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I would like to thank Kitty Harney and the committee for inviting me to speak here today on the 90th anniversary of the death of one of Ireland’s greatest soldiers, General Liam Lynch.
Although Kitty describes me as a historian, this I am not – at least in the formal sense.
I have not studied history in any of our universities where all too commonly the history encouraged and promoted is that which satisfies the requirements of present day politics.
The history I know is that given to me at home and in listening to the conversations of that generation that is now passing.
It is the history of the roadside crosses and memorials to fallen soldiers, it is the history that is spoken of at the fireside
and read from well thumbed books handed from reader to reader. It is Ireland’s true history.
It was through this history that I came to know of Liam Lynch, chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army.
My Grandmother Madge Clifford was Liam Lynch’s personal secretary for the last five months of his life.
In the Tan War, she worked with Austin Stack in the department of home affairs in Dublin
When the Civil War started she was one of the few women in the Four Courts Garrison and one of only a handful of republicans to escape following the fall of the republican headquarters
to british artillery and Free State forces. From July to November, she worked with Ernie O’Malley as his secretary who was assistant chief of staff
commanding the northern and western divisions. In November, on a Saturday morning, O’Malley was captured after a shoot out in their safe house in Aylsbury Road, Dublin and Lynch requested Madge to work with him. In November of 1922, Lynch had set up
his headquarters in the Tower House in Santry. From this large house in its own grounds, the home of a wealthy business family
the republican war effort in the defence of the republic was coordinated. It was here that Liam Lynch,
Moss Twomey, PJ Ruttledge Madge Clifford worked night and day as the tide of war continued to turn in favour of those for whom power was more important than principle.
By April 1923, the military situation on the field of battle was grim. A policy of executions which their imperial masters
shied away from had been implemented, mass murders of unarmed prisoners and imprisonment of thousands had brought the once powerful republican
divisions to the brink of defeat. But still they fought on. Lynch decided that his place was to be with the men who still stood
in the field of battle defending the republic of 1916 against overwhelming and unmerciful Free State power. And so he was to move his HQ to the area along the Cork Kerry border
where resistance continued. The events of the various meetings that he had with the IRA executive council in this area are well documented.
Liam Lynch was a fit and agile man but after five months confined in his Dublin headquarters, he had lost his speed and so as he and his comrades
ran along the mountain side here, he lagged a little behind, enough to be with the range of the bullet that was to kill him. And so died Liam Lynch but not his cause.
And so we are here today to remember this brave soldier of the republic. However remembrance is a complex thing. So what are we here to remember. A person, well known or unknown is more than just a name and a few dates that get inscribed on a tombstone
We are all to a great extent what we believe in and all the moreso when we live in the service of those beliefs. The poet WB Yeats once asked in one of his poems, ‘how can we tell the dancer from the dance’
Similarly we cannot, nor should we, separate the man from his beliefs. And so it is with Liam Lynch. We are gathered here today to remember Liam Lynch the man, the soldier, but also to remember the cause that he was dedicated to and ultimately died for.
Next month, they will gather in Béal na Blath to remember Michael Collins, the man, but not what the cause fought for. They will separate Collins the man from Collins the rebel, the man who fought in GPO,
the man who commanded a squad of ruthless assassins from the pubs of Dublin, the man who ordered the killing during the truce of General Herny Wilson, the scourge of the beleagured northern nationalists
and the Michael Collins armed the IRA units to attack the Six County government in May 1922. They have managed to separate the man from his beliefs,
at least those he held until the last eight weeks of his life – and so with principles removed the great and good of the twenty six counties can come and be seen before the media’s cameras.
And who remembers Frank Aiken, who took Liam Lynch’s position as chief of staff but could not ever take his place in history. A man that quickly shed his principles, if he had any to start with,
in the pursuit and maintainance of political power for its own sake. The man who organised interment and executions of those who had, like Liam Lynch, had declared from a republic
and would live under no other law. In 1983 Aiken was buried in Camlough, South Armagh, in a funeral guarded by British soldiers and ignored by the local population.
This was in marked contrast to the funeral of hunger Striker Raymond McCreesh two years earlier where tens of thousands attended.
And who gathers in Glasnevin to remember DeValera. Perhaps they would if he had stood by his allegiance to the republic of 1916 rather than using the twenty six county state as his own personal fiefdom
and using the methods of Lloyd George and Richard Mulcahy to crush those who still declared for the Republic and would live under no other law.
And so this is the difficulty with Liam Lynch. It is not possible to separate the man from his beliefs – he knew what he stood and acted for and could not continence any compromise
in the pursuit of a republic of all Ireland under the unfettered control of the people of Ireland.
And for those who seek to lead politically in this partitioned state remembering a figure of Liam Lynch’s stature would prove a problem. The acceptance of a British border fell far short of Liam Lynch’s 32 County Republic
For those who would accept what amounted to home rule for the North and South in the 20th century version of the old Tudor policy of Surrender and Regrant, remembering Liam Lynch
would be an embarrassment – a Banquo at their feast. Politically they could not criticise his aim of a totally free Ireland, at least not openly. And so this towering figuring had to be denigrated.
They would claim that he was somebody who was just a soldier and not interested in peace. However, in March 1922 as the stronger Republican forces in Limerick under Ernie O’Malley and a weaker Free
Again in July 1922 when IRA forces entered Limerick City, Lynch ordered a ceasefire to allow time for a negotiated settlement and to stop Irishmen attacking Irishmen – this time was used by Michael Brennan
and his Free State forces get the reinforcement and artillery he needed to retake the city when once again another Limerick Treaty was broken.
It is the accepted position now that the Civil War dragged on through the winter and spring and into the summer of 1923 because of Liam Lynch’s refusal to halt the fighting. Even those leaders who were on the Republican side
and whom a few years later would accept the Free State position on partition in exchange for political power in a 26 county state would blame Liam Lynch as they washed their hands of the republic
that they had originally pledged allegiance to. However this must not be left unchallenged. The Free State was not interested in a negotiated peace. Attempts at political and military pacts in the
weeks prior to the attack of the Four Courts failed because the Free States British patrons demanded that there was not going to be a republic. A peace agreement that halted fighting in Limerick in July 1922
was broken by Free State forces. When the Vatican intervened with peace envoys in September 1922, Mulcahy sent them packing. The total destruction of the Irish Republic that had been established in 1919
was what had been demanded and that was what Mulcahy, O’Higgins would deliver to their imperial paymasters. The British Field Marshal, Montgomery summed it in a letter to General Percival
Lord George was really right in what he did. We could have quashed the rebellion but it would have broken out again
The only way therefore was to give them some form of self government and let them squash the rebellion themselves. They were the only people that could really stamp it out.’
Prior to the Civil War the soldier of the republic were offer commissions and regular pay in the Free State army that was being established to roll back the gains of the Tan War.
The vast majority of the fighting men refused these bribes though times were hard economically. During the war, thousands upon thousands were imprisoned but these men could have regained their freedom
if they signed a document forsaking the republic, but they did not. In prison yards men were placed in front of firing squads, and if they had forsaken their principles and signed,
they too would have been spared. I would ask how could Liam Lynch sign any document that would surrender what remained of his army and the defence of the Republic – how could he betray the sacrifices of his people – they were not his betray.
But surrender was not what Mulcahy and O’Higgins wanted. They wished for total destruction of what remained of the republic as this was what was demanded by their imperial masters.
So even when the remnant of the once great republican army left the field of battle and the guns fell silent on the hills and streets of Ireland, Free State firing squads still were ordered to continue
their grim work. Men still starved and died in prison. Republicans were still hounded and killed as before whether in the Dublin mountains or the hills of Kerry. Thousands of Republicans were kept in prisons and thousand more forced to emigrate,
there was to be no place for such men of principle in the new Free State. Even when there was no military threat to their new state, Mulcahy, O’Higgins and their minions continues to pulverise their opponents.
The civil war did not end quickly because Liam Lynch would not surrender as historians would have you believe, it was prolonged because the Free State needed to completely destroy republic declared in 1919 and 1916.
Principles should be never be surrendered. Those who took Liam Lynch’s place, DeValera and Aiken would have no such compunctions. They would remember the sacrifices of their republican comrades as long as was expedient to do so
But there would be was to be ‘No Nation Once Again’. With the drug of power now flowing in the veins set about bargaining away their republican principles until we are left with the country that we have today.
And what is that? Twenty six counties ruled from abroad by foreign faceless men who dictate our every decision for the benefit of foreign bankers. Continuing rule by the British Crown in the six counties
supposedly with parity of esteem, whatever that is. Political leaders who with the arrogance of a dictator can declare that matters of conscience must take second place to the necessity
of party politics and that power must be maintained whatever the cost to the born and unborn. We have huge unemployment. There is the emigration of a whole generation and the enslavement of what remains by high taxation and welfare handouts
The suppression of our culture and history continues as does lip service to our native language and England’s queen being openly welcomed on the streets of Terence MacSwiney’s Cork.
All this is the price of surrendering of our nationhood. The Ireland of today is not a good place. It is country which has lost its soul.
Where government policy is to remove religion and then history from those schools where a nation entrusts education of its children.
These are to be replaced by whatever the ‘Captains of Industry’ require.
To use some lines of a poem written by Bobby Sands ‘Tom Barry is dead and Cork’s asleep, MacSwiney’s cause has been sold’. All very depressing But he later in this poem he goes on to say:
but a few still whisper Seán Tracey’s name by heartened fires in a dancing light’ and that is obviously you who are gathered here today. The faithful few.
Further in the poem he questions forlornly ‘Who still cares for Kerry’s Graves’. Well Kerry’s graves and monuments are well cared for, as are the memorials to our heroes through the thirty two counties by the ceaseless work
of the men and women of the National Graves Association and by local volunteers and by the few who just refuse to forget, their act of defiance.
As long as we keep our history alive, the ideals and sacrifices of men such as Liam Lynch, Dinny Lacey, Paddy Dalton will not die. But do not depend on schools or the RTE or university professors to pass on the history of your nation to your children
It is up to you, the few who still care, to do so. Collect and tell the stories – there is an innate interest in Irish people for knowledge of their past,
tell them how it was local men and women from their own parish and town who fought to free Ireland and not Michael Collins or DeValera. Tipperary was freed by Tipperary men, Cork by Cork men, Dublin by Dublin men and Kerry by Kerry men.
We must care for our monuments and graves as each one asks a very public question to those who don’t know – what happened here and why did these men die?
Official Ireland doesn’t want the answer to be known but it is the birthright of every Irish person to known their nation’s true history. The next generation are more curious and less bound to established political thinking and will ask the questions.
It is a proud revelation to them that their grandparents and great grandparents were indeed a party of these important events during the revolutionary period, but sadly nobody had told them.
They were denigrated as the terrorists, gunmen, irregulars, dissidents of their day but in reality they were Ireland’s true patriots, though the word has nowadays fallen into disuse or at best misuse.
It is you gathered here who are the guardians of Ireland’s past and not any civil servant, university professor or 26 six county president or government minister.
As long as you preserve and pass on this history, Liam Lynch and, more importantly, his cause will not be forgotten. It will serve as an inspiration and goal to future generations.
Mar focal scor, let me paraphrase the words of that patriot of 1798, Jemmy Hope, a man who say his cause crushed into the ground but lived to pass to future generations its noble principles.
‘Hope for success, and under all circumstances have your heart. You may live to see Ireland what she ought to be, but whether or not, let us die in the faith.
Go raibh maith agaibh agus An Phoblacht Abú.