Dissidents E-Book

Ann Matthews

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

During the War of Independence around 10,000 Irishwomen were actively involved in the fight for Irish freedom. So why, with the outbreak of Civil War and in the years following this conflict, did the role of women in Irish politics steadily decline until by the early 1940s only a handful of women were involved? 'Dissidents' explores the reasons for this decline. From the divisions caused by the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which led to a fatal splintering of the women's Republican organisation Cumann na mBan, through the effects of internment during the Civil War on female prisoners and the relegation of the majority of women in Irish politics to the margins, Ann Matthews reveals the story of Republican women in the years following Irish independence. She also asks whether they were responsible for their own demise in the political arena, leaving future generations of Irish women without a foundation on which to build.

Leseprobe

Ann Matthews

Dissidents

Irish Republican Women 1923–1941

MERCIER PRESS

Cork

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© Ann Matthews, 2012

ISBN: 978 1 85635 995 5

Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 129 5

Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 130 1

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

FOR MY DAUGHTER ALYSONAND HER SON BENJAMIN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is based on the second half of my PhD dissertation, ‘Women activists in Irish republican politics 1900–1941’, which was completed in 2004 under the supervision of Vincent Comerford, then Professor of History at NUI Maynooth. Since 2004, with his encouragement, I have continued to read new source material. His continuing interest and encouragement is very much appreciated. I would also like to thank the staff of the History Department at NUI Maynooth, who have given me total support in my work over the years. The first half of my PhD was published in 2010 as Renegades: Women in Irish Republican Politics 1900–1922.

I have used sources from a wide range of archives for my work. In particular for this book I used newly catalogued material at the Military Archives at Cathal Brugha Barracks in Dublin. The staff at the Military Archives have been tremendously supportive over the years as I worked my way systematically through the many documents and prison ledgers. So thank you to Commandant Victor Laing and his staff, Captain Stephen McKeon, Private Adrian Short, Noelle Grothier, Lisa Dolan and Hugh Becket. I would also like to mention the staff who retired during my years working through this material: Chris Donovan, Brendan Mahoney, Alan Manning and Joe White. I also extend my appreciation to Corporal Joe Scanlon of the Army Computer School at Cathal Brugha Barracks, who enabled me turn my database on 645 female political prisoners (which was built using multiple Civil War ledgers and documents), into the table in Appendix 1.

At Kilmainham Gaol Museum, Niall Bergin, the manager of the museum, and his staff, in particular the archivist Ann Marie Ryan, were very accommodating and gave me access to material which, used in conjunction with documents at the Military Archives, enabled me to present for the first time, a multi-dimensional story on the women who were imprisoned during the Civil War. University College Dublin Archive holds a significant number of collections from many of the participants in the Irish Nationalist and Republican movements during the twentieth century. There, Seamus Helferty and his staff were very helpful to me. At the National Archives in Bishop Street, the staff of the reading room were always especially courteous and often went to a great deal of effort to help me track down material. I would also like to thank Mícheál Mac Aonghusa for his endless patience with my queries regarding Irish language translations.

From my first contact with Mercier Press, who also published my first book, I found Mary Feehan encouraging and supportive, as were the editors Elaine Towns and Wendy Logue and all the team at Mercier Press, whose professionalism is much appreciated.

Finally, I want to thank family and good friends who have given me absolute support through the years of research. Particular thanks to my brother Séan Matthews, friends Rita and Tony Donnelly, Rita Edwards, Sinead McEneaney, Moira Maguire, Nora Purcell, Fifi Smith, Jim, Henry, Nina and neighbours Mary, Gerry and Nicole.

ABBREVIATIONS

AIVC

Anti-Imperialist Vigilance Committee

AIVL

Anti-Imperial Vigilance League

ASU

Active Service Unit

CID

Criminal Investigation Department

FSFF

Free State Form of Fidelity

GPB

General Prisons Board

IRPDF

Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants’ Fund

IIRPDF

‘Irregular’ Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants’ Fund

IWC

Irish White Cross

LIBA

League of Irish Ex-Servicemen of the British Army

NDU

North Dublin Union

PDAG

Prisoners Department of the Adjutant General

PPRC

Political Prisoners’ Release Committee

RCBC

Republican Congress Bureau Committee

RCC

Republican Co-ordination Committee

RDNC

Republican Day of National Commemoration

SFSC

Sinn Féin Standing Committee

SIABL

Southern Ireland Area of the British Legion

INTRODUCTION

Dissidents explores how, twenty years after the War of Independence in Ireland, more than 10,000 women who had been active during that conflict had completely disappeared from the political landscape. In particular, Cumann na mBan was an active and visible part of the struggle for independence, playing a major role in communications and the transport of arms. Moreover, figures such as Jennie Wyse-Power and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington were actively involved in Sinn Féin, the main Republican party. Yet by the early 1940s women had all but disappeared from the Irish political process.

The first steps towards the disintegration of female participation in the political process began during the debates on the Anglo-Irish Treaty in Dáil Éireann. With the defeat of the anti-Treaty side in the Dáil, the women involved in Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan divided into three sections: pro-Treaty, anti-Treaty and neutral, with the neutrals comprising the majority. Cumann na mBan re-formed as an anti-Treaty organisation and changed its constitution. By May 1922 it had 133 branches – a significant drop from the 838 recorded in July 1921.

In January 1922 Seán T. O’Kelly founded the Cumann na Poblachta political party, the purpose of which was to oppose the Irish Free State. By July the Irish Republican Army (IRA), with Cumann na mBan, had instigated physical opposition to the Irish Free State, with Cumann na Poblachta representing the political section of a new Republican triad whose remit was to oppose by arms the democratically elected Irish Free State government. This triad positioned Éamon de Valera as its figurehead and its opposition culminated in a civil war, which began in July 1922, lasted for nine months and was essentially a period of ferocious bloodletting.

The Irish Free State government reacted by introducing internment and by the end of the war there were more than 12,000 men and several hundred women in the internment camps. Dissidents explores the prison experiences of the 645 women held as political prisoners in Kilmainham and Mountjoy Prisons and the North Dublin Union (NDU) camp. Some of these were held for just a few days, but around 300 were held for periods ranging from a few weeks to several months, while some served almost a year and Eithne Coyle and Sighle Humphreys both served for over a year. In each of the prisons the women organised a prisoners’ council, whose leader dealt with the relevant prison governor on their behalf. However, the most fractious relationships in the prisons were those between the women themselves, as they were not a homogenous group – they came from the upper, middle, working and rural peasant classes. When the middle-class and upper-class women assumed leadership among the prisoners it caused resentment within the ranks of the other two groups.

One of the most common forms of protest used by the female political prisoners was the hunger strike and they resorted to this for all kinds of reasons. There were twenty-four hunger strikes in the three prisons during the period from November 1922 to November 1923, in which 219 women took part. But internal dissension within their own ranks was problematic, especially in relation to hunger strikes, as the majority did not agree with this form of protest and some women recorded cases of bullying on the issue.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Éamon de Valera set in motion the reorganisation of a new (third) Sinn Féin party. Cumann na Poblachta had served the Republicans well as the political arm of the triad and had raised significant funds in the USA, but it was Seán T. O’Kelly’s party, and when the war ended it appears that de Valera wanted to separate himself politically from the Civil War, while simultaneously wresting the Republican party away from O’Kelly. This led to the break-up of the Republican triad.

By early 1924 Cumann na mBan had a severely reduced membership and was consumed by efforts to save an organisation in serious decline. It did not have a history of developing any long-term strategy and was a reactive organisation, always trying to keep up with the decision-making centre of Republican politics. The divide between women who were involved in politics and those in Cumann na mBan became more acute after the Civil War. Because of the role Cumann na mBan played militarily, the organisation had no political outlet and its existence was interwoven completely with the IRA.

In 1925, under the Local Government Act, the Irish Free State government introduced an oath of allegiance to the government for all public servants. This had a devastating effect on the lives of rank-and-file Republicans who refused to take the oath. When members of the Dáil signed the oath of allegiance to the British monarch in Dáil Éireann, they were also required to accept the oath to the Irish Free State government. This included Éamon de Valera and his followers, who initially refused to sign. However, as the money being raised by Sinn Féin was minimal, they were forced to change their policy in order to survive. This new policy became known as the ‘new departure’ and from this Fianna Fáil: The Republican Party emerged, creating another split in the already fragmented Republican movement.

Several historians have dissected the issues associated with taking the oath to the British monarch extensively in recent years, but no one as yet has addressed the second oath of allegiance. In accepting the oath to the Irish Free State, Fianna Fáil essentially recognised that the Irish Free State government was the lawful democratically elected government. This had a serious impact on female involvement in the party. Some of the most high-profile Republican women had joined Fianna Fáil, and many of the rank and file followed suit, but the collective voice of those claiming to represent all Irishwomen was splintered beyond salvage by this new policy. Those Republican women who opposed Éamon de Valera’s new policy were quickly relegated to the margins of mainstream Irish politics.

Meanwhile, Cumann na mBan was in a serious position financially and, in an effort to raise some money, inadvertently created a new Republican symbol, the Easter Lily. This kept the organisation going for some time, but in 1933 the organisation experienced a disastrous split. While Cumann na mBan continued to operate within marginal Republican politics, its refusal to adapt to the new realities of political life in Ireland left the organisation in the wilderness and ineffective as a political force.

By 1937, when Éamon de Valera brought the new Irish Constitution before the electorate, the collective female voice that had been so powerful in 1920–21 had vanished. There were objections from some individual women and societies, but without a united lobby or a tangible female leadership representing all Irish women, it was ineffective. Republican women, through their constant bickering over a period of twenty years, were responsible for their own demise in the political arena.

1

RUMBLINGS OF DISSENSION

The revolution that began in Dublin at Easter 1916, culminated in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921, but within a month that Treaty had led to a split in the Irish Republican movement. The vote on acceptance of the Treaty in the Dáil took place on 7 January 1922 and seven days later the sixty-four members of the second Dáil who supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty assembled at the Mansion House, formed the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State and elected an Executive Council. Those elected to the council were Michael Collins, William T. Cosgrave, Éamonn Duggan, Kevin O’Higgins, Patrick Hogan, Patrick McGrath, Eoin MacNeill and Fionán Lynch. Michael Collins was elected as chairman. A general election was due to be held later in 1922 and both sides began a scramble to put their respective points of view before the electorate.

On 17 January 1922, the Ard Chomhairle (National Executive) of Sinn Féin was convened to elect a new standing committee. The Ard Chomhairle had a membership of nearly seventy, drawn from the party’s officer board, its executive and the representatives of all Comhairlí Ceantair (districts). The election yielded a standing committee that was predominantly pro-Treaty, and by late January 1922 ‘the party was overwhelmingly pro-Treaty’.1 At a meeting on 31 January, Michael Collins proposed that the standing committee should ‘recommend to the Ard-Fheis [annual conference], that the vote on acceptance or non-acceptance of the Treaty should be by ballot’.2 Kevin O’Sheil seconded this. Austin Stack proposed an amendment to the resolution, that the voting should be public, and Áine Ceannt seconded it. This modification received the support of Kathleen Lynn and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, but the Collins motion was passed without amendment.

As a reaction to the pro-Treaty stance of the majority of Sinn Féin, some time between 3 February and 22 February the anti-Treaty side of the IRA met and a new political party, Cumann na Poblachta (The Association of the Republic), was formed. Cumann na Poblachta affirmed its allegiance to the Proclamation of 1916 and to the Declaration of Independence of 21 January 1919, and three trustees were appointed: J. J. O’Kelly (also known as Sceilg, from his surname in Irish – Ó Ceallaigh), Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack. The trustees went to America on a fund-raising mission, accompanied by Countess de Markievicz and Kathleen Barry, and arrived in New York on St Patrick’s Day 1922. They operated under the auspices of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR), launched by Éamon de Valera and Harry Boland in 1920.3 Sceilg said, ‘with the support of Clan na Gael, Cumann na Poblachta raised a substantial amount of money’ and this gave them a significant war chest.4

The anti-Treaty IRA was not the only group taking a negative stance against the Treaty. On 11 January 1922, twenty-six members of the Cumann na mBan (Irishwomen’s Council) executive had met to discuss the Treaty and voted twenty-four to two against acceptance. The two women who supported it were Jennie Wyse-Power and ‘a Miss Mullan from Monaghan’.5 Following the vote, Wyse-Power resigned from the executive. The executive then set a date for a special convention, which was dominated by anti-Treaty delegates, and re-formed as the third incarnation of Cumann na mBan. Unlike Sinn Féin, the Cumann na mBan executive did not allow any discussion, and Mary MacSwiney and Countess de Markievicz were determined that the organisation would be the first Republican organisation to vote against the Treaty, thereby leading the vanguard for the anti-Treaty side.

Mary MacSwiney wrote to the branches in Cork and instructed them to:

Call a special meeting of their branches to discuss the executive resolution. Because the majority of the Deputies of Dáil Éireann have declared for the Free State and this may lead to decrees subversive of the constitution of Cumann na mBan.6

She also told them that, ‘in view of the grave importance of the decisions involved, the executive earnestly hope that each branch will make a special effort to send a delegate’.7

At the rank and file level, Cumann na mBan was riven by arguments about the Treaty. The Cumann na mBan Cork District Council held a meeting to discuss their differences. Twenty-three delegates attended the meeting, representing branches from Bishopstown, Blackpool, Blackrock, Clogheen, Dublin Pike, Cork city (Poblacht na hÉireann), Pouladuff, Shandon, St Finbarr’s, St Patrick’s and Cork University. A motion was put forward by the Poblacht na hÉireann (Republic of Ireland) branch that:

The Cork District Council re-affirms its allegiance to the Irish Republic and condemns without qualification the betrayal of the Republic by the signing of the Treaty in London on December 6 1921 … furthermore it repudiates the action of the sixty-four men who were elected to represent the Republic of Ireland and have foresworn their allegiance to the Republic in voting for this settlement.8

A report on the outcome of the meeting in The Cork Examiner said ‘the motion was defeated by sixteen to seven’. The following day, a complaint from May Conlon claimed that ‘the report was incorrect and the vote was in fact defeated by ten to seven’.9 Regardless of the confusion, it is clear that the majority of the Cork District Council was pro-Treaty.

A special convention of Cumann na mBan was held on 5 February 1922. The Irish Times and the Irish Independent published detailed reports of the convention, with the latter paper reporting that:

At the special convention of Cumann na mBan in Dublin yesterday, a resolution of adherence to the Republican policy was carried by 419 to 63 for an amendment advocating working for the Republic through the Free State.10

Based on the publication of the above figures, Florence O’Donoghue interpreted it as Cumann na mBan ‘registering a practically unanimous vote against the Treaty at their convention’.11 This perspective has endured to the present day. The figures have been accepted without question or careful scrutiny, and have become the accepted story of the voting pattern at the convention. The acceptance of these figures from that time is one of the most successful pieces of propaganda to emerge from this period.

There were 600 delegates present at the convention, with 200 missing because of a rail strike affecting the Cork and Kerry areas. Consequently, the convention did not reflect the opinions of the total membership, and by insisting on going ahead with the convention the leaders actually breached the organisation’s constitution.12 During the debate a question was posed from the floor about Cumann na mBan remaining neutral, but Mary MacSwiney replied that ‘asking Cumann na mBan to remain neutral was akin to asking her to stand neutral while a murderer stabbed her mother to death’. Her motion that ‘Cumann na mBan reaffirm its allegiance to the Republic of Ireland, and therefore cannot support the Articles of Agreement signed in London, 6 December 1921’ was ‘put forward as a substantive motion and was carried by a show of hands’.13 This was the actual vote that determined the organisation’s position on the Republic versus the Treaty. According to Jennie Wyse-Power, as she left the convention with others who voted against MacSwiney’s motion they were taunted with ‘shouts of traitor’.14 In the wake of this convention the anti-Treaty group formed the third Cumann na mBan.

When Cork District Council decided to hold a meeting to discuss the future of the organisation in the city, Mary MacSwiney informed them that she was coming to address them, but the women refused to admit her and said ‘they were not willing to allow themselves be subjected to a two and a half hour harangue of invective, similar to that delivered to the Dáil’.15 The rank and file members simply walked away from the organisation.

After the split, pro-Treaty members of Cumann na mBan were faced with a dilemma, as they did not have a forum to express their point of view. In early March 1922 a small group of women met at 70 St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and formed an ‘alternative organisation’ – Cumann na Saoirse (Irish Freedom Committee) – with Jennie Wyse-Power and Louise Gavan Duffy as the main movers behind it, thus giving a platform to women who wanted to support the Treaty.16

Back in Cork, a row erupted over the name of the new organisation. The pro-Treaty members in Cork refused to use the name Cumann na Saoirse and insisted they were entitled to keep the original name of Cumann na mBan. The row was bitter, but the pro-Treaty members of Cumann na mBan in Cork were determined they were not going to be bullied and they retained the name Cumann na mBan in Cork and operated as a pro-Treaty organisation.

Within months of this split, Cumann na mBan and the political women in Sinn Féin who took the anti-Treaty side found themselves making up part of a Republican triad comprising Cumann na mBan, the IRA and Cumann na Poblachta.

2

THE REPUBLICAN TRIAD, 1922–23

The IRA also fragmented over the issue of the Treaty, with the neutral membership being known as ‘the neutral IRA’, while the anti-Treaty group re-formed as the Republican IRA and became known as anti-Treatyites or ‘Irregulars’.1 The Free State side used the term ‘Irregular’ as a pejorative expression for Republicans who fought against them during the Civil War. It was also used in government documents, particularly in intelligence reports, and by the media and Cumann na Poblachta.

In March 1922, as the anti-Treatyites regrouped, Éamon de Valera went on a tour of the south of Ireland, where he made a series of inflammatory speeches that fuelled the fast-growing discontent among those who opposed the Treaty. F. S. L. Lyons notes that the tone of these speeches could be summarised by one quote from de Valera:

If they accepted the Treaty, and if the Volunteers of the future tried to complete the work the Volunteers of the last four years had been attempting, they would have to complete it, not over the bodies of foreign soldiers, but over the dead bodies of their own countrymen. They would have to wade through Irish blood, through the blood of the soldiers of the Irish Government, and through, perhaps, the blood of some of the members of the Government in order to get Irish freedom …2

On 9 April 1922, the anti-Treaty IRA assembled at the Mansion House in Dublin, adopted a new constitution and elected a new executive as their governing body in direct opposition to the Provisional Government. The new executive of the Republican IRA comprised Liam Lynch, Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Joe McKelvey, Florence O’Donoghue, Seán Moylan, Seán Hegarty, Liam Deasy, Seamus Robinson, Ernie O’Malley, Peadar O’Donnell, Joe O’Connor, Frank Barrett, Tom Maguire, P. J. Ruttledge and Tom Hales.3 At the end of the convention an army council was also formed, comprising Liam Lynch as chief of staff, Joe McKelvey as deputy chief of staff, Florence O’Donoghue as adjutant general, Ernie O’Malley as director of organisation, Joseph Griffin as director of intelligence and Liam Mellows as quartermaster general. Rory O’Connor, Seamus O’Donoghue and Seán Russell were appointed directors of engineering, chemicals and ammunition, respectively.4 They claimed that their legitimacy as defenders of the Republic emanated from the proclamation of 1916, the declaration of the Irish Republic in 1919 and the second Dáil Éireann of 1921.

On Holy Thursday, 13 April 1922, four days after the formation of the anti-Treaty IRA, Rory O’Connor, in a challenge to the authority of the Irish Free State, led some of his men into the Four Courts in Dublin and occupied the complex. The fact that the local population gave the men in the Four Courts the nickname ‘the Rories’ indicates that the public perception was that Rory O’Connor, and by extension the Republican IRA, was now the real power within the anti-Treaty side. The women of the third Cumann na mBan supported the men in the Four Courts by carrying dispatches, providing catering services and moving guns and ammunition between various posts.

When the IRA entered the Four Courts, the organisation effectively asserted primacy over Éamon de Valera and Cumann na Poblachta. Consequently the political wing of the triad’s significance was reduced. Éamon de Valera, who had always been a figurehead, never a leader, floundered as the country slid inexorably towards civil war. On 14 April, Jennie Wyse-Power told her daughter Nancy:

The civilian population feared that a rebellion was going to take place on Easter Monday … the Four Courts have been commandeered by ‘the Rories’, and the civilian population fear another rebellion on Monday, but I am calm on the point, as I don’t see who they are to rebel against … people are genuinely nervous, as armed men are everywhere, probably the Rories will raid the mails, so caution is needed even now.5

As the stand-off between the IRA and the Irish Free State began over the occupation of the Four Courts, Sinn Féin was in disarray, still riven by arguments over the Treaty (despite the formation of Cumann na Poblachta). On 20 May 1922, almost six weeks after Rory O’Connor and his men entered the Four Courts, the party convened its delayed Ard-Fheis. There was a general election pending on 16 June, and the party managed to negotiate an agreement between both factions to form a national coalition panel of agreed candidates and put forward ‘pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty candidates represented in proportion to their existing strength in the Dáil’.6 An agreement was also reached ‘on the allocation of government ministries afterwards’.7 Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera signed this electoral agreement, which became known as the Collins–de Valera Pact, on behalf of both sides and the delegates to the Ard-Fheis gave the agreement their blessing.

When the election pact was announced, both sides tried to make it work by canvassing for each other. Éamonn Donnelly, the director of organisation for Cumann na Poblachta, sent a note from its Suffolk Street headquarters and advised its members, ‘I would impress upon you to honourably observe the Agreement arrived at between Messers [sic] de Valera, Collins, and work whole-heartedly for the National Panel.’8 It looked like a workable option, but when the election campaign began, it started to crumble at grass-roots level. The Sinn Féin party ‘was disintegrating at local and parish level and in some areas, feelings were so volatile that many members of Sinn Féin cumainn could not bring themselves to meet’, and in areas where they did meet, ‘those in favour of the Treaty tended to stay away’.9

Meanwhile, Cumann na mBan were precluded from supporting the election pact because on 5 February 1922, at the formation of the third anti-Treaty Cumann na mBan, a new clause was inserted into their constitution, which read:

Cumann na mBan is to organise the women of Ireland to support at the forthcoming elections, only those candidates who stand true to the Republic proclaimed in 1916, and established as a functioning government in 1919, and that no branch of Cumann na mBan can give any help to a candidate standing for the Free State.10

However, this did not prevent its members from supporting anti-Treaty candidates in an unofficial capacity, which they did wholeheartedly. Meanwhile, in Cork, the pro-Treaty Cumann na mBan organisation worked for the pro-Treaty candidates.

As the election campaign progressed, each side became more intransigent, the pact began to disintegrate and co-operation became no more than an illusion. The IRA was still in the Four Courts and the situation there had taken on the nature of a siege. Elsewhere in the country there were skirmishes between the newly created Irish Free State army and the IRA about who would take over former British army barracks. The IRA was also engaged in taking vehicles from garages and seizing men’s clothing from army and navy outfitters and other supplies for their own use. While the leaders of each side continued to argue, a spiral into anarchy was taking place.

On 15 June, the day before the general election, a speech made by Michael Collins in Cork was published, in which he told the assembled citizens, ‘you are facing an election, and I am not hampered now by being on a platform where there are coalitionists. I can make a straight appeal to you citizens of Cork, to vote for the candidates you think best of.’11 When the result of the general election was announced, the pro-Treaty candidates held the majority (see Table 1).

table 1: results of the general election, 16 june 1922

Parties

Seats

Free State

58

Republicans/Cumann na Poblachta

36

Labour

17

Farmers

7

Unionists

4

Independents

6

Total

128

Source: Cornelius O’Leary, Irish Elections 1918–1977 (Dublin, 1979).

On 28 June 1922, the Irish Free State army began a bombardment of the Four Courts to dislodge the IRA. Dr Josephine Clarke (née Stallard) was a medical officer for the anti-Treatyites and she described her involvement in the events in Dublin following the start of the Civil War. She was married to Liam Clarke, a member of the 4th Battalion Dublin IRA, which was based in Rathfarnham village and operated between Glenmalure, the Pine Forest and Glenasmole. The battalion used a farmhouse owned by Billy Young and located between Rathfarnham and Tallaght as a base.

When the shelling of the Four Courts began, Josephine and her husband were at home in Dublin. Realising what was happening, Liam went to join his battalion, while Josephine remained at their flat awaiting orders from Cumann na mBan. She was told to organise a first aid station in Grand Canal Street in Dublin and having completed this task, was collected by her husband and taken to Rathfarnham to work with the 4th Battalion. In Rathfarnham village, Dr Clarke organised a first aid station above a chemist’s shop, working with Sighle Farrell, a member of Cumann na mBan who lived in the village.

In Dublin city, Countess de Markievicz, with an unknown number of the anti-Treaty section of Cumann na mBan, mobilised along with ‘twenty women of the Irish Citizen Army’.12 Similar to their activities during the 1916 Rebellion, they operated as couriers, cooks and first aid personnel. At the Four Courts, ‘the women worked tirelessly feeding the men and looking after the wounded in the hospital’.13 Annie M. Smithson, who operated as a courier, described the work of the women of Cumann na mBan at another outpost at Moran’s Hotel in Talbot Street. She said they worked in ‘the big basement of the hotel, using a large kitchen for the cooking and several smaller rooms for dressings and other needs’.14 Countess de Markievicz was based at another post at Barry’s Hotel in Great Denmark Street. Margaret Skinnider of the Glasgow branch of Cumann na mBan acquired a Red Cross Ambulance that she used as a cover for her activities and when members of Cumann na mBan from Glasgow arrived in the city with guns and ammunition she met them with the ambulance. They recorded that she yelled at them ‘that the volunteers in the Hammon Hotel, in Sackville Street, were screaming for ammunition and she took the equipment from them and took it to the hotel’.15

After a week of ferocious fighting in Dublin the Republicans surrendered and several of the leaders were arrested, including Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Frank Barrett, though Ernie O’Malley managed to escape. Jennie Wyse-Power told her daughter Nancy that ‘the feeling is that de Valera got away in a Red Cross motorcar’.16 None of the women were arrested and, according to Wyse-Power, Countess de Markievicz was not detained because she was of no military importance.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the IRA, namely Ernie O’Malley, Oscar Traynor, Jim Ryan and Charles McAuley, decided to make a stand against the Irish Free State army at Blessington in Wicklow and, with their men, took over the town and commandeered several houses, ejecting the residents. Dr Clarke was with them and recorded that there were twenty-four women there, but she named just two of them – Kathleen (Katty) Barry and Eilis, who was in fact Sighle Farrell. Some of the other women were members of the South County Dublin District Council of Cumann na mBan, who had cycled over the Dublin Mountains to help.

Dr Clarke recorded that Charles McAuley had been appointed chief surgeon and he ‘set up a hospital in a house in the town square and billeted women in another house nearby’. There were apparently a number of doctors there and McAuley appointed each one to take ‘charge of different sections’. Dr Clarke was given responsibility for the medical instruments.

Dr Clarke recalled that there was a priest with them called Father Dominic, who had travelled to Blessington ‘to officiate at the funeral of a boy who was killed in some skirmish on the hills’. At night the women listened to the sound of cars coming and going to the hills where the fighting was taking place. On the third night, Dr Clarke said she was woken ‘by the sound of machine-gun fire’, went to the hospital to see what was happening and ‘discovered a handful of Volunteers’:

The main body of the irregulars, including the leaders, had all slipped away under cover of darkness, leaving the wounded, the Red Cross and a skeleton force of Volunteers who were to keep on sniping during the night … Therefore, the expected battle at Blessington did not take place. I went to the house where we used to have meals. This was in a state of complete disorder and showed signs of a hastily prepared meal before the Volunteers left.17

In this instance, the use of the term Red Cross refers to the anti-Treaty medical corps, not the International Red Cross. The Republicans had used this description for their medical unit as early as 1916, and the women always referred to themselves as Red Cross personnel despite not being affiliated with the International Red Cross.18

Dr Clarke returned to the women’s billet and discovered that twenty-four people had gathered, comprising ‘eight women and sixteen wounded men’, and that the ‘volunteers who had been detailed to stay with the women and the wounded had also left’.19 Father Dominic took charge of the group and they decided to walk towards Brittas. Dr Clarke recorded:

[We] carried the Red Cross flag and the wounded hobbled along with us. We were stopped a couple of times by the Free State soldiers, once by Hugo MacNeill whose brother was fighting with the column. Father Dominic on each occasion read out some clause from the Treaty of Geneva about the immunity of Red Cross workers and each time we were allowed to pass.20

When the group reached Brittas, Dr Clarke said that Father Dominic arranged with an officer of the Irish Free State army to take the women in his car down to the tramline at Tallaght.

Dr Clarke went on to describe her surrender. She said that, along with Sighle Farrell and two wounded men, she was taken by car to Tallaght. As they approached the village the driver stopped, got out to check the engine and then told them they would have to walk the rest of the way. Dr Clarke noted that as they walked around a bend in the road they saw a bread-van and a company of Free State soldiers drawn up across the road. Believing they had been led into a trap, she faced the sergeant and told him that she was:

A doctor in charge of this little Red Cross group and, according to the Treaty of Geneva, we were immune. I spouted the clause that I had heard Father Dominic use on the previous occasions. The sergeant said, ‘For goodness sake, we are waiting long enough for you to come down. Get into the van and tell them all that in Tallaght.’21

When the women surrendered they were taken to an aerodrome in Tallaght, where they were given a basin of water to wash themselves. They were also provided with a tray of food and some tea, and at around 11 p.m. were taken to Terenure and released.

By 5 September 1922, when the Irish Free State parliament convened for the first time, the country was immersed in a full-scale civil war. By this time, Arthur Griffith had died (on 12 August) from a brain haemorrhage, and ten days later Michael Collins had been killed in an IRA ambush in County Cork. In October 1922 the IRA underlined its dominance of the Republican triad by setting up an alternative Republican government that would take its mandate from the second Republican government of 1921 (i.e. the second Dáil Éireann). The IRA issued a proclamation, saying that it had invited the fifty-seven anti-Treaty members of the second Dáil to a meeting in September, and ‘called on de Valera and the faithful members to form a Provisional Republican Government’. This proclamation was published in the Poblacht na hÉireann newspaper and stated in part:

The people desire the continuance of the Republic and that given a free choice they would vote for it in an overwhelming majority … On behalf of the soldiers of the Republic, acting in the spirit of our oath, as the final custodians of the Republic, and interpreting the desire of all true citizens of the Republic, we have called upon the former President de Valera and the faithful members, to form a government, which they have done.22

At this point, it appears that Éamon de Valera had talked himself into a position of Republican warmonger and he had accepted this invitation. The proclamation continued:

In the name of the Army we hereby proclaim Éamon de Valera to be President of the Republic with Austin Stack, Robert Barton, Count Plunkett, J. J. O’Kelly, Laurence Ginnell, Seán T. O’Kelly, Seán O’Mahony, Mrs O’Callaghan, Mary MacSwiney, P. J. Ruttledge, Seán Moylan, and M. P. Colivet as the council of state.23

Those men and women who accepted positions on this new Republican Council of State had gained their seats in the uncontested election in 1921 when they were members of Sinn Féin, and now in October 1922 they formed themselves into a militarily controlled Republican government succeeding the second Dáil and in opposition to the lawfully elected Irish Free State government. The Republican triad comprising the anti-Treaty IRA, Cumann na mBan and Cumann na Poblachta firmly believed they represented the legitimate Irish government and rightfully carried the flame of the thirty-two-county Irish Republic.

In early November 1922 rumours began to circulate that peace negotiations were in progress between the protagonists of the conflict, but Éamon de Valera instantly quashed speculation by issuing a communiqué on behalf of the Republican government:

In order that the public may not be misled by the rumours carefully propagated by those contriving to the overthrow of the Republic suggesting that peace negotiations are in progress, the government wishes it to be known definitely, that there is no truth and has been no truth in these rumours … Victory for the Republic, or utter defeat and extermination are now the alternatives … we will never submit to signing ourselves away, a nation of slaves.24

Countess de Markievicz, president of Cumann na mBan, was not involved in these events because she had taken flight to Scotland. Less than a year earlier, this self-proclaimed heroine had told the nation that ‘she believed the freedom of Ireland was worth blood, and worth my blood, and I will willingly give it for it’.25 As Cumann na mBan became immersed in the work of the Republican IRA, de Markievicz travelled a little in Ireland, making speeches on their behalf. She was seen in various parts of the country between July and September 1922. Sometime in July she attempted to hold a meeting at Smithfield in Dublin, but ‘was mobbed and almost stripped by women’.26 Her last public appearance in Ireland took place in Dublin on 18 September, when she spoke at a meeting on behalf of the IRA in Sackville Street in Dublin.27 However, when the Irish Free State Executive Council decided to implement a policy to arrest and imprison any women found assisting the ‘Irregulars’, within weeks she had travelled to Scotland to avoid this fate and was absent from Ireland as her comrades in arms were forming the Republican Council of State.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, Éamon de Valera was once again preoccupied with money and in October 1922 sought to have the funds of the Sinn Féin party placed under his control. Three months earlier, Jennie Wyse-Power, who was co-treasurer of the party with Éamonn Duggan, had paid off the headquarters staff without giving them salary in lieu of notice:

On my return to Ireland about the 20 July, I visited the Sinn Féin offices and found no one in charge. The two hon. secretaries had been publicly identified with the recent revolt. Brian Fagan, a clerk, had been arrested … after the Four Courts surrender, the messenger Joe Clarke, who acted as carrier and spy for the anti-Treaty party, was living in the house where our offices were situated … and Mr O’Keeffe the general secretary had taken up duty as deputy governor in Mountjoy.28

While the Sinn Féin party had largely disintegrated by October 1922, it had not officially split but was struggling to remain in existence. The two Sinn Féin treasurers were still holding the party’s funds and it appears that Éamon de Valera believed he was entitled to this money. To prevent him getting it, the treasurers lodged the funds in the courts. De Valera wrote to Éamonn Duggan, reminding him:

It had been unanimously agreed you will remember, that in view of the possible cleavage in the organisation, the funds and other property be vested in the president, Éamon de Valera, as sole trustee.

He also demanded that he should be supplied with ‘a detailed list of the party’s assets, along with all receipts and cheques endorsed and held by both treasurers, plus a cheque for the current amount of money in the fund’.29 The Sinn Féin Standing Committee (SFSC) had disintegrated and the officer board was functioning as the party’s standing committee, so Jennie Wyse-Power and Éamonn Duggan responded to de Valera by calling a special meeting of the officer board for 26 October, where Kathleen Lynn presided at this meeting. An agreement was reached whereby the headquarters staff should receive a month’s salary in lieu of being let go without notice. A resolution was also passed, by seven to three, that:

The action of the treasurers in refusing to sign cheques for office salaries be [sic], and is hereby approved of, in the view of the fact that there was no office work to do and the executive was unable to, or had ceased to function. In view of the condition of the organisation, we order that no further expenditure be incurred, except without the authority of the standing committee.30

This was the last meeting of the officer board of the party and it was effectively the end of the second Sinn Féin party as it disintegrated in a welter of recrimination.

Éamon de Valera, unhappy at not receiving the money, wrote a very angry letter to Kathleen Lynn and told her ‘the accounts etc. can be sent to me through 23 Suffolk Street, I can then personally examine and initial them, both as president and trustee’.31 This was in fact a demand that the funds belonging to the second Sinn Féin party should be forwarded to the headquarters of the anti-Treaty Cumann na Poblachta party.

The political arm of the Republican triad openly used its headquarters in Dublin’s Suffolk Street to disseminate anti-government propaganda until November, when the Free State authorities raided the offices of the party and all personnel found on the premises were arrested and interned. After that, the party operated from underground locations around the city. It used a series of houses, offices, flats and shops leased by supporters on behalf of the party. These supporters were not known to the authorities. Two women who worked as paid clerical operatives for the party were Moira O’Byrne and a Miss Clyne, and they rented offices and flats in their own names with funds supplied by Cumann na Poblachta. One office was located in Lower Leeson Street and another at St Stephen’s Green; these offices were also used to hide men on the run.

A search by Free State troops of the Women’s National Health Association (WNHA) baby club at 21 Werburgh Street in Dublin (known as St Monica’s Mother and Baby Club) yielded a large number of documents. The only connection between the baby club and Republicans was Dr Alice Barry, who worked for the WNHA. Dr Barry was a ‘supporter of the republican movement, throughout the war of independence she often made her home available to republicans seeking shelter’.32 She took the anti-Treaty side and was closely associated with Dr Kathleen Lynn, a formidable anti-Treatyite and vice-president of Sinn Féin. She was also a member of the hospital board of St Ultan’s Hospital, which was searched in December 1922, but no incriminating material was discovered there. The documents from the WNHA gave the Free State government significant information about the activities of the Republican triad in several areas of the country and led to many arrests.

Elsewhere, Cumann na mBan was working in close alliance with the IRA intelligence network, just as they did during the War of Independence. There was a belief within IRA intelligence that women excelled at gathering information. A message from the officer of the intelligence section of the 1st Northern Division IRA instructed the executive of Cumann na mBan to:

Get any girls or men you know onto intelligence work for you. Girls can get any amount of information from most men. Get them going. Do not think there is anything ignoble about army intelligence. There is not – decidedly not. No army can move an inch or win the slightest victory without it. Help us move an inch or win big victories. The work is necessary – and as noble as the regular scrapping.33

Gathering information was difficult, but keeping it safe from discovery required even more effort. The work was physically demanding, more so in the period of the Civil War than previously because of the loss of supporters across the country. As a result of this, couriers were often required to cycle long distances, often at night, and did not use bicycle lamps because ‘using lights on lonely roads would send the Free State soldiers, and their spies, after us’.34 The members of the Cumann na mBan South Dublin District Council worked in a line from Dublin through Wicklow to Wexford. They often cycled round trips of up to forty miles to deliver intelligence reports, guns and ammunition.

During the Civil War the Northern Divisions of the IRA were involved in a dual war, one with the Free State and the other with the state of Northern Ireland. When the Civil War began, Commandant Charlie Daly of the 1st Northern Division contacted Eithne Coyle and asked her to ‘report immediately for active service under his command’.35 Coyle was involved in retrieving material from various arms dumps around Omagh and Enniskillen, which had been there since the War of Independence. The 1st Northern Division took over Glenveagh Castle in Donegal for the duration of the war and used it as their headquarters. Coyle and Róisín O’Doherty became official dispatch carriers for the division, and they gathered intelligence and transported arms and ammunition for the men. Coyle later recalled that her work involved ‘taking part in most of the attacks on the infamous B Specials around the area’.36 She also established a communication link between the 1st and 3rd Northern Divisions.

Across the country, women were used to protect Republican arms dumps more often than in the past, because an Irish Free State military council had been given the power to sentence to death men found in possession of arms or ammunition. This military council was set in motion by the Irish Free State Executive Council when it initiated a Coercion Act to enable the Free State army to restore order throughout the country. On 26 September 1922, Richard Mulcahy introduced the Act as a motion for approval in Dáil Éireann, reading in part:

Whereas the government has entrusted to the Army the duty of securing the public safety and restoring order throughout the country, and has placed on the Army the responsibility for the establishment of the authority of the government in all parts of the country in which that authority is challenged by force:

And Whereas the Army authorities have represented to the Government that in order to discharge effectively the duty and responsibility so placed on them it is essential that the Army authorities should have power to establish Military Courts or Committees, with full powers of enquiring into charges and inflicting punishment on persons found guilty of acts calculated to interfere with or delay the effective establishment of the authority of the Government, and that the Army authorities should have power to detain in places whether within or without the area of the jurisdiction of the Government persons arrested by the Army authorities, and power to control the dealing in and possession of firearms:37

Offences against the state were defined by this resolution and were enumerated as anyone found:

(i) Taking part in or aiding and abetting any attack upon or using force against the National Forces;

(ii) Looting, arson, destruction, seizure, unlawful possession, or removal of or damage to any public or private property;

(iii) Having possession without proper authority of any bomb or article in the nature of a bomb, or any dynamite, gelignite, or other explosive substance, or any revolver, rifle, gun, or other firearm or lethal weapon, or any ammunition for any such firearm;

(iv) The breach of any general order or regulation made by the Army authorities; and the infliction by such Military Courts or Committees of the punishment of death, or of imprisonment for any period, or of a fine of any amount either with or without imprisonment, on any person found guilty by any such Court or Committee of any of the offences aforesaid;38

On 28 September the resolution was passed by Dáil Éireann and almost immediately a military council (tribunal) was formed. The members of the council were Richard Mulcahy, commander-in-chief of the Irish Free State army, Lieutenant General O’Sullivan, chief of staff, the adjutant general, the director of organisation and Colonel M. J. Costello, director of intelligence.39 The sentences that could be inflicted by the military council were death, penal servitude, imprisonment, deportation, internment and fines.40 In a manner strikingly similar to that of the British in 1916, the Free State excluded women from execution, despite their active involvement in campaigns against the Free State army.

From the outbreak of open warfare in July 1922, Cumann na mBan and the IRA worked closely together preparing ambushes on the Irish Free State army. There is no evidence that any Republican women took part in ambushes of Free State soldiers, but they played a significant role in supplying, storing, cleaning and priming guns for action. For example, when C Company, 3rd Battalion, Dublin Brigade IRA, launched an attack on Portobello Barracks (now Cathal Brugha Barracks) in Rathmines, they were helped by Elizabeth Maguire, who ‘carried arms and ammunition to the scene of the attack’.41 Elizabeth Maguire’s mother kept a lodging house for railway workers and this made it easy for Maguire to disguise the hiding of men on the run. She worked with the 3rd Engineers, 5th Battalion IRA, and was involved in several of their attacks between July 1922 and February 1923. She was involved in twenty-eight raids, attacks and ambushes in total, her role being to take the guns and ammunition to the site of the attacks and then take ‘the arms away again, back to the dump and clean them, ready for the next action’.42 She kept this arms dump in her bedroom and hid mines and gelignite in various houses around Monck Place in the Broadstone area of Dublin. The final ambush she took part in was an attack on McKee Barracks on 9 April 1923.

In Dundalk, County Louth, the area of the 4th Northern Division, two women whose job was to gather intelligence on the movements of Free State troops received information that an IRA dump was about to be raided. They went to the site – a house five miles outside Dundalk – climbed into the attic and found ‘about 200 rounds of rifle ammunition and some detonators, etc.’, which they moved ‘before the Free State soldiers arrived’.43

Cumann na mBan also played a significant role in the dissemination of Republican propaganda. On 1 January 1923, they released a circular advertising the publication of a new newssheet called Irish Nation (sometimes referred to as Éire), to be launched on 12 January.44 The paper’s brief was to increase public awareness of the work of the Republicans, as an extract from an advertising circular illustrates:

The Irish Nation proposes to put the other side, from week to week. Let the people read and judge for themselves. It is your duty on this national crisis, to study both sides carefully. You are the judge and jury; you are the judges. You cannot exercise your judgement when you hear only one side of the argument.45

The newssheet was published in an effort to counter the national press, which Republicans perceived as being ‘pro-British and anti-Nationalist’.46 It was sold through selected agents and Cumann na mBan branches. Members of the Ann Devlin branch in Glasgow edited and proofread the paper, and it was also printed in Scotland. The Free State authorities quickly put the paper on its list of proscribed material and anyone found in possession of a copy faced internment.

Another area of responsibility, which the women more or less inherited, was arranging funerals for members of the IRA killed in action. This came about after the death of Cathal Brugha in Dublin on 7 July 1922. On 9 July, his wife, Kathleen Brugha, made a statement that ‘apart from family relations and intimate friends, the chief mourners and the guard of honour should include only the women of the Republican Movement’.47 This set a precedent for the duration of the war and brought the organisation to the forefront in Republican parades. Traditionally, in these parades, Cumann na mBan had marched behind the Irish Citizen Army, who in turn were behind the Volunteers. During the Civil War any Republicans who died were buried quietly, with Cumann na mBan personnel performing the dual role of pallbearers and firing party. Ernie O’Malley, in The Singing Flame, observed of one funeral that ‘the CID were nosing for men. Cumann na mBan girls in uniform, some with eyes shut and faces screwed to one side, fired a volley over the graves with revolvers or automatics’.48 On another occasion, in Carlow, where a member of the IRA died, Cumann na mBan paid the funeral expenses and ‘two members of the organisation waked him for two nights, and then escorted the funeral to Mitchelstown, County Cork, for burial. The cost of the funeral was paid by the local branch of the Republican fund.’49

This fund was the ‘Irregular’ Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants’ Fund (IIRPDF), formed in 1922 by Cumann na mBan in the aftermath of a split in the original Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants’ Fund (IRPDF) of 1919–22. The remit of the first IRPDF was to supply support for the families of men on active service during the War of Independence and it did not escape the fallout of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In April 1922 the IRPDF executive tried to prevent a split by co-opting representatives from the Irish Free State and anti-Free State sides onto the committee. Major General Seamus Hogan represented the former and Seán Moylan the latter. When the pact election agreement collapsed, Jennie Wyse-Power and Mrs Mulcahy (formerly Min Ryan), a former member of Cumann na mBan who supported the Irish Free State, were expelled from the IRPDF executive committee and refused any further information about the fund.

In January 1922 a sum of £25,000 had been ‘allotted to the IRPDF by the Irish White Cross on the understanding that it would be used to relieve distress amongst members of the IRA who had suffered during the Anglo-Irish war and to help them return to civil life’.50 As secretary of the IRPDF, Annie O’Rahilly had charge of the money.51 However:

Owing to the fact that there were regular Brigadiers and Irregular Brigadiers sending in claims on behalf of their men each of which would override the other, and for various other reasons, this sum of money remained untouched until after the attack on the Four Courts.52

When the IRPDF split, the money disappeared. However, a month after the split, in October 1922, the mystery of the disappearing money was solved when the Irish Free State authorities captured letters written by Liam Lynch to Seán Moylan, who was the officer commanding the Cork 3rd Brigade IRA. Apparently, ‘Moylan was holding £15,000 while Miss Annie O’Rahilly the secretary of the IRPDF held the other £10,000’.The Free State government believed that Moylan had disbursed large sums of money ‘between the irregular leaders in his area’, but qualified this by saying ‘of course it is not possible to prove that this was the £15,000’.53

The Republican government did not accept financial responsibility for the families of interned Republicans, so the ‘Irregular’ IRPDF was launched by Cumann na mBan in July 1922. In consultation with the IRA they devised rules for the new fund, which had a complex military-style format. Essentially, each IRA battalion area co-operated with the area district council of Cumann na mBan to organise local committees to raise funds for distribution within their own area, with surplus funds to be sent to their headquarters in Dublin. The IIRPDF became the support committee for the anti-Treaty side, and was the sole support agency for the dependants of ‘Irregulars’ on active service.

Cumann na mBan was required to compile detailed information about the dependent families obtained from the IRA representative on the committee and the officers of various brigades and battalions. For example, in Dublin, the officer commanding the 3rd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, made an appeal for funds for one of his men. This man, the officer explained, had ‘a wife and child to support, and as he cannot remain in his employment as a tram conductor for fear of arrest, they are now destitute’.54 Payment to dependent families was based on the prisoner’s income before his arrest. The needs of each family were considered, but care was taken that no family received aid greater than their income before the arrest of the wage earner.

The scheme allowed for a payment of fifteen shillings for a dependent wife and two shillings and sixpence for each child. Apart from the married men on IRA Active Service Unit (ASU) duties, many unmarried men were the main support for elderly parents and younger siblings. For example, two brothers in Carlow were the main financial support not only for their parents but also for four brothers and two sisters ranging in age from four to sixteen.

By December 1922 the IIRPDF had decided that no family could receive more than thirty shillings per week. In that same month a sum of money totalling £2,000 was sent to Cork, so that families could receive the money in time for Christmas (see Table 2).

table 2: distribution of £2,000 in december 1922 by the iirpdf

Areas of distribution

Amounts distributed

1st Southern Division

£900

2nd Southern Division

£400

3rd Southern Division

£200

Mary MacSwiney, Cork city

£500

Total

£2,000

Source: Tom Derrig papers, Captured Documents collection, Military Archives, Dublin.

In some areas, the local Cumann na mBan branches had responsibility for the men with the ASUs as well as dependent families. Raising money at the local level was a difficult task, but each district IIRPDF committee did its best, which tested the ingenuity of many of the women. A Cumann na mBan document recorded the difficulties experienced by the women:

Dependants are being looked after; the most urgent cases … These families are looked after by voluntary subscriptions from our members who give weekly subs. Women with Republican views send weekly supplies of milk … There are men and women who send groceries and bread to the poor. But it is always the same people who give.55

The major problem as far as the women were concerned was ‘that only people with Republican views would subscribe, with the same group constantly giving aid in whatever way they could’.56 Sometimes the women raised money at the local level by holding flag days, tea parties and whist drives.