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Postal censorship in Ireland, 1914–16

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Ben Novick
Ben Novick*
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford
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Extract

When members of the Irish Volunteers shot dead a policeman and burst into the yard of Dublin Castle on 24 April 1916, Sir Matthew Nathan, the under-secretary, and Major Ivon H. Price, the head of military intelligence in Ireland, were upstairs in Nathan’s office discussing whether or not known agitators should be deported under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). This somewhat ironic scenario, which raises questions about the state of British intelligence in Ireland, has proved very attractive to historians working on this period. Some, such as Leon Ó Broin in his classics Dublin Castle and the 1916 rising: the story of Sir Matthew Nathan (1966) and The chief secretary: Augustine Birrell in Ireland (1969), have attempted to defend the actions of the civil government. Eunan O’Halpin, a more recent historian of political and military intelligence in Ireland, chooses to take the idea of British intelligence in Ireland as something of an oxymoron. Focusing on the fact that the Easter Rising was ‘permitted’ to occur, he lays the blame for such poor intelligence work on four factors: the political danger faced by British officials who risked alienating parliamentarians if they struck at advanced nationalists; legal difficulties in getting Irish juries to convict people for political crimes; failure of the intelligence branches of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police to collect effective information from suspects; and finally, the personality of Augustine Birrell, who, as his wife slowly went insane and began to die of a brain tumour between 1912 and 1915, rather understandably lost interest in his official duties as chief secretary.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 123 , May 1999 , pp. 343 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1999

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References

1 O’Halpin, Eunan, The decline of the union: British government in Ireland, 1892–1920 (Dublin, 1987), pp 108-11Google Scholar.

2 Muenger, Elizabeth, The British military dilemma in Ireland: occupation politics, 1886–1914 (Dublin, 1991), pp 81–142Google Scholar.

3 Report on postal censorship during the Great War, 1914–1919 (Post Office Archives, London, POST 56/58, f. 1.) The official definition of censorship given here has been adopted in the present article.

4 Ibid., f. 4.

5 Ibid., f. 6.

6 O’Halpin, Decline of the union, p. 108.

7 Sir Matthew Nathan, Notebook, vol. i, 12 Oct. – 31 Dec. 1914 (Bodl., Nathan MS 470, ff 26–9); Chief Secretary’s Office: Intelligence Notes, 1915 (P.R.O., CO 903/19/1).

8 Sir Matthew Nathan, Interviews: Ireland, vol. ii: interview with Miss E. Somers, 1 Apr. 1915 (Bodl., Nathan MS 468, ff 4–5).

9 Postal censorship, 1914–1915 (P.R.O., CO 904/164/1).

10 See Hiley, Nicholas, ‘Counter-espionage and security in Great Britain during the First World War’ in E.H.R., ci (1986), pp 635-70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Lord Aberdeen until February 1915, and then Lord Wimborne until the Easter Rising, the period covered by this article.

12 Richard R. Cherry, K.C.

13 Warrant, 4 Jan. 1915 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1914–1915, CO 904/164/1). The warrant was predated by two weeks to cover the technically illegal action of Norway, who had shown to Major Price an incriminating letter addressed to Casement.

14 Ibid.

15 D.M.P. intelligence report to Nathan, 5 Feb. 1916 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

16 Ibid.

17 Brien to Nathan, 7 Feb. 1916 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

18 Brien to Nathan, 18 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

19 Brien to Nathan, ‘Importation of arms, etc. by the Sinn Féin party’, 12 May 1916 (P.R.O., History of Sinn Féin arms imports to Dublin, 1914–1916, CO 904/28/4).

20 Hiley, ‘Counter-espionage’, p. 640.

21 Cases of unlawful possession and larceny of high explosives, 1915 (P.R.O., Chief Secretary’s Office intelligence notes, 1915, CO 903/19/1). De Lacey was an ex-editor of the Enniscorthy Echo newspaper and helped edit and publish the Irish Volunteer.

22 Warrant, 9 Mar. 1915 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1914–1915, CO 904/164/1).

23 Norway to Nathan, 14 Dec. 1914 (ibid.).

24 The addresses, respectively, of the headquarters of Sinn Féin and the editorial offices of the Irish Volunteer.

25 Greenfield to Nathan, 25 Jan. 1915 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1914–1915, CO 904/164/1).

26 Greenfield to Nathan, 28 Jan. 1915 (ibid.).

27 Price to Nathan, 15 Feb. 1915 (ibid.).

28 Price to Nathan, 30 Dec. 1915 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

29 See ‘Seditious literature’, Nov. 1915 – Mar. 1916 (ibid., Correspondence relating to illegal activities, CO 904/192).

30 Warrants for MacDermott and Daly, 23 Nov. 1914 (ibid., Postal censorship, 1914–1915, CO 904/164/1).

31 Detective Division report, R.I.C., Limerick, to Price and Nathan, 30 Jan. 1915 (ibid.).

32 Warrants for Mrs Monteith and Miss Kilmartin, 31 Mar. 1915 (ibid.).

33 Hansard 5 (Commons), lxxvi, 173 (25 Nov. 1915).

34 R.I.C. circular, 30 Nov. 1915 (P.R.O., HO 184/122, f. 27).

35 Arms importation and distribution, 1914–15 (ibid., CO 904/28/3b, f. 597).

36 Postal censorship of Irish internees, ‘Code words and nicknames used in the correspondence of Irish internees’, Dec. 1918 (ibid., CO 904/64/4).

37 Report of the Postmaster General on the Post Office, 1914–1915, Appendix A (Post Office Archives, London, POST 92).

38 Price to Nathan, 30 Dec. 1915 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

39 ‘Seditious literature’, Nov. 1915 - Mar. 1916 (ibid., Correspondence relating to illegal activities, CO 904/192).

40 War Office to Friend, 1 Dec. 1914 (ibid., War Office papers, Ireland, 1914, WO 35/61/1).

41 Hiley, ‘Counter-espionage’, p. 640.

42 Sir Matthew Nathan, Interviews: Ireland, vol. i: interview with Major-General Friend and Major Price, 1 Mar. 1915 (Bodl, Nathan MS 467, f. 163).

43 War Office to Nathan, 2 Dec. 1915 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

44 War Office to Nathan, 10 Dec. 1915 (ibid.).

45 A second new censorship branch had been set up in Edinburgh simultaneously.

46 War Office to Nathan, 3 Jan. 1916 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

47 War Office to Nathan, 27 Jan. 1916 (ibid.).

48 Warrants for Sattherwaite, 11 Mar. 1915, and Turner, 15 May 1915 (ibid.).

49 Warrant for MacSwiney, 26 Oct. 1914 (P.R.O., Postal censorship, 1914–1915, CO 904/164/1).

50 MacSwiney file, memo By Major Price, 23 Aug. 1918 (ibid., Dublin Castle intelligence ‘personality’ files, CO 904/209/293).

51 MacSwiney was in fact a papal marquis, the Marquis MacSwiney of Mashanaglass, to be precise. The title had been awarded to him on the recommendation of the French government. After the creation of the Irish Free State, MacSwiney briefly became a roving cultural ambassador for his new nation. My thanks to Dr Patrick Maume for assistance on this point.

52 MacSwiney file, memo By Major Price, 23 Aug. 1918 (P.R.O., Dublin Castle intelligence ‘personality’ files, CO 904/209/293).

53 Warrant for Sweeneys, 15 Dec. 1915 (ibid., Postal censorship, 1915–1916, CO 904/164/2).

54 Somers to Norway, 10 Feb. 1916 (ibid., Postal censorship, 1916–1919, CO 904/164/3).

55 Norway to Nathan, 11 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

56 Price to Nathan, 12 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

57 Somers to Norway, 13 Feb. 1916 (ibid.) (original emphasis).

58 D.M.P. G Division report, Sergeant Bruton to Nathan, 14 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

59 R.I.C. report, D.I., Kanturk, to Nathan, 16 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

60 Marginal comment by Nathan on warrant for Pierce Power, 20 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

61 Nathan to Price, 14 Feb. 1916 (ibid.).

62 Price to Nathan, 10 Apr. 1916 (ibid.).

63 Figgis to O’Malley, 22 Dec. 1915 (N.L.I., Brennan papers, manuscripts and memoranda relating to the suppression of seditious literature and recruiting, 1914–1916, MS 26154).

64 Suspect list, 10 Nov. 1914, in Sir Matthew Nathan, Notebook, vol. i, 12 Oct. – 31 Dec. 1914 (Bodl., Nathan MS 470, ff 26–9).