578. The Irish War of Independence: Bloody Sunday (Part 3)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is History
Episode 578: The Irish War of Independence: Bloody Sunday (Part 3)
Release Date: June 29, 2025
Hosts: Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook
Guest: Paul Rouse, Historian at University College Dublin

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Introduction and Announcements

[00:00 – 03:49]
The episode begins with the hosts, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland, discussing exciting upcoming events, including their live tour in Australia. They promote the Rest Is History Club, offering exclusive benefits to members, and acknowledge sponsors such as The Week. However, per instructions, these sections are skipped in this summary.

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Overview of Bloody Sunday

[03:49 – 05:55]
Paul Rouse, a historian from University College Dublin and an expert on Irish sport and its intersection with politics, sets the stage by referencing a report from The Freeman's Journal dated November 22, 1920. The report condemns the British government's actions in Dublin, particularly the massacre at Croke Park, drawing a grim comparison to the Amritsar massacre in India. The event is portrayed as a brutal government reprisal where innocent civilians were killed in blind vengeance, undermining the official claim that the firing was provoked by an attack on British forces.

Notable Quote:
"In Croke Park, the slaughter was a classic example of a government reprisal. The innocent were shot down in blind vengeance." – Paul Rouse [03:49]

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Context Leading to Bloody Sunday

[05:56 – 08:04]
Tom Holland highlights the significance of Bloody Sunday within the broader Irish War of Independence, emphasizing its notoriety. He prompts a brief recap of previous events, including Sinn Féin's election victory in December 1918, the establishment of a republican counter-state, and the escalation of guerrilla warfare against British authorities.

Notable Quote:
"It's probably the single most notorious moment in the war for Irish independence that had begun almost two years earlier." – Tom Holland [05:56]

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Detailed Account of Bloody Sunday

[08:21 – 18:02]
Paul Rouse delves into the day's chronology. Early in the morning, the IRA executed a meticulously planned attack against British intelligence officers, killing 15 out of 19 targeted men across eight locations in Dublin. This operation was orchestrated by Michael Collins' Squad, aiming to dismantle the British intelligence apparatus in Ireland.

One vivid incident involved William Stapleton, who, accompanied by associates, broke into Captain W.F. Newbury's flat. Captain Newbury attempted to escape with his wife, Hetty, but was fatally shot. Esteemed historian Ann Dolan recounts the traumatic aftermath for Hetty, who was left in terror and horror over the brutal execution.

Notable Quotes:
"Stapleton and a couple of people who were with him... Captain Newbury's wife was... covering him in a blanket. The sound of gunmen laughing... a man washing her husband's blood off his hands in her own sink." – Paul Rouse [10:19]
"It's an extraordinary story and an extraordinary day." – Paul Rouse [08:21]

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The Complexity of Targets and Collateral Damage

[18:02 – 24:03]
Rouse clarifies misconceptions surrounding the victims. Contrary to the myth of 15 spies being killed, the reality included a mix of actual intelligence officers, court martial officials, police recruits, and even civilians with no involvement in espionage. For instance, Jack Fitzgerald, a recent police recruit from a reputable Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) family in Tipperary, was among those killed despite not being a significant intelligence target.

Additionally, individuals like Paddy McCormick, a horse trainer with no direct ties to British intelligence, were mistakenly targeted, highlighting the tragic collateral damage inherent in such operations.

Notable Quotes:
"It's the way the legacy of war works... The myth of 15 spies who were shot." – Paul Rouse [13:25]
"It's the way the legacy of war works. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit." – Paul Rouse [17:49]

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The Afternoon Massacre at Croke Park

[24:03 – 31:07]
Despite the morning's violence, life in Dublin seemingly carried on. A significant Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary was scheduled at Croke Park, attended by approximately 5,000 spectators. Officials from the GAA, aware of the day's earlier events, debated whether to cancel the match but ultimately decided to proceed to maintain normalcy and avoid implicating the GAA in the morning's violence.

At around 3:30 PM, British forces, including the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the infamous Black and Tans, stormed Croke Park. Initially intending to conduct a search-and-seize operation, the soldiers began indiscriminate firing, believing they were under threat from IRA gunmen. This led to chaos, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians, including children like William Robinson (11) and Billy Scott. The scene devolved into a hellish stampede, with soldiers continuing to fire amidst the panic.

Notable Quotes:
"As members of that first group... they began firing from the bridge from outside the ground." – Paul Rouse [28:28]
"It's a hellish scene and there's chaos, confusion, people running in everywhere." – Paul Rouse [30:49]
"The shooting, after the shooting had stopped, but corralling them in and kept there for more than an hour." – Paul Rouse [31:07]

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Psychological Impact on Perpetrators

[31:07 – 34:22]
The historian discusses the profound psychological toll on those who carried out the shootings. Contrary to the romanticized narratives of nationalist mythology, many soldiers exhibited signs of deep trauma, leading to nervous breakdowns, alcoholism, and overall deteriorating health. For example, James Norton, responsible for the deaths of three British intelligence officers, suffered a complete mental breakdown by July 1921, spending much of his life in a mental hospital.

Notable Quotes:
"There was a gradual deterioration in his condition until he had a complete mental breakdown." – Paul Rouse [19:01]
"It's difficult to romanticize killing, killing another human being..." – Paul Rouse [19:18]

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The Humanity of Victims

[34:22 – 39:18]
Tom Holland and Paul Rouse highlight individual stories of victims to underscore the personal tragedies of Bloody Sunday. Among the deceased was Michael Hogan, a Gaelic football player whose memory is immortalized by a stand named after him in Croke Park. Another victim, Michael Feary, was a 40-year-old laborer and former British army combatant living in poverty. These stories emphasize that victims ranged from athletes to ordinary workers, none of whom were targeted for political reasons.

Notable Quotes:
"He was the only player killed. He was killed crawling off the pitch..." – Paul Rouse [34:35]
"His body lay unclaimed in a morgue for five days." – Paul Rouse [35:14]

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British Government's Response and Cover-Up

[39:18 – 40:43]
The British government's immediate response was one of denial and attempted cover-up. Sir Henry Greenwood, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, falsely claimed that the shootings were provoked by IRA gunmen attempting to escape, and that no arms had been found, contradicting evidence. These claims were largely dismissed by British media, such as The Guardian, and investigated by the Labour Party's commission, which ultimately condemned the brutality and lack of control among British forces.

Notable Quotes:
"There's a high wall running at the back of the terrace here..." – Historian [29:08]
"The report of the commission found no evidence that the police had been fired on and condemned." – Paul Rouse [40:43]

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Aftermath and Long-Term Impact

[40:43 – 44:40]
The historian reflects on the lasting legacy of Bloody Sunday, not only in the annals of Irish nationalism but also in the personal lives of those affected. The brutal events eroded any remaining trust between the Irish populace and British authorities, further entrenching the cycle of reprisals and violence that plagued the conflict. The normalization of such extreme reprisals destabilized the situation, making a peaceful resolution increasingly unattainable.

Notable Quotes:
"It's the real legacy in the blood of the families that were shed and could never, never be recovered." – Tom Holland [43:24]
"The war is becoming nastier... Bloody Sunday... both sides think they're losing." – Paul Rouse [44:40]

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Transition to Negotiations and the Treaty Era

[44:40 – 56:27]
As the violence escalated, both the British and IRA found themselves in a stalemate. The British faced international condemnation and internal pressure to end reprisals, while the IRA struggled with dwindling resources and mounting casualties. This deadlock prompted the British government to consider negotiations seriously.

King George V's speech in Belfast, urging an end to strife and promoting forbearance and conciliation, symbolized a potential shift towards peace. This was partly motivated by the desire to legitimize the newly established Northern Ireland Parliament and facilitate impending negotiations.

By July 1921, a truce was agreed upon, initiating discussions between Irish leaders like Eamon de Valera and British officials, including Prime Minister David Lloyd George. These talks aimed to reconcile Irish national aspirations with Britain's imperial interests but ultimately set the stage for future conflicts, including the Irish Civil War.

Notable Quotes:
"There is no sense, by the way, that he was targeted to be killed because of who he was." – Paul Rouse [35:13]
"You can now talk about a discussion about what to do with Ireland because you've fixed up the Ulster universe problem." – Paul Rouse [51:00]
"It's absolutely extraordinary that such a negotiation should be about to take place with a group who now represent a part of the Irish tradition." – Historian [53:26]
"He left on a Sunday morning to see the football match." – Paul Rouse [43:24]

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Reflections on What Could Have Been

[54:04 – 56:27]
The episode concludes with a speculative discussion on the role of external factors, particularly World War I, in catalyzing the Irish struggle for independence. The hosts ponder whether the Irish revolution would have occurred without the war, suggesting that the conflict provided both the impetus and the resources (such as arms) necessary for the IRA's rise. They acknowledge the deep-seated desire among certain factions for full independence, beyond mere Home Rule, and the complex web of political maneuvering that led to the eventual treaty and subsequent civil war.

Notable Quotes:
"Without the context of war, which truly changed the possibilities for armed rebellion..." – Historian [54:04]
"Would we become Wales or Scotland?" – Paul Rouse [55:25]

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Conclusion and Teasers for Future Episodes

[56:27 – 57:58]
The hosts preview the next episode, which will delve into the truce and the subsequent treaty negotiations in London, featuring key figures such as David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, and Michael Collins. They hint at the eventual descent into civil war, highlighting the complexities and enduring legacy of Bloody Sunday in shaping modern Irish history.

Notable Quote:
"And spoiler alert, they will not get the peace they are hoping for, they will find themselves embarking on a bitter and bloody civil war." – Tom Holland [56:27]

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Closing Remarks

[57:11 – End]
The episode wraps up with acknowledgments and light-hearted banter about advertisements, adhering to the user’s instructions by excluding these segments from the summary.

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Final Thoughts:
Episode 578 of The Rest Is History masterfully intertwines personal narratives with political analysis to shed light on the tragic events of Bloody Sunday during the Irish War of Independence. Through detailed accounts and expert commentary, the hosts and their guest underscore the profound human cost of political violence and the complex interplay of myth and reality in historical memory. This episode serves as a poignant reminder of how pivotal moments in history are shaped by both grand narratives and individual tragedies.

Transcript

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com so Tom, we have some unbelievably exciting news for our listeners, don't we?

[Tom Holland]

We absolutely do, Dominic. The England cricket team will not be the only group of Englishmen touring this coming summer to triumphant effect, because we will be as well. We're coming to Australia in November and December this year and you can get [e-mail] so listen, we will be undertaking.

[Paul Rouse]

Four tests, four shows in front of.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Paul Rouse]

Audience I think, Tom and we'll be.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Doing shows at the Sydney Opera House in Melbourne and then we'll be doing two more at the start of December in Adelaide and in Brisbane.

[Tom Holland]

And we will be talking about one of Australia's greatest exports and the impact that it has had on the understanding of history across the world and through time.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So tickets are on sale now for our beloved members of the Rest Is History Club. And if you want to snap those.

[Paul Rouse]

Tickets up early, you should join the.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Rest Is history [e-mail] and tickets will.

[Tom Holland]

Be available to purchase for everyone else from this Thursday, that's the 3rd of July at 11am Australian Eastern Eastern Standard Time.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So for your chance to see us live on stage in an Australian city near you, head to therestishistory.com join the.

[Paul Rouse]

Club and get your tickets.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Historian]

The Freeman's Journal 22 of November 1920 where will it end? Yesterday morning, some 14 officers and men of the military and secret services were shot dead at the same hour in widely separated districts of the city, some in hotels, some in private residences. In the afternoon, the authorized answer of the government agents came in the form of an attack upon a football crowd assembled unsuspecting of evil to watch a match in Croke Park. Croke park was turned into Amritsar, with the difference that there were no proclamations, no warnings, no legalities defied by the Assembly. In Croke park, the slaughter was a classic example of a government reprisal. The innocent were shot down in blind vengeance. The pretense that the firing was provoked by an attack upon the government forces will deceive no one in Ireland. It is another base official lie.

[Tom Holland]

So strong words there from the Freeman's Journal, published on 22-11-19 and the Freeman's Journal had long been Ireland's leading constitutional nationalist newspaper, so backing home rule rather than independence. But there you can sense shock, outrage and the sense of a newspaper perhaps changing its mind. And the reason for that are the events in Dublin of the previous day that the newspaper is describing. And it is a Sunday that has gone down in history as Ireland's first Bloody Sunday. So it's probably the single most notorious moment in the war for Irish independence that had begun almost two years earlier. And that is largely because of what happened where we are sitting right now at Croke park, and if you can hear the humming of a lawn mower behind us tending the sacred turf, that is because we are at this great shrine of Irish sport. But Dominic, before we get onto the terrible events of Bloody Sunday, should we just remind ourselves of where we've got to in the story of the war for Irish independence?

[Paul Rouse]

Sure, listeners will remember that last time in the last episode. We began with Sinn Fein's landslide election victory in December 1918. And then we looked at what happened over the next two years. The creation of a republican counter state with Its own courts and local officials. The growth of the Irish Volunteers, which became the Irish Republican army, which is determined to fight for an independent republic. A growing guerrilla campaign, increasingly bloody, against the British authorities, reprisals by British troops, by the Royal Irish Constabulary and most famously the Black and Tans and the auxiliaries. So we reached November 1920 and to guide us through the story of what happened next, what happened here at Croke park on that day, we have somebody who's no stranger to this stadium. Historian at University College Dublin, national treasure and self declared Pound Shop Bono, Paul Rouse. And Paul, you're actually a historian by training of Irish sport and the interaction of Irish sport and politics and nationalism and so on. So this story has a real resonance for you, doesn't it?

[Historian]

It's an extraordinary story and an extraordinary day. It begins in the morning with the IRA killing a group of 14 or 15 agents of the British state. Largely, though not entirely, as we will see in the afternoon, there is Croak park here, in the evening there are further murders. And the murders aren't just based in Dublin because there are random killings, random acts of violence around the country, including a policeman who was going home from Mass in a country town in Watford, who was shot dead while chatting to a grocer's daughter. And for their part, the British army shot civilians in Meath and in Mayo while there was a civilian killed while Dublin was under curfew. So this is death in an Irish sense on a large scale. The numbers on the day barely reach 40 dead, which in comparison to other conflicts and other times will not seem enormous.

[Tom Holland]

So in that newspaper report there was a comparison to the massacre at Amritsar in India in the same year where there were hundreds killed. It's not on that scale, is it?

[Historian]

It's not at that scale of number one. But it's the nature of the events on the day that are truly shocking. They've left a legacy which I think we should talk about later on as well. The legacy and how it wound through history afterwards, precisely because it was also an intersection of sport and politics.

[Paul Rouse]

Right, so take us through the day, let's go through it in some detail. And let's start with, you know, dawn breaks Sunday morning, 21st November, and the IRA have a long drawn up plan, don't they? An elimination plan, basically death squads going out into the city.

[Historian]

So the short answer to what happened early in the morning of 21st November is that at around 9am, about 100 IRA men led by the Dublin Brigade of the IRA targeted 19 men at 8 locations around Dublin. Now, before I came in earlier to meet you in the academy, I walked the streets where those men were based. And it's all in a quite a condensed area in the south inner city, with the exception of one set of killings which took place in the Gresham Hotel opposite the General Post Office where we were the last time you were over. So 19 men at eight locations were targeted. 15 of those men were shot dead, four others were injured. A group of other men, an unknown number of other men escaped all injury. In what happened, the men who were shot had been identified in intelligence, put together by a special unit of the IRA known as the Squad, which Michael Collins had established in 1919. And the idea was that it would combat the activities of the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. So that was the Intelligence unit and the detectives of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, their men, those G men, their job was to collect evidence against people who are perceived to be the enemies of the state. Now, among the squad were some of Collins's squad were some of the Tipperary men who we met right back in the earlier episode, who are now in Dublin as full time soldiers of the ira.

[Paul Rouse]

So are these killings personally ordered or sanctioned by Michael Collins himself?

[Historian]

Yes.

[Paul Rouse]

Yeah. Okay, so talk us through how it works. So there's a good example, isn't there? The one of the killers, a guy called Stapleton arrives, William Stapleton.

[Historian]

Yeah.

[Paul Rouse]

Arrives at Bagot street, is it 92 Lower Bagot street, where a guy called Captain W.F. newbury, who's been designated as a target. So what happens there?

[Historian]

Stapleton and a couple of people who were with him, a couple of men who were with him broke into Captain Newbury's flat. He was in his pajamas in bed with his wife Hetty, who was over visiting from England, and he tried to escape out a window with Hetty trying to protect him and turn the killers as he was shot seven times and he ended up hanging from the window from which he was trying to escape. Captain Newberry's wife was, according to William Stapleton, left in a terrified and hysterical condition. It took about 15 minutes for him to die. All the while he was hanging from the window while she covered him in a blanket. The brilliant Trinity historian Ann Dolan, who along with people like Jane Leonard, David Leeson and Michael Foley have written great work on this day. But Anne Dolan writes that Mrs. Newbery was haunted by the sound of shooting of gunmen laughing, by the memory of a man washing her husband's blood off his hands in her own sink.

[Paul Rouse]

Oh, my God.

[Tom Holland]

And. And had Captain Newbury been a. A secret agent?

[Historian]

Yes, it appears so.

[Tom Holland]

And so what is the reputation of the British Secret Service at this point? Because you've been talking about how useless all the various departments of the British state in Ireland are. Do they have a formidable reputation among the ira and. And if so, is it deserved?

[Historian]

One of the singular truths of Irish history is that Irish nationalist and republican organizations were repeatedly riddled within farmers who fed information through various intelligence units and pass them to Dublin Castle. This evidence was not always convincing. Often it was speculative. Sometimes it was information that was clearly made up by people who wish to impress their handlers and get money. We know all this from spy organizations around the world. I think the issue was what happened with the information when it went to Dublin Castle. But yes, this was an intelligence war of huge proportions and it mattered to the British state that the intelligence collected was used properly. It mattered that it was well collected. And the problem for British intelligence was that they themselves were infiltrated by the IRA, who were feeding information on a loop back to Collins.

[Paul Rouse]

Let's talk a bit about the people who were shot. So in the sort of IRA version of events, these are a notorious gang, the Cairo Gang, I think they're called, of, you know, ruthless British secret agents who had to be eliminated for the survival of the Irish revolution. First of all, not all of the men who are killed are intelligence officers. And secondly, remarkably, not all of them are English. So first of all, not all of them are intelligence officers. So are some people killed in error? Is that this?

[Historian]

Yes. So I think we'll break them down into different categories. There were intelligence officers who were killed in the shorthand of the Irish Revolution. And in the Irish popular mind, it's remembered that Collins had 14 spies shot.

[Paul Rouse]

Yeah.

[Historian]

And the truth of it is, that's just not correct. So somewhere, intelligence officers, including, for example, Henry Anglis, who used the alias name of McMahon while he was in Dublin, he was actually in bed with Joseph Connolly, also an intelligence agent who was from Wexford and had been to UCD when they were attacked by IRA men. There was also a man called Asha Maims on the day after he was shot, the New York Times actually carried the notice of his engagement to a New York socialite, Millicent Ewing, and a day later, again, it printed his death notice. There were spies there, but there were also a mixture of, say, court martial officials of staff officers and of ordinary police recruits.

[Paul Rouse]

Right.

[Historian]

And a great example, I think, is Jack Fitzgerald, John Joseph, but known as Jack Fitzgerald, who was a recent police recruit who came actually from a well known Gaelic Athletic association family in Tipperary. His father was either patron or president of the local GA club. He was the fifth of 11 children in the classic cliched Irish Irish family. His mother had died young. He had been sent to Black Rock College again, the place where de Valera went. He joined the British army in 1915 as when he was 16 years of age, as many people in Ireland of his generation did. He was with the 16th Division who fought at Gashi and was part of the fight that went on there. In 1917 he joined the Royal Flying Corps. His plane crashed, he was captured. He was kept as a pow. He then escaped. He was then recaptured. He was demobilized in 1919 and he was joining the Colonial Police to go and serve the British Empire or in the forces of empire around the world. He was due to go overseas actually two weeks later on the 5th of December, and he was shot in. In shot in his bed. You're right that not all of the people who shot were even connected with the British services. An example is one of the houses where men were killed was on Morehampton Road. 117 Morehampton Road. And one of the intelligence officers there, people who thought was an intelligence officer was, was actually a landlord. It was his house and he was. He was shot. And another was a kind of a fascinating man called Paddy McCormick who was from Mayo. He'd gone to Castle Lock College, an elite public school and on the north side of Dublin he was a professional jockey. After he, he left school and had won races around Ireland and then became a trainer and a vet, qualified as a vet. He joined the army vet Corps in 1917, won races. So he was based in the Kora, based in Egypt. And after the war he applied for and won a job to run horse racing in Cairo, which he was about to go across to do.

[Tom Holland]

And Paul, can I ask, the Cairo set is a word, a name that is given to this grouping of agents and people who are shot, isn't it?

[Historian]

Yes. There was a coffee shop on Graffan street which, where the Secret Service is, where this. But. But loads of people went there. It was one of those things and there was this rumor that it was about people who'd been hardened in the Colonial Service away in Cairo. But it's actually.

[Tom Holland]

So it's nothing to do with this guy horse racing in Cairo?

[Historian]

No, nothing to do. Nothing to do with. But he was, he was a trainer of horses. And the great Irish trainer JJ Parkinson, he was involved with him. So. So McCormick was actually staying in the Gresham Hotel. He was an incredible character. It's not quite clear where he got his lifestyle from, but he used to rise only in the late afternoon. Unless there was horse racing. He might get up slightly earlier.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he's smiling weakly.

[Historian]

He was. He was a man who was fond, I think, of. Maybe this is Theo as well. Like fond of lavish entertainment. That's definitely Theo. He was due to head to Cairo with his wife and his daughter on 2nd December. His daughter was 4. Her name was Grace. And he was shot and died in a pool of blood in a. In a bedroom in. So in the Gresham Hotel.

[Tom Holland]

A bad day for people involved in sport all round.

[Historian]

In this case, a simple fact that it gives a lie to the idea that it was 15 spies who were shot.

[Tom Holland]

But that's the myth, isn't it, that passes into the bloodstream of the mythology of the Irish Revolution.

[Historian]

It's the way the legacy of war works. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit.

[Paul Rouse]

So Michael Collins has this extraordinary passage where he says his plan was the destruction of the undesirables who made miserable the lives of ordinary, decent citizens. If I had a second motive, it was no more than a feeling, such as I would have for a dangerous reptile. By their destruction, the very air is made sweeter. And he went on to say, there's no crime in detecting or destroying in wartime the spy and the informer. I've paid them back in their own coin. And that's the language that we're very familiar with from all kinds of, kind of paramilitary conflicts and so on, I guess. But that's gone down in, I guess, nationalist mythology, that it's a kind of a cleansing, that it's, you know, the making the air sweeter and whatnot.

[Historian]

And there was a failure to properly recognize afterwards that among those killed was civilians such as McCormick. Cormac's family didn't leave a go. They kept at it to say that this is heaping calumny on a man who you've killed. He was not a spy.

[Paul Rouse]

Yeah. So the men who were doing the killing, interestingly so, he mentioned Anne Dolan in her article, and she looks at actually, the people who carried out the killings. And, you know, there's a description of the gunman laughing and the bloke washing their hands in the sink. But some of them are kind of traumatized by having done the killings. Is that right?

[Historian]

Oh, deeply traumatized. We were talking about this earlier, the Mythology that wraps itself around every conflict where, and made real in the balance that we were talking about earlier, where it's about people romanticizing dying for Ireland, but it's quite difficult to romanticize killing, killing another human being and they're hanging.

[Tom Holland]

Out of windows with their wife sobbing.

[Historian]

It's not an attractive proposition. It is not the stuff which mythologies are constructed around. And I mentioned Andolan earlier on her article, Killing on Bloody Sunday, November 1920, and she looked at the impact of the lives. Part of the thing was, was to look at the impact of the lives. And some of the men who carried out shootings on that day were utterly traumatized. They ended up in nervous breakdowns, in habitual drunkenness or in general collapse of health. In all of this, I'll give you an example. James Norton, another historian, Mark Duncan, has recorded that James Norton said that he was personally responsible for the shooting of three British intelligence officers, two of whom are killed and one seriously injured, are wounded in the presence of their screaming wives and children after Bloody Sunday. Norton said that there had been a gradual deterioration in his condition until he had complete mental breakdown in July 1921. And he couldn't cope with what he had done. And he spent a lot of his life in Grange Gorman Mental Hospital, as it was then called, just down the road from us here on in the north side of Dublin. And Dolan, I think, put it brilliantly. She said killing a spy may have been an order or a duty, but there was much to reconcile when all you saw was a man in his pajamas clinging to his wife. And interestingly, I think as well, Norton in Grange Gorman shared that hospital with men who had fought in the British army in the Great War.

[Paul Rouse]

Wow.

[Historian]

They themselves traumatized.

[Tom Holland]

And, Paul, is the implication of this that even after two years, the actual habit of killing is upsetting and traumatizing for people. And that to that extent, the habits of normality, of civilian life, of peace, haven't completely broken down.

[Historian]

Yeah. And I think it's. It's also about the nature of the war here, where someone might only fire a good. That might have been his first time to fire a gun or many of these. Yeah, their first time to fire a gun. First of all, it was very hard to get guns. Second of all, they were used only in certain places at certain times. The habitual usage is very difficult to deliver.

[Tom Holland]

And talking of the habits of normality, those rhythms of daily life are carrying on in the city of Dublin the day of the shooting. And so, for instance, you have sports fixtures they are still going ahead.

[Historian]

Yeah. And that's the thing about it, is that the killings on the morning of Bloody Sunday were only the start of things that day. Tipperary is a county more famous for hurling than for Gaelic football, but they had a brilliant Gaelic football team in 1920. And a challenge match was set up between Dublin and Tipperary to be played here in Croak Park. And it was as if, as you say, Tom, the morning had never happened. People were coming across the city to this place as if this was not a city at war. And, of course, partly because, for a lot of people, it wasn't really a city at war. There was actually two games here that day. The first was a local club match. And while that was taking place, there was a meeting of GEA administrators in the ground. The Gaelic Athletic association, shortened to gea, the organization who runs these games, they were making policy for the coming months. And officers of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA came to the stadium and they advised that the match should be called off.

[Paul Rouse]

Right.

[Historian]

That this was dangerous. They had heard whispers that the British forces would be coming to Croke park and to look for people. The G official said the match will go ahead. If it weren't to go ahead, it would be like us saying that we were somehow complicit in what happened in the morning. And also there was a large crowd inside the ground already who had paid money. And that itself can create an issue. So the styles had opened. Yeah, just after 2pm the stewards were in place. The ticket sellers were on the. On the roads that we were. We came to on the way here, when we walked around the stadium, down the lanes and in the roads or people out selling tickets for people to come into the game. And they reckon that by the time the ball was thrown in to start the match at quarter past three, there were about 5,000 people here. And the proceeds of those 5,000 people here were to go to the Republicans, go to.

[Tom Holland]

What would the capacity have been then?

[Historian]

It could hold more or less 12 to 15,000. Sometimes it says it could go more than that and go up to about 30,000. 35 is not. It wasn't intensely packed by any means.

[Paul Rouse]

So we have an account of what happened from a guy called Jack Scholdis. He had won the All Ireland Football Championship at Dublin and now is an IRA man, and he's also a leading GAA official. And he tells this story that the match starts and then an airplane flies over the ground and there's some kind of signal that comes from the plane or the Plane is spotting or something. So what's the story of the plane?

[Historian]

So again, this is one of those tangled webs where people are saying, oh, it was to send a signal to say the game had started and you can go in now and you can halt things and you can search people and make them leave. But again, it's hard sometimes to separate the myth from the history. Yeah. Here in all of this, that there was a plane when we know that it was scouting, we know. But precisely how that scouting was used is not entirely clear. What we do know is that 15 minutes after the match started, that is to say, at 3:30, the lorries and regiments of the British army and of the local police arrived to the ground and they began firing on people from outside the stadium.

[Paul Rouse]

Right, what have they come for? Is it because they think the killers are in the crowd or that there are people in the crowd who are smuggling weapons, or what's their rationale?

[Historian]

It was clear in the mind of the administration that the Gaelic Athletic association was allied with the nationalist movement and that the nationalist movement and its games were used as a cloak for republican activities. This was overdone as an argument, but it wasn't entirely baseless in its notion. And there were people in the ground who'd been involved in what happened earlier that day.

[Paul Rouse]

Oh, right, okay.

[Tom Holland]

But not with guns and markers that would have identified them.

[Historian]

So this is it. This is it. The British forces, How could they be firing on a football match is really your basic question. How do we get to that point? Well, what had happened was in the kind of the minutes and then the hours after the morning assassinations, there was utter revulsion and fear, no doubt, as well, and shock and rage amongst the officials who ran the British state and amongst the security forces. They had lost friends and they'd lost key operatives. And the desire was seen to be to respond, to be seen to act immediately, and that was considered to be paramount. They knew the match was taking place and they did believe that the match was used to pass people in and out of Dublin. And I've mentioned already about the role of Tipperary in all of this and the fact that it was then added to stuff. So an order was issued from Dublin Castle which permitted a raid on these grounds for men in arms. So the loose plan was to approach Croke park from three different directions. Now you can see the magnificent stadium that's here now holds almost 83,000 people. But what you had at that stage was a much smaller ground with a row of houses around it, those laneways that we walked through earlier. There were more in keeping with the height of the houses behind that. So it was built into the environment of the city rather than standing out from that environment in how it was done. So the plan was to come from three different directions. The first group of military personnel were to come down Russell street, where we drove down earlier, past the modern Guilds pub, and to stop at the bridge on Jones's Road, basically at the corner of what is now the Hogan Stand and the Daven Stand. The force that came here was a combination of RIC men and Black and Tans, that is to say, the police and their support. The Black and Tans, who had come in, commanded by Major E.J. mills, and they were to take control of the entrance at the canal end here. The second group were soldiers from the Duke of Wellington's regiment who were commanded by Lieutenant Robert Bray. And they took a position at the opposite end of the ground, though along the same side of the road, at another entrance behind what is now the modern Nally Terrace. And a third group of soldiers came right behind us here to the third and last exit and entrance into the ground. They were to block that gate which opened out onto St. James's Avenue. So in theory, all the gates into Croke park were now closed off and everyone in the ground could be searched as they left, and whatever guns were supposed to be there could then be taken and the men with them.

[Paul Rouse]

So how do you get from that, which is. I can understand how that works. They're going to wait outside the ground for people to leave and then search them on their way out. How do you get from that so quickly to them actually drawing their own guns and opening fire?

[Historian]

So instead of a stop and search operation, what you had basically was the killing of innocent men, women. Well, men and women and children. So as members of that first group, I talked about the police and the Black and Tans reached a bridge on Jones's Road, several of them, for reasons which remain inexplicable beyond the general environmental stuff of the morning and what we've said earlier, they began firing from the bridge from outside the ground.

[Tom Holland]

The report in the Freeman's Journal, which we opened this with, said that the firing was provoked by an attack upon the government forces. And this is dismissed outright as not being true. I mean, do we know. How do we know that? Maybe there were.

[Historian]

We'll come back to this afterwards. But there is not one shred of evidence has been produced that the first shots came from inside. Nothing compelling. There has been claim and counterclaim but you'll see when we talk about the inquiries afterwards, the evidence that sits in the opposite direction. There was a high wall running at the back of the terrace here beside where the bridge where the firing started from. And it's across that wall and into the trees that were on this side of the ground. And this notion of boys and girls sitting in trees and watching sports, you know, is, is jumpers for goal posts. Yeah, it's. It's part of a very particular type of world. So There was an 11 year old boy, William Robinson, sitting in one of those trees and he was shot and died instantly as he fell from the tree. A second boy was sitting on the back of a wall just down from Jerome O' Leary. He was 10 years of age and he was killed by a bullet that went through his head while he was sitting on that wall and again was knocked off. And shortly afterwards a third boy, Billy Scott, was killed at the far end of the ground here in that lane that we walked through between Croke park and the railway. There was a gate out and a bullet ricocheted and killed him there. So the police and the Black and Tans from that corner of the bridge came into the ground and kept firing.

[Paul Rouse]

And at that point you might think, well, it will stop, they'll realize the horror of what they've done. But actually they continue firing. And now obviously there's bedlam in the crowd and people are screaming and rushing everywhere and you get a bit of a crush and a stampede, understandably. And it's a kind of, you know, an absolutely hellish scene.

[Historian]

It's a hellish scene and there's chaos, confusion, people running in everywhere, and soldiers at the other end can hear firing coming from one end. They come in and they set up and they start firing. And all around the place there's people running for cover, people diving on the ground, people transfixed by the fear of the moment.

[Tom Holland]

Paul, one of those men was wearing the coat that is beside you right now. For those who are watching on the video, for those who aren't, it's a coat with a hole that has been sewn back on. And that hole is where the bullet went in.

[Historian]

Yeah. So this is the code of Tom Hogan, who was, along with James Matthews, a spectator who was at the game. And they were shot dead as they tried to run. As always happens in these situations as people, or as you can imagine, which would happen in these situations as people run for cover with gunfire coming from different directions, echoing around the pitch, bullets, you know, flying here and There there was a stampede and a crush to get out and people were left lying dead, were dying on the ground and lying injured. And Jack Shoulders, you mentioned him earlier, he said that the greatest crush was on this side of the ground where we are now, the ballybox side, where hundreds were wounded or injured in the mad scramble that followed. Or trampled and torn with barbed wire on, on the walls trying to get out. The barbed wire put up to stop people getting in for free now stops people getting out for, for fear of life. And you have people like Jane Boyle shot and crushed in the crowd. James Teehan and James Burke crushed again. Daniel Car gets out of the ground but is shot with a ricochet bullet. And he died from his wounds in a house outside the ground. And all the while there were still people trapped in here, still trapped, unable to get out. Jack Shoulders remembered that, you know, there were rifles and machine guns trained on people. The shooting, after the shooting had stopped, but corralling them in and kept there for more than an hour, searched as, as they went out of the place.

[Paul Rouse]

All right, well, let's take a break now and then we'll come back and we will talk about some of the people who were killed. We'll talk about the aftermath of the shoot and we'll talk about how this plays out with the rest of the War of Independence and how we get from here to the Anglo Irish treaty. So come back after the break. Welcome back to the Rest is History. Paul, you've described in harrowing detail some of these scenes at Croke Park. Obviously, eventually the ground empties and we'll come back to the inquiries and the COVID up and the way that the authorities try to justify what's happened. A couple of things that you think are important. So one of them is that the events of the afternoon and the events of the morning are inextricably linked entirely. So what happened in the afternoon is very clearly a response to what happened in the morning.

[Historian]

It's in the manner of the reprisals, though a very extreme version of the reprisals which were now becoming common.

[Paul Rouse]

So the reprisals have almost become institutionalized. The authorities will make reprisals after every. As they see every provocation.

[Historian]

Yeah, normally it's localized. It's never on this scale, apart from you could say the burning of Cork was the closest you could get to this.

[Paul Rouse]

And the second thing is, I mean it's often described as deliberate and cold blooded. Is it cold blooded or is it in the heat of the moment as it were in Other words, do they know exactly what they're doing, the people who are shooting those guns? Or are they out of control and they've lost discipline, they've lost reason?

[Historian]

I think they've lost reason. I think they're entirely out of control. I think it's a product though, of the perceptions that the soldiers and that the officials held of Irish people and of the nature of the war that was underway. I don't think it's cold blooded. I think it's hot blooded.

[Paul Rouse]

Right, okay. You talked about some of the people that died that day, but one person you didn't mention, Michael Hogan, he's a player who dies. And he was from.

[Historian]

In South Tabrai.

[Paul Rouse]

Right.

[Historian]

He was the only player killed. He was killed crawling off the pitch down in front of of Hill 16. He'd been playing on a famous Dublin footballer called Frank Bark, who managed to get off the field.

[Tom Holland]

And one of the stands here is named after him.

[Historian]

Yeah, the stand across from us is called after Michael Hogan. His brother Dan was a leading member of the IRA in the Monaghan area, which is up near the border now. And Michael himself was the IRA company commander in the Grange Moakler area where he worked on the family farm. There is no sense, by the way, that he was targeted to be killed because of who he was. It's just, it's one of those things. But there was other people, I think in fairness, Hogan's remembered because he was the player.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Historian]

That was killed. But like you look at, say, Michael Feary. I think Michael Feary is a brilliant, brilliant example. Michael Feary was 40. He was a laborer who lived in the slums behind us here in Buckingham street in the north inner city. He actually made it out of Croke park having been shot, but he was bleeding so badly that he died out on Russell Street. His body lay unclaimed in a morgue for five days. The British army officer identified him, noted the number that a number of his teeth were missing and that he was badly malnourished. He also noticed that he was wearing army fatigues and old worn down army boots. And that's because Michael Feary, like many other people, had fought in the British army in the Great war. And by 1920, in November 1920, he was really struggling, was unemployed.

[Paul Rouse]

Right.

[Historian]

So this is a whole span of people who went, okay, Hogan is famous for being the player who was shot. But Michael Feary's life is as. Is worth as much as. As Michael Hogan's.

[Paul Rouse]

Yeah, of course.

[Tom Holland]

And the death at Craig park is not the end of the killings on Bloody Sunday.

[Historian]

No, it isn't. Dublin Castle. Two veterans of the 1916 Rising and men who are hugely important within the IRA patter, Clancy and Richard McKee, who'd been arrested the previous night and who were involved in the planning of the Bloody Sunday, the earlier killings in the day were shot along with a man called Conor Clune. So Connor Clune was an Irish language activist and a co op manager from County Clare who had nothing to do with the revolution. He also had been arrested the night before in a case of mistaken identity or really poor evidence. Now, it's contested what's happened here. In the official version of events, the three men were trying to escape. Now, where that breaks down is Clooney, Norrie reason to escape. Apart from anything else, it said the three of them were trying to escape around 11 o' clock that night and were shot dead. The generally accepted version is that the three of them had been beaten and were shot basically summarily executed for the Dublin IRA, it should be said the loss of McKee and Clancy was really significant and one of their number said that it knocked all the good out.

[Tom Holland]

Of it because it's often said that actually that was more damaging to Michael Collins's intelligence network than the agents who were killed by his agents.

[Historian]

Yeah. And it was a bitter blow. And it says a lot for the status of those two men within the ira that two army barracks in independent Ireland were called after them, Clancy barracks and Marie McKee barracks when. When Ireland, after Ireland attained independence.

[Tom Holland]

So, Paul, the consequences of this. There is a very striking response on the other side of the Irish Sea the next morning when the docks at Liverpool are torched. And we should probably just mention at this point that the war isn't confined to Ireland, that there are IRA operatives in England. You know, they're doing industrial sabotage. There's a plot to poison the horses of the Household Cavalry to try and stop the state opening of Parliament. But there is a very striking attack that happens three months later when IRA volunteers in Manchester are caught trying to burn down Old Trafford. So the football ground of Manchester United, and they do actually burn down a stand at the. The ground of Manchester City. So maybe there's a targeted sporting reprisal there.

[Historian]

I'm not sure. I'm not sure if those are absolutely tied together.

[Tom Holland]

There is blowback in England and I guess also a huge part of the blowback is that liberal opinion there is massively shocked. I mean, of course there's absolute outrage in Ireland, but there is also people are appalled.

[Historian]

In England too, there is an outcry in England and the claims that were made. And it shows you the nature of the outcry that Sir Hammer Greenwood, the Chief Secretary of Ireland, that is to say the most important British official in the country, told the House of Commons, stood up in the House of Commons and said that the first shots came from inside the ground, that 30 revolvers had been found in the ground afterwards, that the shots fired in the ground had caused a stampede, that it was in the stampede that people had lost their lives.

[Tom Holland]

These are barefaced losses, are they?

[Historian]

Oh, straight up, it's a clear cover up. And more than that, he said that the British forces had opened fire because they were fired on by gunmen who were trying to escape. Again, he said he deeply regretted the loss of life, but this loss of life was entirely the responsibility of Irish gunmen. And in the way of these things, there were conservative newspapers in Britain who took this story and ran with it. The Guardian regarded it as nonsense. And the British Labour Party sent over a commission to investigate what happened. And the report of the commission found no evidence that the police had been fired on and condemned. Instead, the calculated brutality and lack of self control of the police force. And for the next 67 years, further evidence collected by the military into courts of inquiry were kept from the public. But the historian David Leeson wrote brilliantly on this. He said in November 1999, the Public Records Office in London released three documents. The first was a report submitted by Major Mills on the day after Bloody Sunday. The second was a military court of inquiry at the Mater hospital. And the third was a military court of inquiry at Jervis Street Hospital. I don't think there's any need to rehearse here the full details of these kind of three sources, except to say in the round they demonstrate that the official version of events was a nonsense. And Mills wrote that no arms had been found on the ground in searches of people. And the military court of inquiry made clear there was no gun battle.

[Paul Rouse]

So before, in the Last sort of 15 minutes or so of the episode, before we get into the story of the war and how the war sort of winds its way to its conclusion, just to wrap up what happened here at Croker park, it becomes this absolutely foundational moment in modern Irish history, doesn't it? I mean, it takes on this extraordinary significance for Irish nationalism, for sport in Ireland, for the gaa. Those of us who follow kind of British and Irish sport will remember the scenes when the England rugby team played here about what is it 20 years ago, 15 years ago, whenever it was for the first time and this sort of day that was freighted with emotion. So what did Bloody Sunday come to mean? Well, not least for the gaa, for the Gaelic Athletic Association.

[Historian]

I will come back to that in a second, but I have a real problem with this idea of how it is presented within history. And for me, the real meaning of Bloody Sunday lies. It doesn't lie in grand historical narratives, but it lies in the personal pain and the trauma of those who were brave. How did Jerome o' Leary cope with the death of his young son, who is also called Jerome? He had to go to the matter hospital and identify his son and he simply said he was a schoolboy. How did Bridget Robinson cope with having to go on a Sunday evening from her house on Little Britain street across to the old Drumcondra Hotel where her young son William, 11, lay? A bullet had ripped his chest to pieces. He fought to survive and lasted for hour after hour before he died. Bridget Robinson was 29 when she did that. How did her husband cope? Her husband's name was Patrick. He had been in that hospital as a surgeon, sought to save his son's life. How did James Boyle cope with the loss of his sister Jane, who was 26? And Annie Burke. Annie Burke came in from Windy Arbor to testify about the loss of her husband. And she just said, he left on a Sunday morning to see a football match. It was two o' clock and that's it. So they're united with the family of Paddy McCormack and all of those other people who were dead, whose body laid in blood across this city in two different parts of the day. And again later that evening in Dublin Castle. And that's the real, like, people talk about blood sacrifice, but that's the real legacy in the blood of the families that were shed and could never, never be recovered.

[Tom Holland]

And Paul, that line, he left on Sunday morning to see the football match. It was two o' clock. The horror of it is massively amplified by the fact that it is a leisure activity, that it should properly be a kind of safe space away from the horrors of the war.

[Historian]

And that's why the story has such resonance. And it transforms an understanding as well of the sheer brutality of this conflict. And what it does, I think, in general, is that it shows you the descent into brutality that was well underway by November 1920. So within a week, you have the Killmichael ambush near Macron where Tom Barry, didn't we. Yeah. So Tom Barry in a former British.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he'd fought in Mesopotamia. Yeah, I gather. Kind of partly being radicalized by how useless he thought the British High Command were there.

[Historian]

He was involved in the Kilmichael ambush, in which 17 auxiliaries, which is the.

[Tom Holland]

Worst military defeat the British suffer in the war, I think.

[Historian]

Yes. And then a month later, there's another auxiliary killed in at Dylan's Cross in Cork in response to that, signed off on. British forces go in and they burn down the City hall and they burn down the Carnegie Library. So they're the kind of the high point reprisals, they're the ones that really stand out. But all across the country were small scale reprisals, like attacks on private property, on livestock, on creameries. Creameries matter so much across rural Ireland. Foundation of the economy there. And. And you can see Crown forces who were bored or they're untrained or unable to cope with this guerrilla warfare and they felt they were losing.

[Paul Rouse]

But what's happening is that the war is becoming nastier, I guess. A lot of people are dying. There's a sense of possibly brutalisation on both sides, like Bloody Sunday. All of this is a terrible propaganda disaster for the British. So abroad, you know, people look at the burning of Cork or the stories of the reprisals, or the story of the shootings at Croke park and they say, oh, the British are completely out of control, they're behaving incredibly badly and all of this kind of thing. So Britain has lost the battle for worldwide public opinion at this stage. And yet, paradoxically, is there an argument that on the ground the British have actually stabilized the situation to some degree in that they are now fighting back much harder against the ira. And it's the IRA that are on the ropes in 1920. What are we 1920, going into 1920, into 21.

[Historian]

So the war was changing and the IRA was having trouble getting money and getting arms in. So it's reckoned that there were about 5,000, 000 people in the IRA by May 1921, that they had maybe 3, 000 rifles, maybe almost 5, 000 revolvers, but ammunition was really hard to come by. That being said, their targeted attacks were causing a lot of debt. I mean, we're going to talk about a truce that comes in the middle of July. But in the 10 days before that truce, 17 policemen were killed. So there were still capacity on the IRA side, but against that, the government is really going after hard reprisals in response to specific incidents. They don't really have a policy, though. They don't know how they're going to get this to end. They can't win this militarily unless they go in and raise the place. And we've mentioned this already, they couldn't do that.

[Paul Rouse]

It's a public opinion.

[Historian]

But I also think it's a matter of capacity because it would have cost a lot of money and they would have had to send in a lot of troops for a very long time.

[Tom Holland]

Isn't it the case that the IRA high command is starting to think that they are losing as well, that both sides think they're losing?

[Historian]

I think it's a stalemate, Tom. I think it's got into this grim, gruesome dance of death where, you know, they're locked in an embrace from which neither can escape, but neither can really control what's happening.

[Paul Rouse]

And so a good example of that is the Customs House attack. Right? So the Customs House here In Dublin, that's May 1921. And it looks like a great propaganda victory for the ira. They attack this sort of symbol of British power, but they lose an awful lot of men doing it, don't they? I mean, something like 100 of them captured, something like that.

[Historian]

Oh, yeah. It's a disaster for the IRA who go in to do what they said they would never do, which is another set piece, engagement. Everything was to be guerrilla warfare. So they go in, they burn the Customs House, and they lose men and guns, which they cannot afford to do. That in itself is a bad, bad blow to the prestige of the IRA in all of that. And it's hard to say that they were about to be destroyed or they were about to lose or that they felt they were going to lose. There was no sense that this was going to end in a military victory for either side. It just did not seem that the capacity was there for either side. Certainly wasn't there for the IRA to militarily defeat the British. What they had done, though, was destroy the legitimacy of the British state around huge swathes of the country and had left a state that was dependent on reprisal and violence.

[Tom Holland]

And is that the feeling increasingly throughout the early months of 1921 in London as well, that the legitimacy of British rule is crumbling and that therefore a new policy is needed, maybe one that's not based on reprisal and force?

[Historian]

Well, you can see the first tentative attempts to broker a solution actually began at the end of the. Of 1920, when there was a rejuvenator or kind of a reframing of the British administration in Dublin and. And Lloyd George Put over people like Andy Cope and. And Sir John Anderson and came over and they tried to kind of reformulate policy within the organization. And there were kind of tentative connections through a Republican businessman called Patrick Milet as a go between both sides. It foundered, not least because of Bloody Sunday, that those initial attempts. And then the Archbishop of Perth, a man called Patrick Clune, who was actually the uncle of Conor Clune, who'd been shot in Dublin Castle earlier, he tried to broker a deal, and that didn't work at all. And then there were various writers, such as Lady Greenwood and others, who tried to get involved. But circumstances. There is a circumstance which permitted for truce, and that was the actual enactment of the Government of Ireland act had come in in 1920, in June of 1921. That's open. And King George V goes over and makes a speech.

[Paul Rouse]

So he goes to Belfast, doesn't he, to open the new Northern Ireland Parliament, as you said last time, the supreme irony that the Ulster Unionists, who had been the most bitter, implacable opponents of Home Rule, now have their own Home Rule Parliament. And he opens it and he gives this speech written for him by South African leader Jan Smuts and approved by David Lloyd George. And George V calls for an end to strife in Ireland. And he says, I'd like all Irishmen to pause, stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, forgive and forget, and join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill. And this is perceived as an olive branch from, of all people, the King sort of saying, okay, you know, it's gone too far. Now is the time to put down the guns.

[Tom Holland]

And the King had been. I mean, he'd been appalled by the Black and Tans, I gather.

[Historian]

Yes. And really useful to Lloyd George. And it gave him a certain amount of COVID because there were people still within the Cabinet who were like, we're not negotiating. These are gunmen. These are a rabble. This isn't a nation. These are people who have no right to sit at the same table as us. But the feelings are going out, and there's press coming from within, in London to resolve this, that this is interminable.

[Tom Holland]

But can I just ask about the. The speech that George V gives in Belfast. Is there a sense that he needs to give that speech to establish the legitimacy of what will become, I suppose, the outpost of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland before entering into negotiations with the Republicans?

[Historian]

That's exactly right. That's the key thing in that whole thing. You can now talk about a discussion about what to do with Ireland because you've fixed up the Ulster universe problem.

[Tom Holland]

It's a bridgehead that they want to keep.

[Historian]

It allows and in any negotiation a British government to say, well, anything we're discussing, we'll discuss all of Ireland. But this actual parliament is in place already and operational for these six counties which are now going to be called, or will in the future be called Northern Ireland.

[Tom Holland]

And are they doing that because they want to keep that as part of their negotiations, or are they already thinking, you know, we could keep this as a base from which to prosecute the war if it goes on?

[Historian]

I don't think it's about the prosecution of war. I do think it's about the negotiations that are coming. There's a brilliant book by Ronan Fanning called Fatal Path, which it's brilliantly told story exactly what happened here within British politics. How the truce and then the treaty are constructed, but extending back to 1910 takes it all through brilliantly. Just an incredible, well written book.

[Paul Rouse]

Let's get to July 1921. A few weeks later, Eamon de Valera has returned from the United States. So we now have the first meetings between de Valera and Lloyd George and they are aimed at, you know, can we get a truce and can we get a. Some kind of forum where we'll strike a deal?

[Historian]

So there's a Truce agreed for the 11th of July 1921. And in respect of that truce, there is basically the idea there will be no violence on either side on that. And in the wake of that, David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, Eamon de Valera as President of the Irish Republic. There are four meetings and about 50 letters shared between them. And the idea is that they will find a basis for the establishment of negotiations which might lead to a treaty.

[Paul Rouse]

Kind of vague, yes.

[Historian]

And eventually on the 30th of November, and I know you're going to talk about the treaty in, in the next episode, but what was agreed was that a team of Irish negotiators would go to London and that there would be negotiations with His Majesty's Government. And I quote with a view to ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire may be best reconciled with Irish national aspirations.

[Tom Holland]

This is where de Valera's command of maths.

[Historian]

Is deeply involved in it. But you have to think about this. It is absolutely extraordinary that such a negotiation should be about to take place with a group who now represent a part of the Irish tradition, which was utterly marginal in very many respects in 1914 when the home Rule Bill had been enacted, although not. Had not become operational.

[Paul Rouse]

So can I ask a very simplistic question? What's the simplest explanation for how we got from there in 1914 to where we are now in 1921? Is the key factor the First World War, do you think?

[Historian]

I do. I think without the context of war, which truly changed the possibilities for armed rebellion based on the fact that there were guns in the country. Really though, I think the radicalization process was made entirely possible, facilitated and kicked on in large measure by the militarization through the UVF and their gun running activities. I think that was transformative of the situation because it gave the context in which the Irish Volunteers could be formed, which could then split in the context of war, which can then gather momentum through the opportunity to hold a rising to redeem for a generation the idea that there would be an Irish rebellion and rejection of the state. And from that moment on things truly changed.

[Tom Holland]

And Paul, can I ask, I'm sure it's an unanswerable question, but suppose the First World War hadn't happened. Suppose Home Rule is introduced. Do you think there would still have been an Irish revolution? Would the impetus for Ireland to leave the United Kingdom, full stop, have continued or.

[Historian]

Or would we become Wales or Scotland? Yes, I think that's a great question. It's obviously, as you, as you said yourself, an unanswerable question on it. There is a brilliant article in a book called Virtual History by Alvin Jackson which deals with that particular question. And I really. I would urge people to read that article. What I will say is that there were a group of people who were unreconciled to the idea of Home Rule being enough. They were not going to stop at Home Rule being enacted. Now, whether that Home Rule Parliament would have become in itself the means to achieve a greater freedom, or it would.

[Tom Holland]

Have been so the freedom to win freedom, as Collins will put it.

[Historian]

Yes. Would it be that? Or would it be the block on the achievement of freedom is the great unknowable?

[Paul Rouse]

Yeah. Would it be the Scottish Parliament or the Catalan Parliament?

[Historian]

Exactly, yeah.

[Paul Rouse]

All right, so the truce has been agreed. The negotiations will begin. And the next time on the Rest Is History, we will return with the Irish negotiating team to London to tell that extraordinary story. Some amazing characters. David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Michael Collins, of course. And offstage, the long shadow of Eamon de Valera.

[Tom Holland]

Very long.

[Paul Rouse]

And spoiler alert, they will not get the peace they are hoping for, they will find themselves embarking on a bitter and bloody civil war. But Paula, we should give you a massive round of applause at the end of that episode because you've done three episodes in one day. Yeah. A Herculean achievement. We are enormously indebted to you, as ever. The Rest is history. And we're indebted to the staff here at Croke park for hosting us. And thank you so much for setting it all up.

[Historian]

Yeah, thank you very much for the invitations. An absolute pleasure.

[Tom Holland]

Thank you so much, Paul.

[Paul Rouse]

Bye bye, bye, bye. Hi, everybody.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

You're still here right at the end of the episode. I'm very impressed by your commitment. But listen, I have a question for you. I want to ask you something in confidence. Do you sometimes listen to the adverts on these episodes and do you sometimes think, do you know what I wish that the listeners to this podcast, I wish they were listening to an advert about my brand rather than the other stuff that Tom and Dominic are promoting on here. If you have thought that, there is of course only one way to find out what that would be like, you can disrupt the procession of adverts. You could be the next HSBC premiere or the many other tremendous companies that have advertised on the Rest Is History. And you could put your brand in front of millions of like minded listeners by advertising on the Rest Is History and indeed the other shows on the Goal Hanger network.

[Paul Rouse]

Now you may be thinking, I don't know what the Goal Hanger Network is.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Gohanger are the company behind this very show. And if you are in the market to increase the value of your brand, Goal Hanger would love to hear from you. You can register your interest or indeed your company's interest by going to gohanger.com right now. And that is Goal. G o a l hanger h-a n g e r dot com.