SPECIAL BRANCH SHOOTS OWN CHIEF SUPT

The penchant of the Branch for wild and inaccurate shooting had come home to roost. Harry says Gantley “was heading a search for a smash-and-grab man, James Nolan, in the Hammond Lane Foundry close to Pearse Street, Dublin”.

Nolan and Laverty were a well-known Dublin pair who engaged in such criminal activity at the time. It appeared that the search took place in fog and the Branchmen were in their usual trigger-happy mood with fatal consequences for the head of their own force.

The State’s contention at Harry White’s trial 13 months earlier that a Branchman never shoots another Branchman, even by mistake, was exploded. Their record for the late thirties and earlier forties stands out.

Unarmed IRA Volunteers shot dead by them included Peter McCarthy of Dublin at Clanbrassil Street, near Harold’s Cross Bridge in June 1937 and John Joe Kavanagh of Cork while tunnelling into Cork jail in August 1940.

Paddy Dermody of Westmeath was shot dead and Harry White himself wounded while resisting arrest at Mountnugent, Co Cavan in September 1942. Jackie Griffith of Dublin was killed while cycling at Holles Street in July 1943; a Thompson gun burst was fired from a squad car as he was being pursued.

As in the case of internee Barney Casey shot by military police in the Curragh Concentration Camp in December 1940, the inquests on these men were interfered with to prevent the Irish people learning of the circumstances of their deaths.

WOUNDED

Liam Rice of Belfast fired a warning shot in the air at Castlewood Park, Rathmines, Dublin to alert comrades as to a Special Branch raid and received two bullets in the lung.

During a lecture to a Dublin Sinn Féin Cumann in 1958, Séamus Soraghan, BL stated that the Branch had shot and wounded an ESB employee who later took damages off the State for unlawful injury. They had fired without warning across one of the canals in Dublin at a man whom they said resembled Harry White.

There may be other cases but it is indeed ironic that the Special Branch as recruited, armed, trained, motivated and led, ended up shooting dead their own senior officer in charge. It was a case with no political content.

Chief Supt Gantley was aged 49. He was in the Second Battalion, Dublin Brigade, IRA from 1919 to 1921. Many other Branchmen whether of the Broy Harrier or earlier CID variety had served in the Irish Republican Army, a fact that is surely relevant north of the Border at this time. It could happen again!

Meanwhile the general election campaign continued. Cronin states: “For an overall majority Fianna Fáil needed to win 74 seats. De Valera made clear that they would not join a coalition or seek the help of any other party to stay in power. Compared with the energetic Clann na Poblachta, Fianna Fáil seemed old, tired and too long in office.”

The US Legation in Dublin reported to Washington on January 14: “Another feature of the campaign, thus far, has been an attempt by Seán McEntee (Minister for Local Government) to smear the rising Clann na Poblachta with a coat of Communistic red. This attempt will probably be unsuccessful in the main, but may cause hesitation among certain substantial sections of the community which might otherwise support the new organisation.

“Clann called for improved social services, guaranteed employment, afforestation and better educational facilities,” the Legation added. “Clann’s candidates were persons of ‘recognised ability’ in contrast to ‘the innumerable party hacks who have been the backbone of the Fianna Fáil machine’. If successful, they would ‘infuse new intellectual vigour into the Dáil (sic) in which it is, at the moment, conspicuously lacking.”

Seán MacBride at the head of Clann na Poblachta and aged 44 stood out to challenge de Valera. The Economist of January 24, 1948 described him as “a barrister by profession with an impeccable revolutionary background”.

As election day approached, however, MacBride surmised that Clann was losing ground under the barrage of Fianna Fáil “Red scare” attacks. McEntee accused Seán Dunne, Roddy Connolly (son of James), George Pollock, Seán Mac Cumhaill, Domhnall Ó Donnachadha, May Laverty, Fionán Breathnach, Dr Richard Batterbury, Con Lehane and RN Tweedy “of loyalty to the Communist cause”.

The first three were Labour candidates; the rest, with the exception of Tweedy, were Clann na Poblachta candidates. Also, McEntee stressed MacBride’s affiliation with the IRA. This was in spite of the IRA’s public statement at the time disavowing any connection with the Clann.

An Observer profile of MacBride of January 18 said “his success was probably due to the suffering of the working and middle classes now, as Irish prices steadily rise, and his anti-British line is always a good card to play in popular electioneering”.

HARD COMBINATION

“Its (Fine Gael) leaders hoped that Clann na Poblachta would cut into Fianna Fáil’s majority sufficiently to force a coalition government. However, de Valera had the organisation, the money and the support of the substantial citizens of Ireland . . . a hard combination to beat.” A year earlier on February 6, 1947 the Irish Times reported a speech by MacBride in Dublin’s Mansion House. “We must throw open the door (of Leinster House) to elected representatives of Northern Ireland (sic).” A number of these would “enter the Dáil (sic) if they were allowed to do so.”

MacBride warned: “We must face realities and we must realise that if we get a Republic in name it would mean nothing unless it ensured economic and social freedom for all the people of the country. We have to ensure that no section of the people will be exploited by another section.”

However, when the votes were counted after February 4 change was on the way. Cronin writes: “To the surprise of most people and the dismay of its supporters, Clann na Poblachta won only ten seats. It had nominated 93 candidates, more than any other party except Fianna Fáil.

“It came third in party votes (173,166) and was runner-up in ten constituencies, which was a good showing for a new party. But expectations had been set too high for any explanation to suffice. It had failed.”

In its rush to put up sufficient candidates for an overall majority, the Clann had accepted many of the type known as “cranks and sore-heads”. Its successes were mainly former Republican leaders, nationally or locally, with a sprinkling of the new socially idealistic.

Six of the ten were elected in Dublin: Seán MacBride, former IRA Chief-of-Staff (1936); Mick Fitzpatrick, another former C/S (1937); Con Lehane, former Army Council member (mid-’30s); Captain Peter Cowan, solicitor, formerly of the Free State Army; Drs French O’Carroll and Noel Browne, of whom more will be heard.

Outside Dublin the four elected were: John Tully for Cavan, former IRA Battalion OC; Jack McQuillan for Roscommon, former All-Ireland footballer 1943-44 and Free State Army officer during WWII; Paddy Kinnane, IRA Veteran for North Tipperary and J Timoney for South Tipperary. A big surprise for active Republicans and their supporters was that former IRA Chief-of-Staff (1942) Seán Mac Cumhaill stood for Clann na Poblachta in east Donegal. He had been active in the post-1945 reorganisation of the Army.

Mac Cumhaill polled 3,217 first preferences, almost half the quota of 6,944. Another Clann na Poblachta candidate in the same constituency got 833 first preferences; together they made 11.7% of the total poll.

Overall, Fianna Fáil’s majority was cut to 68 seats; Fine Gael won 31; Labour 14; National Labour 5; Clann na Talún 7; Independents 12. Fianna Fáil lost. Clann na Poblachta held the balance of power.

On February 18 the combined opposition to Fianna Fáil formed a new “inter-party” government with John A Costello of Fine Gael as leader. The voting was 75 to 68.

Richard Mulcahy, leader of Fine Gael, who as General Mulcahy had been Chief-of-Staff of the Free State Army in 1922-23, was forced to stand aside presumably to ensure Clann participation.

MacBride, in supporting Costello’s nomination, explained that while his party stood for a complete break with Britain and an end to Partition, he realised that Clann na Poblachta did not have a mandate at that time for its programme.

He would hold that programme in abeyance until it received such a mandate. MacBride became Minister for External Affairs, his colleague Dr Noel Browne, Minister for Health — two influential posts in the new administration.

Browne at 32 was the youngest Cabinet Minister in Western Europe at that time. Costello said the “principal objective” on which these coalition parties were agreed was the ending of partition. Fine Gael held six ministries, Labour two, National Labour one and Independents one.

General Seán Mac Eoin as Fine Gael Minister for Justice had been IRA leader in Longford against the Black-and-Tans. He was GOC Western Command of the Free State Army in 1922-23 but by 1948 was not regarded as a hard-line Free Stater.

Coogan says the election campaign was all “excitement and optimism”. Bell states that it “generated immense excitement and, if nothing else, brought again into public view many of the issues of concern to Republicans.

“The day after the election,” he continues, “any rational man would have considered the future of the irreconcilable Sinn Féiners, wedded to past mistakes, to be black indeed. The future obviously lay with MacBride and parliamentary politics.

SOLD OUT

“This curious government . . . was unified only by a shared distaste for de Valera and the pursuit of power. Many of the young idealists, who had been attracted by the Clann’s revolutionary slogans, were alienated by the cynicism of MacBride’s manoeuvre, as were many of the older Republicans who had adopted a wait-and-see attitude.”

Seán Mac Cumhaill, the East Donegal candidate resigned immediately and publicly from Clann na Poblachta. After 16 years of uninterrupted power the Fianna Fáil “stranglehold” had been broken. Most people gave a sigh of relief . . .

(More next month. Refs. The Secret Army by J Bowyer Bell; The IRA by TP Coogan; Harry by Harry White and Washington’s Irish Policy 1916-1986 by Seán Cronin.)