Of course, de Valera might not have been comfortable with the idea of moving the corpse to the City Hall. Even so, a more valid reason for the change in de Valera’s behaviour can be found in the following commentary on an incident which, by deduction, occurred after the body was moved to the Pro Cathedral on Thursday evening:
At the end of one meeting, some people from the new Brotherhood notified us [J.J. Ó Ceallaigh (Sceilg) and other members of a Sinn Féin funeral committee] that Michael Collins would be giving the Thomas Ashe graveside oration. Everyone was greatly surprised … In Irish[?] … That’s not possible … There was a long discussion, and it was agreed finally that we would just have a short speech … Cathal Brugha [in comparison?] would have given a [more?] lively speech whether in Irish or English … But neither Cathal nor any of his friends [de Valera, for example?] were expecting anything like that. That was not the case [however] for the false IRB.63
So, just as he went directly against de Valera’s wishes by running Joe McGuinness in the South Longford by-election in early May,64 Collins perceived de Valera as a competitor who had to be outmanoeuvred. And de Valera, for his part, given both his politico–military stature and his significant involvement in the arrangements thus far, must have been so offended that he felt unable to witness Collins’ speech.
Mulcahy was deeply involved in those machinations. For example, at the time of Ashe’s death, he became secretary of the Wolfe Tone Memorial Association (WTMA).65 Now, from an insider’s perspective, namely from the perspective of Patrick McCartan, the WTMA was little more than ‘a cover name for the Executive of the I.R.B’66 whenever the need arose to stage a prestige funeral, to organise the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown or to collect funds for the construction of nationalistic monuments.67 However, in this instance, Mulcahy was not a member of the executive because, other than Ashe, its other two members were Diarmuid Lynch and Seán Ó Murthuile, treasurer and secretary respectively.68 Nonetheless, in order to adequately discharge the requirements of the office of secretary of the WTMA, specifically the paperwork associated with the IRB’s involvement in Ashe’s funeral, he had to have been a prominent Brother, which is synonymous with saying that he was a non-executive member of the SC which had been formed two months previously.
But, similar to the proactive Harry Boland,69 Mulcahy became deeply involved in other ways as well. For example, as acting OC of the Dublin Brigade, he gave permission to Joseph Lawless to form a guard of honour of uniformed Fingal men at Ashe’s bedside during the first night and later devised and implemented a rota system to cope with similar demands coming from the four city brigades.70 But, much more audaciously, on the Friday, he took charge of the Volunteer guard of honour, this being the guard of honour which was assigned the unenviable task of gaining access to the City Hall, a building which was then heavily guarded due to being situated adjacent to Dublin Castle: ‘Mulcahy and Volunteer Guard enter City Hall’.71
Cosgrave’s account is a clear indication of just how tense the atmosphere was:
Representations having been made to me [as Sinn Fein member of Dublin corporation] that the coffin containing Thomas Ashe should lie in state in the City Hall, I directed the Secretary to the Finance Committee [of] Dublin Corporation, to hold a meeting for the purpose of granting the necessary permission to occupy the City Hall. There were soldiers on guard outside and inside the City Hall. At the meeting of the Committee it was suggested that the Lord Mayor [Lawrence O’Neill] should approach the authorities to facilitate the lying-in-state. The Lord Mayor met with a blank refusal. Meantime the cortege with volunteer guard was on its way.72
Besides, Collins had already prepared for the worst. Armed IRB men in civilian clothes were strategically positioned near and within the building73 and other IRB men were at the ready as backup in Parnell Square lest the British army should make a move and bloodshed should ensue.74 At any rate, in the absence of Chief Secretary Duke and in deference to the advice of Edmund Eyre, the city treasurer, who had been approached by Cosgrave, General Bryan Mahon decided to take the line of least resistance by withdrawing his men apace.75 Mulcahy and his men then safely entered the main hall of the building and the body, draped in the tricolour, was placed on a specially prefabricated platform in front of the statue of Daniel O’Connell, where Seán McGarry, on the point of replacing Ashe as president of the IRB, gave a brief eulogy.76
By implication, therefore, Mulcahy must have been at the head of the extended cortege as it slowly wound its way through the packed centre of the city on the Sunday. But he was definitely at the graveside when Collins delivered his ‘exceedingly brief’ speech in Irish and English, i.e. immediately after a triple volley and last post had been sounded: ‘There will be no oration. Nothing remains to be said, for the volley which has been fired is the only speech it is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian.’77 Clearly that was another potentially dangerous moment, should, for example, there have been an attempt made to arrest the members of the firing party. But Mulcahy was ready: ‘Richard Mulcahy … carefully demobilised the Dublin Brigade within the grounds of Glasnevin cemetery.’78
Accordingly, the responsibilities which Mulcahy undertook throughout the period of the Ashe funeral were impressively handled, especially on the Friday and on the Sunday. On Friday, like at Ashbourne during Easter 1916, he displayed an amount of nerve, especially in the City Hall, where he was in the firing line should matters have got out of hand. And on Sunday, at Glasnevin, he was so well organised that he had his men readied to slip away quickly in a controlled fashion.
Yet, Peter Hart claimed that he was deliberately kept in the dark by Collins, to the point that he was actually surprised when Collins stood up to speak.79 This is most unlikely because, upon replacing de Valera at the head of the guard of honour, he had the bones of two days to ponder both the reasons for and the consequences of that decision; in which case, as Hart also implies, Mulcahy’s preoccupation at the close of the ceremony was that an overly inflammatory speech would provoke an unwelcome response from the authorities and, thereby, make it harder for his men to get away unchallenged.
Consequently, overall, the sort of activities which Mulcahy became involved in throughout 1917 – namely his role in reorganising the IRB during the spring; becoming a member of its SC during the summer; reinvigorating the Volunteers during the same period; rising to the prestigious position of secretary of the IRB’s mouthpiece, the WTMA, in the autumn; guaranteeing that Ashe’s penultimate resting place would be in the very heartland of imperial Dublin; and securing a high level of discipline from his men during the five-hour funeral procession – all bear witness to his growing self-confidence and assertiveness; to his excellent organisational skills; but, most importantly, to the increasing centrality of active republicanism in his life. Furthermore, the brevity of Collins’ speech would not have bothered him at all. If anything, most especially when he already knew that the IRB intended in no uncertain terms to put its stamp upon Volunteering during the next few months, he would have been impressed that Collins made reference to just one ideology: Fenianism.
CHAPTER 4
Assiduous
Volunteer Command, 1917–19
The long-awaited Volunteer national convention met in the GAA’s pavilion on Jones’ Road at the tail end of a similar Sinn Féin gathering in the Mansion House on Saturday, 27 October 1917. The IRB was in almost complete control of it,1 certainly in comparison to what transpired in the Mansion House when Béaslaí, Boland, Fionán Lynch, Diarmuid Lynch, de Blaghd and Collins, who was the last to be voted in,2 accounted for a mere quarter of the executive seats. For example, all of the organising committee – except for de Valera, newly elected president of Sinn Féin,3 and Brugha – were members of the IRB, i.e. Lynch, McGarry, Collins and Mulcahy.4 Similarly, in the matter of security, entry could not be gained without a nod from Collins, Lynch or Diarmuid O’Hegarty:5 ‘nobody was present who was not entitled to be present.’6 Indeed, so secretive were they, having changed venue twice in Parnell Square, that the meeting was already three hours behind schedule when de Valera, as chairman, opened proceedings at 8 pm.7
The