Paul Keenan
J. Anthony Gaughan
For those interested in the War of Independence 1919 to 1921 this is a page-turner. The author describes in considerable detail the role of priests and bishops during those revolutionary years. In so doing he provides a valuable service. Apart from an article published more than 40 years ago by Tomás Ó Fiaich, no-one has since written specifically on this subject.
Heffernan’s book is beautifully shaped. First he considers clerical opposition to republican violence and notes the ever presence of a politically conservative section of the clergy who opposed Sinn Féin throughout the period.
Next he describes the different guises of the ‘republican’ priest from sympathiser with Sinn Féin to sympathiser with the IRA. He describes the different kinds of support the latter gave to the republican movement up to and including ‘aiding and abetting’ activists in the struggle for independence.
Finally he surveys the way in which the British military campaign in Ireland impinged on the Catholic clergy and examines how the counterinsurgency measures, particularly the policy of reprisals, affected the attitudes of priests and caused them to moderate their condemnations of republican violence.
Different phases
At the outset the author describes how two different phases in the IRA’s campaign prompted different responses from the clergy. The first phase of the IRA’s campaign mainly consisted in the assassination of members of the RIC and the destruction of their barracks. Most of those killed were devout Irish Catholics and highly respected members of their communities.
Clerical condemnation of those responsible for those incidents was immediate and at times in highly emotional language. In the later phase of their campaign the IRA were pitted against the ‘Auxiliaries’ and the ‘Black and Tans’. The former were officers and the latter for the most part were soldiers who had served in World War I. They carried out the British government’s policy of reprisals and very soon they were responsible for as many atrocities as the IRA.
In this new situation clerical condemnation centred on the misconduct of the crown forces. By that time also, priests were finding it difficult to maintain a neutral attitude to the forces of law and order. There were increasingly widespread arrests, intimidation of and violence against their colleagues.
Then many priests regarded the murder by the ‘Auxiliaries’ of Fr Michael Griffin in County Galway and Canon Thomas Magner in County Cork as the crossing of a red line which the crown forces had hitherto respected.
Much of the information Heffernan provides on the engagement of priests with local IRA volunteers at various levels is derived from the thesaurus of material collected by the Bureau of Military History now so readily accessible.
This evidence was presented by veterans of the war of independence. Very few priests submitted statements to the bureau. One reason, presumably for this, was their awareness of the importance of maintaining confidentiality with regard to exchanges with others on vital and contentious matters.
Many members of the IRA were conscientious Catholics for whom the taking of a human life was a very serious issue. While they had little interest in theological niceties, they were strongly influenced by their priests and bishops.
Thus in the face of Bishop Cohalan’s excommunication of IRA activists and frequent clerical condemnation the re-assurance they received from priests with whom they were familiar was of crucial importance. This was also recognised by the crown forces, hence the greatly increased violence against priests towards the end of the conflict.
Brian Heffernan is to be highly commended for this fine study which will be a standard work on this subject for many years to come.
