Propaganda war escalates as burnings and killings continue
Dublin, 16 June 1920 - The propaganda war over the depiction of events in Ireland has been stepped up after Dail Éireann’s official publication, the Irish Bulletin, called out the Dublin Castle authorities for misrepresenting news about Ireland.
This week Dublin Castle published an official list detailing attacks on people and property associated with British rule in Ireland, including the burning of the courthouse in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny; assaults on Ballingeary and Kilmurry RIC barracks, both in Co. Cork; the burning of Gaulstown Mansion, Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath; the burning of Curraboola House, Co. Longford; and the burning of Wynne’s Castle, Co. Kerry.
At about the same time as Kilmurry Police Barracks was being destroyed by fire, Oakgrove House, the former Cork home of the Bowen-Colthurst family, was burned to the ground. Captain Bowen-Colthurst was responsible for the murder of journalists Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Patrick McIntyre and Thomas Dixon in Portobello Barracks during the Easter Rising in 1916.
Since this Easter, 407 RIC barracks have been destroyed by fire.
Historians Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc, John Borgonovo, Liz Gillis, Paul O'Brien and Las Fallon join Myles Dungan to discuss some of the major military operations of the conflict.
The Irish Bulletin has taken the Castle to task over these figures and claimed that many of the so-called outrages were actually the result of the actions of crown forces, including the deaths of 15 people over the last four months.
‘Most of these false reports’, the Bulletin says, ‘are issued through British news-distributing agencies, which, while supposedly private companies for the impartial dissemination of news are actually the chief channels of British imperial propaganda. The zeal shown by these news agencies in circulating false official reports is only equalled by the zeal shown by them in suppressing the true version afterwards exposed in public inquiries.’
The Irish Independent, agrees with the Bulletin and has accused Dublin Castle of attempting to blacken the name of Ireland by attributing outrages to Irish people that rightly belong with the armed forces of the crown. Those armed forces have been bolstered by the arrival of more troops and munitions on the south and west coasts – 3,500 in Queenstown in a single week.
More violence
Regardless of who is responsible, there is no disputing the fact
that violence continues to spread throughout the country.
In Armagh, on 6 June, a young man named Peter Charles McCreesh was shot dead and two policemen – Sergeant Tim Holland and Constable Rossdale – were wounded in an affray that followed an aeraíocht (open air fair) at Cullyhanna. As people were dispersing at the end of the aeraíocht, it was reported that a shot was fired at the police, who then fired at the crowd with revolvers, striking McCreesh who died at the side of the road attended by a local priest.
In Gorey, Co. Wexford, Royal Irish Constabulary District Inspector Percival Lea-Wilson, was shot dead on 15 June near his residence close to the railway station as he returned from the barracks. It is understood that his assailants had been lying in wait for him in a motor car. Captain Lea-Wilson, 33, was a native of Kent and, during a temporary period of duty in Dublin during Easter 1916, he was put in charge of 250 prisoners who had surrendered in the Rotunda Garden.
There have also been recent fatal attacks in Limerick and Cork.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
