Dip into almost any part of modern British history and the issue of Ireland will probably bob to the surface. So it is appropriate to mark the centenary of the establishment of the Irish Free State on 6 December 1922 with a closer look at the uproar into which Dublin – then the second most important capital of the Empire – and the counties that surround it were plunged. Right on England’s doorstep, a cultural and economic jewel – and the birthplace of so many of the King-Emperor’s generals, admirals and air marshals – bloodily wrenched most of herself away from the Union.
Rather than attempt a wide-ranging examination of the events leading up to December 1922 (for more on the Irish War of Independence, see MHM 67), this article will focus on a handful of grisly, attention-grabbing incidents that had a disproportionate effect on opinions and outcomes. In Dublin, the seat of power, a clutch of determined men instigated a series of actions, which, in this writer’s view, fatally dented the Crown’s determination to carry on governing most of Ireland: this is a snapshot of those bloody months.
Covert operations
The term ‘covert operations’ would not have been used in the 1920s, but its present-day meaning is well suited to the labyrinth of spies, informers, plain-clothes policemen and soldiers, double agents, and assassins that sprang into existence at the time as part of the Crown’s attempt to counteract the burgeoning threat of Irish republicanism. Moreover, the techniques it describes would have been every bit as familiar to the men who worked in Dublin under General Lake, the British commander during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, as they were to the host of ‘dark’ agencies that tried to foil the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) at the height of the ‘Troubles’ nearly two centuries later.
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