In effect a special extension of the Defence of the Realm Acts, the aim of the Act was to increase convictions of nationalist rebels while averting the need to declare martial law. Following a guillotine motion, royal assent was received on 9 August.[1] Under Section 3(6) of the Act military authorities were empowered to jail any Irish person without charge or trial. Secret courts-martial were established and lawyers (appointed by Crown agents) could be present only if the death penalty was involved. Inquests of military or police actions were banned.[2]
Context of the Act
By the middle of 1920, Ireland was in the throes of a full-fledged rebellion that was barely recognized by the British Government in Ireland headquartered in Dublin Castle. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the military arm of the Dáil Éireann revolutionary government, was engaged in a guerilla campaign to destroy elements of British power, particularly burning down courthouses and attacking members of the RIC, Britain’s police force in the countryside.
The British response to the increase in violence and the assassination of police officers was twofold. To suppress the IRA "murderers," Major-General Hugh Tudor, commander of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and self-styled "Chief of Police", began supplementing that body with the employment of World War I veterans known as the "Black and Tans" because of the colour of their surplus World War I uniforms, and an additional temporary force of Auxiliaries. With little discipline and utter indifference to the plight or moral indignation of the Irish population, these groups raided and burned villages, creameries, and farm buildings to intimidate supporters of the IRA.[3][4][5]
The second measure was the enactment of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (ROIA). The Act was envisioned as a remedy to the problem perceived by Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood that, "throughout the greater part of Ireland criminal justice can no longer be administered by the ordinary constitutional process of trial by judge and jury."[6]
The genesis of the Act may be seen in a Cabinet discussion on 31 May 1920, in which the members focused on the violence in Ireland. Rather than addressing violence as the product of rebellion, Greenwood insisted that, "The great task is to crush out murder and arson." He asserted that the violence was perpetrated by "[t]hugs" who were being "handsomely paid." Commenting on a pending Irish bill, Secretary of State for War Winston Churchill stated that, "You should include in the Bill a special tribunal for trying murderers. It is monstrous that we have some 200 murders and no one hung." The prime minister agreed that he felt "certain you must hang," but questioned whether "you can get convictions from Catholics." The concern of all was that the civil courts were incapable of strictly administering justice to the revolutionaries because the juries largely consisted of Irish Catholics. The ensuing discussion of possibly imposing court-martial jurisdiction was inconclusive.[7]
After the 31 May meeting, Greenwood investigated the feasibility of imposing martial law in Ireland,[8] and raised martial law as the specific subject of a 23 July 1920 conference committee meeting of the Cabinet led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George to which the key members of the Dublin Castle administration were invited. Mr. William E. Wylie, the law advisor at Dublin Castle, noted that the RIC was disintegrating through resignations brought on by terrorist attacks, and that with "regard to the Civil Courts, the entire administration of the Imperial Government had ceased."[9] The civilian participants from Dublin Castle, especially Wylie, maintained that martial law was counter-productive, and would only antagonize the Irish people.[10] As an alternative to martial law, General Tudor argued for the imposition of court-martial jurisdiction. Tudor argued forcefully that court-martial jurisdiction over all crimes would support the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries that he was recruiting. He declaimed that "not a single criminal had been brought to justice for murder."[11] Lloyd George closed the discussion directing the Dublin Castle participants to provide final proposals for enforcement of the laws.[12]
A draft bill to establish military criminal jurisdiction was considered by the Cabinet on 26 July. The prime minister's most telling contribution was his question as to "how a man would be killed. Would he be shot or hanged?" It appears that he was comforted by the response that the defendant would be tried under the ordinary law which implied death by hanging.[13] The resulting bill was completed by 30 July 1920,[14] and was then quickly pushed through Parliament and received royal assent on 9 August 1920.[6] The ROIA provided that all crimes punishable under the laws in Ireland could be brought before a court-martial. The court-martial would have the power to impose any punishment authorized by statute or common law including the death penalty.[15] The final step was taken on 20 August 1920, when the final regulations for implementation went into effect.[16]
The court-martial of Kevin Barry
The most celebrated case and the first murder trial by court-martial under the ROIA was the trial of 18-year-old Kevin Barry on 20 October 1920. Barry had been captured by British troops on 20 September 1920 when a party of the Dublin IRA, including Barry, attempted to ambush soldiers guarding a British Army lorry in an attempt to capture the soldiers' weapons. During the ambush, three British soldiers had been killed.
Although there was no evidence as to the specific killer, on 28 September 1920 Dublin Castle elected to try him under the ROIA for "Offenses ... of such a character that they cannot adequately be dealt with by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction." For purposes of jurisdiction he was to "be treated as if he belonged to the Detach. 1/Bn. Lancashire Fusilers [sic].".[17] The formal order convening the general court-martial was issued on 15 October 1920,[18] charging Barry with three counts of first degree murder relating to the three dead soldiers.[19] During the subsequent trial, Barry refused to recognize the court's jurisdiction[20] or present any evidence in his defense.[21] He was found guilty of the first charge (resulting in the dropping of the other charges[22]) and sentenced to death by hanging.[23]
Barry's sentence was publicly announced on 29 October 1920, and it was stated that he would be executed at Mountjoy Prison in three days. The republican press responded with scathing condemnation of the pending execution of a mere "boy" referred to as "Master Kevin Barry".[24][25][26][27] Notwithstanding public outrage and the attempted intervention of the Archbishop of Dublin and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Lord Lieutenant of IrelandSir John French refused to modify the sentence. A last minute telephone appeal to Prime Minister Lloyd George was also firmly rebuffed.[28]
At about 6:00a.m. on Monday 1 November, crowds began to gather outside of to begin a vigil. By 7:00 some 2,000 people were present, and the crowd continued to grow. The British authorities reacted by bringing up an armored car that drove through the crowd and stopped with its gun turret trained on the crowd. Notwithstanding intimidation, at 7:45a.m., a contingent of the Cumann na mBan, the women's auxiliary of the IRA, marched up in uniform and knelt in a line outside the prison to conduct prayers.[29][30]
Inside the prison, Kevin Barry was hanged at 8:00a.m. Canon John Waters and his assistant, Father Matthew McMahon, had arrived at Barry’s cell an hour earlier to celebrate mass and witness the execution. Afterward, they described the scene to the press in terms that all but sanctified Barry. They reported that Barry received them in his cell with rosary beads in hand and a smile on his face. He was “cheerful and unmoved,” and after the mass, as he proceeded to the gallows, he never "flinched or wavered." When the executioner approached to blindfold him, he stated that he did not want it, as "he was a soldier and not afraid to die."[29][30] Canon Waters stated, "His last thoughts were not of this world. He died a brave and beautiful death, marked by great humility and resignation to the will of God. He died a holy and a Christian death. He died with prayers on his lips for his friends and enemies."[30] Father McMahon agreed that “[h]e was as brave as a lion, and died as holy as a saint,” and added, "He must have passed straight into Heaven as a reward for his perfect resignation to death, and his acceptance of God’s Divine Will."[31]
The headlines in Tuesday’s Irish Independent announced, "Execution of Kevin Barry in Mountjoy. Without a Tremor to the End. Asked for No Pity. But Requested Irish Prayers."[29] Not to be outdone, the Freeman’s Journal proclaimed, "The Heroic Sacrifice. Kevin Barry Yields His Life for Ireland Without Flinching. A Brave Boy’s Fortitude. He goes to the Scaffold Praying for His Friends and Enemies."[30] The Journal's editorial ennobled Barry’s death:
Vengeance has been wreaked upon the school-boy Kevin Barry. The vengeance is blind... It adds to the tragedy that he died with more than a man’s courage, but in the temper of a Christian. He might have saved his life by giving the names of his comrades. The offer should have cancelled the sentence. He refused though the scaffold gloomed upon him. But he died praying for his executioners. He had just arrived at the years when the soul of a boy is fullest of generosity and noble sentiment. Such lads as he are the salt of a nation, the salt of the earth. The ghastly thing about this strife is that it is the very best and most generous of the young manhood of Ireland that has been driven to revolt and is now being warred upon.[32]
In contrast, Dublin Castle issued no press release or explanation of the rationale for the sentence, thus ceding a complete propaganda victory to the Irish republican cause. The only statement from Dublin Castle was the posting of the following notice on the prison gate, shortly after 8:00a.m.:
The sentence of the law passed on Kevin Barry, found guilty of murder, was carried into execution at 8 a.m. to-day. By Order.[33]
Implementation of the Act
The combination of growing police and military pressure and recourse to the ROIA led to increased internments of known or suspected IRA members and a steady increase in convictions to 50-60 per week. This made it more difficult for IRA soldiers to continue openly working day jobs while carrying on part-time guerrilla activities. As a result, the IRA shifted its approach to guerrilla warfare in the rural counties. Volunteers from IRA units were organized into elite, full-time, mobile flying columns of around 25 men who would live off the land and on the run. These flying columns proved to be more suited to ambushes of patrols and convoys and other targets of opportunity, rather than attacks on barracks which had become better defended.[1][34]
On 10 December 1920 martial law was proclaimed in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. In January 1921 martial law was extended to Clare and Waterford.[35]
In a crucial judgement, R (Egan) v Macready,[36] the Irish courts ruled that the Act did not give power to impose the death penalty. This would no doubt have proved politically contentious had not hostilities ended the same day.
Despite its name, the courts were of the view that ROIA applied in England too. Following the creation of the Irish Free State, when the Act was repealed by implication, it was still used to deport ex-members of the Irish Self-Determination League to Ireland.[37]
Related Research Articles
The Irish War of Independence or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was part of the Irish revolutionary period.
Events from the year 1920 in Ireland.
Kevin Gerard Barry was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) soldier who was executed by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence. He was sentenced to death for his part in an attack upon a British Army supply lorry which resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers.
Charlie Kerins was a physical force Irish Republican, and Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army. Kerins was one of six IRA men who were executed by the Irish State between September 1940 and December 1944. After spending two years on the run he was captured by the police in 1944. Following his subsequent trial and conviction for the 1942 murder of Garda Detective Sergeant Denis O'Brien, Kerins was hanged at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.
Stephen Hayes was a member and leader of the Irish Republican Army from April 1939 to June 1941.
General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, 1st Baronet,, known affectionately as Make-Ready, was a British Army officer. He served in senior staff appointments in the First World War and was the last British military commander in Ireland, and also served for two years as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis in London.
The executions during the Irish Civil War took place during the guerrilla phase of the Irish Civil War. This phase of the war was bitter, and both sides, the government forces of the Irish Free State and the anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA) insurgents, used executions and terror in what developed into a cycle of atrocities. From November 1922, the Free State government embarked on a policy of executing Republican prisoners in order to bring the war to an end. Many of those killed had previously been allies, and in some cases close friends, of those who ordered their deaths in the civil war. In addition, government troops summarily executed prisoners in the field on several occasions. The executions of prisoners left a lasting legacy of bitterness in Irish politics.
Joseph McKelvey was an Irish Republican Army officer who was executed during the Irish Civil War without trial or court martial. He participated in the Anti-Treaty IRA's repudiation of the authority of the Dáil Éireann, the civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919 in March 1922, and was elected to the IRA Army Executive. In April 1922, he helped command the occupation of the Four Courts in defiance of the new Irish Free State. This action helped to spark the civil war, between pro- and anti-treaty factions. McKelvey was among the most hardline of the republican side and, briefly in June 1922, became IRA Chief of Staff.
Detective Sergeant Denis O'Brien, sometimes called "Dinny O’Brien", was a veteran of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. He joined the Garda Síochána in 1933 and was killed by the Anti-Treaty IRA in 1942.
Seán O'Hegarty was a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army in County Cork during the Irish War of Independence. He served as O/C of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA after the deaths of Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney.
Richard Barrett, commonly called Dick Barrett, was a prominent Irish Republican Army officer who fought in the War of Independence and on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War. He was assistant quartermaster-general of the IRA with the rank of commandant. During the Civil War he was captured by Free State forces at the Four Courts on 30 June 1922 and later executed unlawfully on 8 December 1922.
Capital punishment in the Republic of Ireland was abolished in statute law in 1990, having been abolished in 1964 for most offences including ordinary murder. The last person to be executed was Michael Manning, hanged for murder in 1954. All subsequent death sentences in the Republic of Ireland, the last handed down in 1985, were commuted by the President, on the advice of the Government, to terms of imprisonment of up to 40 years. The Twenty-first Amendment to the constitution, passed by referendum in 2001, prohibits the reintroduction of the death penalty, even during a state of emergency or war. Capital punishment is also forbidden by several human rights treaties to which the state is a party.
Peadar Clancy was an Irish republican who served with the Irish Volunteers in the Four Courts garrison during the 1916 Easter Rising and was second-in-command of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence. Along with Dick McKee and Conor Clune, he was shot dead by his guards while under detention in Dublin Castle on the eve of Sunday, 21 November 1920, a day known as Bloody Sunday that also saw the killing of a network of British intelligence agents by the Squad unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by the Royal Irish Constabulary.
The Forgotten Ten were ten members of the Irish Republican Army who were executed in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, by British forces following courts martial from 1920 to 1921 during the Irish War of Independence.
Thomas Bryan was an Irish republican and member of the Irish Republican Army who was one of six men hanged in Mountjoy Prison on 14 March 1921.
Patrick Moran was a grocer's assistant, trade unionist and member of the Irish Republican Army executed in Mountjoy Prison along with five other men on 14 March 1921. He is one of those who were dubbed "The Forgotten Ten".
Thomas Whelan was one of six men executed in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin on 14 March 1921. He was 22 years old at the time of his death.
"Kevin Barry" is a popular Irish rebel song recounting the death of Kevin Barry, a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who was hanged on 1 November 1920. He was 18 years old at the time. He is one of a group of IRA members executed in 1920–21 collectively known as The Forgotten Ten.
R v Secretary of State for Home Affairs ex parte O'Brien [1923] 2 KB 361 was a 1923 test case in English law that sought to have the internment and deportation of Irish nationalist sympathisers earlier that year declared legally invalid. In March 1923 between 80 and 100 suspected Irish nationalists in Britain were arrested by the police and sent to the Irish Free State under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920 (ROIA). One of the detainees, Art O'Brien, challenged his detention in a test case at a divisional court. The case eventually went to both the Court of Appeal and House of Lords, who decided that the internments were illegal because the Irish Free State was an independent nation and so British acts of Parliament no longer applied to it.
Patrick MacGrath was born into an old Dublin republican family and took part in the 1916 Rising, as did two of his brothers. He was sent to Frongoch Internment Camp after the 1916 Rising and served his time there. He was a senior member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), hunger striker, IRA Director of Operations and Training during its major bombing/sabotage in England and was the first of six IRA men executed by the Irish Government between 1940–1944. After participating in the Easter Rebellion, MacGrath remained in the IRA, rising in rank and becoming a major leader within the organisation.
Ainsworth, John S. (2000). British Security Policy in Ireland, 1920-1921: A Desperate Attempt by the Crown to Maintain Anglo-Irish Unity by Force. Proceedings 11th Irish-Australian Conference. Perth, Western Australia: Murdoch University.
Bennett, Richard (2011). The Black and Tans: The British Special Police in Ireland. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Books.
Cassel, Felix (19 July 1920). Cabinet Memorandum: Martial Law in Ireland. Copy of Letter from the Judge Advocate General to the Chief Secretary for Ireland. CAB/24/109 – via The National Archives (UK).
Clark, David J.; McCoy, Gerard (2000). The Most Fundamental Legal Right: Habeas Corpus in the Commonwealth. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-826584-0.
Hopkinson, Michael (2002). The Irish War of Independence. Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Jones, Thomas (1971). Middlemas, Keith (ed.). Whitehall Diary. Vol.III, Ireland 1918-1925. London: Oxford University Press.
Leeson, D. M. (2012). The Black and Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence, 1920-1921. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
McGuffin, John (1973). Internment!. Tralee, Ireland: Anvil Books Ltd.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
