Meeting of Anti-Treaty Army Executive
Introduction from Chronology
Anti-Treaty Executive meets in
Mrs Nugent's, Poulatar, Ballybacon, Co. Tipperary and decides on the minimum terms that
would be accepted in any peace negotiations. Also agrees to the formation
of an Anti-Treaty Government and pledges this Government support and allegiance
"while it functions as the Government of the Republic". De
Valera was to be ‘President of the Republic and Chief Executive of the
State’.
More Detail
The minimum peace terms included
a stipulation that Ireland must not be part of the British Empire. It
also said that any arrangement the Republican Government made with the British
or Free State governments had to be submitted to the Executive for
ratification. (In other words, they decided that the Executive alone would have
the last word on the issue of war and peace.)
Ten of the sixteen members of the
Executive were present at the meeting. Four were prisoners (Rory
O'Connor; Liam Mellows; Joe McKelvey and Peadar O'Donnell) so they were
replaced by Sean Lehane (for O'Donnell); Sean McSwiney (for Mellows); Con
Moloney (for O'Connor) and Frank Aiken (for McKelvey). They also set up
an Army Council consisting of Liam Lynch; Ernie O'Malley; Liam Deasy; Tom
Derrig and Frank Aiken. (Joe O'Connor; Con Moloney; and Michael Kilroy
are appointed to replace any member of the Army Council who is shot or
captured.)
The declaration calling for the
setting up of the Republican Government is signed by 13 people as
follows: Lynch as Chief of Staff; Deasy as Deputy Chief of Staff;
O’Malley as Assistant Chief of Staff; Con Moloney as Adj-Gen; Tom Derrig as
Asst Adj-Gen; Sean Lehane as OC 1st and 2nd Northern
Divisions; Aiken as OC 4th Northern Division; Frank Barrett as OC 1st
Western Division; Seamus Robinson as OC 2nd Southern Division; Tom
Barry of Operations Staff; Sean Moylan as OC Cork No.3 Brigade; Pax Whelan as
OC Waterford Brigade and Joe O’Connor as OC, 3rd Battalion, Dublin 1st
Brigade. The two absent members (Michael Kilroy and PJ Ruttledge) arrive
after the meeting had ended and endorse the decisions made.
The Executive agree unanimously
to execute all the members of the Dáil who voted for the Public Safety
Bill. However, instead of issuing a
general order to this effect, Lynch subsequently orders his men in Dublin to
kill nine members of the pro-Treaty government and two TDs to be arrested. This
was later enlarged – see Nov-27-22/1.
Hopkinson notes that this was the
first meeting of the Executive since the attack on the Four Courts in late June
except (as O’Donoghue notes) a meeting of the eight available members in Fermoy
on July 15th.
Kissane says that a major spur to
the formation of the anti-Treaty government was the RC Bishops’ pastoral (see
Oct-10-22/3) which stated that the pro-Treaty government was “the government
set up by the nation”. The anti-Treaty
Executive claimed that the pro-Treaty government was a usurpation and derived
its authority from the English parliament.