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). 

 

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