Patriotism divided, the memories of a general
Risteard Mulcahy unearths the views of his father on the republican movement's inner conflicts, writes Charles Lysaght
My Father The General
Risteard Mulcahy
Liberties Press €17.99
General Richard Mulcahy has been described as the forgotten hero of the Irish revolution. Having taken part in the 1916 rebellion and been interned afterwards, he became chief of staff of the volunteers during the war of independence.
Never a doctrinaire republican, he sided with Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins in favour of the agreement with the British government setting up the Irish Free State, often called the Treaty. He was chief of staff of the army that defeated the republicans in the subsequent civil war, and served as a minister in Cumann na nGael governments.
In 1944 he succeeded WT Cosgrave as leader of Fine Gael but stood aside to allow his party colleague John Costello to become Taoiseach, when in 1948 and 1954, Fine Gael became the major party in coalition governments. Mulcahy served as minister for education on both occasions.
He stood idly by when, in 1948, the Costello government reneged on the commitment given by Mulcahy on behalf of Fine Gael to remain in the Commonwealth. He seems to have made little impact in his department or in the government generally. The contribution claimed for him is that he reorganised Fine Gael so that it recovered from its lowest ebb in the mid-Forties.
In retirement in the Sixties, urged on by his distinguished physician son who is author of this book, he recorded his memories.
The historic value of this book, based largely on those memories, is the insight it gives into the bitter personal conflicts within the republican movement prior to independence and afterwards, in the Cumann na nGael government. The brusque Michael Collins and the abrasive Kevin O'Higgins may have inspired devotion in some but they antagonised many others and so created divisions.
De Valera was seen as a figure of compromise in the immediate pre-treaty period and his instant opposition to the treaty came as a surprise to many close to events; Erskine Childers was regarded as the malevolent influence that had led him astray.
Mulcahy insisted to the end of his days that there would have been no serious civil war without de Valera's leadership. In retrospect, it is clear that de Valera had little control over the men who took up arms in agreement with his views. He would have preferred to oppose the treaty constitutionally.
But he compromised his democratic credentials by joining in armed opposition to the clear wish of the majority of the population that the Treaty should be accepted. I recall his biographer Lord Longford telling me that this was the one part of his life about which de Valera felt unease.
Ruthless as the righteous often are, Mulcahy seems to have had no regrets about the execution of 77 republicans in the civil war, where he was the prime mover. He was never really a natural rebel and, God-fearing man that he was, he may have had scruples about the resort to physical force between 1916 and 1921 as he saw its ongoing legacy unfold. In 1955 he refused to take part in the commemoration of the successful engagement in Ashbourne during the 1916 rebellion, in which he played the leading role, during which nine Irish policemen were killed.
The author confesses difficulty in assessing his father's motivation for this refusal and for many of his other actions. The harvest reaped from their extensive interviews is not as fruitful as one might have hoped.
I would have welcomed more on Mulcahy's contribution as a minister in the Cumann na nGael government during its decline between 1927 and 1932 and on his relations with his wife's siblings in Fianna Fail. Was the decision of Fine Gael not to nominate Alfie Byrne as a candidate for president in 1951 influenced by the fact that the incumbent Fianna Fail president Sean T O'Kelly was married to Mrs Mulcahy's sister?
There is little on Mulcahy's personal finances. How did he acquire his handsome residence in Rathmines? Did he educate his family solely on the salary of a backbench TD?
Unlike most biographies written by sons, this book never descends into hagiography; the assessments are admirably measured and moderately expressed. Few would dispute the author's claim that Mulcahy was a devoted patriot who, as a politician, was unusually loyal and devoid of personal ambition. But he was also lamentably lacking in charisma and a boring speaker.
In the absence of more concrete evidence of his performance as politician or minister than is provided in this book, the accepted verdict that he made little impact on the subsequent politics of the State he defended so effectively at its foundation must still stand.
- Charles Lysaght
Originally published in
