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The Lloyd George Government and the Strickland Report on the Burning of Cork, 1920*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Martin Frederick Seedorf
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Extract

The burning of the city of Cork on the night of 11-12 December 1920 —a “truly staggering reprisal” — was one of many outrageous acts by British forces in Ireland in the late autumn of 1920 and indeed during the entire Anglo-Irish War. Known in Ireland at the time as “the troubles” and in Éire today as “the war of independence,” or “the war of liberation,” the Anglo-Irish War lasted two-and-one-half years from January, 1919, until the truce in July, 1921. Not only did that struggle mark the end of 750 years of Irish subjection under Britain; it served as a warning of the eventual collapse of British and Western imperialism throughout the world.

Throughout the first eight months of 1919 the British government's policy was simply military suppression of the Republican Movement. Repeatedly, it misjudged Sinn Féin and the rising Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) as nothing but a “murder gang” terrorizing the mass of the Irish people. Not until the Fall of 1919 did Lloyd George finally conceive a policy — one combining force with appeasement. The latter was offered to Ireland in the Fourth Home Rule Bill though it was to be rejected by a majority of the Irish press and people. From the fall of 1919 until the summer of 1920, Lloyd George stepped up coercion, not only by strengthening the military, but by introducing “Black and Tans” into the Irish police force and establishing a new administration at Dublin Castle in the spring of 1920.

When, in late July, 1920, it became evident to the British cabinet that police action was losing to the I.R.A.'s guerilla tactics, they broadened the struggle even further by choosing, not appeasement along Dominion lines, but a policy of war. Though never officially declared, war was first implemented under the guise of restoring order in Ireland and later by martial law. Accompanying Lloyd George's war policy between the summers of 1920 and 1921 were systematic reprisals against Irish civilians and their property by British forces retaliating for the I.R.A.'s killing of their own men. These reprisals, which became official and regulated under martial law in 1921, were unauthorized — although not officially condemned — in 1919 and 1920. Unauthorized reprisals reached a peak in the fall of 1920 at Balbriggan, Groke Park, and in the burning of Cork.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Summer 1972 , pp. 59 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1972

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Footnotes

*

Paper read at the Conference on British Studies, Pacific Northwest Section, Calgary, Alberta, March 1972.

References

Notes

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2 Costigan, Giovanni, “The Anglo-Irish Conflict, 1919-1922,” University Review (Dublin, Ireland; Spring, 1968), p. 65.Google Scholar

3 London, Beaverbrook Library, Lloyd George Papers, cited hereafter as L. G. P.: Sir Ian Macpherson to Lloyd George, 14 April 1919, L. G. P. /F/46/1/2; Great Britain, Parliament, Parliamentary Debates (House of Commons), 5th ser., Vol. 14 (15 April 1919), col. 2713Google Scholar; Minute by Viscount John French and Macpherson, 15 May 1919, L. G. P. /F/180/3/2.

4 Debates (Commons), Vol. 119 (14 August 1919), col. 1729.Google Scholar

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6 Debates (Commons), Vol. 123 (22 December 1919), cols. 1174-77.Google ScholarPubMed

7 Freeman's Journal (Dublin), 23 December 1919Google Scholar; Irish Times (Dublin), 23 December 1919, p. 4Google ScholarPubMed; Irish Bulletin (Dublin), 4 March 1920Google Scholar, quoted in Macardle, Dorothy, The Irish Republic (New York, 1965), p. 322Google Scholar. Also see “Today's Summary of the Press,” 23 December 1919, L. G. P. /H/211/2. Newspapers cited with page numbers were read at the British Museum, and those without were among the many boxes of press cuttings located in the Llnyd George Papers at the Beaverbrook Library, London.

8 See Bennett, Richard, The Black and Tans (London, 1970), pp. 29–39Google Scholar, and SirWheeler-Bennett, John W., John Anderson, Viscount Waverly (London, 1962), pp. 57–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Great Britain, Public Record Office, Cabinet Records, Cabinet Paper 1693, hereafter cited as C. P., 23 July 1920 (Cab. 24/109/ff.445-65); Cabinet Conclusion 44/20/2, 2 August 1920 (Cab. 23/22).

10 C. P. 1709, Memorandum to the “Restoration of Order in Ireland Bill” (Cab. 24/110/ff.27-28); Cab. Conclusion 68/20/2, 9 December 1920 (Cab. 23/23/ff.202-04).

11 Bennett, , Black and Tans, pp. 75–129Google Scholar; Macardle, , Irish Republic, pp. 373–420.Google Scholar

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13 Holt, , Protest in Arms, p. 232Google Scholar; Costigan, , Modern Ireland, p. 344.Google Scholar

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16 Manchester Guardian, 13 December 1920.

17 The Times (London), 13 December 1920Google ScholarPubMed; Daily Herald (London), 14 December 1920, p. 1Google ScholarPubMed; Catholic Herald (London), 18 December 1920, p. 3.Google Scholar

18 Daily Herald (London), 14 December 1920, p. 1.Google ScholarPubMed

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22 Proceedings; Court of Enquiry (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

23 Ibid.; telegram from Gen. Sir Nevil Macready, Part I, 22 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

24 Proceedings, Court of Enquiry (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

25 Holt, , Protest in Arms, p. 232.Google Scholar

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27 Bennett, , Black and Tans, p. 118Google Scholar; Macardle, , Irish Republic, p. 416.Google Scholar

28 Proceedings, Court of Enquiry (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

29 Remarks of Brig.-Gen. H. W. Higginson, 14 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I); also, see Crozier, Frank P., Ireland Forever (London, 1932), p. 109.Google Scholar

30 Proceedings, Court of Enquiry (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

31 Remarks of Brig.-Gen. H. W. Higginson, 14 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I); Macready to Sir John Anderson, 23 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I). A longer explanation is available in Gen. SirMacready, Nevil, Annals of an Active Life (London, 1924), II, 483–84.Google Scholar

32 Preliminary Opinion of the Court, 14 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/ Part I).

33 Ibid., see notes added by General Strickland on 15 December, General Macready on 17 December, and Sir John Anderson on 18 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

34 Great Britain, Public Record Office, Sir John Anderson Papers deposited with Colonial Office Records, hereafter cited as J. A. P./C. O., Macready to Anderson, 18 December 1920 (J. A. P./C. O. 904/188/2).

35 Proceedings, Court of Enquiry, Dissenting Report by James Deignan, 21 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

36 Debates, Commons, Vol. 136 (13 December 1920), col. 26.Google ScholarPubMed

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38 Debates (Commons), Vol. 134 (15, 16, 21, 22 December 1920), cols. 254, 487-89. 678, 1500, 1724.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., Vol. 134 (11 December 1920), col. 176; 13 December 1920, cols. 171-78.

40 Bennett, , Black and Tans, p. 119.Google Scholar

41 Remarks by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Ireland (Macready), 24 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I); telegram from Macready, 23 December 1920 (W. O. 35/88/Part I).

42 Cab. Conclusion, 79A/20, 29 December 1920 (Cab. 23/23/ff.337, 341-42).

43 Ibid.

44 Debates, (Commons), Vol. 139 (16 March 1920), col. 1528.Google Scholar

45 Cab. Conclusion, 79A/20(f.341).

46 Ibid., 7/21/A, Conf. of Min., 15 February 1921 (Cab. 23/24/L84).

47 Macready to Anderson, 1 January 1921 (J. A. P./C. O. 904/188/2).

48 Cab. Conclusion 2/21/2, 14 January, 1921 (Cab. 23/24/f.12).

49 Greenwood to Lloyd George, 31 January 1921 (L. G. P./F/19/3/3).

50 Ibid.

51 Cab. Conclusion 7/21/3, 14 February 1921 (Cab. 23/24/f.21).

52 Jones, TomWhitehall Diary, Volume III: Ireland 1918-1925, ed. by Middlemas, Keith (London, 1971), pp. 50–51.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., p. 50.

54 Ibid., pp. 50-52; Cab. Conclusion 7/21/3 (f.21).

55 Manchester Guardian, 18 and 19 January 1921; The Times (London). 10 January 1921Google ScholarPubMed; Daily Herald (London), 31 December 1920 and 20 January 1921Google ScholarPubMed; Daily News (London), 16 February 1921.Google ScholarPubMed

56 The Times (London), 17 February 1921.Google ScholarPubMed

57 Cab. Conclusion 7/21/3(f.21).

58 Ibid., 7/21/A, Conf. of Min., 15 February 1921 (Cab. 23/24/ff.83-86).

59 Holt, , Protest in Arms, p. 232.Google Scholar

60 Cab. Conclusion 7/21A(f.85).

61 W. O. 35/88/Part I. Sir Hamar Greenwood is attributed with saying that there were only two copies of the Strickland Report — “One with the P. M. and one Macready has in his safe”; see Jones, , Whitehall Diary, III, 50Google Scholar. A careful examination of the Cabinet Records and Lloyd George Papers on Ireland, 1916-22, has not located any other copy.