Joint pro- and anti-Treaty IRA offensive on Northern Ireland

Introduction from Chronology

On this date the joint pro- and anti-Treaty IRA offensive on Northern Ireland was due to start.  There was considerable activity in the area of the 3rd Northern Division but there is little action taken by the other IRA Divisions.

According to Hopkinson, this offensive was a dismal failure but, according to Phoenix, these co-ordinated attacks came as a severe shock to NI Government to which they responded with great force. 

More Detail

According to Hopkinson, the roots of this planned offensive were in efforts by Collins and Lynch (and other IRB men) to maintain IRA unity.  After the failure of Second Collins-Craig Pact, plans were laid to transport north a large consignment of arms.  Guns given to the Provisional Government by the British were given to anti-Treaty units who were to transport their own arms north so as avoid detection of their origin.  A number of volunteers (Macardle says 100) were also to go north with Sean Lehane from Cork taking over as O/C of 1st Northern Division (mostly Donegal) and 2nd Northern Division (mostly Derry and Tyrone) with Charlie Daly as his second in command. 

On May 19th, some attacks did take place in the 3rd Northern Division area (Antrim – including Belfast -  and North Down) with the burnings of Shane's Castle in Co. Antrim; Edencourt Castle on Carlingford Lough and Glenmona.  There was widespread burning in Belfast and Ballymena railway station was burned.  See also May-19-22/5.

Phoenix says that there was general activity through-out the 3rd Northern Division area with attacks on police barracks, ancestral homes and railways.  At least five stately homes damaged.  On May 19th, at least seven business premises were subject to arson attacks by the “Falls Firebugs” in Belfast (including Doran & Co. on Donegall Quay) and another eleven businesses in the city attacked on May 20th.  On May 21st, further businesses were targeted including Ferguson’s motor works on May St. and the Carnigie Library on the Falls Road.  There were numerous hoaxes which stretched the city’s fire brigades. 

It would seem that after the failure of the attack on Musgrave St police barracks, (see May-18-22/4) orders were given to not go ahead with some planned attacks.  However, this did not stop officers from the 3rd Northern complaining of lack of activity by the other northern divisions.  Indeed, Woods later explained to Mulcahy that he had to call off operations because the inaction of other divisions led to a great increase in his enemy forces in his area. 

It would seem that Tom Morris, as O/C of the pro-Treaty 2nd Northern Division (Derry and Tyrone) did call his men into action but their activities were hampered in their area of operation by their saturation by RUC and USC personnel (which included the Desertmartin killings – see May-19-22/4). 

Frank Aiken, for reasons unknown, as O/C of the 4th Northern Division (Armagh, South Down and Louth) did not mobilise his men as he was supposed on May 22nd.  Armed columns of men were assembled in Armagh and South Down when Aiken cancelled all offensive actions at the last moment.    

It would seem that other (mostly) southern based divisions were not brought into action.  In the 1st Northern (Donegal and Derry City), pro-Treaty O/C, Joe Sweeney, claimed that he never got any orders to mobilise.   (Also, pro- and anti-IRA units had an armed clash in Newtowncunningham in Co. Donegal - see May-04-22/3– which had greatly soured relationships between pro- and anti- forces in Donegal.) 

However, Phoenix says that the co-ordinated IRA attacks led the NI Government to unleash a terrible sectarian backlash against Belfast Catholics with 12 Catholics being killed on May 20th and 21st May and mob attacks on Catholic areas.  McDermott noted that the “failure of the May/June offensive severely disrupted the IRA in Belfast and no section of the organisation was particularly active after August 1922” (McDermott (2001), pg 257).

Hopkinson points out that this joint IRA offensive is a "sensitive and controversial subject because of the mistrust, secrecy and confusion involved, and its virtually total failure" (Hopkinson (1988), pg 83).  It was also sensitive because of duplicity involved on Collins' behalf.  However, the British found out about pro-Treaty involvement through captured documents and the public disagreements that broke out before the failure of the offensive (see Apr-22-22/2).  The British chose to turn a blind eye. 

Another controversial aspect was that Collins may not have informed his fellow cabinet ministers.  According to McGarry (quoted in Regan), the northern offensive “was directed by O’Duffy with the knowledge of Collins but not the cabinet” (Regan (2013), pg 90). However, Regan disputes that the cabinet did not know about the northern offensive and points out that, on April 22nd, O’Duffy accused Liam Lynch of withholding arms intended for the northern IRA and this accusation appeared in the press on April 26th (see Apr-22-22/2). 

Phoenix suggests that practically all IRA activity in the North was carried out by pro-Treaty forces (as practically all the IRA in the North had gone pro-Treaty).

As part of his argument that “Partition was a symbiotic southern nationalist and northern unionist construct” (Regan (2013), pg 51), Regan cites the Northern Offensive as one of the occasions when the objective of the southern nationalists in securing their net gains overcame their pan-nationalism saying that “the failed offensive identifies opposite interests within revolutionary nationalism on both sides of the border.  … the northern offensive defined a common southern interest that encompassed both pro- and anti-treatyite IRA members in opposition to the ideology of one nation and a single cause.  By threatening another catastrophic war that risked British re-intervention, or even perhaps reconquest, northern nationalists jeopardized the southern revolutionaries’ net gains” (Regan (2013), pg 61).  Of course, it could be argued that, given the looming possibility of a civil war in the south, neither the southern pro- or anti-Treaty sides wanted to commit their forces to a war in Northern Ireland (especially when they would face the considerable security forces of the northern state backed by the British Army – as was to happen at Pettigo – See Jun-04-22/3).  Nevertheless, Regan’s argument is well made that “It has long been a truism of southern politics that any modification of the border threatened to upset domestic interest and, potentially, the island’s stability” (Regan (2013), pg 62).  See also Regan (2013), pgs 62-67.

Of course, Collins could simply have been playing for time in order to build up his own pro-Treaty military forces.  Another possible reason for Collins’s involvement is given by Regan when he says “Collins’s aim, if only in part, appears to have been to prevent the anti-treatyites monopolizing the issue of partition and making [political] capital out of it for their anti-treatyite cause” (Regan (2013), pg 119).  This was to come to a head on June 27th. 

 

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