Joe McGrath as secretary of the amalgamated Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependents’ Fund (INA&VDF); in the process, he met and so impressed Kathleen Clarke, widow of Tom, that she recognised in him the way forward for the IRB and gave him a copy of Tom’s invaluable list of reliable IRB contacts.49 Next, Collins and his Frongoch circles were formally assimilated into the home-based IRB. Once again, Murphy and O’Hegarty were centrally involved. By sheer persistence and downright bullying during a number of meetings, they, ‘a crowd of usurpers’ according to the old guard, managed to defeat those Dublin members who ‘did not like Collins’.50 Then, by July, a revised constitution had been drafted by Ashe, Lynch and Con Collins, with Lynch and Michael Collins adding significant revisions afterwards.51 (A more permanent SC and a full executive were established as well.52) That constitution contained a number of changes which had the potential to cause trouble in the long term.53
But, in the short term, the most important change was the fact that the gradualist policy of the 1873 constitution, whereby force could be embarked upon only with the consent of ‘a majority of the Irish people’ (see Appendix 1), was rendered null and void, thereby presaging a return to the status quo ante of Stephens’ more orthodox revolutionary blueprint of 1858,54 especially the clause whereby the president of the IRB was ipso facto the president of the putative Irish Republic (see Appendix 2). Merely four days later, behind the scenes at the Oireachtas, the first steps were taken to implement the proactive blueprint. Diarmuid Lynch informed the assembled Brothers that the SC intended to gain control of the Volunteers.55 Almost immediately afterwards, Collins, Mulcahy, Lynch, McGarry, Ashe, O’Hegarty and Staines, along with de Valera and Brugha, decided that the first, full, post-rebellion Volunteer convention would be held at the tail end of the forthcoming Sinn Féin conference which was already scheduled for the Mansion House in October.56
In the interim, Ashe, then president of the IRB, died in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital during the evening of Tuesday, 25 September. He died from pneumonia brought on by the malfunction of forcible feeding after he, along with close on seventy other prisoners, went on hunger strike for the attainment of political status.57 The immediate reaction within the wide nationalist community was one of profound shock and anger at the tragic and controversial loss of such a young, talented, active and popular member. Collins felt the loss greatly: ‘poor Tom Ashe … but a day of reckoning will come’.58 Certain it was, therefore, from the IRB’s point of view, that Ashe would be honoured in the spectacular fashion of the O’Donovan Rossa obsequies. But Collins’ thinking went beyond the usual Fenian considerations of homage, effrontery and promotion. More so, just as he had done since his arrival in Frongoch, he wanted to use the occasion to disempower domestic competitors and, in the process, to strengthen the bond within his own revolutionary group. De Valera, in this instance, was his principal target.
The pattern of de Valera’s activities during the period of mourning, 26–30 September, is illustrative of that. On the Wednesday he paid his respects at the hospital in the company of W.T. Cosgrave, Joe McGuinness and Lawrence Ginnell.59 On the following day, along with a larger number of prominent nationalists, he turned up to witness the proceedings of the first day of the deceased’s inquest and later, during the evening, he, ‘in his capacity as Commandant of the Irish Volunteers’, commanded a company of Volunteers as they marched at the head of an enormous procession to the Pro Cathedral.60 Then, after the requiem mass on the morrow, when the corpse was being brought to the City Hall in order to complete the period of mourning there, he attended in his capacity as a politician, not as a Volunteer.61
And that, it would seem, was the last part he played. Certainly, on the Sunday, at the climax of the event, he was conspicuous in his absence. Instead, he attended a rally in O’Connell Square, Ennis, where he addressed a large crowd protesting over the mistreatment of prisoners and where, significantly, the Cork Examiner reporter heard him saying rather hollowly that ‘Not in any other place on the globe but in Ennis would he have been that day, but he came there because his place was beside the living to carry on the cause for which Tom Ashe died.’62
Of course, de Valera might not have been comfortable with the idea of moving the corpse to the City Hall. Even so, a more valid reason for the change in de Valera’s behaviour can be found in the following commentary on an incident which, by deduction, occurred after the body was moved to the Pro Cathedral on Thursday evening:
At the end of one meeting, some people from the new Brotherhood notified us [J.J. Ó Ceallaigh (Sceilg) and other members of a Sinn Féin funeral committee] that Michael Collins would be giving the Thomas Ashe graveside oration. Everyone was greatly surprised … In Irish[?] … That’s not possible … There was a long discussion, and it was agreed finally that we would just have a short speech … Cathal Brugha [in comparison?] would have given a [more?] lively speech whether in Irish or English … But neither Cathal nor any of his friends [de Valera, for example?] were expecting anything like that. That was not the case [however] for the false IRB.63
So, just as he went directly against de Valera’s wishes by running Joe McGuinness in the South Longford by-election in early May,64 Collins perceived de Valera as a competitor who had to be outmanoeuvred. And de Valera, for his part, given both his politico–military stature and his significant involvement in the arrangements thus far, must have been so offended that he felt unable to witness Collins’ speech.
Mulcahy was deeply involved in those machinations. For example, at the time of Ashe’s death, he became secretary of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Association (WTMA).65 Now, from an insider’s perspective, namely from the perspective of Patrick McCartan, the WTMA was little more than ‘a cover name for the Executive of the I.R.B’66 whenever the need arose to stage a prestige funeral, to organise the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown or to collect funds for the construction of nationalistic monuments.67 However, in this instance, Mulcahy was not a member of the executive because, other than Ashe, its other two members were Diarmuid Lynch and Seán Ó Murthuile, treasurer and secretary respectively.68 Nonetheless, in order to adequately discharge the requirements of the office of secretary of the WTMA, specifically the paperwork associated with the IRB’s involvement in Ashe’s funeral, he had to have been a prominent Brother, which is synonymous with saying that he was a non-executive member of the SC which had been formed two months previously.
But, similar to the proactive Harry Boland,69 Mulcahy became deeply involved in other ways as well. For example, as acting OC of the Dublin Brigade, he gave permission to Joseph Lawless to form a guard of honour of uniformed Fingal men at Ashe’s bedside during the first night and later devised and implemented a rota system to cope with similar demands coming from the four city brigades.70 But, much more audaciously, on the Friday, he took charge of the Volunteer guard of honour, this being the guard of honour which was assigned the unenviable task of gaining access to the City Hall, a building which was then heavily guarded due to being situated adjacent to Dublin Castle: ‘Mulcahy and Volunteer Guard enter City Hall’.71
Cosgrave’s account is a clear indication of just how tense the atmosphere was:
Representations having been made to me [as Sinn Fein member of Dublin corporation] that the coffin containing Thomas Ashe should lie in state in the City Hall, I directed the Secretary to the Finance Committee [of] Dublin Corporation, to hold a meeting for the purpose of granting the necessary permission to occupy the City Hall. There were soldiers on guard outside and inside the City Hall. At the meeting of the Committee it was suggested that the Lord Mayor [Lawrence O’Neill] should approach the authorities to facilitate the lying-in-state. The Lord Mayor met with a blank refusal. Meantime the cortege with volunteer guard was on its way.72
Besides, Collins had already prepared for the worst. Armed IRB men in civilian clothes were strategically positioned near and within the building73 and other IRB men were at the ready as backup in Parnell Square lest the British army should make a move and bloodshed should ensue.74 At any rate, in the absence of Chief Secretary Duke and in deference to the advice of Edmund Eyre, the city treasurer, who had been approached by Cosgrave, General Bryan Mahon decided to take the line of least resistance by withdrawing
