Killing of Henry Wilson
Introduction from the Chronology
Henry Wilson is shot dead outside his home in Eaton Sq in London -
he had been Chief of the Imperial General Staff until February 1922 after which
he was appointed as Military Adviser to the Northern Ireland government. Also, at the time of his death, Wilson was
a Unionist MP.
More Detail
On the morning of his killing, he
had been at a ceremony in Liverpool Street train station in London at which he
unveiled a plaque to the 1,200 men of the Great Eastern Railway company who
were killed in World War One. In his
speech, he said “We soldiers count as our gains our losses. In doing what these men thought was right
they paid the penalty.” Jeffrey notes
that the press made much play of the words he spoke (Jeffrey (2006), pg
281).
After the ceremony, Wilson took
the underground (in full uniform) to Charing Cross station and then took a
taxi. When he reached home at 36 Eaton
Place around 2.30pm, he was attacked by two men. He was shot six times including two fatal
shots to the chest.
Wilson was shot by Reggie Dunne
(O/C London Battalion IRA) and Joseph O'Sullivan. They tried to run away
but were caught. (Their attempted escape was not helped by the fact that
O'Sullivan had a wooden leg.) Both Dunne and O'Sullivan were tried
at the Old Bailey and received death sentences on July 18th.
In a statement (which he was not allowed to read to the court), Dunne said that
Wilson was the “man behind what is known in Ireland as the Orange Terror”. As Military Advisor to the NI government “he
raised and organised a body of men known as the Ulster Special Constables, who
are the principal agents of his campaign of terrorism”. Both men were subsequently hanged on August
10th. Later that day, the Wilson family home at Currygrane,
Co. Longford was burnt down.
For some background on Wilson –
see Feb-14-22/1; Mar-17-22/2 and Mar-24-22/.
Also, for Wilson’s clandestine actions undermining the democratically
elected British government during the Curragh Mutiny in 1914, see Fanning
(2103), pgs 109-117.
Maurice Hankey writes in his diary on June 22nd
(after spending the evening at the Grosvenor Hotel with Llyod George and other
British ministers) “I fear Henry Wilson brought this on himself by his very
bitter attitude towards the Irish policy of the Govt., and he was suspected by the
extremists of having caused the anti-Sinn Fein pogroms in Belfast” (Roskill (1972), pg 265).
Matthews says that Wilson’s assassination
made “Churchill soon forget that only a few weeks earlier he had held Wilson and de Valera equally culpable for the violence
raging in the six counties”. Neville
Chamberlain (brother of Conservative Party leader, Austen) wrote to Ida
Chamberlain on June 24th saying that Wilson’s assassination was
“enough to make anyone despair of Ireland and curse the Irish as a hopeless and
impossible race” (which must be one of the more extreme cases of being able to
see the mote in another’s eye without being able to see the beam in your own
eye). The New Statesman says that Wilson “with his fanatical Orangeism, … his
powerful and inflammatory speeches, did more, perhaps, than any other man” to
create the current situation in Northern Ireland “and to promote that spirit of
ruthless and stupid retaliation which has led to his own death”.
One of the lasting questions has
been whether Collins ordered Wilson’s assassination? Hopkinson adduces some
oral testimony that Collins was involved in the planning of the shooting;
Curran also considers this evidence and concludes “there is no conclusive proof
that Collins ordered the assassination” but Phoenix says that it was
carried out “almost certainly at Collins’ direct instigation”. Joe
Sweeney says that he met Collins on the day of the shooting and asked him if it
was an official job. Sweeney says that Collins answered ‘yes’.
Sweeney was pro-Treaty (Sweeney quoted in Griffith and O’Grady (1999), pg
281). There is little doubt that many in
the Irish leadership held Wilson directly responsible for the sectarian killing
of Catholics in Northern Ireland.
However, in a detailed investigation of the killing, Hart concludes that
it is likely that Dunne and O’Sullivan acted alone. He concluded “For two young Irish idealists
[both were 24] to take matters into their own hands and shoot a hated foe was
not a particularly unusual act in the summer of 1922” (Hart (2003), pg 220)
On the evening of the killing,
there is a hurried British cabinet meeting to discuss the situation. A conference is called for the next day.
Llyod George sends a letter to Collins saying that “the ambiguous position of
the Irish Republican Army can no longer be ignored … Still less can Mr Rory
O’Connor be permitted to remain with his followers and his arsenal in open
rebellion in the heart of Dublin … organising and sending out from this centre
enterprises of murder not only in the area of your Government but also in the
Six Northern Counties and in Great Britain … His Majesty’s Government cannot
consent to a continuance of this state of things”. According to Kissane, he also says that the
British aid had been given to various dominions in the past when rebels
challenged their authority, and it was available to the Irish in the form of
artillery and other assistance. There is
a full cabinet conference the following day.
See Jun-23-22/1.