Tony Gaynor reviews "Mayo: The Irish Revolution 1912 – 23". By Joost Augusteijn. Four Courts Press (2023)
Mayo: The Irish Revolution 1912 – 23. By Joost Augusteijn. Four Courts Press (2023), 240pp. €24.95. ISBN 978-1-84682-585-9
Mayo made a significant contribution to Irish history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It witnessed the birth of the Irish Land League, founded by Mayo man, Michael Davitt, in Castlebar in 1879, and the United Irish League, founded by William O’Brien at Westport in 1898. The county also had a strong constitutional nationalist tradition, with John Dillon serving as MP for east Mayo from 1885 to 1918. Its contribution to the ‘Decade of Centenaries’, 1912-1923, is less well known, and this is the subject of the latest work by Joost Augusteijn, Mayo: The Irish Revolution, 1912-23.
This marks the twelfth publication in the series of county histories produced by Four Courts Press to mark the Decade of Centenaries. In this welcome addition, Augusteijn has produced a volume that is well researched, drawing upon a wide range of primary and secondary sources, but also very accessible and readable.
In chronicling events in Mayo during this formative period of Irish history, Augusteijn surfaces a number of interesting themes. One is that the radicalisation of opinion in the county after 1912, illustrated very clearly by the eclipse of the once dominant Irish Parliamentary Party by Sinn Féin, was a very gradual process. As was the case elsewhere in Ireland, the pace and intensity of that process was impacted by the reaction to events occurring outside the county, such as the Larne and Howth gun running, the outbreak of the First World War, the mishandling by the British authorities of the military response to the 1916 rising, the conscription crisis in the spring of 1918, and the general election of December 1918.
Another (related) theme that emerges from Augusteijn’s work is the extent to which local factors were also important in promoting radicalism in Mayo. The Irish Volunteer Force was initially slow to gain traction in the county, with the first confirmed Volunteer units only established in January 1914. However, the movement received an important stimulus with the appointment of Colonel Maurice Moore, a native of Ballyglass, as Inspector General of the Volunteers. In a similar manner, while the immediate response to the 1916 rebellion in Mayo was one of hostility or apathy towards the rebels (the local RIC reported that that ‘people are generally pleased that the Sinn Fein rebellion ended so quietly’), the execution of Major John McBride in May 1916, who had grown up in Westport, coupled with the impassioned speech by local MP John Dillon in the House of Commons in praise of the courage of the rebels, contributed to a reassessment of the Rising. This confluence of national events and local factors contributed to what Augusteijn describes as ‘a sea-change in local politics’.
Augusteijn’s study also highlights the lack of significant IRA military activity in the county during the War of Independence. This is perhaps surprising given the sustained increase in local IRA membership during the period and the county’s strong tradition of activism during the Land War and the Plan of Campaign. Direct engagements with the forces of the crown were relatively infrequent in comparison to other counties. Indeed, the lack of an effective IRA threat in parts of the county emboldened the RIC to reopen four police barracks that had previously been evacuated. The evidence supports Augusteijn’s assessment that ‘the conflict had been of relatively low intensify in Mayo’.
The lack of arms is identified by Augusteijn as the main reason for the lack of IRA military activity, but it could be argued that the effectiveness of the British response to the threat of revolution in the county played an equally important role in containing the extent of IRA violence.
In its account of the situation in Mayo in the aftermath of the signing of the Treaty in December 1921, Augusteijn’s work effectively captures the confusion that existed at local level as pro- and anti-Treaty forces wrestled to establish political and military dominance. The strength of the anti-Treaty position was vividly demonstrated during a visit by Michael Collins to Mayo in April 1922, in an effort to generate support for the Provisional Government in advance of the election of a new Dáil in June. Collins was forced to abandon his intended public address in Castlebar due to the sustained and effective barracking by a vocal anti-Treaty element in the crowd, and he was left to rue the temerity of those he dismissed as the ‘Green and Tans’.
As the Civil War began, the anti-Treaty military position appeared strong in the county, with a significant force under arms, and roads, bridges and railway lines either trenched or torn up in an effort to delay an expected advance by the forces of the Provisional Government. However, the superior numbers and firepower available to the new National Army, combined with a lack of sympathy among the local catholic hierarchy and sections of the local press, led to a gradual erosion of the authority of the anti-Treaty position in Mayo. The National Army received a warm welcome from large portions of a population grown tired of years of conflict and the consequent economic disruption – one example of which was the closure of the woollen mills in Foxford with the loss of employment for 300 people. However, despite the order by the IRA Army Council to cease fire and dump arms in April – May 1923, some anti-Treaty republicans continued to refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the new government and were willing to employ violence against the forces of the Free State. This culminated in Mayo having the dubious honour of experiencing the final National Army casualty of the Civil War, on 31 August 1923.
These are just some of the themes that emerge from Augusteijn’s work, which represents a very valuable addition to our understanding of the interplay between the local and the national during the Decade of Centenaries. It is recommended as a book that will appeal to historians and the more general reader alike.
Reviewed by Dr Tony Gaynor, Director of Governance, Maynooth University.
Author of Commanders of the British Forces in Ireland, 1796-1922 (Four Courts Press, 2023)
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