Writing to the IRB, which under the direction of Michael Collins (who was also the Dáil’s minister for finance) did much to keep the Dáil’s administration alive in an underground fashion, the old Fenian John Devoy emphasised that although ‘the defeat of English intrigues in America is essential to success’, ‘this can only be achieved by Irishmen here working as citizens of the US, guided by men who have intimate knowledge of American affairs’:
Therefore, there should be constant consultation between you and us as to the measures that concern purely American affairs. So that your hopes may not be raised too high as to possibilities, we would remind you that our people here are less than a fifth of the total population, that scarcely more than a tenth of that fifth are directly interested in the Irish cause and that our power to influence public measures that concern Ireland depends largely on our supposed, rather than our actual, strength and on our ability to make combinations with other and friendly sections of the American people, who still require enlightenment on the Irish question.68
If there were some wisdom in Devoy’s judgment, the Friends of Irish Freedom nevertheless declined thereafter. Cohalan blamed this entirely on de Valera, although as Cohalan (an ex-Fenian) was also fond of stating on American Republican Party platforms that Britain’s wartime debt to the United States could be paid up by surrendering its control of Canada and the West Indies, Cohalan’s sense of American foreign policy was seemingly about fifty years out of date.69 In October 1920, acting on de Valera’s direct orders, Harry Boland severed the secret connection that had existed between the American Clan na Gael and the IRB in Ireland on the grounds of the political influence that Cohalan wielded over the former body through Devoy.70
The non-inclusion of Ireland in the American presidential election campaign of the winter of 1920 was perhaps a death blow to the chances of securing international recognition for an Irish republic. Before returning to Ireland in December 1920, de Valera’s final initiative in America was to direct Joseph McGarrity of Philadelphia to set up a rival organisation to the Friends of Irish Freedom. While this was entitled the ‘American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic’ (AARIR), ironically, it expressed its unwillingness to deal directly with the American government. This indicated that the AARIR existed solely as a propagandist and fundraising body. Its formation coincided, however, with a fresh impulse provided to Irish propaganda in America by the existence between November 1920 and March 1921 of the congressional ‘American Commission on Conditions in Ireland’. By criticising the operation of British martial law in Ireland, this body evoked a hostile reaction from Midleton, Austen Chamberlain and other British political leaders, but it created room for fund collection efforts in America for the relief of the many victims of British coercion in Ireland ever since the summer of 1920. This was done by means of a new ‘American Committee for Relief in Ireland’ that was led by Thomas Hughes Kelly and would send its funds to a new organisation in Dublin known as the Irish White Cross.71 This committee succeeded in receiving subscriptions from both the east and west coasts of America, including from leaders of a new motion picture industry in California.72
De Valera returned to Ireland in December 1920 on the same day that Westminster passed a Government of Ireland Act, which legally established, under British law, assemblies of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland with no powers of fiscal autonomy. Having decided to concentrate almost wholly on propaganda and fund collection efforts, de Valera attempted to link the initiative of the American Committee For Relief in Ireland with the operations of Irish self-determination leagues throughout the British Empire by making each a supporter of the ‘great Christian and national work’ of the Irish White Cross in offering relief to all victims of British martial law and coercion in Ireland: ‘I am convinced it is a work in which Irishmen and women in every part of the world will want to take part and that the example of our friends in America will soon be followed by those in Canada, South America, Australasia, South Africa and in Britain itself.’73The Irish White Cross in Dublin was not formally instituted as an organisation until February 1921, around the same time as de Valera encouraged the National Land Bank to affiliate itself with the Irish Banks Standing Committee, led by the loyalist Bank of Ireland. The White Cross intentionally encompassed leaders of all religious denominations and interest groups within Irish society.74 This was done for two reasons. First, nationally its existence illustrated the reality that it was the British government, not the Irish republican supporters of Dáil Éireann, who was adopting violent coercion in Ireland to attain its goals. Second, internationally the existence of the Irish White Cross was intended to substantiate the argument of the Irish Self-Determination Leagues that were it not for the Orange brand of freemason propaganda that the British foreign office was distributing worldwide via Reuters, the world would understand fully that the Irish demand for independence was an entirely national, democratic and economic matter, embodying no sectarian dimension. Be that as it may, this emphasis upon media work rather than appealing directly to republican governments abroad practically opened the door to an Irish acceptance of British overtures (previously rejected by Griffith, who was thereafter imprisoned) to offer Ireland the status of a British dominion. Not surprisingly, these overtures began during the summer of 1920 in the wake of the Irish failure to persuade American political parties to make the question of Irish independence a platform issue in the next US presidential election contest.75
Archbishop Mannix’s former status as a leader of an Australian anti-conscription movement was the principal strength and weakness of the Irish Self-Determination League in Australia. Like the Canadian league but unlike the British league (which included various IRB activists),76 this occasionally succeeded in getting either ex-government ministers or ex-cabinet members within the British dominions to chair Irish meetings.77 This development had been made necessary in Canada because Crawford’s support for supposedly pro-American (as opposed to pro-British) Canadian politicians had led to a violent backlash from the Orange Order in Canada, which adopted physical violence to prevent his Irish league from holding public meetings.78 Meanwhile, in Australia a move had actually been made, despite opposition from some Australian labour MPs (one of whom would be expelled from the Australian parliament as a result), to label all Catholics as inherently disloyal subjects of the British Empire in order to secure the arrest of any probable sympathisers with Ireland in Australia.79 While an Orange brand of Freemasonry certainly thrived within all the British dominions, its attacks upon the Irish Self-Determination Leagues purposively ignored the fact that the chief argument of these bodies had also been made by the Canadian and Australian prime ministers: namely, British coercion in Ireland reflected badly on all British territories and, therefore, it must be stopped for the sake of the better governance of the Empire.80 Sir Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde, a new member of the Dáil’s foreign affairs department, was denied entry into Australia because he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown on his arrival, while thereafter he was threatened with arrest on a charge of sedition on a visit to Vancouver. Reflecting the limits of their ambitions, the Irish Self-Determination Leagues of Australia and Canada refused to comment on Esmonde’s case, however, because they feared a public backlash.81
From a republican point of view, the Irish diplomatic mission had faced insurmountable obstacles not only in America but also in France. Sean T.
