On December 17th, 1922, General Nevil Macready, Commander of the British forces in Ireland, sailed away from Dublin for the last time as part of the British evacuation of southern Ireland.
During his command, which lasted for more than two and a half years, General Macready had been at the forefront of British attempts to crush the Irish Republican Army and its military campaign to achieve Irish independence. Macready realised early in his command, however, that unless the British government was willing to commit to the politically unpalatable declaration of all-out war in Ireland, which would involve increasing troop levels to unprecedented levels and extending martial law across the whole country, that his efforts had little chance of success.
Macready’s advice to the British prime minister, David Lloyd George, in June 1921 to go ‘all out or get out’ of Ireland, was a key factor in persuading the prime minister to open the negotiations that would culminate in the Anglo-Irish Treaty and ultimately facilitate the British withdrawal.
Macready’s departure was a seminal moment in Irish history. A reporter with the Ulster Herald reflected on witnessing “what generations of Irishmen have fought, suffered and died for down through the centuries: the departure of England’s garrison from our midst. As I write, there is not a single British soldier in the territory of the Irish Free State. …To-day not a vestige of that Army remains, and all the garrisons held by England are in possession of our Irish Army. Truly a remarkable transformation.”
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The approaching centenary of General Macready’s departure provides an opportunity to reflect on the contribution made by men like Macready to Irish history. My book, based on new primary research, seeks to highlight the significant impact made on Ireland by commanders such as Lieutenant General Ralph Abercromby, General Charles Cornwallis, Field Marshal Frederick Roberts and Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley, who were household names during their Irish command. Yet, their role, individually or collectively, has never been assessed. They are footnotes in the historiography of the period, usually transient characters in someone else’s story. This new study attempts to redress the historical marginalisation of these men.
This fresh approach yields significant new research findings. For example, the assessment of the effectiveness of the commanders’ role in suppressing rebellion reveals two clear conclusions. The first is that the commander was only as effective as the intelligence provided to him by Dublin Castle. When the spy network was efficient, as in 1798, 1848 and 1867, the commander was quickly able to suppress disaffection.
In contrast, when Dublin Castle was largely ignorant of rebel plans, as in 1803 and to a lesser extent in 1916, the commander could not adequately prepare for counter-insurgency measures.
The second key conclusion is that the commander was a convenient scapegoat for the intelligence failures of the civil power. General Henry Edward Fox lost his command in 1803 as Dublin Castle sought to hide its own culpability in failing to anticipate rebellion. Major General Lovick Friend lost his command under similar circumstances during the Easter Rising in 1916. This was despite the fact that his repeated pleas for greater powers and additional military reinforcements to tackle rising levels of disaffection were ignored by Dublin Castle in the months preceding the rebellion. However, Friend had left himself vulnerable by having unwisely (and unluckily) chosen to go to England on annual leave on the very weekend that rebellion began on the streets of Dublin.
What is also clear from this new research is the fact that the commanders were not homogenous in their attitude towards Ireland. Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley, was one of only five ‘Irish’ (or Anglo-Irish) commanders during this period. Born in Inchicore in Dublin in 1833, Wolseley routinely leveraged his Irish heritage to impress the large crowds who clamoured to see him as he travelled around the country on official duties. However, in private Wolseley was scathing about ‘the Paddies’, and he was a determined opponent of Irish home rule, remarking that his burning desire was ‘to see Britain great’.
Wolseley’s perspective was not shared by other non-Irish commanders like the Scottish-born Lieutenant-General Ralph Abercromby, who showed a remarkable empathy with the plight of the predominantly Catholic lower orders and criticised the attitude of the mainly Protestant ruling class. After leaving Ireland in 1798, Abercromby attributed Irish misfortunes to ‘the illiberal, the unjust, and the unwise conduct of England’ and ‘the wretched system of English domination’. These are sentiments quite unexpected from the main bulwark of British military dominance in Ireland.
A key theme to emerge from the book is the often fractious relationship between the commanders and the civil power. There was almost constant tension between the commander, who wanted to concentrate his troops to allow for training and discipline, and Dublin Castle, which was under pressure from Irish loyalists to scatter the army across the country to provide protection against local disaffection, perceived or otherwise.
More serious was when the commander strayed into the political arena. Perhaps the best known example is the Curragh ‘mutiny’ of March 1914 when the then commander, General Arthur Paget, almost provoked a constitutional crisis. His actions in advising senior army officers stationed in Ireland that they could absent themselves from the front lines in the event of the army being used to enforce home rule on Ulster, ultimately provoked ministerial resignations amid concerns that the military command were dictating policy to the British Government.
An equally serious crisis emerged in the spring of 1798 when Lieutenant General Abercromby, appalled at the widespread outrages being committed by the military upon the civilian population, publicly condemned the discipline of his own army, declaring that it was in ‘a state of licentiousness which must render it formidable to everyone but the enemy’. The subsequent outrage provoked among Irish loyalists provoked Abercromby’s resignation from the command on the eve of the 1798 rebellion.
Another issue that is examined for the first time is the responsibility of the commanders towards their men. Obviously discipline and training were a priority, but the commanders also looked after the physical and spiritual health and well-being of their troops, promoting ‘manly’ physical activities and educational opportunities while seeking to combat such temptations as prostitution, alcohol and smoking.
The commander was also closely associated with largely forgotten institutions that supported the Irish military establishment. Perhaps the most important was the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, which was the commander’s residence and headquarters for most of the period. As ‘master’ of the hospital, the commander catered for the needs of the British army veterans who lived their final days in Kilmainham, the Irish equivalent to the Chelsea pensioners in London.
The commanders also played a prominent role in the Royal Hibernian Military School in the Phoenix Park, and the Drummond Institute, which respectively provided educational opportunities for the orphan sons and daughters of British soldiers. Unlike the Royal Hospital and the Hibernian school, the Drummond Institute temporarily survived the British withdrawal, and continued an uneasy existence in the new Ireland that emerged post-independence.
Another aspect of the commander’s role was their contribution to wider society. They were enthusiastic patrons of the arts and cultural events such as the Dublin Horse Show. The level of public attention they received meant that even Field Marshal Wolseley, who generally relished the public glare, complained in October 1890 about ‘this racket of moving about with crowds to stare at one, and escorts and guards of honour’.
The Royal Hospital was second only to Dublin Castle as a social hub, and was a regular venue for concerts, balls and banquets. The commanders also supported charitable causes, unsurprisingly prioritising former soldiers who had fallen on hard times. The commander also generated economic benefits, with several industries thriving because of his patronage, and towns across the country regularly requested a military presence, often for economic rather than strategic considerations.
However, as the 19th century unfolded, the tension between economics and nationalism became more pronounced. A gradual shift in attitude towards the commander during the period clearly emerges from the research. There were occasional assassination plots against the commander. Two men were hanged in November 1797 because of their involvement in an unsuccessful plot to murder General Carhampton. There were subsequent plots to kidnap General Fox in 1803 and General Hugh Rose in 1866, while General Macready always kept his revolver at the ready when motoring around the country in case of unwanted republican attention.
There were also more subtle shifts in attitude, reflected for example in the discontinuation of the practice of awarding the commander the freedom of the city of Dublin in the later 19th century as municipal authorities sought to distance themselves from the British regime. In 1908 the then commander, General Neville Lyttelton, attended the Abbey Theatre for what must have been an uncomfortable evening’s entertainment as he witnessed the performance of several plays closely associated with the new cultural nationalism, including The Rising of the Moon and WB Yeats’ Kathleen Ni Houlihan.
The republicanisation of Irish society became much more pronounced as a result of the heavy-handed and ill-judged response of a subsequent commander, General John Maxwell, to the 1916 rebellion. Despite the best efforts of his successors in the command, they could not stem the rising republican tide that would result in the evacuation of British troops by General Macready on that gloomy day in mid-December 1922.
Macready himself captured the final scene as he sailed away from Ireland on board HMS Dragon: “In the gathering darkness the Dragon and her accompanying destroyers steamed out of Dublin Bay, and as the lights of Howth sank in the distance the curtain fell on the Irish drama in which British troops had played their part for 750 years”.
Tony Gaynor’s new book, Commanders of the British Forces in Ireland, 1796-1922, is published by Four Courts Press and is now available in all good bookshops and online.
