Churchill Orders BA to Attack Pettigo
Introduction from Chronology
Churchill had been monitoring, from London, the situation on the Fermanagh/Donegal
border. He decides to use British troops
to attack Irish positons in Pettigo
(which is in Donegal). These BA troops
proceed to shell pro-Treaty positions in Pettigo, Co.
Donegal.
Three IRA volunteers – William
Kearney and Bernard McCanny and Patrick Flood - are
killed.
(McCluskey says that the three volunteers killed were Kearney, McCanny and the third was William Deasley.
However, the three names given above are named on the commemorative statue in
the centre of Pettigo. Ó Duibhir says that Deasley was killed in an accident some time afterwards in
the workhouse in Donegal Town.)
The British troops occupy parts of Pettigo
which is in Donegal. Collins contacts
Churchill demanding a joint inquiry into the British taking of some Free State
territory at Pettigo.
See Jun-07-22/1 for the next stage.
Comment
Llyod George was unhappy with Churchill’s actions. Llyod George writes a letter to Churchill,
which he copies to the king, in which he rebukes him. He describes Britain’s case on Ulster as not
a good one. He pointed out that, despite
the presence of 9,000 British troops in Ulster and “half maintaining the wholly
equipping another force of 48,000 Specials”, in two years “400 Catholics had
been killed and 1,200 had been wounded without a single person being brought to
justice … it is our business as a great empire to be strictly impartial in our
attitude towards all creeds … our
prestige depends on maintaining a stern impartiality”. He urged Churchill to keep on “the high
ground of the Treaty – the Crown, the Empire.
There we are unassailable. But if you come down from that height and
fight on the swamps of Lough Erne you will be overwhelmed”. Llyod George also says to Churchill on June
8th that, while there were supposed to be large force of IRA
preparing to attack Derry and Strabane, instead “we found 23 Free Staters on
Free State territory in Pettigo, of whom seven were
killed and 15 captured”.
According to Jones, Llyod George
compares Churchill [on June 8th] to a “chauffeur who apparently is
perfectly sane and drives with great skill for months, then suddenly he takes
you over the precipice. He thought there
was a strain of lunacy.”
The Conservative Robert Cecil later comments “I don’t think Winston
takes any interest in public affairs unless they involve the possibility of
bloodshed”.
Writing to Churchill, Collins
comments that “British troops who have hesitated … for many months against
savage anti-Catholic mobs in Belfast, have shown an astonishing readiness to become
involved with our troops on the six-county boundary-line.”
Ferriter notes that Llyod George “mixed frankness
with imperial delusion”. He could have
also pointed that hundreds of innocent civilians (the vast majority Catholic)
were killed by Crown Forces in the War of Independence with, except in a
handful of cases, members of the Crown Forces being brought to justice. Ferriter also
points out that the figure of 48,000 Specials was an exaggeration – actual
figure was around 30,000. However, as Mathews points out, the British
government were doing a lot more than “half-maintaining” the Specials.
McMahon places Churchill’s decision to use BA troops on Free State
territory in the context of the breakdown of the Collins-Craig pact saying that
“Whereas London had previously placed itself in a position of neutral
arbitrator between Dublin and Belfast, the British cabinet now backed Craig to
the hilt”. (This is despite the fact the
British cabinet has decided only two days earlier that it was “the duty of the
British government was to observe the strictest impartiality as between all
creeds and sections” – see Jun-02-22/2 and Llyod George’s humbug about
impartiality in his letter to Churchill quoted above). Like Llyod George, McMahon also says that
“Seven men from the Free State army were killed in an artillery barrage”. This
would seem to be incorrect unless they were referring to Belleek – see Jun-07-22/1
(but, in Belleek, there are different accounts of the number of Irish fatalities).