Pro-Treaty War Council

Introduction from the Chronology

A pro-Treaty War Council comes into being with Michael Collins as Commander-in-Chief; Richard Mulcahy as Minister of Defence and Chief-of-Staff and Eoin O'Duffy as assistant Chief-of-Staff and commander of the south western division. 

More Detail

The minutes of the meeting of the Dáil and Provisional Government cabinets from the morning of July 12th state that “Mr Collins announced that he had arranged to take up duty as Commander-in-Chief of the Army”.  The minutes of the cabinet meeting which took place in the evening of the 12th state that Collins announced the creation of the War Council of Three.  Regan says that “The authority for these appointments came from no visible source other than Collins’s own” (Regan (2013), pg 121).  This seems to overstate the case, as the very least, members of the joint cabinets acquiesced in these appointments.  Also, Hopkinson says that this War Council never met again.  

The anti-Treaty publicists called these changes the setting up of a military dictatorship.  In Poblacht na nEireann on July 15th, Count Plunkett called the Provisional Government a “colonial junta” and said that it was carrying out a war of reconquest on the behalf of the British.

Regan argues that the setting up of the War Council amounted to a military dictatorship saying that “circumstances granted Collins in theory if not in practice dictatorial powers” (Regan (1999), pg 80). Also see Regan (2013) pgs 9-18 and 91

Back