This is a most interesting book by a distinguished historian. The only fault I would find with it is the absence of bibliography, which is not completely offset by its 90 pages of notes.
Of course, Harry Boland was not as prominent in the National Movement of 80 to 90 years ago as were Collins and de Valera - but he was a significant figure nonetheless, who was uniquely close to both of those towering figures. Moreover, his brief life is better documented than are those of many others who took part in the struggle for Irish independence. In addition to Boland's own diary there is a wealth of contemporary correspondence upon which David Fitzpatrick has been able to draw - correspondence that throws much light not only on Harry Boland but on other key figures of that period.
This book confirms the picture that has come down to us of a very attractive figure. It is in no way surprising that he and Michael Collins became very close friends: they were two of a kind. And while Eamon de Valera was a very different kind of person from either of them, it was upon Harry Boland that de Valera came to rely most during his long American tour.
Like Collins, Boland had great organising ability, which he put to good use in trying to steer de Valera through the dangerous, and at times treacherous, waters of the Irish-America of 1919-1921. Having myself had a modest experience of coping with a later Irish-America when Foreign Minister and Taoiseach, I found myself sympathising with both of them as they endeavoured to assert the right of Irish people in Ireland to decide their own fate rather than having it imposed on them by people of Irish descent in the United States who necessarily had a somewhat distorted view of Irish realities.
Harry Boland's only direct involvement in the Treaty negotiation was his despatch with Joe McGrath to Gairloch in Scotland to hand over to a holidaying Lloyd George the response by de Valera to an invitation to meet with him a week later. The two emissaries had been told to leave immediately after handing over de Valera's reply, in which, a little gratuitously, he asserted that he was representing a sovereign state. But Lloyd George bade them to stay - and exploded melodramatically when he read this part of de Valera's statement, telling them that if there was to be a conference, this letter must either be withheld from publication or taken back as if unread.
The two emissaries agreed to stop publication and to pass on Lloyd George's willingness to agree to a conference if this sentence were dropped - Boland noting that they had "asked for time to consider and accepted Mr G's proposal to return and submit letter for alteration". To quote David Fitzpatrick, de Valera's reaction to "Harry's insubordinacy . . . his first open breach with the Chief . . . set a precedent for de Valera's outrage twelve weeks later when the plenipotentiaries also ignored his instructions, yet justified their title, by accepting an agreement that his Cabinet had not in every detail approved".
De Valera defied Lloyd George by persuading the Dáil to publish his response unexpurgated, thus compelling Lloyd George to cancel the following week's conference - but he then went on to send a fresh letter that dropped the phrase that Lloyd George had found objectionable, and this climb-down cleared the way for the Treaty negotiation.
Despite Boland's objections - he told de Valera with some reason that "my usefulness in the US has ended" given "how bitter is the hatred of many Irish-Americans to me" - his Chief then insisted on his return to America on the grounds that "the worst may happen" and in that event "outside the country you'll be well fit to head another rally and carry on".
David Fitzpatrick comments that "whether Harry's display of independence at Gairloch lurked behind this rationalisation is uncertain".
Before leaving again for the US at the end of September, 1921, he wrote to Kitty Kiernan to tell her that he had informed Collins that Kitty and he were engaged - but he showed his uncertainty about the engagement by telling her "to ask yourself honestly and fearlessly which of the two [of us\] you would be happier with . . . Having made up your mind, go right ahead and decide to be a one-man woman, and may I be the lucky man".
From America he pursued his courtship, increasingly desperate at the lack of any response from Kitty, who seems, in fact, to have finally decided in favour of Collins on the very day that Boland had left for America. By mid-October she was telling Collins that she had told Boland that she did not love him. She was seeking to clear the air finally by a formal engagement to his rival, which Collins seems to have been resisting, but in January their engagement was announced and Harry Boland wrote to Kitty Kiernan wishing her well - although for months afterwards he continued to visit Granard and to see her there.
When the Treaty was signed, Boland, pulled in two directions by his admiration for his two heroes, de Valera and Collins, was at first confused as to how to react. Initially he welcomed the Treaty warmly in the New York Times, but at a meeting two days later he seems to have expressed scepticism and disappointment, whilst not repudiating the agreement. However, as he left that meeting he heard that de Valera had rejected the Treaty, and although he later insisted, to Kitty Kiernan and others, that his opposition to it was independent of de Valera's decision, his anti-Treaty stance seems to have hardened in the aftermath of de Valera's announcement.
Nevertheless in the months that followed he made, in David Fitzpatrick's words a "sustained attempt to avert civil war and restore mutual toleration" through all the organs available to him: the IRB, the IRA, the Sinn Féin Party, and the Dáil. He later claimed, probably with some reason, to have been responsible for the Pact Election of June, 1922. But when the Civil War began he immediately joined the Republicans and was appointed Quartermaster of the Republican Eastern Command - despite which role he seems to have continued to move between de Valera and Collins, trying to arrange a truce.
The Provisional Government had also not abandoned hope of negotiations and allowed the Republican headquarters in Suffolk Street and several other of their offices to remain open, instructing that TDs should not be arrested, and indeed that only those captured in arms should be taken.
However Suffolk Street was raided, and a letter was found from Harry Boland to Sean T. O'Kelly telling him to seek arms and ammunition from Clan na Gael in America. Nevertheless on July 28th Collins wrote him an emotional letter to say that he could not arrest him but "if no words of mine will change your attitude you are beyond all hope - my hope".
Two days later, contrary to the Provisional Government's instructions, a Free State Army patrol went to arrest him in the Grand Hotel in Skerries. Despite a widespread belief in Republican circles that he was murdered by the raiders, it appears that Boland sprang at one of the two officers who remained in the room with him as he dressed, trying to wrest the revolver from his hand, and then dashed for the corridor, at which point he was shot.
De Valera later came to accept that this was in fact what had happened: "Harry behaved impetuously and the raiders were men who had not been accustomed to having guns in their hands and they got excited and fired".
It was a tragic end to an active life, the later years of which had been spent in generous service to this country, to which, had he survived, he would undoubtedly have had much more to give. Eighty years later, this excellent biography does full justice to him.
- Garret FitzGerald is a former taoiseach and author
Garret FitzGerald
Harry Boland's Irish Revolution By David Fitzpatrick
Cork University Press, 464pp. €35