Liam Mellows

by Sean Cronin

former Chief of Staff IRA
winner of the Lenin and Nobel Peace Prizes

We do not seek to make this country, a materially great country at the expense of its honour in any way whatsoever. We would rather, have this country poor and indigent, we would rather have the people of Ireland eking out a poor existence on the soil; so long as they possessed their souls, their minds, and their honour. This fight has been for something more than the flesh-pots of Empire.

-Liam Mellows (1895? - 1922)

On Friday morning, April 28, 1916, the wounded James Connolly reviewed as Commandant General of the Irish Republican forces the situation on the fifth day of the insurrection. In the course of the despatch he said that Captain Mellows "fresh after his escape from an English prison, is in the field with his men." The young Liam Mellows commanded the Republican forces in Galway, the only county outside of Dublin to respond to the Rising. Mellows's presence had much to do with that. He was a member of the I.R.B., organiser in Galway for the Irish Volunteers, and very determined. Galway city was loyal, the County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary reported to Dublin Castle; it was not in sympathy with Sinn Fein or the Volunteers and "recruited very largely, for the (British) army." Matters were different in Athenry, an old Land League stronghold. "There is always trouble there," County Inspector E. M. Clayton told the Royal Commission on the Rebellion. "They became so expert with and accustomed to firearms that the teaching 'to rise with arms' did not shock them. They glided quietly into the new condition of affairs."

The energetic Mellows was arrested in March, 1916, and deported to England on April 2. This blow to the Rising in the West was remedied during Holy Week when his brother Barney and James Connolly's daughter Nora crossed to Staffordshire. Barney changed places with Liam who then proceeded to Dublin - via Glasgow and Belfast - disguised as a priest. He stayed at St. Enda's school in Rathfarnham where he received his orders from Pearse and Connolly, and travelled to the West on Good Friday. The confusion over the conflicting mobilisation instructions affected Galway like every other area and wasn't straightened out till Monday evening when Pearse sent a message saying, "Dublin has acted 12 noon today." Mellows's men were depending on the And for arms. They hadn't enough weapons and ammunition to seize an R.I.C. barracks. Nevertheless they cut rail and telegraph lines, blocked roads, attacked Clarinbridge and Athenry police barracks and occupied the village of Oranmore until troops arrived from Galway; Mellows with a small party covered the withdrawal. Athenry was reinforced by 200 extra constabulary; the Volunteers routed a patrol that tried to push out from the town. A thousand Marines landed in Galway city and Naval sloops conducted firing exercises from the bay to intimidate the people. On Wednesday the Volunteers took over Moyode Castle near Ballinasloe. It was a poor defensive position and on Friday they pulled out amid reports that Crown forces were preparing an attack. The Volunteers marched to the Clare border with the intention of linking up with whatever other Republican forces might be still in the field. But on Saturday morning a priest arrived at the new encampment with the news that Dublin was in flames. He advised the Volunteers to disband. Mellows argued against this: he wanted them to fight on as a guerrilla force; but he was outvoted and the Volunteers went home. Subsequently they were rounded up and transported to England and some who did not join the Rising shared their fate. "We had hardly any guns or ammunition," Mellows said of the short campaign. "I had to send many of them home. I never knew the blackness of despair until then." With two companions Mellows went on the run in Co. Clare. No one was in arms there, they quickly discovered; but they were given food and shelter and managed to avoid arrest. Mellows's name cropped up during the inquiry into the rebellion. County Inspector P.C. Power of Kilkenny said his area was quiet until MacDiarmada and Mellows - he called them "John McDermott and "William Mellows" - held meetings there sometime before the Rising. "What has happened to Mellows?" Justice Shearman asked. "Mellows is on the run, too, with a good many more," replied County Inspector Clayton. "He is somewhere in Ireland," said Major Ivor Price, Director of Military Intelligence for Irish Command, who before the war headed the Crimes Special Branch of the R.I.C. "I hope we shall see him some day." At Christmas, 1916, Mellows escaped to America aboard a British munitions ship sailing from Liverpool.

Liam Mellws was one of the young organisers who built Na Fianna Eireann, the movement founded in 1909 by Constance Markievicz and Bulmer Hobson "to train the boys of Ireland to fight Ireland's battle when they are men," as a 1914 manifesto declared. He rode around the country on a bicycle, organising the Fianna and - after November, 1913, - training the Volunteers. Without the Fianna there would have been no Volunteers, Pearse said; and without the Volunteers there would have been no 1916. Fianna boys dragged a trek-cart from Dublin to Howth on Sunday morning, July 26, 1914, to meet the Asgard. The return journey was harder for the cart was loaded with rifles and ammunition boxes. At Clontarf a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets barred their path. The boys ran down a side road with their trek-cart which later they took to Madame's house, not the safest place in the circumstances. Next day Liam Mellws shifted the cargo to safety with the aid of Nora Connolly and some Fianna girls, who sat on the weapons as they were removed by cab, and a couple of Volunteers. In New York, Mellows went to work in the office of the Gaelic American and as an organiser for the Friends of Irish Freedom. The F.O.I.F. was a Clan front Organisation founded in the Spring of 1916 at the first Irish Race Convention. Four months after Mellows arrived in America, the United States declared war on the Central Powers. The Gaelic American was banned from the mails, a severe blow to a publication depending on subscriptions for sales. As a political exile from Ireland Mellows was under constant surveillance. When he spoke at meetings of the Irish Progressive League - the only Irish American group to stand out boldly for Ireland during this period - Secret Service men would sit in the audience. He once opened a meeting at the Irish Carmelite hall on East 29th Street, New York, with these words: "What will you say when your grandchildren ask you what you did in this great war to free small peoples? Will you tell them you were engaged in New York City holding down the unarmed Irish, and with revolvers trying to silence their claim to be free?" Mellows's constant aim was to return to Ireland. When Dr. Patrick McCartan arrived in the Summer of 1917 for the I.R.B. as "envoy of the Irish Republic" he nearly succeeded. McCartan carried a message for President Wilson signed by 26 prominent officers of the Irish Volunteers, including Eamon de Valera and Eoin Mac Neill. "We the undersigned who have been held in English prisons and who have been dragged from dungeon to dungeon in heavy chains, cut off since Easter Week, 1916, from all intercourse with the outside world, have just had an opportunity of seeing the printed text of the message of the United States of America to the Provisional Government of Russia: we see that the President accepts the aims of both countries 'the carrying of the present struggle for the freedom of all people to a successful conclusion'," the message began. When Wilson refused to see him, McCartan decided to go to Russia. But it was wartime and he could not travel openly. Joseph McGarrity got seaman's papers for McCartan and Mellows, who hoped to reach Ireland from neutral Holland. McCartan shipped out first. He was seized at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mellows was arrested in New York and lodged in the Tombs prison. Both were interrogated at great length by the Secret Service. An alleged Mellows "confession" was leaked to the press. The following account is from the Philadelphia Evening Ledger of October 27, 1917:

According to government officials who grilled Mellows several hours following his arrest, he admitted that he frequently met Cohalan, (Jeremiah) O'Leary and Devoy and that they talked of matters prejudicial to the best interests of this country and her allies. These meetings, according to Mellows, were held at the Murray Hill Hotel and the Maennercher Hall on the East Side (of New York). "General" Mellows was charged with conspiring to bring about a rebellion in Ireland and pleaded guilty to the charge when arraigned before Commissioner Hitchbrook. He was held in 7,500 dollars bail and so far had been unable to procure a bondsman. When Mellows was taken to headquarters of the Secret Service in the custom house he was put through a thorough questioning by William J. Flynn, chief of the Secret Service. His every move in this country was inquired into, and naturally Mr Flynn wanted to know, who his associates were and the matters discussed when they met in conclave. According to a transcript of this testimony which. came to light, Mellows attended several meetings at the Murray Hill Hotel last winter when Justice Cohalan, Devoy and O'Leary were present.

Cohalan, a New York politician, was the most important member of the Clan after Devoy. He was a bitter foe of President Wilson, and although a Democrat had publicly opposed the leader of his party in the 1916 elections. He believed the administration was seeking to destroy him because of it. Jeremiah O'Leary, American-born like Cohalan, published the satirical weekly Bull which Washington considered pro-German. Devoy said the Secret Service manufactured the Mellows "confession" to implicate himself and Cohalan in a non-existent plot. He insisted that Mellows had not been abandoned by the Clan. He had been left in the Tombs for a reason. "They wanted him released on bail so as to use him as a bait to entrap others," he wrote in the Gaelic American "in the desperate hope that they could frame up a conspiracy case." Mellows may not have appreciated such reasoning. Most observers believed that the man who was making the decisions for the Clan was not the aged Devoy but Cohalan. Others came to Mellows's aid and he was freed from prison; the case was not disposed of until May, 1919, when Mellows and McCartan were fined 250 dollars each for using false seaman's papers.

The Tombs incident left a bad taste. The breach between Mellows and Devoy widened. Cohalan and Devoy had tried to coerce Mellows into taking out "first citizenship" papers "to save myself", he told Mrs. Hearn of Westfield, Mass., in 1920. In the same letter he charged that when Ireland was "facing disaster and death " in 1918, Cohalan and Devoy had done nothing. He had only contempt for "the structure that battens on the work and sacrifices of the people at home", Mellows wrote. And he asked: "How dare the old man talk of 'the young men at home' in view of the treatment meted out to the young men who came over since 1916, and were not a bit different from those left behind?" The 1918 charge had to do with the the second Irish Race Convention held in New York in May of that year. Cohalan went to great lengths to assert the "Americanism" of the gathering and his speech was spattered with declarations of loyalty. McGarrity barred federal agents from the hall. Mellows delivered a powerful plea for Ireland in the course of which he denounced the "German plot" roundup of Irish Republican leaders. He said:

There are times ahead for Ireland which are going to try the people of Ireland as they have never been tried before, and are we going to sit here and keep our mouths shut? We all feel these things too deeply now any longer to conceal the truth. A wrong is going to be perpetrated on Ireland the like of which even the British government never conceived before. They have stated that they discovered a German plot, in order that they might thus alienate the sympathy of the people of America from Ireland. They could then turn around and do as they liked in Ireland, while the world looked on and laughed .

This wrong that is going to be done in Ireland is a terrible thing. Conscription at the hands of the British government is a crime, not alone against the Irish people, but against the whole civilised world. And I say that America, by its silence on the question of Ireland's independence, has been and is still, until it speaks out, tacitly acquiescing in England's domination.

If there is blood shed in Ireland, if our men and boys and women and girls are slaughtered, the fight will not alone be that of the men, but the women will take part in it also. This time the fight will be for the preservation of the very life of the Irish nation. If there be bloodshed in Ireland, the blame of that bloodshed will rest not alone on the British government, it will rest on America, unless America speaks out on behalf of Ireland.

The Draft Board of New York city sent Mellows a questionaire, which he returned unanswered on January 10, 1918, giving these reasons: "First, because I am an Irishman and have devoted all my humble efforts since I came to the use of reason to help free my country from the tyrannous domination of England." He said, he would have no connection "under any circumstances with the armed forces of the American government which by its silence on Ireland acquiesced in England's occupation." He added: "I am a citizen of the Irish Republic, proclaimed at Easter, 1916, which has the allegiance of the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland, but which this country has not yet recognised. I owe allegiance to one country only - Ireland - and the cause of Irish freedom, which is the cause of God." Cohalan and Devoy barred Mellows from addressing further public meetings. When Mellows threatened to resign from the Gaelic American the quarrel was patched up. But the differences continued. He told Nora Connolly in a letter dated September 14, 1919, that a "campaign of the most vile and vicious slander started which has lasted to the present time." His efforts to halt the conscription of young Irishmen were opposed by Cohalan. "I was ostracised everywhere from almost everything," said Mellows.



Liam Mellows was elected for two constituencies in the December, 1918, general election: North Meath and East Galway. When the First Dail met they entered his name on the roll in Irish, Liam 0 Maoiliosa, and wrote "ar dibirt ag Gallaibh" after it. Meanwhile the deputy for North Meath and East Galway was without a job in America. He left the' Gaelic American at Christmas, 1918, hoping to go to California; but the court case prevented that. He went to work on the docks as a casual labourer before getting a teaching job at the school run by the Irish Carmelites in Manhattan. The Clan sponsored a meeting in New York on January 5, 1919, to congratulate the Irish people on the great election victory of Sinn Fein in December. Cohalan using the Wilsonian catchcry stressed Ireland's right to self-determination. He said nothing about an Irish Republic. Mellows on the other hand declared that the Irish people "have exercised so far as lay within their power, the right of self-determination, and they have determined that Ireland shall and must be free and independent." Next night the Irish Progressive League, meeting in the same location (the Central Opera House), expressed "the determination of the Irish in America to uphold the new Irish Republic and to insist that it be permitted to work out its own destiny without British interference." Mellows was one of the speakers. Another speaker was Norman Thomas, future leader of the American Socialist Party. Cohalan was annoyed by the rejection of his leadership and the self-determination formula, and a split along ideological lines was evident. Then on January 21, Dail Eireann held its founding meeting. The Republic proclaimed in 1916 was ratified and the radical Democratic Programme - which was to influence Mellows a great deal - adopted. Cathal Brugha, as Priomh Aire (Prime Minister), in a message to America urged the Irish there to work for "international recognition of the Irish Republic." The third Irish Race Convention opened in Philadelphia on February 22 and Cohalan trotted out his self-determination resolution once more despite the efforts of McGarrity, McCartan and Mellows to substitute demands for recognition of the Irish 'Republic. Mellows was not exactly a welcome guest. Indeed he only learned of the convention through the newspapers. Among the honoured guests was the conservative Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and Cohalan did not want any radical speeches while his eminence was listening. So he asked Mellows to speak on the first day when the Cardinal was absent; Mellows refused. Because McCartan would not speak for the self-determination resolution he too was denounced as a dangerous character by Cohalan. "As for me, I'm beyond redemption," Mellows told Nora Connolly in the letter already quoted. "Am looked on as wild, hot-headed, undisciplined - liable to get movement into trouble - dubbed a Socialist and Anarchist." During the big flu epidemic of 1919, Mellows fell ill and almost died, he told Nora Connolly. What worried him most was that he had only three dollars - then worth 12 shillings - which was hardly enough to bury him. He told the writer -John Brennan" (Mrs Sidney Czira), one of the Gifford sisters of Dublin, then living in New York, that "the doctor who attended him said something about his illness being brought on by hunger and privation." He started to work too soon, collapsed at the famous meeting in New York when President Wilson on the eve of his departure for the Peace Conference at Versailles refused to meet a delegation of Irish-Americans unless Cohalan withdrew, and suffered a relapse. Joe McGarrity took him to Philadelphia and afterwards to Atlantic City where the sea air did wonders for his health.

Harry Boland arrived in America in May, 1919, as the representative of the I.R.B. and President de Valera followed a couple of weeks later, His law case settled, Mellows planned to return to Ireland. But Boland got sick and he had to take his place as organiser of De Valera's schedule. During the 18-months mission to America, Mellows was De Valera's advance courier to the many cities visited on the continental tour. On December 7, 1919, he wrote Mrs. Hearn of Westfield, Massachusetts, from Albuquerque, New Mexico: "I'm delighted to have got the chance of seeing Arizona and New Mexico. I always wanted to see these historic spots. It is so wonderful to be down among the Indians. I'm Indian-mad these days but regret time does not permit me to stay to learn all about them ... "I'm going to El Paso tonight, thence to San Antonio and Houston and on to New Orleans." Mellows sided with De Valera in the split with Devoy and Cohalan and on March 9, 1920, wrote Mrs. Hearn: "How often I laid awake at night unable to sleep because of the indignation I feel burning into my very soul. And yet the thought comes how futile when the real enemy requires all our hatred. And I pity C. (Cohalan)." On September 1, 1920, as Terence MacSwiney was fasting in Brixton Prison, Mellows wrote to Mrs. Hearii's son John: "Oh dear! how small we all appear in the face of this terrible tragedy. How little indeed are the ambitions that have brought the movement into such a pass here compared with the great principles for which MacSwiney is giving up all." Of this period, the American poet A. M. Sullivan has written:

I recall Liam Mellows, a quiet but spunky bantam with the pure fire of idealism burning in his veins. He pictured the youth of Ireland rising to the phantom call of Cuchulain and in his heart was the strict code of the Fianna. He was a fighter, but chivalrous in action and pious as a knight seeking the Holy Grail. As these visitors (Mellows and Boland) wandered from city to city, I read and reread a mixed wonder and dismay in their eyes. They marvelled at the spontaneous response of the American Irish, and blushed at the crass manner of our political leaders . . . They revitalised a dormant pride of race in thousands of Irish Americans.

When Mellows returned to Ireland at the end of 1920, he joined the general headquarters staff of the I.R.A. as Director of Purchases, with responsibility for procuring arms and equipment for the fighting forces. He was returned to the Dail as deputy for Galway at the general election of May, 1921.

In May, 1921, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson told the British Cabinet "that in my opinion unless we crushed the murder gang this summer we should lose Ireland and the Empire." He added that Gen. Sir Neville Macready, commander-in-cmef in Ireland, "absolutely backs my contention that unless we knock out the Sinn Feiners this summer we shall lose Ireland." Wilson thought one last effort should be made to destroy the resistance of the I.R.A. Instead, Prime Minister Lloyd George proposed negotiations and in December the Treaty was signed. During the long debate in Dail Eireann on the Treaty, Liam Mellows spoke once. It was on January 4, 1922, and he followed Eoin O'Duffy, later commissioner of police for the Free State and leader of the Blueshirt movement. He made his position clear at the start: ". . .I stand definitely against this so-called Treaty and the arguments in favour of acceptance- of compromise, of departing from the- straight road, of going off the path, and the only path that I believe this country can travel to its freedom." The Republic existed by the will of the people, Mellows continued. And he quoted Lloyd George's statement of April, 1920, that if the people of Ireland were asked what they would accept they would reply: "We want independence and an Irish Republic." The elected representatives of Ireland had declared in favour of independence, the British Prime Minister told the House of Commons. Men had given their lives for the Republic; men were hanged for it; men were in jail; and people had suffered. It was a living, tangible thing. "There was no question of making a bargain over, this thing, over the honour of Ireland, because I hold that the honour of Ireland is too- sacred a thing to make a bargain over," Mellows said. "We are told this is a question as between a document referred to as No. I and Document No. 2. At this moment there is only one document before this House, and when that is disposed of, as I do hope it will be disposed of in the proper way, then we will deal with any other documents that come up in the same way if they are not in conformity with the Irish Republic." "Let's face facts as we did so often during the last few years. We are not afraid of the facts. The facts are that the Irish Republic exists. People are talking today of the will of the people when the people themselves have been stampeded as I know because I paid a visit to my constituency. The people are being stampeded; in the people's mind there is only one alternative to this Treaty and that is terrible, immediate war. During the adjournment I paid a trip to the country and I found that the people who are in favour of the Treaty are not in favour of the Treaty on its merits, but are in favour of the Treaty because they fear what is to happen if it be rejected. That is not the will of the people, that is the fear of the people. The will of the people was when the people declared for a Republic... Mellows called the Treaty "a new Coercion Act". Its function was to destroy the existing Irish Republic. They did not want peace with surrender or peace with dishonour. The Treaty would not bring peace. Under the Treaty the Irish people would be committed within the British Empire, something they had always opposed. "The British Empire represents to me nothing but the concentrated tyranny of ages," he added . ..... It means to me that terrible thing that has spread its tentacles all over the earth, that has crushed the lives out of people and exploited its own when it could not exploit anybody else. That British Empire is the thing that has crushed this country; yet we are 'told that we are going into it now with our heads up. We are going into the British Empire now to participate in the shame and the crucifixion of India and the degradation of Egypt. Is that what the Irish people fought for freedom for?" And then: We are told damn principles. Aye, if Ireland was fighting for nothing only to become as most of the other rich countries of the world have become, this fight should never have been entered upon. We hoped to make this country something the world should have been proud of and we did not enter into the fight to make this country as the other countries, where its word was not its bond, and where a treaty was something to be struggled for. That was not the ideal that inspired men in this cause in every age, and it is not the ideal which inspires us today. We do not seek to make this country a materially great country... After you get the Free State what will you take on hands, and what do you mean when yoa talk of something next? The Government of the Free State will, with those who support it now liking it or not, eventually occupy the same relationship towards the people of Ireland as Dublin Castle does today, because it will be the barrier government between the British and the Irish people. And the Irish people, before they can struggle on will have to do something to remove that Free State government. That I think, has been the history of this country most of the time, as it is the history of most countries that go the way now urged by those who support the Free State. If the Free State is accepted and put into operation it will provide the means for the British government to get its hold back again... We placed Ireland upon a pedestal for the first time in the history of this country. For the first time in the history of this country we had a government established by the directly declared will of the people. That government rested upon the surest of all foundations and placed Ireland in a position it was never in before, since its subjection. Ireland was put forth to the world as a headlight, as a beacon beginning to shine for all time to guide all those who were struggling. The whole world was looking to Ireland for a lead. This downtrodden, this miserable country, as some of you called it, was, during the last few years, the greatest country in God's earth... It has fought a fight that will ring down through the ages, and maintained itself well against all the tortures and inflections that a foreign tyranny knows so well how to impose. It maintained its way up to this stage, and now, not through the force of the British government, not because of the weight of the British armies, but through the guile of the British government and the gullibility of ours we are going to throw away the Irish Republic. Somebody talked about facts. These are facts. We are told that we must have unity. Yes, we want unity, and had unity in Ireland during the last few years, but we had it only on one basis - the basis of the Republic. Destroy that basis and you cannot have unity .

His final word was: 'We stand, some of us, where we always stood, and despite all that has been said in favour of this Treaty we mean to continue standing where we stood in the past. Whatever may happen, whatever the road may be in front of us, we intend, with God's help, to travel it. The time will come yet - I hope it will come soon - when those who are going to depart from the straight road will come back to it. Then we will be together to the end of this fight. I am sorry to inflict such a long statement upon the Dail. It was not my intention to do so when I stood up, but ideas keep coming to your mind, probably, when you feel so keenly on a matter which represents the ideals for which one has struggled and fought, the ideals for which one is prepared to do the same again, but for which one is not prepared to compromise or surrender no matter what the advantages may be." When Mellows finished his speech at 1.30 p.m. the Dail adjourned for an hour. The next speaker was Desmond FitzGerald, future Free State Minister for External Affairs. He said he agreed with practically every word of Mellows's speech except his interpretation of the Irish Republic. FitzGerald believed the Republic was a means to an end, "one of the weapons used in fighting for the freedom of our Country". Its aim, in the words of the 1919 Declaration of the First Dail, was to promote the common weal and it seemed to him the Treaty would do just that. FitzGerald was a member of the Cabinet that decided to put Mellows to death just 11 months later. The Dail on January 7 approved the Treaty by a vote of 64 to 57.



The Treaty split the Cabinet, the Dail, the Volunteers and the country. On, March 26 the anti-Treaty Volunteers held a convention in the Mansion House with 211 delegates attending. Mellows presided. The convention repudiated Dail Eireann and the pro-Treaty headquarters, and reaffirmed the allegiance of the I.R.A. to the Republic. A resolution adopted unanimously said of the I.R.A.:

That it shall be maintained as the Army of the Irish Republic, under an Executive appointed by the convention.

That the Army shall be under the supreme control of such Executive which shall draft a constitution for submission to a convention to be held on 9th April.

When the convention reassembled on April 9 it adopted a constitution setting up an Executive of 16, which appointed an Army Council of seven and a Chief of Staff. Mellows was named secretary of the Army Council; Liam Lynch was appointed Chief of Staff.

On April 13 the Executive set up headquarters in the Four Courts and 120 men of the Dublin Brigade garrisoned the law building by the Liffey. Next day, as secretary of the Army Council, Mellows wrote to Dail Eireann setting out "the conditions upon which the Council is prepared to discuss measures by which the unity of the Army might be attained". These conditions included recognition of Dail Eireann as the only government of the country; no elections until the threat of war with England had been removed. Following up on this initiative of Mellows, which was also pressed by Harry Boland, Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins signed a pact on May 20 calling for a panel of candidates, a coalition government, and an Army Council of eight - four Republicans and four Treatyites - to control a reunified I.R.A. The object of the pact was to halt the drift to civil war. Mellows was a member of the Army Council of eight which had a brief life indeed. The pact collapsed on the eve of the poll. Six days after the vote Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated in London by two Irishmen. Both Volunteers were closer to Collins than to the men in the Four Courts, with whom they bad no connection, but the British government decided to act against the latter anyway. Lloyd George ordered General Macready to attack the building on June 25. A few hours later he rescinded the order, demanding instead that the Provisional (Treatyite) government carry out the assault. There was a delay of a few days while the Dublin authorities marked, time. Then at dawn on June 28 the bombardment of the Four Courts began. The shelling signalled the start of the Civil War. The Four Courts in flames, the garrison surrendered at midday on June 30 over the strenuous objections of Liam Mellows; He believed they should continue the resistance to the end. The prisoners were taken to Mountjoy Jail. In his book "There will be Another Day" Peadar O'Donnell writes: "In the angry mood of the thronged cefls in Mountjoy Jail the prisoners instinctively turned to Meflows as the one among us who must, somehow, be able to explain how the Republican Army could permit itself to be overrun by much weaker military forces and why certain men of courage, hitherto devoted to independence, should choose to enter on a road of struggle to overthrow the Republic and raise on its ruins a parliament which rested on the penal British Government of Ireland Act 1920." In response to these questions and the news from outside, Mellows wrote his "Notes from Mountjoy Jail". Addressed to Austin Stack the letters were not intended for publication. But they fell into the hands of the Treatyite authorities and were released to the newspapers "under scare, and of course Communist, headlines," as O'Donnell puts it. In fact Mellows's intent was to rally the people behind the Republic. As O'Donnell remarks, in "The Gates Flew Open": "It was just the bare outlines of his thoughts on a social programme. It is a matter of regret that no fuller statement of his views had been secured while there was yet time." The first letter, dated August 25, 1922, is in response to one smuggled in by Stack. It continues under a number of headings:



General situation: We are as much in touch with this as the "newspapers" and "Poblacht" and Bulletin" permit. I am strongly of opinion that the Republican political and military outlook be coordinated. No doubt this has been done, but I mention it because during the past six months we suffered badly because responsible officers in their desire to act as soldiers, and because of an attitude towards "politicians" acquired as result (in my opinion) of a campaign directed towards this end by old G.H.Q. Could only judge of sitz. in terms of guns and men. Even from a military point it ought to have been apparent to such men that every situation and advantage - no matter of what nature - should be availed of to gain victory. However, I am not going to write an essay on this. Naturally we are thinking hard here though this place and atmosphere is not conducive to thought. However, the net result of my cogitations are: - 1. A Provisional Republican Government should be set up at once even if it is unable to function, or to function only in a most limited way. This to be done apart from the question of the Dail. The Advt. in today's paper re Postponement of Dail is inserted by Provisional Government. The impression the press and the Prov. Govt. want to create is that the next Dail is the "Provincial Government" called for by the terms of the Treaty. If at meeting of Dail this is not cleared up and it is accepted that it is a "Provisional Parliament" and not the Government of the Republic - then the necessity of a Pro. Repub. Govt. is more urgent. 2. The Programme of Democratic Control (the Social Programme) adopted by the Dail, coincident with the Declaration of Independence, January, 1919, should be translated into something definite. If the great body of the workers are to be kept on the side of independence, this is essential. This does not require a change of outlook on the part of Republicans or the adoption of a revolutionary programme as such. The headline is there in the Declaration of 1919. It is already part of the Republican policy. It should be made clear what is meant by it. Would suggest, therefore, that it be interpreted something like the following, which appeared in the Workers' Republic of July 22nd last:-

"Under the Republic all industry will be controlled by the State for the workers' and farmers' benefit. All transport, railways, canals etc. will be operated by the State - the Republican State - for the benefit of the workers and farmers. "All banks will be operated by the State for the benefit of industry and agriculture, not for the purpose of profit-making by loans, mortgages etc. That the lands of the aristocracy (who support the Free State and the British connection) will be seized and divided amongst those who can and will operate it for the Nation's benefit etc." Regarding the last paragraph in above programme - land - it is. well to note that the I.R.A. Executive had already taken up the question of the demesnes and ranches and had adopted a scheme for their confiscation and distribution. This scheme was mainly the work of P.J.R. (P. J. Ruttledge). See E. O'M. (Ernie O'Malley), Tomas O Deirg and P.J.R. about this. In view of the unprincipled attitude of the Labour Party, and because of the landless and homeless Irish Republican soldiers who fought against Britain, it might be well to publish this scheme in whole or in part. We should certainly keep Irish labour for the Republic; it will be possibly the biggest factor on our side. Anything that would prevent Irish Labour becoming imperialist and respectable will help the Republic. As a sidelight on Johnson, O'Brien, O'Shannon & Co. it will interest you to know that when they called on us in the Four Courts last May they (particularly,Johnson) remarked that no effort had been made by the Dail to put its Democratic programme into execution. In our efforts now to win back public support to the Republic we are forced to recognise whether we like it or not - that the commercial interests so-called - money and the gombeen men - are on the side of the Treaty, because the Treaty means Imperialism and England. We are back to Tone - and it is just as well - relying on that great body "the men of no property". The "stake in the country" people were never with the Republic. They are not with it now - and they will always be against it - until it wins! We should recognise that definitely now and base our appeals upon the understanding and needs of those who have always borne Ireland's fight. Even though the decision of the election of 1918 stands; even though the Declaration of Independence remains a fact; even though the election of 1921 reaffirmed that Declaration; even though the election of June 1922 was an "agreed election" at which no issue was put or decided; yet, because of the interpretation put upon it by the Treatyites (and used broadcast by the British) it is essential that the Republic be once again reaffirmed by the people by vote as soon as possible. When that may be no one can tell, but we cannot look too far ahead. In the meantime the Prov. Republican Govt. should endeavour to "carry on". 3. (a) Propaganda. Imperialism. What the rejection of it by Ireland means. What its acceptance by Ireland means. This should be fully explained. What imperialism is, what Empires are - what the British Empire is - its growth. How it exists and maintains itself - Colonies (Irish Free State as a Colony) - India. How oppression and possession of it is essential to maintenance of BE, Money, Trade, Power etc. (Curzon on India) - extracts from Roger Casement's articles "Ireland, Germany and Freedom of the Seas" published first in Irish Review 1913 or '14. What Ireland's connection with Imperialism (however much the apparent material gain) means to her future - No use freeing Ireland to set her up as a State following in the footsteps of all the rotten nations in Europe today - what Ireland's spurning of Imperialism means, etc. etc. (b) Work of the Republic, to show it was - and is - a Reality. This is an antidote to the hypocrites who now pretend that it never existed; some pamphlets have already been published by direction of Dail last year, showing how Republic functioned. Courts, -land settlements, etc., decrees. These were sold for 6d. each I think. They could be reproduced or used again. The Bulletin published by D/Publicity all through war up to signing of Treaty does, I think, contain heaps of data. (c) Hierarchy: Invariably wrong in Ireland in their political outlook - against people in '98. Frs. Murphy (2) Roche, Kearns excommunicated by the then Bishop of Ferns - against Emmet: "condemning outrage" - against Young Ireland "Godless young men"; support of Sadlier and Keogh - against Fenians-. Dr. Cullen, Bishop Moriarity "Hell not hot enough nor eternity too long enough"; against "Plan of Campaign" - against Sinn Fein (early days when it was milk and water) - against Irish Vols. -, support England in European War 1914 - morally to blame for the deaths of thousands of Irish youths in France, Flanders, Mesopotania, Gallipoli, Macedonia, etc. Nothing can condone this: European war a hideous holocaust on altar of Mammon; a struggle between Europe for power - Irish Hierarchy blood guilty; Hierarchy against Easter Rising 1916, denunciation of Pearse etc. (Pearse the great example of Christian idealism.) Hierarchy only opposed Conscription when forced to do so by attitude of people. Against I.R.A. during Terror. Bishop Cohalan's excommunication decree of December 1920. Hierarchy's abandonement of principle, justice and honour by support of Treaty. Danger to Catholicism in Ireland from their bad example - their exaltation of deceit and hypocrisy, their attempt to turn the noble aspect of Irish struggle and bring it to level of putrid politics, their admission that religion is something to be preached about from pulpits on Sundays, but never put into practice in the affairs of the Nation, their desertion of Ulster etc. "Scelig" (J. J. O'Kelly) could, I think, do the above best. Excuse changes of writing. I had to get the above copied by someone else from a letter I am sending to Sighle, lest anything should happen this one. I will close up now, but will continue ideas on propaganda and other things tomorrow.

Mellows's second letter (dated August 29) sets forth additional arguments why the Republicans should establish a Provisional government without delay. The British, he said, would continue "to make use of Irishmen as long as the latter can be duped or dazzled by, the Free State idea." He adds: "For the British to calumniate Republicans and belittle their cause by besmirching them is one thing; but for F.S. (and supposed potential Republicans) to do it is another - and different, and worse. thing. Because the British will not use British arguments to cloak their actions, but Irish ones 'out of our own mouths,' etc. Therefore an object - a target - must be presented for the enemy (F.S. or British) to hit at - otherwise it becomes a fight (apparently) between individuals. Hence the necessity of getting the Provisional government established at once." In the same letter Mellows said the public should be told of De Valera's work in America, then under attack by the Treatyites; and suggested publication of a life of Cathal Brugha: "the underlying theme should be principle - a word that at one time meant everything to (and conveyed everything of) the I.R.B." He urged Republicans to concentrate on the youth of Ireland: "Fianna never got proper help or encouragement. Fianna ideal can save future. The reason for so many young soldiers going wrong is that they never had a proper grasp of fundamentals. They were absorbed into movement and fight . .. not educated into it. Hence no real convictions." Finally, he wondered if the time was not ripe for developing closer ties with the independence movement in India. Mellows's third and final letter (September 9) was the shortest. A few days earlier the pro-Treaty deputies elected in June had met as the Third Dail. "The F.S. have shown by Saturday's performance that it was the Provisional Parliament provided for by the terms of the F.S. Act, and not the Third Dail that met. Therefore the question arises at once - where is the government of the Republic? It must be found, Republicans must be provided with a rallying centre, and the movement with a focussing point." And finally: "The unemployment question is acute. Starvation is facing thousands of people. The official Labour Movement has deserted the people for the flesh-pots of Empire. The F,S. attitude towards striking postal workers makes it clear what its attitude towards strikes generally will be. The situation created by all these must be utilised for the Republic. The position must be defined. FREE STATE - Capitalism and Industrialism - Empire. REPUBLIC - Workers - Labour. The Publicity Department of the Provisional (Free State) Government released the letters on September 22, 1922, with a covering note saying that "the new Republican programme is to be dangled before the eyes of the landless men, the unemployed, the thousands of people whom starvation is facing, so that the situation may be 'utilised for the Republic.' In the history of politics few things can be more callously unscrupulous than this programme."



The "Notes from Mountjoy Jail" shows Mellows to be the most clear thinking and far sighted Republican leader of the Civil War period. But his programme was not adopted and the Civil War ended in defeat. His proposal for a Republican government took shape on October 25 when De Valera formed a 12-man Council of State and the Army of the Republic. pledged it allegiance. Mellows's other suggestions were ignored; the Democratic Programme of the First Dail remained a dead letter. Peadar O'Donnell suggests that in the circumstances of the time, Mellows's proposals were doomed. Had they been raised at the March-April general army convention of the I.R.A., he suggests, the subsequent discussion would have given reality to the letters from Mountjoy. According to O'Donnell, "Mellows was a great Fenian who saw the poor as the freedom force of the nation; as Tone did." He was not a radical Socialist or a Communist, as the Free State authorities charged at the time.



On December 7, 1922, two Treatyite deputies were fired on in Dublin and one of them, Sean Hales of West Cork, was killed. Next morning at 9 o'clock, Mellows, Rory O'Connor, Joe McKelvey, and Dick Barrett were executed by firing squad: in reprisal, it was announced officially, for the shooting of Hales. There was no trial. Executions take place at dawn. These were delayed because the prison chaplain kept pressing for postponements because Mellows would not accept the Hierarchy's pastoral condemning the Republicans and was denied absolution in consequence. "I believe with the old Gaels, who dies for Ireland has no need of prayers," Mellows said. In the end the chaplain backed down by using a stratagem. "Are you sorry if you've done wrong?" he asked. "Of course I'm sorry for any wrong I've done," Mellows replied. And that satisfied the chaplain. The killing of the four was a Cabinet decision. They were chosen, it was said, to strike terror in the Republicans. Each man represented a province, it was also said: O'Connor, Leinster; Barrett, Munster; McKelvey, Ulster; and - as in 1916 - Mellows stood for Connacht.



The killing of Mellows was a black day for Ireland, Dr. McCartan told Joe McGarrity in a sad letter when the news came out. McCartan had refused to vote for or against the Treaty after the long Dail debate, but accepted it and indeed worked with those who set out to operate it. In New York a memorial meeting was held at the Irish Carmelite Hall on December 14. Father Peter E Magennis, head of the order, paid tribute to his old friend. Mrs Muriel MacSwiney, widow of Terence MacSwiney, delivered the address. "Rather than that they should turn imperialist, I'd prefer to see them both dead," she said. Hannah Sheehy Skiffington wrote in the Irish World of December 16, 1922: "He was but 27 and his mind had broadened and deepened through suffering, through silent concentration and through various experiences. He had lost his boyish exuberance and his merry spirits, had grown sadder, but had retained his serenity as of yore. He of all men might have taken James Connolly's place - of late especially he had moved along the paths trodden by Connolly. We have lost in him one of the greatest of our generation. We shall not took upon his like again."