Government was defined as possessing the same power and authority as a normal government.
• It, and not the IRA, sanctions the IRA campaign;
• It explicitly spoke of a state of war.

As part of the ongoing strategy to take control of the IRA, Brugha proposed to Dáil Éireann on 20 August 1919 that the Volunteers were to be asked, at this next convention, to swear allegiance to the Dáil. He further proposed that members of the Dáil themselves should swear the same oath. On 25 August Collins wrote to the Príomh Aire, Éamon de Valera, to inform him "the Volunteer affair is now fixed".

Though this was "fixed" at one level, another year passed before the Volunteers took an oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic and its government, "throughout August 1920".

A power struggle continued between Brugha and Collins, both cabinet ministers, over who had the greater influence. Brugha was nominally the superior as Minister for Defence, but Collins's powerbase came from his position as Director of Organisation of the IRA and from his membership on the Supreme Council of the IRB. De Valera resented Collins's clear power and influence, which he saw as coming more from the secretive IRB than from his position as a Teachta Dála (TD) and minister in the Aireacht. Brugha and de Valera both urged the IRA to undertake larger, more conventional military actions for the propaganda effect, but were ignored by Collins and Mulcahy. Brugha at one stage proposed the assassination of the entire British cabinet. This was also discounted due to its presumed negative effect on British public opinion. Moreover, many members of the Dáil, notably Arthur Griffith did not approve of IRA violence and would have preferred a campaign of passive resistance to British rule. The Dáil belatedly accepted responsibility for IRA actions in April 1921, just three months before the end of the Irish War of Independence.

In practice, the IRA was commanded by Collins, with Richard Mulcahy as second in command. These men were able to issue orders and directives to IRA guerrilla units around the country and at times to send arms and organisers to specific areas. However, because of the localised and irregular character of the war, they were only able to exert limited control over local IRA commanders such as Tom Barry, Liam Lynch in Cork and Seán Mac Eoin in Longford.