A View North History comes to life in Republican News

By Jack Holland

A historical gem arrived in the mail recently, thanks to republican veteran George Harrison — a copy of Republican News, the newspaper of the IRA, dated September 1942. Among much else, it contains the letter sent by Tom Williams, condemned to death for the killing of an RUC constable five months earlier, to the IRA’s then chief of staff, Derry man Hugh McAteer.

Williams was hanged in Crumlin Road Prison on the morning of Sept. 2, 1942, the only one of the six IRA members who had originally been condemned to death for the shooting to suffer that fate.

The letter has been often quoted in standard histories of the republican movement. Still, it is a different thing to see it in its original context — in the fading print of more than 50 years ago in the columns of a long-forgotten news sheet.

It is a document that is moving in its earnestness, sincerity, and high-mindedness, one that takes the reader back to a time when such qualities were commonly associated with the republican movement.

Williams wrote the letter before the others had had their sentences commuted. He is eager to reassure his chief of staff that he and his comrades are going to their deaths with pride and courage, happy to "follow in the footsteps of those who have given their lives to Ireland and the Republic." He is confident that the IRA will achieve its goals with the renewed offensive under way at the time and writes: "After twenty years of slumber our Nation will once again strike, please God, at the despoilers who have infringed the nation’s liberty and freedom and murdered her sons and daughters; who have given us a foreign tongue and shall, please God, strike and strike hard and make the tyrants go on their knees for mercy and forgiveness." He dismisses with contempt any suggestion that the IRA shall "make the mistake of 1921. No, No, ’tis men like you and your staff," writes Williams, "will see to it that no farcical so-called treaty shall in any way be signed by a bunch of weak-kneed and willed Irishmen."

Williams’s confidence of victory now seems extraordinarily naive. How could the IRA, which by the 1940s had been reduced to a handful of activists, expect to bring the British empire to its knees? The doctrine of "England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity" might have seemed to the IRA to apply to the contemporary situation, with Britain battling against Nazi Germany. But it soon became apparent, after Williams’s death, that even without a strong British military presence in Northern Ireland, the IRA was hopelessly overmatched.

This becomes obvious reading the column entitled "With The Republican Forces," detailing the series of attacks launched in Northern Ireland at the beginning of September 1942. There were six incidents in the first 10 days. In the first, fire was exchanged with the RUC in Cullaville, Co. Armagh, with one constable being wounded and another captured. But later Irish troops arrested two volunteers — Liam Cotter and Jerry Mahoney, both from Listowel, Co. Kerry. (After his release from prison, Cotter moved to New York, where he linked up with George Harrison to form an arms-supply network which ran guns to the IRA for about 25 years.)

The next day the front of police barracks in Randalstown, Co. Antrim, was demolished by a mine and a was sergeant injured. On Sept. 4, an ambush of an "enemy patrol" in Belfast resulted in one volunteer, James Bannon, being wounded, and a mine failed to explode during an attack on a barracks in Belleek, Co. Fermanagh. Republican News claims that "the enemy were on the point of surrendering when strong reinforcements arrived from Kesh. . . . Our troops withdrew in good order, suffering no casualties."

The next day, Sept. 5, the IRA killed two policemen in Clady, Co. Tyrone. Things did not go as planned, however, in Belfast. According to Republican News: "At 8 a.m. shots were exchanged between our forces and an enemy patrol in Sultan Street. . . . One of the enemy was wounded. Vol. Gerard Adams was wounded by police fire."

Gerard Adams, the father of the present Sinn Fein president, was supposed to have been part of an ambush, but his colleague did not show up, possibly thanks to a massive police raid on the Falls Road area the previous night. Shots were exchanged as Adams was being chased by an RUC patrol that had become suspicious of him. He was captured and convicted of possession, the more serious charges of attempted murder having been dropped.

Five days later, the Belfast IRA lost two more of its men when volunteers Graham and McCormick were "surrounded by strong enemy forces" in a house on the Crumlin Road. "Both volunteers kept firing until their ammunition was exhausted. They were then forced to surrender."

The campaign petered out, with only one more incident before the end of the year — an attack on Donegall Pass RUC station in Belfast in October that claimed a policeman’s life.

The following year, a police officer was shot dead by the IRA during an attempted robbery at Ross’s Mill, Clonard.

After that the IRA would fall dormant, thanks to arrests and general demoralization. It would not be until 1956 that the organization would feel strong enough to resume its armed campaign.

In the meantime the movement had reached the verge of extinction.

When Adams Sr. went to jail he found himself inside with McAteer, the chief of staff, who had been lifted in October 1942. And though McAteer escaped with three other volunteers in January 1943, the IRA never came close to fulfilling the goal that Tom Williams so confidently predicted it would. For republicans, the 1940s would prove to be a time of confusion, isolation and disintegration.

Republican News ends its September 1942 edition with "A Message To Young Irishmen" who are, it says, "faced with the most critical situation that any Irish generation was faced with. . . . In your hands rest the destinies of the Irish nation. Young Irishmen! your enemy the British Empire is at war. The cruel Tyrannous Empire that scourged your Nation; that robbed its freedom." It asks: "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" But the world was consumed by the titanic struggle against Nazism and Fascism, in which many of those young Irishmen appealed to fought. Shoot-outs in obscure villages or in the back streets of Belfast seemed irrelevant to it all.

Williams’s bravery could not redeem the cause for which he died from that fact.