Last month, Trinity College
Dublin wrapped up its hugely successful massive open online course (MOOC)
entitled "Irish Lives in War and Revolution". It attracted over 16,000
participants from around the globe to discuss various aspects of the Irish
revolutionary period with a principle focus on "ordinary lives" as its
organisational key theme. As a final piece of solicited commentary contributors
were asked to reflect on the above statement of Sir Alfred Cope, the British
Under-Secretary to Ireland in 1921 and central figure concerned in the peace
talks which led to a Sinn Féin/Volunteer cessation, outlining his reasons for
not participating in the Bureau's 'fact-finding' project.
http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.i...469.pdf#page=1
The retrospective accrediting that I then witnessed in the course comments of Cope's "quasi-visionary" desires for reconciliation between the two countries was misplaced insofar as they assumed he was some kind of "progressive", when in actual fact he appears far more to be a sentimentalist old fossil yearning for the return of Empire's halcyon days. You can't re-write Irish history, as is often the wont of Trinity researchers, and turn it into a benevolence parade of British magnanimity when all the facts, personal narratives and rancour of the day suggest otherwise. His reluctance to contribute to the BMH is simply borne of his refusal to give any credence whatever to the Free State or its mode of formation; an avuncular imperialist who can't wrap his head around a nation's wish for self-determination.
That Ireland "has too many histories" is a nonsensical cop-out and wasn't in any case Cope's primary reason for not contributing to the BMH. He didn't give future historians the benefit of a personal memoir as he regarded the whole period as "the most discreditable in Ireland's history" - he simply sounds like a disgruntled imperialist aghast at the Empire crumbling all about him and probably viewed Irish "treason" as the first step in that process. It reeks of sour grapes and a snubbed, sanctimonious British paternalism.
As to the differing/contradictory accounts required, all of them should be weighed and assessed according to their merits. The more narratives we have (from all sides) the likelier we are to come to an approximation at least of "the truth" (big exhale) or, at the very minimum, a small localised variant of it. To say that professional historians or 'disinterested' intelligent researchers are incapable of reaching sound judgement, or at least one (all things considered) that takes the debate on to a higher level, because "given enough facts" we can all support our opinions, is likewise, non-sensically defeatist and tantamount to epistemological nihilism. These were all 'time-capsuled' commentaries, written with the express understanding that none of it would be released into the public domain until all participants were long dead and buried - nothing was going to be "stirred up", unless he had the suspicion/conviction (like perhaps Ed Moloney didn't) that "leakages" would inevitably occur.
http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.i...228.pdf#page=5
I am inclined to interpret General MacEoin's report of their conversation as simply Cope's attempt to cover his ass from the accusation that he exaggerated the abilities of the IRA to defend its own patch and continue the war indefinitely - a question merely of imputed lack of competence. Cope isn't interested in the Boundary Commission and he's even less interested in the on-going Civil War, what does concern him is the current British election (1923) & that the intelligence he related to Lloyd George earlier in 1921 (along with Sturgis) at the time when the British Cabinet were considering making approaches to de Valera on a truce, can be taken as a faithful depiction of the abilities of the IRA to continue prosecuting the war.
As we know Lloyd George & the Cabinet were much impressed by Cope & co's assessment of the fruitlessness of the British side continuing the aggression and from that point on they were making arrangements to orchestrate a negotiated peace. I don't see any necessary linkage with his refusal to participate in the BMH archival project which was thirty years later and light years removed from the electioneering and reputational concerns which Cope had at the time he was helping MacEoin press paws in Westminster. The flak Lloyd George was receiving on his handling of the "Irish situation" was naturally reflecting on himself as one of the prime instigators of policy so his concern is simply to ensure MacEoin played according to the script and didn't bury him in fresh scandal. What does it reveal about him in his refusal to submit a statement 30yrs later? Not a whole lot; merely to show like all political animals he had a well-honed survival instinct. What else can possibly be read into MacEoin's statement?
I don't know how long precisely he hung around on the Liberal's coat-tails but they were a minority partner in a ten month coalition with Ramsay McDonald's Labour after that 1923 election he was so anxious MacEoin wouldn't spoil, after which the Liberals famously disintegrated following Stanley Baldwin's five year tenure as Conservative PM, in which time Cope disengaged from politics and took up his anthracite concerns. Séan MacEoin seems impressed by Cope's 'positive attitude' towards the Irish in general yet he doesn't seem willing to relate that good will to the needs of a Liberal electioneering machine which needs to depict the Anglo-Irish Treaty as a fait accompli, and the best deal available carved out by Lloyd George given (as Cope then wishes to convey) the widespread discontent in Ireland with British rule. It's pre-election negative fallout from the Tory-Unionist press Cope is here anxious to avoid and as such his opinions as related to MacEoin in this instance cannot be taken to be fundamentally representative of his attitude as a whole.
As an example of the type of stuff Cope was alleged to be wrapped up in while in Ireland consider the following submission in the House of Lords by Lord Muskerry on 5th March 1924 -
"On his arrival at the castle he took advantage of his official position to attend meetings held by heads of Departments to consider the best means of putting down these outrages and of restoring law and order. Having obtained full information, he at once proceeded to convey that information to the leaders of the Sinn Fein organisation"— may I request the special attention of your Lordships to the following words?— with the result that these plans devised by His Majesty's officers came to naught and in many cases His Majesty's officers and men lost their lives. The result of this treachery at headquarters was to paralyse the efforts of His Majesty's officials, and crime and outrage were rampant throughout the country immediately afterwards. If those words are true I think your Lordships will agree with me that the individual to whom they refer ought to be taken out and shot, because they really amount not only to a charge of treason but also to a charge of being an accessory to murder."
To put this in context, Muskerry's outburst is an index of propertied Anglo-Irish frustration whose power had been clipped & eclipsed in the transition to democratic national self-governance. Cope became a ready scapegoat for a wide range of interests who blamed him personally for taking his remit 'seriously' and forging a path for dialogue via, it is alleged, intelligence exchanges with Sinn Féin which compromised "His majesty's forces" in their line of duty. Muskerry later alleged in the house it was RIC who furnished him the information but when pressurised by the Chancellor finally retracted all comments. Cope emerged reputation intact with ex-Lord Lieutenant Fitzalan citing two instances of attempts made on his life:-
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1924/mar/19/claims-of-irish-loyalists
For all its merits Trinity will likely remain an Oxbridge outreach programme long after the island is united. Our special cross to bear; for our final primary source engagement we are offered from the thousands of viewpoints available a solitary posthumous lecture from the former British Under-Secretary telling us the years of the Irish Revolution were the "most discreditable in our history". Really, whether or not Cope's words were irony-laced or honestly held is incidental to the fact that his carefully selected mawkish reflections on peace not war sum up the thematic red thread adopted throughout this course. The judgement we are encouraged to condone is faith in Irish Parliamentary Party Home Rule and a repudiation of Republican violence with only passing regard for the global-wide violence of colonialism whose rivalries carving up the planet hurled a generation to their doom.
This is what Republicanism attempted to detach itself from, completely and irrevocably. It failed as we know and set at once consuming itself with recriminations. But despite all this, our greatest hour & our firmest bedrock will remain the men & women of 1916. As such, there is no Ireland without them - at least not one I'd like to belong to.
In terms of course content I would have liked a component on the wider international context; the rise of socialism, labour trade unions, the Bolshevik revolution. A consideration of Empire generally; inter-colonial rivalry, the conditions in which nationalism evolved in Europe to become the primary force governing politics (nucleus of fascism etc.) - the tendency for monarchy to be discredited; the later fracturing of Austria-Hungary. The role of America, Wilson's blueprint for self-determination; the League of Nations - all of these questions troubled and were foreseen to some extent by contemporaries.
The Clan na Gael weren't touched at all; the diaspora which out-numbered the Irish at home who had multiple links with Indian nationalists themselves split into radical and constitutional elements. Lloyd George's fait accompli 'comply or die' was thrust down Irish throats to preserve Empire intact; the illusion of it to prevent Indian fissures. We often assume ordinary people only thought of bread & butter issues; but what of penniless rank & file activists who grasped a bigger & more ennobling picture & sacrificed all they had for their scrap of this ideal in spite of penury?
The years prior to WWI were the 'Golden Age of Socialism';- incremental as opposed to Marxist revolutionary change was advocated by many, including the Fabians, who had many cross-channel ties with Irish revolutionaries. Lloyd George built his career paying attention to the likes of Keir Hardie and the dismantling of the Lords veto was initiated by rejection of a Labour-oriented budget with industrial unrest peaking in Britain the year before the War. Socialists and Labour parties were the only ones who paid any attention to "ordinary" working-class people (both 'The Leader' & Arthur Griffith denounced 'Larkinism') so the omission of at least a summary of their views (which always included a critique of imperialism/colonialism) is a little strange.
Socialist/trade union & Labour pamphlets & handbills circulating these ideas would be the daily reading material in many Dublin working class tenement areas while the last great electoral reform act (1918) owes its existence to all this agitation - not just the body-bags returning from the front. So yes, something of an elephant in the room for me - though things of course need to be kept 'simple' & time is of the essence.
http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.i...469.pdf#page=1
The retrospective accrediting that I then witnessed in the course comments of Cope's "quasi-visionary" desires for reconciliation between the two countries was misplaced insofar as they assumed he was some kind of "progressive", when in actual fact he appears far more to be a sentimentalist old fossil yearning for the return of Empire's halcyon days. You can't re-write Irish history, as is often the wont of Trinity researchers, and turn it into a benevolence parade of British magnanimity when all the facts, personal narratives and rancour of the day suggest otherwise. His reluctance to contribute to the BMH is simply borne of his refusal to give any credence whatever to the Free State or its mode of formation; an avuncular imperialist who can't wrap his head around a nation's wish for self-determination.
That Ireland "has too many histories" is a nonsensical cop-out and wasn't in any case Cope's primary reason for not contributing to the BMH. He didn't give future historians the benefit of a personal memoir as he regarded the whole period as "the most discreditable in Ireland's history" - he simply sounds like a disgruntled imperialist aghast at the Empire crumbling all about him and probably viewed Irish "treason" as the first step in that process. It reeks of sour grapes and a snubbed, sanctimonious British paternalism.
As to the differing/contradictory accounts required, all of them should be weighed and assessed according to their merits. The more narratives we have (from all sides) the likelier we are to come to an approximation at least of "the truth" (big exhale) or, at the very minimum, a small localised variant of it. To say that professional historians or 'disinterested' intelligent researchers are incapable of reaching sound judgement, or at least one (all things considered) that takes the debate on to a higher level, because "given enough facts" we can all support our opinions, is likewise, non-sensically defeatist and tantamount to epistemological nihilism. These were all 'time-capsuled' commentaries, written with the express understanding that none of it would be released into the public domain until all participants were long dead and buried - nothing was going to be "stirred up", unless he had the suspicion/conviction (like perhaps Ed Moloney didn't) that "leakages" would inevitably occur.
http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.i...228.pdf#page=5
I am inclined to interpret General MacEoin's report of their conversation as simply Cope's attempt to cover his ass from the accusation that he exaggerated the abilities of the IRA to defend its own patch and continue the war indefinitely - a question merely of imputed lack of competence. Cope isn't interested in the Boundary Commission and he's even less interested in the on-going Civil War, what does concern him is the current British election (1923) & that the intelligence he related to Lloyd George earlier in 1921 (along with Sturgis) at the time when the British Cabinet were considering making approaches to de Valera on a truce, can be taken as a faithful depiction of the abilities of the IRA to continue prosecuting the war.
As we know Lloyd George & the Cabinet were much impressed by Cope & co's assessment of the fruitlessness of the British side continuing the aggression and from that point on they were making arrangements to orchestrate a negotiated peace. I don't see any necessary linkage with his refusal to participate in the BMH archival project which was thirty years later and light years removed from the electioneering and reputational concerns which Cope had at the time he was helping MacEoin press paws in Westminster. The flak Lloyd George was receiving on his handling of the "Irish situation" was naturally reflecting on himself as one of the prime instigators of policy so his concern is simply to ensure MacEoin played according to the script and didn't bury him in fresh scandal. What does it reveal about him in his refusal to submit a statement 30yrs later? Not a whole lot; merely to show like all political animals he had a well-honed survival instinct. What else can possibly be read into MacEoin's statement?
I don't know how long precisely he hung around on the Liberal's coat-tails but they were a minority partner in a ten month coalition with Ramsay McDonald's Labour after that 1923 election he was so anxious MacEoin wouldn't spoil, after which the Liberals famously disintegrated following Stanley Baldwin's five year tenure as Conservative PM, in which time Cope disengaged from politics and took up his anthracite concerns. Séan MacEoin seems impressed by Cope's 'positive attitude' towards the Irish in general yet he doesn't seem willing to relate that good will to the needs of a Liberal electioneering machine which needs to depict the Anglo-Irish Treaty as a fait accompli, and the best deal available carved out by Lloyd George given (as Cope then wishes to convey) the widespread discontent in Ireland with British rule. It's pre-election negative fallout from the Tory-Unionist press Cope is here anxious to avoid and as such his opinions as related to MacEoin in this instance cannot be taken to be fundamentally representative of his attitude as a whole.
As an example of the type of stuff Cope was alleged to be wrapped up in while in Ireland consider the following submission in the House of Lords by Lord Muskerry on 5th March 1924 -
"On his arrival at the castle he took advantage of his official position to attend meetings held by heads of Departments to consider the best means of putting down these outrages and of restoring law and order. Having obtained full information, he at once proceeded to convey that information to the leaders of the Sinn Fein organisation"— may I request the special attention of your Lordships to the following words?— with the result that these plans devised by His Majesty's officers came to naught and in many cases His Majesty's officers and men lost their lives. The result of this treachery at headquarters was to paralyse the efforts of His Majesty's officials, and crime and outrage were rampant throughout the country immediately afterwards. If those words are true I think your Lordships will agree with me that the individual to whom they refer ought to be taken out and shot, because they really amount not only to a charge of treason but also to a charge of being an accessory to murder."
To put this in context, Muskerry's outburst is an index of propertied Anglo-Irish frustration whose power had been clipped & eclipsed in the transition to democratic national self-governance. Cope became a ready scapegoat for a wide range of interests who blamed him personally for taking his remit 'seriously' and forging a path for dialogue via, it is alleged, intelligence exchanges with Sinn Féin which compromised "His majesty's forces" in their line of duty. Muskerry later alleged in the house it was RIC who furnished him the information but when pressurised by the Chancellor finally retracted all comments. Cope emerged reputation intact with ex-Lord Lieutenant Fitzalan citing two instances of attempts made on his life:-
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1924/mar/19/claims-of-irish-loyalists
For all its merits Trinity will likely remain an Oxbridge outreach programme long after the island is united. Our special cross to bear; for our final primary source engagement we are offered from the thousands of viewpoints available a solitary posthumous lecture from the former British Under-Secretary telling us the years of the Irish Revolution were the "most discreditable in our history". Really, whether or not Cope's words were irony-laced or honestly held is incidental to the fact that his carefully selected mawkish reflections on peace not war sum up the thematic red thread adopted throughout this course. The judgement we are encouraged to condone is faith in Irish Parliamentary Party Home Rule and a repudiation of Republican violence with only passing regard for the global-wide violence of colonialism whose rivalries carving up the planet hurled a generation to their doom.
This is what Republicanism attempted to detach itself from, completely and irrevocably. It failed as we know and set at once consuming itself with recriminations. But despite all this, our greatest hour & our firmest bedrock will remain the men & women of 1916. As such, there is no Ireland without them - at least not one I'd like to belong to.
In terms of course content I would have liked a component on the wider international context; the rise of socialism, labour trade unions, the Bolshevik revolution. A consideration of Empire generally; inter-colonial rivalry, the conditions in which nationalism evolved in Europe to become the primary force governing politics (nucleus of fascism etc.) - the tendency for monarchy to be discredited; the later fracturing of Austria-Hungary. The role of America, Wilson's blueprint for self-determination; the League of Nations - all of these questions troubled and were foreseen to some extent by contemporaries.
The Clan na Gael weren't touched at all; the diaspora which out-numbered the Irish at home who had multiple links with Indian nationalists themselves split into radical and constitutional elements. Lloyd George's fait accompli 'comply or die' was thrust down Irish throats to preserve Empire intact; the illusion of it to prevent Indian fissures. We often assume ordinary people only thought of bread & butter issues; but what of penniless rank & file activists who grasped a bigger & more ennobling picture & sacrificed all they had for their scrap of this ideal in spite of penury?
The years prior to WWI were the 'Golden Age of Socialism';- incremental as opposed to Marxist revolutionary change was advocated by many, including the Fabians, who had many cross-channel ties with Irish revolutionaries. Lloyd George built his career paying attention to the likes of Keir Hardie and the dismantling of the Lords veto was initiated by rejection of a Labour-oriented budget with industrial unrest peaking in Britain the year before the War. Socialists and Labour parties were the only ones who paid any attention to "ordinary" working-class people (both 'The Leader' & Arthur Griffith denounced 'Larkinism') so the omission of at least a summary of their views (which always included a critique of imperialism/colonialism) is a little strange.
Socialist/trade union & Labour pamphlets & handbills circulating these ideas would be the daily reading material in many Dublin working class tenement areas while the last great electoral reform act (1918) owes its existence to all this agitation - not just the body-bags returning from the front. So yes, something of an elephant in the room for me - though things of course need to be kept 'simple' & time is of the essence.
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