[Phoenix]

Would it be true to say the IRA during the war of independence weren't as active in counties Laois,Offaly compared to the flying columns in Tipperary,Cork etc?
And what reasons would be for this rather inactivity?

[Derfil]

Queens county for starters. Biffos would go hand in hand with the queens.

[PatsytheNazi]

Originally Posted by Veles

Would it be true to say the IRA during the war of independence weren't as active in counties Laois,Offaly compared to the flying columns in Tipperary,Cork etc?
And what reasons would be for this rather inactivity?

From what I remember from reading in books by Tom Barry, Dan Breen, Ernie O'Malley etc, they blamed lack of activity in certain areas to poor local leadership rather than the volunteers themselves. I think in Guerilla Days in Ireland Tom Barry writes how local leaders in these quiet areas were more interested in making speeches and getting charged under some public order act* and sentenced to 2 or 3 months and then coming out proclaiming themselves as ' heros ' So this was probably the case in Laois/Offaly.

*Noticeably this never applied to British army officers and unionist politicans inciting the loyalists in the north east of the country ofcourse.

[jonniebgood1]

Originally Posted by PatsytheNazi

*Noticeably this never applied to British army officers and unionist politicans inciting the loyalists in the north east of the country ofcourse.

Was this common- violence following speeches by British Army officers? I am aware of much sectarianism (harland & wolff, etc) but would like to read more on the mentioned incitement speeches. I thought most of the violence in the north was reactionary, i.e. reprisals for actions by the opposing faction.

[Phoenix]

I know I'm bringing up an old thread again,but I often wonder why the local commanders never took the initiative against the British compared to other areas in the midlands such as Longford.

[cormacocomhrai]

Originally Posted by Aquila

I know I'm bringing up an old thread again,but I often wonder why the local commanders never took the initiative against the British compared to other areas in the midlands such as Longford.

Would you? Outgunned in a major way, effectively untrained and not being able to rely on a large section of the local population not to betray you. Across the three southern provinces the five most active counties of Munster (non-Waterford) were exceptions not the norm. Maybe the question should be why were they so violent? The question is basically why was the midlads so average in terms of violence?Even Dublin county was quiet enough when you cut out the urban area.

Different reasons in different areas for a limit in the level of activity during the period including lack of local support, poor quality training, poverty, terrain, a late start and bad luck, a lack of a tradition of resistance to British rule.
While a combination of the above factors would influence the level of violence ultimately a lot of it came down to leaders. Areas could become increasingly active even if they didn't reach west Munster levels of violence. An example of that is Donegal where the IRA campaign really came to life in 1921 and the same happened in West Mayo.

There's also a danger in judging the War of Independence as a body count competition between different counties but the military side was only aspect of the conflict. In areas of the west where there was little violent IRA activity they were still effectively in control of vast areas in the summer of 1920 because of local support, the effectiveness of police boycotts and the collapse of the local judicial system and basically didn't need to kill people, police or otherwise, to enforce their local authority. That wouldn't hold as much in the midlands but it would have been an issue in parts of it.

Offaly would have been more violent that Laois as it happens. There as a couple of ambushes in Offaly where the police suffered fatalities and a major attack on Clara barracks so it wasn't the case that it was completely inactive militarily.

[Farmer Pudsey]

Laois/Offaly is relatively flat and good land the villages were close to each other not like West Cork where you have sparsly populated country. This allowed Tom Barry to move his flying column around, the same with Tipperary they had access to the Galtees as had the East Limerick column. Also not every area had a commander as resourceful and as lucky as Tom Barry.
The only sucessful flying coloumn in the midlands was the north Longford column led by Sean McEoin. It was based in north longford which is an area of poor land that was not densely populated.

[cormacocomhrai]

Off itself flat land wasn't a reason for a lack of military activity though. East Limerick is flat and had one of the biggest ambushes in Dromkeen. North Galway is quite flat and was probably the area with the most prolonged activity in Co. Galway.

The idea of the population being dispersed etc. is an interesting point.

Wicklow is mountainous with a fairly dispersed population and saw little acitivity.

Also nothing to stop people attacking or sniping barracks in flat land.

It basically comes down to leadership again as you pointed out about Tom Barry.

[Fenian Army]

Much of it was down, as has already been said, to the local commanders.

I suggest reading Ernie O Malleys book, On another mans wound, basically it seems that areas elected the wrong people as commanders, people full of talk and lacking nerve, popular folk who would then do fcuk all shaming everyone under their command with their ineptitude and cowardice.

[cormacocomhrai]

Discipline has something to do with it as well and whether members of the volunteers in the early days saw themselves as revolutionaries or soldiers etc. There was a tension between in the volunteers between the gunmen and officers. It has to be remembered as well that an awful lot of the early activity was activists defying local leadership as well as, sometimes, the National leadership. You had gunmen in Munster like Breen and Treacy and Michael Brennan in Clare who were hauled across the coals by GHQ. Because these fellas had the early start they were then in a better position later to up the ante. In other areas where they were possibly under better central control they didn't have the same early start, found it harder to get arms and were then berated for not being as active as areas that were problematic for GHQ earlier. Again the question is why did Munster prove so violent not why other counties weren't as violent. Munster is the exception not the norm.

In the early days people often elected prominent local people for reasons of prestige. A natural enough reaction in a movement trying to increase its popularity. A bit unfair though to describe someone as being cowardly when anyone of us could have behaved in the same way. From 1920 if you were prominent in the volunteers/ Sinn Féin there was a strong chance that your house would be burned, you could look forward to a severe beating or even torture if arrested and while there might be a thousand well-armed enemies in your area you could muster ten rifles (with ten or twenty rounds per rifle) and an assortment of shot guns. Easy to let the fear catch a hold of you in that situation.

As for ineptitude as more local studies are carried out we'll see far more cases of that even in areas that were active. Drink itself doesn't seem to have been a problem in many cases but inadaquate storing of arms, poor positioning of ambushes, premature firing, loss of nerve in gun fights will come to light for a lot of the ambushes.

[Fenian Army]

Its not harsh, when they sat on their hands and did not fight despite having the capability to do so and hid at home with their families while the British were able to concentrate their forces in areas where men fought as a result of the aforementioned inactivity it was simply cowardly.

Men of talk, not action, crippled the republican movement.

[cormacocomhrai]

Originally Posted by Fenian Army

Its not harsh, .

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. It's fair enough for Tom Barry or Ernie O'Malley to make that call. I wouldn't be comfortable making that criticism never having been under fire.

Your right about the consequences of it for the active areas. GHQ recognised it and tried to share the burden.

[Fenian Army]

Originally Posted by cormacocomhrai

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. It's fair enough for Tom Barry or Ernie O'Malley to make that call. I wouldn't be comfortable making that criticism never having been under fire.

Your right about the consequences of it for the active areas. GHQ recognised it and tried to share the burden.

If I ever found myself in that position were I didnt have the bottle I would step down.

[cormacocomhrai]

Originally Posted by Fenian Army

If I ever found myself in that position were I didnt have the bottle I would step down.

That's a fair argument about stepping down as opposed to being cowardly. The ironic thing is though by stepping down they would have been putting themselves in far greater danger. British intelligence would still, most likely, have identified you as the local leader, if there was republican activity you would still have been a target and what was keeping you safe, the local network of sympathisers, would no longer be willing to provide you with shelter.

There was a local commandant in Galway who was, at one point, on the run from both the British (who identified him as being a dangerous gunman) and the IRA (who thought he was a British informer).

[Fenian Army]

Originally Posted by cormacocomhrai

That's a fair argument about stepping down as opposed to being cowardly. The ironic thing is though by stepping down they would have been putting themselves in far greater danger. British intelligence would still, most likely, have identified you as the local leader, if there was republican activity you would still have been a target and what was keeping you safe, the local network of sympathisers, would no longer be willing to provide you with shelter.

There was a local commandant in Galway who was, at one point, on the run from both the British (who identified him as being a dangerous gunman) and the IRA (who thought he was a British informer).

As I said, they were cowards.