Propaganda of Dáil Éireann: From Truce to Treaty

PROPAGANDA OF DÁIL ÉIREANN: FROM TRUCE TO TREATY KEIKO INOUE* propaganda had played a significant role in the struggle for Irish independence since the nineteenth-century Young Irelanders and the Fenians. Prior to the 1916 Easter Rising, separatist groups such as the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, and James Connolly ’s supporters published a formidable number of newspapers, pamphlets , and booklets promoting their doctrines. During 1917 and 1918, the newly united Sinn Féin party also managed a systematic propaganda campaign to educate and to gain popular support. In the three-year period following the establishment of Dáil Éireann in January 1919 to December 1921, when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, propaganda remained a major tool of the state, a reality evident in the status of the Department of Propaganda (or Publicity)1 as one of the oldest departments of Dáil Éireann . This article will examine propaganda of the Dáil during the period of truce: from the cease-fire of 11 July 1921 to the signing of the AngloIrish Treaty on 6 December 1921. Although minor collisions erupted between Irish Volunteers and the RIC and British Army, violence increased after the January 1919 shootings at Soloheadbeg. With the arrival of 12,000 “Black and Tans” and the Auxiliary police, guerrilla struggle escalated into the Anglo-Irish War. In the face of continuing violence, Dáil Éireann, Sinn Féin, and other separatist organizations were declared illegal, and most of the separatist press, inPROPAGANDA OF DÁIL ÉIREANN: FROM TRUCE TO TREATY 154 *For permission to quote from manuscript sources, I am grateful to Dr. Garret FitzGerald, Miss Ann Gallagher and the Board of Trinity College Library, and the Franciscan Library, Killiney. 1 In March 1921, at de Valera’s request, the name of the department was changed from “Propaganda” to “Publicity.” De Valera found the name “propaganda” had “acquired an evil odor” (de Valera to Childers, 23 March 1921, de Valera Papers, Franciscan Library, Killiney, 160). cluding Nationality, the official organ of Sinn Féin, was suppressed. Two months after the introduction of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (9 August 1920), martial law was proclaimed in four counties. Within such circumstances the Dáil publicity department under Desmond FitzGerald, and under Erskine Childers during FitzGerald’s imprisonment , sought to manage an effective propaganda campaign. Particularly intent on shaping international opinion, the publicity department maintained close connections with the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Commerce of the Dáil, as well as with supporters in foreign countries —and thus succeeded in creating a worldwide propaganda network.2 The most important medium for Dáil propaganda was the Irish Bulletin , the daily organ of the Dáil—first published on 11 November 1919 under Arthur Griffith, Robert Brennan, the Sinn Féin Director of Propaganda , and FitzGerald. Soon Frank Gallagher joined the staff and while maintaining his duties as an assistant for the director of propaganda served as an important writer on the staff of the news sheet. Despite raids, staff arrests, and the capture of machinery, the Bulletin never missed an issue, serving as an important support for Irish forces plagued by chronic shortages of arms and ammunitions. C.S. Andrews recalls that the Irish Bulletin was “worth several Flying Columns”: the British campaign of terror could have been conducted relatively quietly had it not been for exposure by the Bulletin. Similarly, the extent of IRA resistance would never have reached the outside world without the news sheet.3 Appreciation also came from the British side, for as early as May 1920, General Sir Nevil Macready, commander-in-chief of the British Army in Ireland, wrote to Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary of Ireland, to draw his attention to the Irish Bulletin and to urge him to devise measures to counter it.4 Greenwood’s brother-in-law, L.S. Amery, recalled that skillful Irish propaganda about Black and Tan atrocities “helped to confuse the public mind and create a sense of frustration and of dissatisfaction with the apparent helplessness of the Government.”5 GreenPROPAGANDA OF DÁIL ÉIREANN: FROM TRUCE TO TREATY 155 2 For more...