Ireland and India: Nationalism, Empire and Memory (Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies)

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series General Editors: Megan Vaughan, Kings’ College, Cambridge and Richard Drayton, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge This informative series covers the broad span of modern imperial history while also exploring the recent developments in former colonial states where residues of empire can still be found. The books provide in-depth examinations of empires as competing and complementary power structures encouraging the reader to reconsider their understanding of international and world history during recent centuries. Titles include: Sunil S. Amrith DECOLONIZING INTERNATIONAL HEALTH India and Southeast Asia, 1930–1965 Tony Ballantyne ORIENTALISM AND RACE Aryanism in the British Empire Robert J. Blyth THE EMPIRE OF THE RAJ Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1858–1947 Roy Bridges (editor) IMPERIALISM, DECOLONIZATION AND AFRICA Studies Presented to John Hargreaves L.J. Butler COPPER EMPIRE Mining and the Colonial State in Northern Rhodesia, c.1930–1964 Hilary M. Carey (editor) EMPIRES OF RELIGION T.J. Cribb (editor) IMAGINED COMMONWEALTH Cambridge Essays on Commonwealth and International Literature in English Michael S. Dodson ORIENTALISM, EMPIRE AND NATIONAL CULTURE India, 1770–1880 Ulrike Hillemann ASIAN EMPIRE AND BRITISH KNOWLEDGE China and the Networks of British Imperial Expansion B.D. Hopkins THE MAKING OF MODERN AFGHANISTAN Ronald Hyam BRITAIN’S IMPERIAL CENTURY, 1815–1914: A STUDY OF EMPIRE AND EXPANSION Third Edition

Robin Jeffrey POLITICS, WOMEN AND WELL-BEING How Kerala Became a ‘Model’ Gerold Krozewski MONEY AND THE END OF EMPIRE British International Economic Policy and the Colonies, 1947–1958 Sloan Mahone and Megan Vaughan (editors) PSYCHIATRY AND EMPIRE Javed Majeed AUTOBIOGRAPHY, TRAVEL AND POST-NATIONAL IDENTITY Francine McKenzie REDEFINING THE BONDS OF COMMONWEALTH 1939–1948 The Politics of Preference Gabriel Paquette ENLIGHTENMENT, GOVERNANCE AND REFORM IN SPAIN AND ITS EMPIRE 1759–1808 Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre COSMOPOLITAN NATIONALISM IN THE VICTORIAN EMPIRE Ireland, India and the Politics of Alfred Webb Michael Silvestri IRELAND AND INDIA Nationalism, Empire and Memory John Singleton and Paul Robertson ECONOMIC RELATIONS BETWEEN BRITAIN AND AUSTRALASIA 1945–1970 Kim A. Wagner (editor) THUGGEE Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India Jon E. Wilson THE DOMINATION OF STRANGERS Modern Governance in Eastern India, 1780–1835

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–91908–8 (Hardback) 978–0–333–91909–5 (Paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Ireland and India Nationalism, Empire and Memory Michael Silvestri Assistant Professor, Department of History, Clemson University, USA

© Michael Silvestri 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–21674–7 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For Stephanie

This page intentionally left blank

Contents List of Illustrations

viii

Acknowledgments

x

List of Abbreviations

xii

Introduction

1

1 ‘An Assertion of Liberty Incarnate’: Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

13

2 ‘The Sinn Féin of India’: The Reception of Irish Revolutionary Nationalism in Bengal

46

3 ‘Lord and Master Nikkal Seyn’: The Construction of John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

76

4 An ‘Irish Paladin’: John Nicholson as an Ulster and Irish Imperial Hero

113

5 ‘The Remains of Ireland’s Loneliest Martyr’: The Commemoration of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny

139

6 ‘Enemies of the Empire’? The Imperial Context of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny

176

Conclusion

208

Notes

215

Bibliography

272

Index

288

vii

List of Illustrations

1. Eamon de Valera and Gadar Party representatives, San Francisco, 1919. Credit: www.sikhpioneers.org 2. Eamon de Valera’s speech on ‘India and Ireland,’ published by the Friends of Freedom for India (1920). Credit: Joseph McGarrity Collection. Digital Library@Villanova University 3. and 4. Cover and title page of Hindi translation of Dan Breen’s ‘My Fight for Irish Freedom,’ banned by the Government of India. Credit: Courtesy of the South Asia Microform Project (SAMP) of the Center for Research Libraries 5. The sword and Irish flag de Valera received from the Gadar Party. Credit: Reproduced courtesy of UCD Archives and the UCD-OFM Partnership 6. John Nicholson’s grave after 2006 restoration, Nicholson Cemetery, Delhi. Credit: The Author 7a. and 7b. (detail) Memorial to Nicholson by John Henry Foley, Lisburn Cathedral, Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Credit: The Author 8. Nicholson as Imperial Hero: ‘The Lion of the Punjab.’ Credit: E-Gutenberg 9. Nikalseynis worshipping John Nicholson. Credit: E-Gutenberg 10. Death of Nicholson, Bas-relief, Nicholson Statue, Lisburn. Credit: The Author 11. Ceremony Marking the Centenary of John Nicholson’s Birth, Lisburn, 11 December 1922. Credit: Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum 12. The Freeman’s Journal on the Connaught Rangers mutiny. Credit: The British Library 13. The Connaught Rangers in India. James Daly is at the lower right. Credit: Courtesy of King House, Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland 14. Private Daly prays in his cell in the ‘Fighting Men from Connaught’ exhibition at King House, Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland 15. Connaught Rangers Cenotaph, Republican Plot, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Credit: Stephanie Barczewski viii

List of Illustrations

ix

16. Memorial by Imogen Stuart to ‘the men of Westmeath and Offaly who died on Irish soil and foreign wars for independence,’ Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath, Ireland. Credit: The Author 17. Remains of the Base of the Gough Statue, Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, England. Credit: Stephanie Barczewski 18. Restored Statue of Lord Gough, Chillingham Castle. Credit: Stephanie Barczewski

Acknowledgments This project has had a long history, and I have accumulated an extraordinary number of debts along the way. I am first and foremost grateful to the staffs of the archives, libraries and museums in which I have conducted my research and in particular the staffs of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections of the British Library in London and the National Archives of Ireland in Dublin. Bill Cobert of the American Irish Historical Society accommodated my research requests at short notice, and gave great assistance in locating material in their archive. Brian Mackey of the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum welcomed me to Lisburn, and helped me to understand its history. Greer Ramsey of the Armagh County Museum kindly allowed me to view the portrait of John Nicholson in the museum’s collection. Sir Humphry Wakefield was a source of engaging conversation and information about the statue of Lord Gough. Michael Foight of the Villanova University Library and the staff of King House in Boyle, County Roscommon, provided great assistance toward the end of my research. At Clemson University, Jens Holley and the Interlibrary Loan Office did a masterful job of providing the books and other materials that enabled me to write this book. Some of the research in India was completed while I was researching a dissertation on a rather different topic, and I am grateful to the American Institute of Indian Studies for awarding me a junior fellowship which made this possible. Grants from the Irish American Cultural Institute and the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism enabled me to carry out research in North American archives. A summer stipend from the National Endowment of the Humanities enabled me to complete research in Northern Ireland and begin drafting the manuscript. More recently, a research grant and course release from the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities at Clemson University enabled me to complete the research and writing of the manuscript. Portions of this book benefitted from the comments of audiences at seminars and conferences, particularly conferences on Ireland and India in Galway (2004) and New Delhi (2007), as well as the Irish Conference of Historians on ‘Empires and their Contested Pasts’ in Belfast in 2007. Earlier versions of material in Chapters 1 and 2 appeared in different forms in the Journal of British Studies (2000) and in Tadhg Foley and Maureen O’Connor, Ireland and India (2006) and in each case benefitted from editorial suggestions. The suggestions of two anonymous readers greatly improved my final manuscript, and I would like to thank everyone at Palgrave Macmillan for the assistance, advice and encouragement they have provided. x

Acknowledgments xi

I also owe great thanks to a number of individuals. For various forms of help and encouragement, I thank David Armitage, Robert Blythe, Richard Drayton, Margot Finn, Keith Jeffery, Dane Kennedy, Joseph Lennon, Deidre McMahon, Paul McMahon, Kate O’Malley, Maureen O’Connor, Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre and Clair Wills. I am grateful to David Campion and Barry Crosbie for sharing unpublished work on Ireland and India with me. Dane Kennedy and Stephen Heathorn read early drafts of a chapter and helped me clarify my thoughts on John Nicholson. Ed and Claire Moisson in London and Michael McKenna and Debbie Donohue in New Delhi made my research trips more productive and pleasant. At Clemson, the members of our humanities reading group—Joe Mai, Sean O’Sullivan and especially Susanna Ashton—helped me (over countless cups of coffee) to shape some of the earliest drafts of this project, and also sustained my scholarly momentum at a time when being an historian was not my full-time occupation. Bill Lasser and Jamie Williams of the National Scholars Program have given me the opportunity to take some of Clemson’s best and brightest students to Britain and Ireland, and Bill has tolerated with indefatigable good cheer my constant asides on Irish imperial memorials. My department chair, Tom Kuehn, helped me balance research, writing and teaching. Two of my colleagues in the History Department, James Burns and Steve Marks, deserve particular thanks for providing models of scholarship, listening to and improving my arguments, and for sharing the sense of excitement and discovery that is a part of historical research. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for any errors of fact or judgment that remain. My parents, John and Carol, have always supported me in all my endeavors, and their love of travel has encouraged me to write and research about different parts of the world. My greatest debt, however, is to my wife and fellow historian Stephanie Barczewski. Stephanie has read every word of this book more than once and improved the text’s argument and style immeasurably. She also braved the worst of Irish weather to take some of the photographs for it. But most importantly, she never doubted that this book would be completed, nor wavered in her faith in the author. For this, and for much else besides, this book is dedicated to her.

List of Abbreviations AIHS DFA FOFI FOIF GOB GOI IPI IWM NAI NA India NAM NA UK NMML NYPL OIOC Pol (Conf) PRONI WBSA

American Irish Historical Society, New York Department of Foreign Affairs Friends of Freedom for India Friends of Irish Freedom Government of Bengal Government of India Indian Political Intelligence Collection Imperial War Museum, London National Archives, Dublin National Archives of India, New Delhi National Army Museum, London National Archives, Kew, London Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library Political Confidential File Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta

xii

Introduction

For Thomas Henry Kavanagh, an Irishman from Mullingar, County Westmeath, the greatest achievements of his life took place amidst the violence and upheaval of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Kavanagh was one of the hundreds of European men, women and children who crowded into the residency at Lucknow in the summer of 1857 as British control over northern India faltered. The garrison of more than two thousand British and Indian troops and non-combatants was besieged for months in an episode that held the British public spellbound. For those trapped in the residency, their situation represented hardship, suffering and the specter of a repeat of the massacre of a British garrison that had taken place earlier in the summer in the northern Indian city of Cawnpore. For Kavanagh, however, the siege of Lucknow represented opportunity. Described by one historian as ‘a flamboyant figure with his red-gold hair and beard and fiery blue eyes,’ T.H. Kavanagh was a humble clerk in the uncovenanted branch of the East India Company’s civil service.1 He had a large family of 14 children, and limited future prospects. As he later recalled, he resolved not to pursue ‘the miserable prospects of a life of drudgery’ and ‘to die in the struggle rather than survive it with not better fame than I took into it.’2 Kavanagh threw himself with zeal into the defense of the residency, supervising tunneling operations under the rebel lines and at one point engaging in an underground gun battle with rebel sepoys. Kavanagh’s crowning achievement came when a second relief force, under the command of the Scottish general Sir Colin Campbell, was approaching Lucknow. Kavanagh volunteered to travel in disguise in the company of an Indian spy named Kunoujee Lal and to guide Campbell’s force through the city to the besieged residency. Before attempting this mission, Kavanagh tested his disguise on a roomful of British officers, who failed to recognize the Irishman dressed in a ‘complete Oriental suit’ with his skin dyed black: Natives are not permitted to go into the house of a European with shoes on, nor to take a seat uninvited. In order to draw particular attention to 1

2 Ireland and India

myself I did both, and the eyes of the officers, who sat at the General’s table, were at once turned angrily and inquiringly upon the queer man who did such impudent things. Questions and answers were exchanged without detecting the disguise, although my plain features were known to every one of the outraged officers; who called in the General, and he took some time to recognize me.3 Kavanagh and Lal succeeded in this mission, and for his efforts, the Irishman became one of three civilians in the Indian Rebellion to be awarded the Victoria Cross.4 In the following decade, a painting of Kavanagh by Louis Desanges was exhibited at the Crystal Palace as part of a series of portraits of Victoria Cross winners.5 The painting, which depicted Kavanagh’s disguise being fine-tuned by General James Outram and others, received even wider circulation when an engraving of it was reproduced in S.O. Beeton’s Our Soldiers and the Victoria Cross (1867). Beeton described Kavanagh as an ‘Irish gentleman,’ the ‘bravest of brave,’ and compared him to a knight from Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.6 As a self-made man, brave, chivalrous and devoted to duty, ‘Lucknow Kavanagh’ seemed to embody many of the traits most valued by middle-class Victorians. In 1905, a letter writer to the Times contended that Kavanagh’s ‘cool bravery at Lucknow was perhaps of more real service to his race and his country than any act of the 521 for which the Cross has now been awarded.’7 Kavanagh’s fame spread to Ireland as well as Britain, and he offered ‘most hearty thanks’ for the ‘the civilities received in England and Ireland.’8 In 1859, many Dublin papers announced Kavanagh’s arrival in the city, where he stayed at the Gresham Hotel; the Times of London called Kavanagh ‘a gentleman who has well earned the title of a distinguished Irishman.’9 In subsequent decades, the tulwar, or Indian shield, the pistol and other items that Kavanagh used as part of his ‘native’ disguise, went on display in the Dublin Museum, while his Victoria Cross and a portrait of him in ‘native disguise’ were presented in 1897 to the North Western Provinces and Oudh Provincial Museum in Lucknow. The curator of the museum in Lucknow observed with pleasure that the country of Kavanagh’s birth, and the Indian city where he spent much of his working life, and where the supreme deed of heroism was wrought, divide the honour of possessing relics, the right of which may, it is hoped, serve to keep alive for ever the memory of one of Ireland’s bravest sons.10 Yet if we look beyond the heroic image of ‘Lucknow Kavanagh,’ a more complicated relationship with the British Empire emerges. While Kavanagh in his memoirs glorified the deeds of the ‘gallant sons’ of England, who ‘preserved a magnificent Empire’ in 1857, he was also, like some Victorian commentators, appalled at the brutality of British suppression of the

Introduction

3

rebellion. The cry of ‘Cawnpore,’ he warned, would become ‘the war-whoop for atrocities which the British soldier will disown in the next generation.’11 At a time when racial divisions in India were hardening, he also argued for greater social interaction between Britons and Indians. Kavanagh proposed sending Sikhs to England, believing that their presence would break down racial prejudices as well as transmit ‘the civilized ideas of the West’ back to India. ‘Could they be socially mixed up with us,’ Kavanagh wrote, ‘those prejudices which seem to be indestructible would fade away in the new light.’12 The inscription on Kavanagh’s grave reads: ‘his gentle forbearance towards the natives equaled the heroism of the soldier.’ The relationship of this imperial hero with the East India Company and its successor, the Government of India, was also far from smooth. Eighteen months before the beginning of the siege, he had almost been dismissed for accumulating debts of £780—more than two years’ salary—to Indian moneylenders.13 While the Court of Directors of the East India Company approved a reward of 20,000 rupees for Kavanagh and appointed him Assistant Commissioner in Oude, they declined to support his application for the Victoria Cross, stating that such awards were ‘confined to members of the Military and Naval profession.’14 When Kavanagh was writing his memoirs of his feats in India, published in 1860 as How I Won the Victoria Cross, the Secretary of State for War’s office refused to provide him with copies of documents relating to his award.15 At the conclusion of his memoirs he wrote bitterly, By the time this little book is in the hands of the reader, I shall probably be on my way back, reluctantly to resume my duty under a Government that thinks me undeserving of honour, and to labor hard in a climate from which I cannot hope to escape again to Europe.16 Kavanagh’s career in India came to a premature end when his propensity for debt was considered to have fatally compromised his ability to carry out his job. He was accused of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman by giving an Indian moneylender a worthless certificate for funds that he owed. Kavanagh attempted to defend himself against these charges, and also, rather dramatically, to return his Victoria Cross, stating that he could not bear to wear the ‘illustrious Cross’ until he was acquitted of the charge of dishonorable conduct.17 He was nonetheless forced to retire, and the £500 pension he received afforded little solace. After falling ill on board ship, he was landed at Gibraltar, where he died and was buried, far from both Ireland and India. Thomas Henry Kavanagh’s life illustrates the complexities of the Irish imperial experience. Some Irishmen and women upheld the empire and were its staunch defenders; others opposed it and sought to destroy it; still others, like Kavanagh, enjoyed a relationship that was more ambivalent. Kavanagh

4 Ireland and India

became a Victorian imperial hero, and his actions at Lucknow became the subject of boy’s adventure fiction. Viewed from another perspective, however, Kavanagh appears, to use R.F. Foster’s term, as a ‘Mick on the Make,’ using the empire as a theater for glory and personal gain.18 In another light, he appears as an early critic of Britain’s imperial enterprise in India, castigating the brutality and racial hostility of 1857. And from yet another point of view, he appears as a liminal figure, moving between the worlds of British and Indians similar to the way in which Rudyard Kipling’s fictional Irish protagonist Kim was to do four decades later. In his lifetime, Kavanagh received honors from the British government and what he termed the ‘kind notice of my countrymen, English, Irish and Scotch.’ By the late twentieth century, however, he was a forgotten Irishman, ridiculed in one of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels as ‘a great freckled Irish bumpkin’ who boasts ‘we’re goin’ to do wan o’ the deeds that saved the Impoire, so we are!’19 The present study will analyze both imperial and anti-imperial aspects of Ireland’s relationship with India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This book is not intended as a comprehensive history of Irish involvement with colonial India, although it discusses many important facets of this wide-ranging relationship. It is intended as a contribution to two rapidly growing bodies of historical literature, one dealing with Irish imperial and anti-imperial involvement, and the other focusing on commemoration and historical memory in modern Ireland. Together, these two bodies of historical scholarship provide a way to examine the history of Irish imperial and anti-imperial relationships with India together, something that has rarely been attempted.20 This perspective helps us to move beyond the question of whether the Irish were ‘for’ or ‘against’ empire (the answer to which depends on both the individuals and the context being considered) to examine the multifarious ways in which empire impacted Ireland, and how Irish participation in and opposition to empire in turn impacted other parts of the British Empire.21 This is relevant not only to modern Irish history, but also to a subject to which scholars have devoted considerable attention in recent years: the cultural impact of the British Empire. Although historians have recently demonstrated the substantial impact of empire on British society and culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they have also stressed the need for greater precision in delineating empire’s impact in terms of class, region and ethnicity.22 As historians begin to move beyond ‘English’ views of empire to consider broader British ones, Irish perspectives are important in demonstrating the varied impact of empire within the British Isles. To be Irish did not necessarily mean adopting an anti-colonial stance; nonetheless, perspectives on empire in Ireland often looked markedly different from those in England in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The constellation of cultural representations of the East which Edward Said termed ‘Orientalism’ formed an important current in Irish as well as British literary

Introduction

5

and intellectual thought, for example; and Irish Orientalists (some of whom were imperial servants) often replicated the same colonial stereotypes. More often, however, Irish Orientalism stressed the shared culture and sensibilities of Ireland and the Orient, offering a ‘path to resistance’ to empire as well as a ‘path of collusion.’23 Through a consideration of historical memory, commemoration and the ‘imagined communities’ of nationalism, I examine three aspects of Ireland’s multi-faceted involvement with the British Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: relationships between Irish and Indian nationalists, the construction of Irishmen as British (and Irish) national and imperial heroes and Irish nationalist commemoration of the mutiny of a regiment of Irish soldiers in India. An analysis of these episodes illustrates how both imperial and anti-imperial legacies are critical elements of Ireland’s modern history. Ireland’s relationship with the British Empire may have been ‘Janus-like,’ but these aspects of Irish history are not ‘contradictory’ or ‘paradoxical.’ The ‘Irish Empire’ of overseas migration, which might in one sense be viewed as a liberation from colonial rule, also involved the subjection of indigenous communities and racial minorities in places such as Australia and North America. The substantial history of Irish imperial service does not, however, in any way ‘cancel out’ an equally prominent legacy of IndoIrish nationalist affinity.24 Irish imperial heroics could be used by Irish and British Unionists to valorize ‘loyal Irishmen’ and contrast them to Irish separatists. Irish imperial service and the perceived racial status of the Irish also impacted Indian nationalist perceptions of Ireland, particularly prior to the First World War. The ways in which Irish imperial service and anti-imperial activity intermeshed were acknowledged by the prominent republican Sean T. O’Ceallaigh in a 1924 speech to the Friends of Freedom for India in New York. It was ‘largely by the work of Irish brains and Irish brawn and muscle,’ he asserted, that the people of India have been beaten into subjection and have been so long oppressed. Until Ireland has taken some very definite steps to win back her good name and relieve herself of the odium that attaches to the race by reason of scandalous work done for England’s benefit in India . . . we Irish have every reason to hang our heads in shame when the name of India is mentioned.25 Historians have begun to analyze both the pro- and anti-imperial involvement of the Irish with India, as well as activities that complicated such categories.26 Irish men and women forged and maintained the sinews of colonial rule in India. In the words of the historian T.G. Fraser, ‘Ireland helped sustain the British Raj in India in a manner out of all proportion to her size,’ contributing Viceroys, generals, colonial administrators and soldiers.27 More broadly, Ireland functioned as an important ‘sub-imperial

6 Ireland and India

centre’ within imperial networks, providing not only imperial personnel, but also, in the quasi-colonial status of Ireland under the Union, a laboratory for imperial legislation as well as a cultural reference point for understanding indigenous cultures elsewhere in the Empire.28 In another important sense, however, the Irish were colonial subjects, and an ever-rebellious Ireland pioneered the process of decolonization and provided inspiration to anti-colonial nationalists around the globe. As Piers Brendon observes in his recent survey of decolonization within the British Empire, ‘Ireland freed herself by her exertions and would help to free others by her example.’29 This was particularly true of Ireland’s relationship with India. From the late nineteenth century onwards, Ireland stood as an example of anti-colonial resistance for Indian nationalists, providing examples of both violent resistance and constitutional agitation. It is the latter aspect of Irish involvement with India that has been most studied by historians.30 Historians have recently demonstrated the mutual affinity that nationalists from both countries displayed from the late nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, and have begun to analyze how these transnational relationships formed an important part of networks of information and exchange within the British Empire.31 This changing trajectory of the Irish, from at times ambivalent defenders of the empire to committed rebels against it, is reflected in literary treatments. In his 1891 short story ‘The Mutiny of the Mavericks,’ Rudyard Kipling mocks the idea that Irish soldiers in India might be sympathetic to republican calls to revolt against imperial rule. Instead, the members of the fictional Irish regiment ‘the Mavericks’ deceive a Fenian agent and lead him to his death on a battlefield on the North-West frontier of India. Arthur Conan Doyle, who held somewhat greater sympathy for Irish nationalist aspirations, treated the idea of an Irish army mutiny more seriously. In ‘The Green Flag,’ another fictional Irish regiment (the Royal Mallows), its members seething with discontent over the recent Land War, is sent into battle in the Sudan. They briefly refuse to follow orders (‘What’s the Impire to us?’ shouts one), but ultimately realize that the attacking Sudanese—‘naked savages’ and ‘fiends’—are not ‘the Allies of the Irish.’ In the end, they fight heroically, to the death, for both the British Empire and the ‘green flag’ of Ireland.32 Following the partition of Ireland and the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the threat of Irish collaboration with other rebels within the British Empire assumed even greater prominence. In John Buchan’s The Three Hostages, the sinister villain whom Sir Richard Hannay battles is a ‘déraciné Irish’ named Dominick Medina. Like Eamon De Valera, Medina is half Irish and half ‘Latin.’ Inspired by ‘venomous hatred’ of ‘an imaginary England’ and an idealized vision of a ‘Celtic’ Ireland of ‘spinning wheels and turf fires,’ Medina plots to bring down the British Empire with the aid of a shadowy Indian guru.33 In John Masters’ novel on the Indian Rebellion

Introduction

7

of 1857, Nightrunners of Bengal (1951), there is once again a secret—and effective—conspiracy between Irish and Indians. At the end of the novel, the mysterious leader of the revolt, ‘the Silver Guru,’ is revealed to be an Irishman, Donegal Sean Shaughnessy, a former soldier who drifted from his regiment years before and plotted with the Rani of Jhansi to bring an end to British rule. On discovering his true identity, an English officer, who had been filled with anger at the treason of the ‘Silver Guru,’ views him with new sympathy as an Irish victim of British imperialism: This was not a traitor, only an enemy—an Irish boy driven by famine to take a shilling and a red coat, to suffer lashes and turn to silver in the embrace of India. On burning roads without end, and for nineteen years under the tree, the rain had ripened his love of liberty and made it a fruit ready to put out seeds.34 As Pamela Clayton observes, both Irish Protestants and Catholics contributed prominently to the British Empire, and the dichotomy between a Catholic ‘Rebel Ireland’ and a Protestant ‘Imperial Province’ of Ulster is not always as stark as it might appear.35 An Irishman from County Westmeath such as Thomas Henry Kavanagh could also become a British imperial hero. A British imperial propagandist such as W.H. Fitchett could transform a ‘Celtic’ Irishman into an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ as he did in his portrait of one of the defenders of Cawnpore, Captain John Moore. Fitchett observed that Moore ‘was an Irishman, though with the fair hair and blue eyes proper to Saxon blood,’ while his courage in battle, described as having ‘a certain cool and smiling quality,’ was similarly better suited to a level-headed Saxon than an impulsive Celt.36 Within the British Empire, ‘Irish’ and ‘British’ identities could at times sit comfortably together, even after the political ascendance of the Home Rule movement.37 Terence Denman observes in his study of Irish soldiers in the late Victorian army that empire was a less nebulous concept than ‘country’ for many Irish soldiers, and ‘Queen and empire may well have been seen by many Irish soldiers as supranational props for their loyalty.’38 By the end of the nineteenth century, Irish imperial service in India declined in absolute terms, as reflected in both the Indian Civil Service and the British Army, and nationalist critiques of empire intensified.39 We should not, however, draw an absolute distinction between an Ireland that was predominantly loyal to the empire in the nineteenth century and consistently in a state of rebellion against it in the twentieth. In the early nineteenth century, writings about India played a ‘significant part’ in Irish political discourse.40 To the consternation of conservative Irish commentators, elements of the nationalist press supported the struggle of the Indian rebels against imperial rule in 1857. In a ‘sepoy doggerel’ expressed in the words of a fictional Irish soldier, The Leader sympathized with the

8 Ireland and India

rebel cause and opined that the East India Company’s empire-building was ‘all in vain’: Hall in vain the widespred wastings of Dallousy, Clive, and Aystings; Hall in vain the Hinjan’s tastings of the Briton’s crewill lors: Hall in vain the guns of Lorrence, oo as made us an abhorrence By the blood E spills in torrence; hexacutions without kors41 While some Irish nationalists looked favorably on Indian rebellion, Irishmen in imperial service at times forcefully expressed not just a British but an Irish identity. Empire has been acknowledged as an important venue for the expression of Scottish national identity in the nineteenth century, and for the growth of Scottish nationalism in the early twentieth century.42 But in spite of the prominence of Scots in British India, the Irish exceeded them in numerical terms in the nineteenth century.43 St. Patrick’s Day was celebrated in India by Irish imperial servants, as in other parts of the British Empire such as Australia and Canada.44 In 1869, the Irish Times, reporting on a St. Patrick’s Day dinner in Bombay, commented that ‘Irishmen are now beginning to hold up their heads in India.’ An Irish officer of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers was chosen to preside at the festivities ‘to show how Irishmen are everywhere amongst the English, Scotch and Welsh,’ and the speaker urged the Irish to emulate the Scots’ celebration in India of their patron saint.45 In the early twentieth century, St. Patrick’s Day continued to be celebrated by Irish imperial servants and businessmen in Calcutta.46 The Unionist Irish Times referred to the 1924 St. Patrick’s Day of imperial servants in Calcutta, in which participants toasted both ‘the King’ and ‘Ireland,’ as ‘one of the happiest St. Patrick’s Days ever spent by Irishmen and Irishwomen abroad.’47 On a reduced scale, both Irish imperial service and the celebrations of ‘Irishness’ in India continued after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Few Irish members of the Indian Civil Service resigned, and as late as 1930, the police forces of two of the major cities of India, Calcutta and Bombay, were both headed by Irishmen, Sir Charles Tegart and Sir Patrick Kelly, respectively.48 In the same decade, Kelly was honored with a statue outside police headquarters in Bombay. The Irish diplomat J.W. Dulanty praised Kelly’s patriotism as well as his imperial service, noting his ‘Nationalist outlook’ as well as the fact that he was ‘the only man I think who has had a statue erected to him during his lifetime in India.’49 The partition of Ireland and the establishment of the Irish Free State thus had a more complicated effect than an immediate shift of the Irish relationship with India from imperial to anti-imperial. As Joe Cleary observes, ‘Decolonization in twentieth-century Ireland . . . is best understood not as a singular and linear but as a multi-stranded, multi-directional process that has meant quite different things, and that has posed quite different challenges, for different sections of Irish society.’50

Introduction

9

A comprehensive understanding of the relationship between Ireland and India requires not only the perspectives of Irish nationalists or imperial servants, but those of Indians as well. In the same way that Irish views of India were far from unitary, Indian views of Ireland were diverse as well. In the following chapters, we will encounter many Indians who held sympathetic views of Ireland, and eagerly sought aid, advice and inspiration from Irish nationalists. V.V. Giri, a student in Ireland at the time of the Easter Rising and later President of India, recalled that Indian students preferred to study in Ireland rather than England because ‘they felt a great affinity for the Irish who were also chafing under British rule, suffering from very similar problems as Indians.’51 In December 1946, less than eight months before Indian independence, J.W. Dulanty was the guest of honor at a dinner at Swaraj House in London, where the chairman, Dr. N. Gangulee, declared that ‘India is like Ireland in 1916. We have a spiritual friendship with Éire. We have a political link, too, with that country.’52 But not all Indian observers embraced a tone of anti-imperial solidarity. A persistent theme in the writings of Mohandas Gandhi on Ireland is sympathy toward Irish subjugation at the hands of the British and praise for their bravery in resistance to imperial rule, but also a rejection of the methods which they employed. Gandhi did not regard the violence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as an appropriate model for Indian nationalism, and while in London for the Round Table Conference of 1932 decided against visiting Ireland in spite of an invitation from the IRA.53 The writer Aubrey Menen, the son of an Irish mother and an Indian father, did visit Ireland around the same time, but was less than impressed by Irish anti-imperialism. After meeting with Eamon De Valera, Menen ‘toured Ireland by motor-car,’ noting how ‘on the corners of a great number of roads there were crosses of white marble, bearing a name, a date and the inscription: A MARTYR TO BRITISH IMPERIALISM.’ Menen recalled that ‘the motor-car was always brought to a halt in front of these crosses, and . . . . I was always invited to dismount to read the (unvarying) inscription and to hear the story.’ After traveling ‘one thousand miles’ and viewing ‘two hundred crosses,’ Menen felt he was ready to leave Ireland.54 When the President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, visited Ireland in 1964, a columnist for the Hindustan Times, V.R. Bhatt, professed to be puzzled as to ‘where the difference lies between the Irish and the British.’ He wrote, ‘In language, arts, and literature, there is hardly any and in these circumstances Irish independence takes on the quality of the leprechaun, the peculiarly Irish elf, real to the Irishmen but difficult to discern for an outsider.’55 The imperial project in India thus generated varying responses from Irish men and women, and Irish involvement in the British Empire and Irish nationalism in turn generated varying responses from Indians. Irish nationalism attained a force and significance for many Indian nationalists that transcended personal contacts. Within Ireland, both imperialism

10 Ireland and India

and anti-imperialism affected the memorial landscape. After 1922, one of the most striking features of Dublin was ‘the gradual and frequently illegal removal from the urban landscape of virtually all the monumental symbols of the British empire.’56 In Northern Ireland, the opposite occurred, and memorials to the empire were not only preserved, but increased in number. As Guy Beiner has recently observed, the commemorative practices of unionism and nationalism in modern Ireland share certain similarities, notably a ‘preoccupation with triumphalist commemoration of traumatic experiences.’57 There is similar utility in pairing the experience of Irish imperial and anti-imperial activity in India. As Alvin Jackson has suggested, ‘Ireland was simultaneously a bulwark of the Empire, and a mine within its walls.’58 Yet until recently, both nationalist and imperialist connections with India have remained surprisingly obscure. Direct contacts between Irish and Indian nationalists have only been more fully documented with the release of files from the India Office’s intelligence apparatus in London.59 Unionist responses to empire have attracted even less scholarly scrutiny. A compilation of memorials and grave inscriptions in South Asia and elsewhere relating to Irish imperial involvement in India is aptly titled The Forgotten Irish.60 Yet modern Irish identities, as Paul A. Townend has recently argued, were in many ways ‘essentially cosmopolitan.’ The story of Ireland’s role in the British Empire provides an important opportunity to situate Irish national history in a transnational context.61 The present study will call attention to important imperial and anti-imperial legacies relating to Irish involvement with India. All three episodes treated in this book are linked by the common theme of rebellion. Radical Irish nationalists dreamed of simultaneous army revolts in Ireland and India. As Amitav Ghosh has noted, ‘The Indians were comparatively novices in the arts of sedition: it was the Irish who were their mentors and allies . . . giving them instruction in their techniques of fomenting mutiny among those of their countrymen who served the empire as soldiers.’62 There is, however, another dimension to this story of Ireland, India and mutiny. A number of the greatest British heroes of the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857 were Protestant Irishmen from Ulster such as John Nicholson and the brothers John and Henry Lawrence. This study will explore the significance of ‘mutiny’ for Irish imperial and anti-imperial associations with India, analyzing the actions of Irish and Indian nationalists, Irish imperialists, as well as Irishmen whose actions complicate these binary categories. The first two chapters examine contrasting examples of the interactions between Irish and Indian revolutionary nationalists. Chapter One analyzes the connections between Irish and Indian revolutionary nationalists in North America in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Here some of the most sustained relationships between nationalists from these two nations were forged. Members of the revolutionary Gadar Party in North America sought to bring about a revolt of Indian troops with the assistance

Introduction

11

of Irish and Irish–American nationalists. Irish nationalists declared solidarity with their Indian counterparts during the campaign for recognition of the Irish Republic in 1919 and 1920. Indian nationalists in turn sought and received material and moral support from Irish Americans in an era of global anti-colonial activity that followed the failed promise of the ‘Wilsonian moment.’63 Chapter Two examines a different context for Irish–Indian relationships: the Indian province of Bengal. Many Bengali nationalists pursued different anti-colonial strategies from those of the Indian National Congress, and embraced violent resistance to colonial rule. After the First World War, Ireland emerged as the leading model for provincial nationalists. Through copies of proscribed Irish nationalist tracts such as Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom, nationalists forged an image of Ireland as a model for anticolonial nationalism. So great was the Bengali affinity for Irish nationalism that in 1930 nationalists attempted to re-stage the Easter Rising in an event known as the Chittagong Armory Raid. The depth of Bengali inspiration from Ireland in turn preoccupied colonial authorities, who in turn sought to apply Irish precedents to suppress nationalist activity. Chapters Three and Four shift the focus to the issue of Irish imperial service. The Irishman John Nicholson, an East India Company officer promoted to Brigadier-General during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, played a critical role in lifting the siege of Delhi, in which he was mortally wounded. Chapter Three examines how Nicholson came to be recognized as an imperial hero and an exemplar of British masculinity in the late nineteenth century, as well as how his reputation changed in the twentieth century. Nicholson’s ascendance to the pantheon of imperial heroes was aided by his association with another Anglo-Irish imperial figure, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl of Kandahar, Pretoria and Waterford. His reputation for brutality ensured that he remains a controversial figure more than 60 years after Indian independence. Although Nicholson was born in Dublin, his family came from Lisburn, a market town in County Antrim. Chapter Four analyzes how he came to be commemorated not simply as a British imperial hero but also as an Ulsterman and as an Irish imperial hero. His sacrifice in 1857 resonated with Ulster Protestants, who honored him with a statue in Lisburn, as well as poetic tributes. As recently as the late 1950s, groups in Northern Ireland negotiated to bring a statue of Nicholson from Delhi to the province. Nicholson’s commemoration as an Ulster Protestant hero sheds light on the role of empire in Ulster identity and Unionist views of Ulster as an ‘imperial province.’ The final two chapters of the book examine an episode that intertwines the themes developed in previous chapters: Irish imperial service, mutiny and the relationship between Irish and Indian nationalism. Members of the Connaught Rangers, a predominantly Irish regiment with a long record of distinguished military service (and a reputation for brutality toward Indians)

12 Ireland and India

staged a ‘mutiny’ in the summer of 1920 to protest atrocities committed by British troops in Ireland. One leader of the revolt, Private James Joseph Daly, was executed, and over 60 of the mutineers served prison terms. Over the following decades, the Connaught Rangers mutineers came to be commemorated as Irish republican heroes. Chapter Five analyzes the reasons why members of this regiment mutinied, and how they came to be enshrined in the pantheon of Irish republican heroes. While some historians have cast doubts on the republican motives of the mutineers, I argue that the nationalist motivations of the Connaught Rangers must be taken seriously. The chapter concludes by examining the successful campaign for the return to Ireland of the bodies of Daly and two other mutineers buried in India. The final chapter examines the imperial dimensions of the Connaught Rangers mutiny. British concerns about the impact of the mutiny on Indian Army troops played a large role in the punishment meted out to the soldiers. Colonial authorities were also concerned that the mutiny would provide an inspiration to Indian nationalists at a time when Irish–Indian nationalist solidarity was increasingly prevalent. The Indian press paid considerable attention to the actions of the mutineers, even though there was no evidence that the Irish soldiers attempted to make common cause with Indian nationalists. The actions of the mutineers thus helped to solidify the image in India of the Irish as rebels against the British Empire. The conclusion discusses the legacy of these imperial and nationalist concerns in Ireland. The transnational relationships of Irish and Indian nationalists and the commemoration of the Connaught Rangers mutineers formed part of a broader strand in modern Irish identity that emphasizes the Irish as rebels against rather than participants in the British Empire. The commemoration of John Nicholson, however, reveals a different aspect of Ireland’s imperial legacy. While contemporary Irish republicans were removing or destroying statues with imperial associations, Ulster Protestants sought to bring the statues of Nicholson and other Ulster imperial heroes to Northern Ireland. More recently, however, there have been commemorative and cultural efforts to transcend the binary opposition between Irish imperial and antiimperial traditions outlined above. And while some former imperial icons have become increasingly obscure figures, irrelevant to both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, other Irishmen with imperial associations have gained greater prominence. Before exploring these issues, however, we will first consider one of the most potent aspects of Ireland’s relationship with India in the twentieth century: the diverse and geographically wide-ranging relationship between Irish and Indian nationalism.

1 ‘An Assertion of Liberty Incarnate’: Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

The 1920 Saint Patrick’s Day parade in New York was noteworthy for a number of reasons. The first was the size of the crowd that watched it. The New York Times commented on ‘what appeared to be the biggest turnout since the city had a St. Patrick’s Day,’ observing that there was not an unoccupied inch of sidewalk along the line of march on Fifth Avenue. The Irish World and Industrial Liberator estimated that one million spectators watched the parade. The second reason was the pronounced presence of contemporary Irish politics in the day’s festivities. The year 1920 was a tumultuous year in modern Irish history, and the parade reflected Irish–American interest in the resurgent nationalism that had led to the Anglo-Irish War. In both the parade itself and among the spectators, traditional green flags adorned with the harp of Ireland were replaced by the republican tricolor and banners in support of Sinn Féin. The banner of one spectator read: ‘Every true American is a Sinn Feiner.’ Eamon De Valera, Dáil President and unofficial ‘President of the Irish Republic’ reviewed the parade from a stand in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The parade’s Grand Marshal also reflected the active interest of Irish Americans in contemporary Irish affairs. Daniel F. Cohalan, a New York Supreme Court judge and one of the most powerful Irish–American political leaders, accepted the ceremonial role. Twenty years earlier, Cohalan, along with John Devoy, had helped to revive the secret revolutionary organization Clan na Gael and had been involved in the plans for a rising in Ireland with German support during the First World War. In 1920, he headed the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF), whose membership at the time totaled over 275,000 in branches around the country, and whose members were aggressively lobbying for American recognition of an Irish Republic.1 Some of the most prominent marchers in the parade were, however, what the New York Times jokingly referred to as ‘some lads from a yet undiscovered county of Ireland.’ Wearing a ‘regulation emerald green’ turban and 13

14 Ireland and India

sashes of red, gold and green, Sailendranath Ghose, the leader of an organization called the Friends of Freedom for India (FOFI), rode on horseback as a special aide to Cohalan. Indian nationalists wearing turbans of gold and green marched behind them, along with American and European supporters of India’s independence.2 The banner of the FOFI was displayed in the center of the front line, along with a banner proclaiming ‘the Republic of India.’ It was flanked by the flags of the United States and the ‘United States of India.’ The Indian marchers carried banners with mottos such as: ‘Up! the Republic of India’; ‘315,000,000 of India with Ireland to the Last’; ‘President De Valera’s message to India: Our cause is a common cause. We swear friendship’; and ‘What about independence for India, Mr. Wilson? Where are the 14 points?’ The Irish World observed, For the first time in the history of the Indo-American relationship India’s patriots in America marched up the famous Fifth Avenue with the flag of the Republic of India unfurled. This red, gold and green flag was proudly waving in the air of defiance of English rule in India. And it was also for the first time that India and Ireland spontaneously united and marched together on St. Patrick’s Day in an imposing parade demanding the complete and unconditional Independence of India and Ireland. According to the Irish World, the ‘Indian section of the St. Patrick’s Day parade was most wildly cheered’ by the spectators on Fifth Avenue. The paper noted that ‘one felt as if the great Republic of the West was pledging her strong protection not alone to Ireland, her old friend and ally, but to the other struggling nationalities that sought her aid in line with their Irish co-workers for Liberty.’ The parade was ‘an assertion of Liberty incarnate itself . . . . It flashed from the dark faces of the Hindoos in line.’3 The image here is one of unquestioned nationalist solidarity. To be sure, the Irish World’s reporter thought it necessary to comment on the ‘dark faces’ of the Indian participants in the parade, marking them as racially different from the Irish and Irish–American marchers. The emphasis, however, was on the Indians and Irish as partners in an anti-colonial struggle, a united front against British imperialism. More precisely, the Irish are the senior partners, the veterans of long experience of resistance to the British Empire, lending their support and patronage to their Indian counterparts. There is considerable truth to this portrait of Irish–Indian solidarity. There were limits, however, for the relationships between Irish and Indian nationalists, and the perception of Irish nationalism by Indian observers, were often more complex than the 1920 St. Patrick’s Day Parade implied. This chapter will explore the contacts between Irish and Indian nationalists in the United States in the period before, during and after the First World War. To what degree did Irish and Indian nationalists think of themselves

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

15

as partners in anti-colonial activities and as fellow ‘oppressed subjects’ of the British Empire? How did they represent this solidarity to an American audience, and how did British authorities perceive the threat they posed to imperial rule? These are some of the issues which this chapter will address in evaluating Irish–Indian anti-imperial relationships in North America.

‘Nationalisms in Contact’ There were three stages to Irish–Indian nationalist relationships in the United States in the early twentieth century. First, there was the initial contact between Irish and Indian revolutionaries which began in the decade prior to the First World War. During the war, Irishmen and Irish Americans aided the revolutionary conspiracies between the group of radical nationalists known as the Gadar Party and the German Imperial Government. At the end of the First World War, a time of considerable political unrest in both Ireland and India, these contacts assumed a broader and more popular dimension. After 1922, they became more limited, although they did not disappear entirely, and Ireland continued to be a potent model for Indian nationalists seeking to overthrow British rule through armed force rather than non-violent resistance. The Irish and the Indians in the United States in this era were part of two worldwide movements of peoples. Their respective positions in the United States were marked by many differences in terms of the size and composition of the emigrant populations, and in terms of their status in American society. During the period under discussion here, Indians could only obtain U.S. citizenship with great difficulty prior to 1924, and not at all after that date. Both groups, however, were marked by the force of their nationalist convictions, and their antipathy to the British Empire, and both featured radical constituencies willing to use violence to free their homeland.4 The nationalist movements of Irish and Indian emigrant communities were also marked by bitter internal conflict, not only among different factions in the United States, but with their colleagues in Ireland and India. The Indian National Congress leader Lala Lajpat Rai, who spent six years in the United States before returning to India in 1920, commented that ‘my experience of the Indian revolutionaries in the U.S. has been very sad and disappointing.’5 In spite of these divisions, the collaboration of Irish and Indian nationalists in the United States greatly troubled imperial authorities, who feared that it could destabilize colonial rule. Most of the Irish and Indian newspapers, periodicals and other publications discussed in this chapter were banned by the Government of India, and British colonial officials feared contacts between revolutionaries in North America and India. For their part, Indian revolutionaries found their Irish counterparts inspirational, while Irish nationalists reinforced their arguments for an Irish republic with

16 Ireland and India

references to India’s status under colonial rule. Thus, the two nationalist movements not only interacted but influenced each other. As the anthropologist Sandhya Shukla observes, ‘Diaspora is where constructed nationalisms come into contact.’6 Through a study of that contact, we can better understand each nationalist movement in both transnational and cross-national terms.7 The participation of Indian nationalists in the 1920 St. Patrick’s Day parade did not mark the beginning of Irish–Indian nationalist collaboration, but rather was the culmination of decades of nationalist contacts and mutual perceptions. In one sense, this is not surprising, since from the mid-nineteenth century onward, anti-imperialism formed an increasingly important element within Irish nationalist ideology.8 Ireland, antiimperialist nationalists argued, could never achieve its potential as a nation while it remained part of the British Empire. The Young Ireland leader Thomas Davis, who was seen by later nationalists ‘to represent Irish nationalism in its purest form,’ played a crucial role in making anti-imperialism a part of nationalist political ideology.9 This anti-imperial thought was never uniform or consistent, nor was it a stance taken by all nationalists; instead, it was often shot through with contradictions. The Young Irelander John Mitchel, for example, was both radical and reactionary in his critique of the British Empire. Mitchel fled to the United States after escaping from penal servitude in Australia for his part in the Young Ireland uprising, and lived for a number of years in Tennessee. He formed a positive opinion of what he saw as the benevolent, paternalist culture of plantation slavery, which he defended as part of his critique of what he termed the ‘British system’ of economic exploitation under the guise of ‘free trade.’10 Other nationalists such as Michael Davitt built on this critique of empire in the late nineteenth century11 As we will see, later Irish nationalists in the United States often displayed a similar ambiguity in their anti-imperial critique of British rule in India. As the largest and most important part of the British Empire, India attracted particular attention from Irish nationalists in the second half of the nineteenth century.12 Segments of the Irish nationalist press, according to Salahuddin Malik, were quick to label the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a revolution rather than simply an army revolt. The Nation compared the Rebellion to both the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, and published dozens of articles and poems on India ‘all of which sympathized with the rebels and wholeheartedly applauded their efforts at overthrowing the foreign yoke.’13 The Rebellion also drew calls for Irish patriots to emulate the actions of the rebels; one placard posted in Mitchelstown, County Tipperary, asked Irishmen ‘to imitate the example of the brave Sepoys and strike for freedom.’ The unionist press in turn decried this promotion of ‘Irish Sepoyism.’14

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

17

As with other imperial issues, however, there was no unified response to the events of 1857, but rather a range of opinions. Other more moderate nationalist newspapers such as the Freeman’s Journal of Dublin did not share the Nation’s enthusiasm for the cause of the Indian rebels. For the Freeman’s Journal, which regularly listed postings of Irish regiments in India and advertised goods and services for those heading there, the ‘Mutiny’ meant not a blow for freedom, but the prospect of the massacre of the families of British and Irish soldiers there. The restoration of British authority in India was the only solution to the terror and chaos of the sepoys’ revolt. Indeed, the newspaper’s editorial stance on the Mutiny of 1857, Jennifer M. Regan concludes, was ‘nearly indistinguishable’ from that of British newspapers. The contrasting perspectives of the Nation and the Freeman’s Journal therefore marked both Irish participation in imperial culture and Irish nationalist engagement with the British Empire.15 In the decades after 1857, the recurrence of famine in India led Irish Home Rulers such as Frank Hugh O’Donnell to focus on India in their critique of British imperialism.16 The Irish Parliamentary Party’s commitment to Home Rule and the foundation of the Indian National Congress deepened the level of transnational engagement. By the late 1870s, as Paul A. Townend observes in his analysis of Irish reactions to the Anglo-Zulu War, ‘anti-imperialism emerged as an integral, powerful part of Irish nationalist mobilizing rhetoric.’17 In the late nineteenth century, Irish and Indian nationalist leaders shared to varying degrees the ideal of a common struggle against the British Empire.18 On the Irish side, O’Donnell was in the forefront of this endeavor. O’Donnell supported the transformation of the British Empire into a commonwealth of equal partners, and argued that Ireland should lead ‘a coalition with the oppressed natives of India.’ In 1875, he helped set up an abortive Indian Home Rule organization, the Constitutional Society of India, with a mixture of Irish politicians and Indian students in London. O’Donnell was far from the only Irish Parliamentary Party member to show an interest in India and Imperial matters. Under Charles Stewart Parnell’s leadership in the late 1870s and 1880s, Irish Home Rulers dominated parliamentary question-time on India.19 There are other striking examples of the links between Irish and Indian nationalists in this era. Alfred Webb, a Quaker Irish nationalist who was also deeply involved in humanitarian causes, assumed the presidency of the Indian National Congress at its Madras meeting in 1894.20 Michael Davitt, who believed that the Irish should work on behalf of ‘all the struggling nationalities in the British Empire and elsewhere,’ in 1883 proposed the Indian nationalist Dadabhai Naoroji for an Irish parliamentary seat. Naoroji, who rose from a poor Parsi family in Bombay to own a cotton company in London, was a ‘father figure and counselor to Indian students and immigrants’ and the ‘leader of the minority who were active in the Indian nationalist movement.’21 Irish nationalists such as Davitt hoped that Naoroji

18 Ireland and India

would not only provide a direct voice for India in Parliament, but would also bolster Indian support for Irish Home Rule.22 Contacts between nineteenth-century Irish and Indian nationalists were always circumscribed, however. With the exception of a few politicians such as O’Donnell, any expressions of support for other nationalist movements were always secondary to the needs of the Irish cause. While the Anglophobe Parnell could be a vigorous opponent of the British Empire, he was far from a crusader for nationalist causes outside of Ireland. Not convinced that an Indian could be elected as an Irish M.P., and aware that the passage of Home Rule for Ireland would make it more difficult for such a representative to lobby for Indian self-rule, Parnell vetoed Davitt’s suggestion that Naorji stand for parliament as an Irish Home Rule candidate.23 Home Rulers’ support for Indian nationalism and other anti-imperial causes thus more often than not took the form of strategic interventions, rather than unconditional displays of anti-colonial solidarity.24 In addition to direct contacts between nationalist leaders, the Indian press, which rapidly expanded in the late nineteenth century, included ample coverage of Irish affairs, particularly in the eventful decade of the 1880s. The agrarian agitation of the Land War elicited a decidedly mixed reaction from Indian educated opinion, with the more conservative segments appalled but the more liberal sections issuing calls for the mobilization of the Indian peasantry.25 Within this complex context, however, mutual awareness and contact between nationalists in both countries steadily increased. As C.A. Bayly has argued, ‘the nationalist spokesmen of Ireland and India slowly became aware of each other as what were thought of as peoples. They were animated by each others’ demands for economic justice,’ while their ‘growing calls for national self-determination were cumulative and mutually reinforcing.’26 This sense of anti-colonial solidarity was particularly pronounced among the younger and more radical generation of nationalists. Fenians, along with Russian anarchists and the Italian nationalist Garibaldi, played a major role in shaping the ideas of the radical members of the Indian National Congress known as ‘extremists.’ The Bengali nationalist leader Aurobindo Ghose, for example, found inspiration in concepts derived from radical Irish nationalists: self-sacrifice, political assassination and, most importantly, the idea that a nation had to be created through the spilling of blood.27

Irish–American anti-imperialism Given the attraction of radical Indian nationalists to Irish revolutionary ideas, it is not surprising that some of the most important contact between Irish and Indian nationalists took place in North America. Scholars have long recognized the substantial contribution of Irish Americans to the Irish

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

19

Republican Brotherhood in the nineteenth century and in its reconstitution in the first decade of the twentieth century. Indeed, British press coverage of Fenianism typically characterized it as an Irish–American rather than Irish movement.28 There have been two predominant interpretations of Irish–American nationalism. The first emphasizes its role as a vehicle for the assimilation of the Catholic Irish within American society. Rooted in ‘the loneliness, alienation and poverty of the immigrant experience,’ nationalism served as a vehicle to raise the status of the Irish in America. The hope was that a free Ireland would help accomplish this. In addition, nationalist organizations were used as pressure groups for other ethnic and political issues, serving to demonstrate Irish ‘fitness for inclusion as full, respectable members of the national community.’ In other words, Irish– American nationalism was mainly directed toward American rather than Irish ends.29 The problem with this interpretation, as Kevin Kenny observes, is that it deals almost exclusively with the culture of middle-class Irish Americans, ignoring the far more socially and politically radical aspects of working-class Irish–American nationalism. This latter strand was epitomized by Clan na Gael, founded in New York City by Jerome C. Collins. By the late 1870s, Clan na Gael’s membership numbered 10,000, and under the leadership of John Devoy it had become ‘the most powerful republican organization on either side of the Atlantic.’30 In addition, Irish–American nationalist ideology merged a desire for Irish independence with an intense hatred of the British Empire. As we will see, the dealings of the Irish–American nationalists with their Indian counterparts demonstrated both the radical side of Irish–American nationalism, and also some of its limitations. Anti-imperialist thought among Irish–American nationalists was most prominently displayed by Patrick Ford, the Galway-born founder of The Irish World and Industrial Liberator of New York. The Irish World, the most influential Irish–American newspaper of the late nineteenth century, espoused not only labor, suffragist and radical causes in the United States but also armed rebellion against the British Empire. While other prominent Irish nationalist newspapers such as the Freeman’s Journal devoted considerable attention to the British Empire, printing reports from Reuters and the Press Association on events in Asia and Africa as well as editorials critical of British policy, Ford’s stance on empire was unique among Irish nationalist journalists. In Ford’s view, imperialism and republicanism were totally incompatible. He accordingly developed a social critique of empire which blended his republican and social radical principles and ‘squarely blamed the British state for atrocities.’31 During the Anglo-Boer War, the Irish World extended this critique to the United States, arguing that the McKinley administration’s support for the British war effort and its conquest of the Philippines amounted to the abandonment of ‘the very concept of a republic’ and, in imitation of the British, the transformation of the United States into an

20 Ireland and India

imperial power.32 In his newspaper columns, some of which were reprinted in 1915 under the title The Criminal History of the British Empire, Ford accused the British of genocide in India. In one column, Ford asked Prime Minister William Gladstone, ‘What sin in the criminal calendar have you not committed against her? You have invaded her territory, destroyed her industries, robbed her treasures, and utterly impoverished her people.’33 In addition to Ford’s critique of empire, members of the Fenian Irish Republican Brotherhood also justified the use of what Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa labeled ‘Skirmishing’ tactics—small-group and individual violence and explosive attacks on symbolic buildings in Britain rather than armed insurrection—by cataloguing—and sometimes exaggerating—the violence of British imperial rule. The frame of reference for Fenian discussions of British ‘atrocities’ was thus not only Ireland, but the whole of the British Empire. This anti-imperial republicanism extended to the desire of Fenian groups in the United States to fund nationalist resistance elsewhere in the Empire. As Niall Whelehan observes, While it seemed farfetched to imagine funding a group of armed Fenians in India or elsewhere in the empire, with money that could have been used in Ireland, Fenian organizations in the United States nonetheless seriously considered sending men and arms to aid the Afghanis, the Zulus, and the Boers.34

Indian diaspora nationalism In spite of the anti-imperial zeal of Patrick Ford and Fenian leaders such as O’Donovan Rossa, there was no direct contact between Indian and Irish nationalists in North America prior to the twentieth century. This was in large measure due to the fact that, in contrast to the large-scale migration of Irish men and women to North America in the nineteenth century, South Asian migration to the United States was extremely limited. Numbers began to increase in the early years of the twentieth century, when thousands of Indian men, mostly from the Punjab in northwestern India, were recruited as contract laborers for the logging industry in Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia. Most were Sikhs from agricultural backgrounds, and many were veterans of the Indian Army who had served in China during the Boxer Rebellion and heard stories about the riches to be gained on the American continent. Added to the mixture of army veterans and peasant cultivators were a small number of students studying at American universities and a handful of political refugees. This population was overwhelmingly male and, unusually for Indians overseas, the men often married non-Indian women, typically Mexican women in California and Hispanic and African–American women in cities such as New York and New Orleans.35 On the eve of the First

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

21

World War, the total number of Indians in the United States stood at just under 7000, concentrated on the Pacific Coast. In comparison, the number of Irish-born people in the United States numbered over 1.6 million at the turn of the twentieth century.36 Even though the number of South Asians in the United States was small, they formed part of a much larger migration of men and women from India in the period from mid-nineteenth century to the outbreak of the First World War. Although colonial stereotypes portrayed India as a static collection of immobile village communities, there existed centuries of Indian movement and migration, in the Indian Ocean region and further afield. This movement intensified as India was drawn more tightly into the British Empire in the nineteenth century. These migrants ranged from hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers—by far the largest group—to the much smaller numbers of Indians who traveled overseas for education, professional training and religious missionary work. Indian migration in this era encompassed Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Britain, North America and the Caribbean.37 Historians have increasingly recognized the important role of the Indian diaspora in the formulation of Indian nationalism, and how diverse communities ‘fractured by religion, language, local origin, caste, and class’ demonstrated ‘an inchoate, yet intense, patriotism’ that transcended these divisions.38 One of the earliest manifestations of this diaspora nationalism was within the imperial metropolis of London, where the British Committee of the Indian National Congress was established in the late 1880s. Although the British Committee became the most important Indian nationalist organization in England prior to the First World War, it was a decidedly moderate organization which argued for equal treatment for Indians, not political independence. By the turn of the century, however, younger, more radical Indian members of the committee pushed for a more forceful approach. Speeches at British Committee meetings, recorded by India Office agents, praised the rebels of 1857 and advocated armed rebellion against British rule, as the meetings took on a more ‘Fenian’ character.39 During the first decade of the twentieth century, radical nationalism took stronger root among the Indian community overseas. In the United Kingdom, a nucleus of Indian students and revolutionary leaders coalesced in London at the beginning of the twentieth century. Shyamji Krishnavarma, who rose from poor orphan to Oxford graduate and wealthy merchant and was called to the English Bar, was the impetus behind the growth of this revolutionary movement. A 3-month visit to England in 1897 was extended after the arrest of his friend, the nationalist leader Bal Ganghadar Tilak, convinced Krishnavarma ‘that no one was safe from the oppression of the governing classes in India.’40 For several years, Krishnavarma was profitably engaged in business, and at the end of 1904 he established a series of scholarships ‘for enabling Indian graduates to finish their education in England and to qualify themselves for an independent profession.’ He also founded a

22 Ireland and India

hostel for nationalist students known as India House, established the ‘India Home Rule Society’ and began publishing the Indian Sociologist, which in the words of one historian became ‘the prototype of all anti-British newspapers published by Indians abroad.’ The plans of revolutionaries in Britain culminated in the assassination of Sir William Curzon Wyllie, Political Aidede-Camp to the Secretary of State for India, by an Indian student named Madan Lal Dhingra on 1 July 1909.41 Indian revolutionaries were also active on the European continent prior to the First World War. In Britain and elsewhere in Europe, these revolutionaries displayed a cosmopolitan nationalism, and frequently interacted with other nationalist and revolutionary groups. As part of what Jonathan Schneer has referred to as the ‘alternative imperial Londons,’ Indian revolutionaries were entertained by Egyptian nationalists, spoke at Sinn Féin meetings and heard lectures by the Labour politician Keir Hardie.42 In 1906, the Bengali revolutionary Hemchandra Das traveled to Paris, where he made contact with a number of anarchists and socialists, including the Russian anarchist Nicolas Safranski and possibly the American radical Emma Goldman. Das returned to India with information about revolutionary organization and bomb-making techniques provided by the Safranksi and other Russian revolutionaries.43 Indian revolutionaries in the United States were thus part of a larger, transnational contingent of radical Indians overseas. Indeed, after the murder of Curzon Wyllie in 1909, greater numbers of Indian students favoring nationalist views began studying in the United States rather than Britain, in order to escape the surveillance of British authorities.44 The social composition of Indian revolutionary groups in North America was, however, unique. Within India, revolutionary groups were generally, although not exclusively, composed of an elite, predominantly high-caste Hindu, membership. Yet in North America two disparate groups merged: peasant laborers and middle-class students. As Joan M. Jensen observes, by the first decade of the twentieth century in North America two different historical trends had converged: Economic conditions in India and the British Empire were leading thousands of Indian migratory workers to look for new areas in which to sell their labor. Political conditions in India and the Empire were leading a much smaller group of Indian revolutionaries to seek political asylum and an audience for their grievances against the British raj. The arrival of these two groups in America provoked a crisis of public policy that would take over a decade to resolve.45 In spite of their relatively small numbers, South Asians in the United States experienced considerable racial hostility: there were several instances of anti-‘Hindu’ riots on the West Coast, and calls for the exclusion of all

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

23

South Asians by the California-based Asian Exclusion League, as well as the American Federation of Labor.46 The racism of white Americans had the effect of radicalizing many of those Indians who had managed to enter the country. However, the political energies of Indian immigrants—laborers and middle-class student alike—were almost exclusively directed toward Britain rather than toward the United States.47 The resulting nationalist movement became known as Gadar, meaning ‘mutiny’ or ‘revolt.’ Under the leadership of a Punjabi Hindu named Har Dayal, Indians in 1913 established an organization called the Hindu Association of the Pacific Coast. The Association’s newspaper was known as Ghadr, and the motto on its masthead read, ‘O, people of India, arise and take up your swords.’48 As we will see, Irish nationalists in the United States lent assistance to a variety of Indian revolutionary endeavors. Irish Americans also, however, exhibited strong opposition to non-Western immigration in the late nineteenth century, and nationalist groups were always more willing to lend assistance to revolutionary leaders than to support the mass immigration of South Asians. Irish labor leaders—including Workingmen’s party leader Denis Kearney and the socialist and former Fenian Frank Roney—led agitation against Chinese workers in California and helped to bring about the passage of the 1882 federal law outlawing further Chinese immigration. Indeed, as Kevin Kenny observes, this was the Irish–American community’s most intense display of racial animosity in the nineteenth century: Organized labor in general, and indeed American society as a whole in the 1870s, shared in this animosity to a remarkable extent, but the hostility of Irish workers to the Chinese was arguably the most intense of all, especially in California where Irish immigrant workers were at the vanguard of a movement to curtail Chinese labour competition, especially on railroad construction and in menial city jobs . . . . Beyond economic concerns, Irish anti-Chinese sentiment was, once again, intimately tied to questions of assimilation, the presence of a new alien minority affording the Irish yet another opportunity to protest and demonstrate their fitness for inclusion in the racial mainstream.49 Irish nationalists at times expressed similar objections to Indian migration to the United States. The Gaelic American, which opposed lifting the bar on Chinese immigration established by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, argued that Indians should focus their efforts on freeing their own nation rather than on emigrating to the United States.50 The Gaelic American drew a distinction between Indian revolutionary leaders, whose efforts to free India from British rule it vigorously supported, and the prospect of mass Indian migration to the United States, which it regarded with hostility. Given this complex stance, what attitude did Irish–American nationalists assume toward the early efforts of Indian nationalists in the United States?

24 Ireland and India

Gadar and Ireland Early Indian political organization in the United States attempted to duplicate the model of India House in London; indeed, an India House was established in New York City as well. Local organizers, some of whom were in contact with Krishnavarma in London and the female revolutionary Vikaj Rustomji Cama in Switzerland, sought to emulate India House’s success in bringing together local Indians through clubs and associations in order to foster a sense of nationalism. Indians in the United States, however, lacked the financial resources of their counterparts in London (for example, the means to attract students through scholarships), and initially were dependent on collaborators. Chiefly, this meant Irish Americans.51 Following the 1905 partition of Bengal and the Swadeshi campaign that followed it, radical Irish–American nationalists in New York began to take an active interest in Indian affairs. The foremost example was John Devoy’s Gaelic American, the newspaper of Clan na Gael. Devoy viewed Indian nationalist agitation sympathetically, and the newspaper frequently reprinted articles from Bengali nationalist papers such as the Amrita Bazar Patrika. Reports of demonstrations and boycotts in opposition to the 1905 Partition of Bengal elicited the comments that ‘the Indian worm is turning at last . . . . While the villager shows his change of mind towards his alien and generally insolent rulers, by putting in practice the principle of non-intercourse and passive resistance, the educated Hindu seems to be beginning to find his tongue.’52 In addition to numerous articles in support of Indian nationalism, the Gaelic American published a tract entitled ‘Indians Declare Openly for Republic,’ as well as a description of a ‘National Flag of India,’ which incorporated symbols and colors associated with the major religions of India, as well as the words ‘Bande Mataram,’ or ‘Hail, motherland.’53 Members of the Irish–American press also lent assistance to the early publication efforts of Indians in the United States. The Bengali revolutionary Taraknath Das, a frequent commentator on Irish as well as Indian affairs and one of the few Indians to obtain American citizenship in this era, secured the assistance of several Irish collaborators in publishing a newspaper known as the Free Hindustan before the First World War. George Freeman, the co-editor of the Gaelic American, together with another Irishman named James Donnelly, contributed to the Free Hindustan. In addition, Freeman, Devoy, a Muslim named Maulvia Mohammed Barakatullah and a Marathi Christian named Samuel Lucas Joshi combined to form an organization in 1907 known as the Pan-Aryan Association, which was dedicated to both Hindu–Muslim solidarity and Indo-Irish cooperation. For two years, the PanAryan Association engaged in pro-Indian and anti-British propaganda, until Baraktullah and Joshi departed for Japan and Britain, respectively, early in 1909. (Baraktullah would return to help found the Gadar Party prior to the First World War.)54

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

25

Although Britain’s ambassador to the United States, the Irish Home Ruler James Bryce, regarded the intrigues of Indian nationalists and Clan na Gael supporters skeptically, in 1914, British consular officials nonetheless hesitated to recommend banning the import of the Ghadr newspaper to India for fear of unleashing a flurry of pro-Indian nationalist sentiment in the Irish–American press.55 The Government of India viewed these developments with even greater concern. The fear that Irish republicans in North America would provide Indian revolutionaries with firearms or expertise in bomb-making prompted the Government to utilize the Home Office to provide information on Indian nationalists in New York and their contacts with Clan na Gael.56 In addition, the Government of India took the content of the Gaelic American seriously enough—particularly its talk of simultaneous army mutinies in India and Ireland—to ban its publication in India. In July 1907, orders were given for Indian postal officials to surreptitiously seize copies of the paper; 335 copies were confiscated before it was formally proscribed 2 months later. In arguing for a ban, the Director of Criminal Intelligence of the Government of India observed This paper makes a point of linking Ireland and India together as two down-trodden countries struggling for freedom. All its utterances are marked by violent and deep-rooted hatred for British rule and are a direct incitement to natives of this country to struggle or intrigue in order to overthrow it.57 The intervention of the British Embassy ultimately led to the suppression of the Free Hindustan in 1911. The outbreak of the First World War was a call for immediate action for many Gadarites. In August 1914, Indians, mostly Sikhs from the Punjab, began returning to India with the goal of launching an uprising there. Some of these return migrations were purely spontaneous, but they were also encouraged by the Gadar leadership. In August, three Gadar leaders, Ram Chandra, Bhagwan Singh and Maulvi Mohamed Baraktullah—a Hindu, Sikh and Muslim united in a show of inter-faith solidarity—toured the western coast from Seattle to the Mexican border, urging Indians to unite against the British. Indian men—again predominantly Punjabi Sikhs—continued to return to India during the fall of 1914.58 While the colonial authorities were able to arrest the majority of the Gadar leadership who returned to India—most made little secret of their revolutionary intentions—Gadarites traveling by various, and often circuitous, routes were able to return to the Punjab. By 1917, around 8000 Punjabis had returned to the province; by the end of the war, more than 1500 of these had been detained at least temporarily on suspicion of revolutionary activity. In November 1914, Gadar revolutionaries began to make efforts to persuade Indian troops to mutiny, and by the following month they were carrying out

26 Ireland and India

dacoities, or gang robberies, in order to gain funds for an attempted rising. The most serious threat of mutiny in the Indian Army, however, was foiled through a well-placed informer in February 1915, and after that the Gadar Party’s activities in India were limited to uncoordinated dacoities, which for the most part ended by August 1915.59 The failure of the population of India to rise in rebellion led to the Gadar Party to turn to the assistance of the German imperial government.60 In the fall of 1914, an Indian independence committee in Berlin was established under the leadership of the Viren Chattopadhyay, known as ‘Chatto,’ and by early December, the committee had developed plans for a rebellion in India. While German attempts to funnel arms and money through the Gadar Party to India were characterized by ineptitude, misfortune and treachery, there is no doubting the seriousness of intent. By December 1914, Germans in the United States had amassed an arsenal of almost 11,000 rifles with four million cartridges and 750 pistols and revolvers, the first of two attempted arms shipments.61 After American entry into the war, using information supplied by British intelligence officers, more than 120 persons were indicted for violating American neutrality by using the United States as a base for German schemes to promote rebellion against the British Raj. Thirty-five were brought to trial in 1917, including 17 Indians, nine German citizens, including the former consul general at San Francisco, and nine United States citizens. The case, which came to be known as the ‘Hindu Conspiracy Case,’ lasted for over 6 months and culminated in a dramatic double killing in the courtroom. One of the defendants, Gadar Party leader Ram Chandra, was shot and killed by a fellow revolutionary who believed that Chandra had turned informant; Chandra’s assassin was in turn fatally shot by a marshal. The case clearly had an important political function: to convince skeptics of the presence of German intrigues on American soil and therefore further justify the decision to declare war. Nineteen Gadar Party members were ultimately convicted on charges of conspiracy. In spite of the outcome of the trial, the ‘Hindu Conspiracy Case’ did not mark the end of Indian anti-colonial activity in the United States. The sentences which were meted out to the revolutionaries (none of which were more than three years) were surprisingly lenient, and the Gadar party re-formed after the First World War. Two important changes took place in the nature of Indian revolutionary activity at this point, however. First, although many Indian revolutionaries remained in California, the locus shifted from the West Coast to the Northeast, particularly to New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area. Second, Indian revolutionaries sought to forge closer alliances with Irish and Irish–American nationalists. We have already examined the support that Irish and Irish–American republicans gave to fledgling Indian nationalist efforts prior to the First World War. Irishmen played a role in the ‘Hindu Conspiracy’ as well. Clearly, this role was secondary to that of the German imperial government;

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

27

nonetheless, as the historian Matthew Erin Plowman has argued, ‘Irish-IndoGerman Conspiracy’ is an appropriate label for these plots to overthrow the British Raj.62 George Freeman served as a contact for Gadar Party members and German agents, while Larry de Lacey, an associate of John Devoy’s in Clan na Gael, was involved with facilitating arms shipments and was imprisoned for helping some of the Indo-German prisoners escape. Irish–American lawyers were the core of the defense team, while the United States Attorney was concerned to prevent any Irish Americans who might be of nationalist sympathies from serving on the jury. (‘North of Ireland Irish’ were deemed acceptable.)63 The Gadar Party was clearly conversant with Irish affairs and Irish history, and forged links to Irish republicans in the United States. After the Easter Rising, more than two dozen stories were published on Irish affairs in the Ghadr newspaper, sometimes reprinting articles from the Gaelic American along with reports on Irish nationalist meetings in the United States.64 The stories displayed a familiarity with Irish history and made references to previous republican leaders, Home Rule and the Great Famine, although the enthusiasm of the writers for the Irish cause often outstripped their accuracy.65 The leading story in Ghadr on 10 May 1916 proclaimed that ‘the blood of martyrs is not wasted’: In 1803 Emmet led an Irish revolt. He and others fell and England and the world too thought that rebellion in Ireland was forever crushed. But as one had predicted every drop was as seed sown which has produced many harvests.66 In August 1917, a long article entitled ‘Ireland and India’ again lavished praise on the men of the Easter Rising, stating that ‘thousands’ of Irish had been killed since the Rising, ‘but Bravo! Oh Irish, you kept your sword on high and did not show the white feather.’ Ghadr added that ‘the Irish Americans helped the cause with men and money and by their fine example and sympathy gained over the weak minded.’67

The Friends of Freedom for India The shift of location for Irish–Indian nationalist collaboration to the northeastern United States at the end of the First World War was not initiated by Gadar revolutionaries, but by the distinguished nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai. Rai, one of the leaders of the ‘extremist’ faction of the Indian National Congress before the First World War, favored a forceful campaign for Indian self-government, including the use of strikes and mass demonstrations, but not armed revolution. In England at the beginning of the First World War and unable to return to India, he instead traveled to the United States. He viewed the revolutionary efforts of the Gadar Party with contempt,

28 Ireland and India

but nonetheless believed that American support could strengthen nationalist activity in India.68 Rai chose to base his organization, the India Home Rule League of America, in New York rather than California, in part because of the support he believed would be forthcoming from Irish Americans there. By 1920, New York City had become a center of anti-imperial activity. Like London at the turn of the twentieth century, it was a nexus where different radical and nationalist groups could converge, and a place where an ‘all-encompassing, color-blind opposition to British imperialism could take root and grow.’69 The growth of anti-imperial activities was noted by New York State authorities, and the agents of the Lusk Committee, formed to monitor socialist and labor activity during the ‘Red Scare’ following the First World War, also devoted attention to monitoring Irish and Indian nationalist meetings and the interaction of these groups.70 Lala Lajpat Rai established relationships with many Irish and Irish– American nationalists in the Northeast. He formed a close friendship with the lawyer and social reformer Dudley Field Malone, who called Rai ‘the most modest but most inspiring patriot I have ever known.’71 In February 1919, Lajpat Rai attended the third Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia, where he seconded a resolution in favor of Irish self-determination. In a speech at the convention, he claimed that by 1925 there would be more Sinn Feiners in India than in Ireland.72 The India Home Rule League’s newspaper, Young India, also featured considerable commentary on events in Ireland. In the aftermath of the Easter Rising, however, Lajpat Rai’s moderate, constitutionalist position was less favorable to Irish republicans in the United States than the stance of Indian revolutionaries who favored the violent overthrow of British rule. In March 1919, Irish and Indian nationalists in New York, together with a number of radical, liberal and labor leaders, formed an organization known as the Friends of Freedom for India (FOFI). The FOFI had two goals: to defend the rights of Indians in the United States facing deportation and to support Indian nationalist activities, particularly those dedicated to overthrowing British rule through armed struggle. A number of prominent Irish Americans featured in the membership of the FOFI. Dudley Field Malone served as vicepresident, while Dr. Gertrude Kelly, the New York president of Cumann na Mban, the female counterpart of the Irish Volunteers, served as treasurer. The second president of the FOFI was the Irish–American journalist Philip Francis, while the head of its West Coast branch was Thomas Gannon, an Irish American who had previously served an ‘apprenticeship’ writing political propaganda for the Gadar Party.73 The driving forces behind the FOFI were two Bengalis, Sailendranath Ghose and Taraknath Das. Both were the products of the revolutionary nationalist tradition in Bengal, which will be the subject of the following chapter.74 Originally from Jessore in eastern Bengal, Ghose was a professor at the University College of Science in Calcutta. In 1916, he came to the

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

29

notice of the Bengal Police Intelligence Branch as a member of the Jugantar Party, one of the two main revolutionary groups in the province, as ‘an expert in the manufacture of bombs.’ Fearing arrest and unable to obtain a passport, he fled India as a stoker on a City Line ship. Along with several other Indian revolutionaries, he accompanied fellow Bengali M.M. Bhattacharji (later known as M.N. Roy) to Mexico. Roy remained there, and helped found the Communist Party of Mexico, while in 1917 Ghose traveled to San Francisco.75 There he met with members of the Gadar Party as well as the American radical Agnes Smedley, a member of Lajpat Rai’s Home Rule League and later a leader of the Friends of Freedom for India, ‘and her Bolshevik associates.’ Ghose considered going to Russia, but instead went to New York in March 1918 to aid German efforts to smuggle arms to Indian revolutionaries. In the same month, he was arrested at Smedley’s apartment. On April 1, both were indicted under the Espionage Act; Smedley was released on bail in November 1918 and Ghose in January 1919; neither was prosecuted although the charges were not dropped until 1923.76 In November 1919, Ghose became the organizing secretary of the Friends of Freedom for India. For the next decade and a half, Ghose became ‘an implacable anti-British propagandist,’ whom one diplomat described as ‘a professional agitator against Great Britain.’77 Ghose’s colleague Taraknath Das, who was born into a middle-class family in a village 30 miles north of Calcutta in 1884, was recruited into the Anushilan Samiti, one of the original revolutionary societies in Bengal, in 1902. Warned of police plans to arrest him, he fled to Japan, and then to the United States, arriving in Seattle in 1906. In 1908, Das established the Free Hindustan newspaper with the assistance of George Freeman. At the time, Das was an interpreter for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but chose to resign rather than cease publication of the Free Hindustan. Seeking military training, in 1908, he enrolled as a cadet at Norwich University, a military academy in Vermont, and later earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington.78 He was involved with the Indo-German Conspiracy during the First World War, and convicted and sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment. The zeal of these two Bengali revolutionaries for armed revolution in India struck a responsive chord with Irish nationalists following the First World War. Ghose’s participation in the 1920 St. Patrick’s Day parade was certainly no anomaly. An intelligence report described him as ‘a firm believer in the Indo-Irish link,’ and Ghose maintained relationships with Irish and Irish– American nationalists until his return to India in 1937. This link was fostered in part by Ghose’s antipathy for Gandhian methods of non-violence, an antipathy he shared with many Bengali nationalists, and one he held in spite of the fact that for over a year he was the official spokesman of the Indian National Congress in the United States.79 In July 1929, Ghose wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru that the Indian National Congress’ ‘renunciation

30 Ireland and India

of the doctrine of force, as an instrument of national policy’ was a great ‘blunder.’ This criticism of non-violence resonated with Irish nationalists as well, who by and large did not believe that independence from colonial rule could be achieved by non-violent methods alone. In 1925, an Irish nationalist named Sean Conway shared the podium at an Indian nationalist meeting in New York in which the keynote speaker, Chaudery Lall Khan, condemned Mohandas K. Gandhi as a ‘coward’ and advocated armed revolution.80 On 23 February 1929, The Irish World printed a report, based on information from Ghose, that ‘the Nationalist army of India, under the generalship of Subhas Bose,’ a prominent Bengali nationalist leader with whom Ghose corresponded, ‘was well uniformed and armed and had stopped the Bombay riots instigated by “English agents provocateur.”’ Three years later, Ghose arranged for the Indian nationalist Vithalbhai Patel to visit the United States, where he gave more than 80 lectures. Patel, like Ghose, was a firm believer in Indo-Irish revolutionary cooperation. He had helped to found an organization in Dublin called the Indian–Irish Independence League, and while in the United States he spoke at a meeting ‘arranged mainly by Irish sympathizers’ in Washington D.C., which was attended by several congressmen.81 In the early 1920s, Taraknath Das also made extensive contact with Irish and Irish–American nationalists. A British intelligence report, acknowledging Das’ skills as a journalist and publicist, described him as ‘a most prolific writer and a tireless intriguer,’ who ‘poses as an authority on international politics.’82 In 1921, he published a series of articles on India in Joseph McGarrity’s Irish Press, and in his writings about Ireland he strongly urged Indians to emulate the republican demand for complete independence and their willingness to use violence to achieve it: The Indian National Congress leaders and Home Rulers in India are playing the same part as was played by Parnell, Redmond and their followers in Irish History . . . . The time has come for launching a political party in India, which, like the Sinn Féin Party of Ireland, will boldly proclaim before the world, that it stands and is working for absolute independence of India and for a republic of the United States of India.83

‘Millions for Freedom’ One of the Irish Americans most involved in the Indian nationalist causes in this period was the Missouri-born labor lawyer Frank P. Walsh. Walsh was a dynamic figure who had previously served as co-chairman of the War Labor Conference Board and as editor and publisher of the Kansas City Post. Walsh was not active in nationalist politics until 1919, when he became chair of the American Commission on Irish Independence. The Commission’s three members, appointed by the Irish Race Convention, attended the Paris Peace

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

31

Conference in hopes of winning support for an Irish Republic, and also toured Ireland and issued a polemical report critical of British policy.84 Walsh served as one of the vice presidents of the Friends of Freedom for India; he also provided legal opinions on issues such as fundraising in the United States to equip soldiers of the ‘Indian Republican Army’ to fight against British rule and wrote numerous letters of introduction for Indian nationalists to labor leaders and Irish republicans in the United States.85 Indeed, Walsh became a passionate advocate of not only Irish and Indian but also Egyptian nationalism. ‘Were it not for my absorption, at present, in the Irish matter,’ he wrote in 1919, ‘I would throw myself into this Egyptian business with a will.’ For Walsh, national independence and social and industrial justice were closely related, and each in his view had been badly served by the Treaty of Versailles. Walsh argued that the question of adequate wages and working conditions for industrial workers was a world question and America shall not be free of the shock of contact with political injustice until self-determination for Ireland, for India, for Egypt for each and every one of the smaller and oppressed races and nations whose efforts before the peace table to set racial boundaries by blood and tongue, rather than by mountain and stream was refused, shall become accomplished facts.86 Walsh was far from alone in his vocal support for Indian as well as other anti-colonial movements in this era. During the years 1919–21, Irish republican contacts with Indian nationalists in the United States were part of a larger strategy of linking the Irish cause with those of other subject peoples of the world. These included American Indians as well as South Asians. During Eamon De Valera and Harry Boland’s ‘Grand Tour’ of the United States in the fall of 1919, the two visited a Chippewa Indian reservation in Wisconsin, a visit arranged by an American Indian priest who Liam Mellows described as a ‘most enthusiastic Sinn Féiner.’ The Irish emissaries celebrated a memorial mass for American Indian soldiers killed in the Great War and were treated to an official welcome at which De Valera smoked a ‘Pipe of Peace’ and received a wampum belt, described by Boland as ‘the most precious gift in their power.’ Boland informed his mother that ‘De Valera is now a Chief of the Chippewa Nation, his Indian name is “nay nay ong a ba” which means “the Dressing Feather”.’ With an eye to the value of the scenes as Republican propaganda, Liam Mellows adroitly arranged for the visit to be recorded on film.87 While carefully avoiding any overt endorsement of Bolshevism, Irish republicans forged alliances with representatives of the Russian revolutionary government in New York.88 They also cultivated, albeit to a lesser degree, the support of African nationalists. African–American dock workers in New York, who traditionally enjoyed an antagonistic and often violent

32 Ireland and India

relationship with their Irish counterparts, lent support to a strike in August and September 1920 in protest of the imprisonment of the Lord Mayor of Cork City, Terence MacSwiney. The African nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, a vocal supporter of Irish nationalism, personally sent a representative down to the docks to encourage African–American support for the strike. Irish and Irish–American nationalist leaders involved in the dock strike in turn pledged support for the cause of African liberation at a meeting in Liberty Hall in Harlem on 12 September 1920. Afterward, Garvey expressed confidence that he could ‘get money from the Irish’ and that he planned ‘to keep close to the Irish in the future.’89 In the following year, the International Convention of the Negro Races of the World sent telegrams to King George V, urging freedom for Ireland, Egypt and India, and to Eamon De Valera, promising assistance in the anti-colonial struggle.90 This anti-colonial solidarity was expressed more formally through an organization known as the League of Oppressed Peoples, established in 1919 by Dudley Field Malone to ‘protest against continued imperialist adventures on the part of certain great powers.’91 The League supported self-determination for Ireland, India, China and Korea; its motto ‘Millions for Freedom but Not One Cent for Oppression’ was somewhat hyperbolic, since its membership remained confined to a small number of liberals, radicals and nationalists. The League’s Executive Committee included the Irish–American journalist Francis Hackett and Lala Lajpat Rai, while Harry Boland, Liam Mellows, Patrick McCartan and Padraic Colum lent their names to the organization’s ‘Committee for Ireland.’92 Boland clearly hoped that such nationalist alliances would lead to worldwide anti-imperial struggle against the British, a vision he outlined to Joseph McGarrity in August 1920. ‘To Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, Egypt, and Moscow,’ he wrote, ‘our men must go to make common cause against our common foe.’93 As David Fitzpatrick observes, ‘The dream of linking Ireland with global anti-imperialism was surprisingly slow to fade.’94 From 1919 to 1921, contacts between Irish and Indian nationalists extended beyond declarations of solidarity, as Irish Americans gave significant financial support to the FOFI. The exact amount is not clear, but it clearly totaled thousands of dollars and comprised the bulk of the organization’s small budget. British consular authorities concluded that Indian revolutionary groups in the United States were ‘engineered and financed by the Irish,’ and compiled a number of examples to demonstrate this. These included a $2500 donation from the Executive Council of the Friends of Irish Freedom, as well as donations from the Boston Committee for the Irish Republic and the New Orleans chapter of the Friends of Irish Freedom. Irish nationalists were also rumored to have paid the full-time salary of Agnes Smedley, the American radical who was one of the founders of the FOFI.95

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

33

In addition to assisting with fundraising efforts, Irish nationalists also aided their Indian counterparts with efforts to import weapons to India. In spite of the fact that nationalist efforts at smuggling arms to Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War had mixed results, they were undoubtedly able to import weapons at a much higher rate than Indian revolutionaries, who often went to extraordinary lengths to obtain small numbers. Irish seamen seem to have been involved in the smuggling of arms for Indian as well as Irish nationalists.96 Harry Gloster Armstrong, the Cavan-born British Consul General in New York, suspected that Irish republicans might be assisting Indian efforts at arms procurement. In December 1921, he reported the failure (due to a taxi breakdown) to trace the transfer of several hundred cases of cartridges from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company warehouse in Manhattan to Philadelphia. Armstrong considered the matter ‘of some importance as there is a distinct indication by the advanced Irish party here, headed by Cohalan and Devoy, to turn their activities further to the unrest of India, and these cartridges being manufactured for British military rifles might be intended for that country.’ Earlier in the year, the Government of India had urged the India Office to ‘take precautions’ after receiving a report that a ship bound from Boston to Bombay carried machine guns, ‘probably Thompson sub-machine guns weighing only 7½ pounds and easily concealed under a coat.’97 In 1922, British intelligence agents obtained information linking Taraknath Das with the arms dealer George Gordon Rorke, who had been arrested for smuggling submachine guns to Ireland.98 The FOFI was energetic in pursuing these links with Irish nationalists. In March 1920, the organization reported that in the previous year, its leaders had given 275 lectures before ‘labor unions, liberal and radical clubs and Irish societies’ and sent over 1000 letters to branches of the Friends of Irish Freedom regarding pending deportations against Indian nationalists in the United States.99 The letters, requesting resolutions in support of the potential deportees, seem to have generated at least some response. At their meeting on 6 July 1919, the California State Convention of the Sons of Irish Freedom unanimously passed a resolution protesting the deportations. It read, ‘The People of India, like the people of Ireland, have been compelled by intolerable conditions, both economic and political, to challenge the right of Great Britain in preventing India by armed force from asserting her right to national self-government.’100 In August 1921, Sailendranath Ghose was a speaker at the second annual ‘Irish Field Day,’ held under the auspices of the American Committee for the Recognition of the Irish Republic. ‘India will not be satisfied with the freedom of Ireland and the freedom of India alone,’ Ghose said, ‘but looks forward to the entire disintegration of the British Empire.’101 This contact extended to various Irish community and nationalist organizations in the New York and Philadelphia area. In 1919, for example,

34 Ireland and India

Lajpat Rai received a warm reception from Irish nationalists in Jamaica, Queens, while the Limerick Men’s Benevolent and Social Association in New York received a delegation from the FOFI at one of their meetings in the following year. In 1919, Young India observed, ‘The Irish organizations in this country are very friendly to India. They often invite our speakers to speak at their meetings and pass resolutions favoring self-determination for India.’ Some Indian seamen also seem to have supported the 1920 strike by Irish–American dockworkers in protest of Terence MacSwiney’s imprisonment.102 One important nexus for contact between Irish and Indian nationalists was the Irish Progressive League, a small but influential organization of leftof-center Irish republicans in New York founded by Peter Golden in 1919. Golden, the second cousin of MacSwiney, was a poet, actor and singer as well as a committed nationalist who had emigrated to the United States from County Cork in 1901.103 After the Easter Rising, Golden became a journalist for the Gaelic American and a representative of the Irish Relief Fund Committee. An indication of Golden’s standing among Irish–American nationalists is the fact that a branch of the Friends of Irish Freedom was established in his honor in Holyoke, Massachusetts. In 1919, Golden and Rev. Peter E. Magennis co-founded the Irish Progressive League, which ‘from its foundation attracted revolutionary Nationalists into its ranks.’104 Golden met many people involved with the Indian independence through his position as New York secretary for the Friends of Irish Freedom. According to his daughter, Eithne, his apartment near Columbia University on New York’s Upper West Side became a gathering place for Indian nationalists. Among those who visited were Lala Lajpat Rai; Sarojini Naidu, the poet and former Congress Party president; Dr. N.S. Hardiker, the editor of the Young India magazine; and a young Indian nationalist under threat of deportation named Pernandu N. Sinha, who spent much of his time helping the Golden family with their laundry. Golden was inspired to write a poem dedicated to his Indian colleagues. Not all of those with whom Golden associated favored violence as a strategy for ending colonial rule, but in a poem entitled ‘Rise! Indians, Rise!’ Golden urged Indians to emulate British violence in ousting the colonial rulers: Look to the Feringhis [foreigners] themselves, Do you the same as they did, When with your best and bravest blood, Your beauteous land they bathed, Oh, strike with everything you can, To smite and slay the foeman, And from this day bid India swear, She’ll bow her head to no man.105

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

35

In its public meetings too, the Irish Progressive League actively supported the cause of Indian nationalism. In July 1919, a crowd which a New York state agent estimated at 1500 attended a joint meeting of the Irish Progressive League and the Friends of Irish Freedom at the Lexington Opera House at 51st Street and Lexington Avenue. All of the speakers, including Liam Mellows, Peter Golden, Norman Thomas and Frank P. Walsh, ‘spoke in favor of Ireland’s independence and the freedom of India, also criticized President Wilson’s activities at the Peace Conference, and were loudly acclaimed.’ Pamphlets and papers distributed at the meeting included a FOFI pamphlet entitled ‘British Inquisition in India,’ criticizing the Rowlatt Act, which gave the Government of India broad powers of detention without trial; an article by Surendranath Ghose reprinted from the Dial; and an anti-imperial Irish Progressive League leaflet entitled ‘The Lion’s Share.’106 In August 1920, the Celtic Players, an Irish repertory group with ties to the Irish Progressive League, played a benefit concert for the FOFI. Fundraising for Indian nationalist organizations also took place on a grassroots level among Irish Americans. In October 1921, Irish–American men and women responded to an appeal by Saliendranath Ghose for funds to support ‘the fighting forces of India.’ The appeal stated that ‘one hundred dollars will equip one fighter in India. One dollar will support an Indian fighter for one week.’ Ghose promised that ‘all contributions, however small, will be acknowledged in the Irish Press.’ The following two issues of the Irish Press listed 16 contributions of between one and ten dollars from supporters in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Minnesota and Arkansas.107 The following month, Philadelphia-area councils of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic held three ‘India Tag Days’ for ‘relief in India.’108 In their propaganda efforts, Irish and Indian nationalists in the United States drew clear parallels between their independence struggles and British actions to suppress them. A FOFI leaflet, which drew the attention of Dublin Castle, the center of the British administration in Ireland, urged supporters to Help India to liberty and independence. The British Empire can alone be destroyed by separating India from it. Only INDEPENDENT INDIA can save America, Ireland, Egypt and the whole world from the BRITISH PERIL.109 A frequent point of comparison for nationalists from both countries was the Amritsar massacre of April 1919. A FOFI pamphlet proclaimed, ‘As the Easter Massacre [sic] in Ireland has united the people of the Emerald Isle more than ever before. So this Amritsar massacre has most wonderfully united the people, specially the Hindus and the Mahommedans.’ The Irish and Irish–American nationalist press accorded various events in Anglo-Irish War

36 Ireland and India

the title of ‘the Irish Amritsar.’110 In May 1920, the Friends of Irish Freedom newsletter complained that Reginald Dyer, the general who ordered troops to fire at Amritsar, was to be ‘given a whitewash’ by the committee of inquiry, and sarcastically observed, ‘We may expect soon to hear of Dyer’s being assigned to duty in Ireland.’111 Similarly, Indian nationalists drew the attention of Irish Americans to ‘Black and Tan’ atrocities in India. In a ‘spirited talk’ to the Frankfort, Pennsylvania, chapter of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic in March 1922, FOFI Secretary Noni Bose spoke passionately (if inaccurately) of ‘the sufferings being endured by so many of the women and children from the hands of the Black and Tans imported into India for this particular purpose.’112

Eamon De Valera and India Indian nationalists in the United States also took great interest in Eamon De Valera’s American travels. De Valera spent 18 months in the United States between 1919 and 1920, raising over six million dollars through two issues of ‘republican bonds.’ During a visit to San Francisco in July 1919, De Valera met with Gopal Singh and Jagat Singh of the Hindustan Gadar party, who presented him with an engraved silver sword and a large silk Republican tricolor. In the presentation ceremony, an Irish American named Ed Gammons, the Secretary of the Pacific Coast Branch of the FOFI, read an address stating that both Ireland and India ‘have a common cause and a common enemy. Both of our nations have indisputable claims to nationhood.’ In accepting the sword, which De Valera referred to as a ‘sacred weapon when used in a such a righteous cause,’ the Republican leader assured the Gadar delegation that ‘the Irish People recognize the justice of your fight and are heartily with you.’ De Valera, according to Gammons, surprised the Gadarites with his ‘thorough knowledge of Indian problems,’ and urged Indians to ‘forget internal differences and customs in order to present a united front to the enemy. Everything should be sacrificed in the interest of unity.’113 On 28 February 1920, De Valera was the keynote speaker at a dinner sponsored by the FOFI at the Central Opera House in New York City. Over 500 people attended the dinner and many more crowded in to hear De Valera’s speech. Agnes Smedley, the Secretary of the FOFI, reported It was a great dinner; I have never seen such a jam. We took a hall which would seat at the most a little more than 550. Every seat was taken, for dinner, and as soon as dinner was over the doors were opened and in poured hundreds to hear the speaking. De Valera was wonderful and we are having his speech printed in pamphlet form . . . . All the Hindus were there in turbans, acting as ushers.114

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

37

De Valera’s remarks recalled Patrick Ford’s impassioned indictment of the British Empire in the late nineteenth century. He argued that Britain had drained India, like Ireland before it, of capital and people—in De Valera’s words, ‘not only in wealth but in actual blood’—through famines encouraged by British rule, a history that he said Irishmen did not need to be reminded of: ‘A British statesman once spoke of the increasing Irish population as a menace to Britain, and in a few years an artificial famine was brought about and they killed off our people by the million. Do we doubt that in full consciousness, they act likewise today in India?’ Racial difference was not a subject explicitly addressed by De Valera, but he equated British perceptions of both peoples. ‘The people of India, we are told by the British apologists, are backward and ignorant, lazy and unable to rule themselves. They have made exactly the same pretense about Ireland at other times. The Indians are “mere” Asiatics, we are told. We were the “mere” Irish.’ In terms of potential nationalist strategies, De Valera acknowledged the differences between the situations of Ireland, ‘a small nation within easy striking distance of the center of Britain’s power,’ and India, ‘a mighty nation and far removed.’ He implied that an exact duplication of Irish techniques of resistance might not be appropriate: ‘These different conditions suggest different tactics.’ ‘But,’ he added, ‘there is one lesson that Ireland’s struggle teaches very plainly. It is only through the influence of fear and the pressure of force that Britain has ever been brought to consider even partially the claims of Ireland.’ De Valera concluded by stressing Irish–Indian–Egyptian solidarity and the need for armed rebellion against British rule: We of Ireland and you of India must each of us endeavor, both as separate peoples and in combination, to rid ourselves of the vampire that is fattening on our blood and we must never allow ourselves to forget to what weapon it was by which Washington rid his country of this same vampire. Our cause is a common cause. The FOFI published excerpts from the speech in a pamphlet entitled ‘India and Ireland,’ which sold for 25 cents and was banned by the Government of India; the Gadar Party also produced a Punjabi translation.115 The Irish World devoted the entire front page of its 6 March 1920 issue to the speech, under the headline ‘India’s Case Like That of Ireland.’116

‘Perilous Sailing between Factional Disturbances’ But even with the talk of nationalist solidarity by De Valera and other Irish and Indian nationalist leaders, there were clear limits to the contacts between the two groups. In spite of his fiery rhetoric, De Valera left Indian nationalists disappointed when they asked him for $75,000 in support of

38 Ireland and India

rebellion in India, although he did personally donate one hundred dollars to their cause.117 Similarly, Frank P. Walsh informed the FOFI in November 1919 that he would prefer to have his name removed from its literature. Walsh noted that he had no objections to the organization, ‘only that it is impossible for me to give it any personal attention.’ The main reason, Walsh explained, was that Irish nationalist matters had to take precedence. ‘I have agreed to take charge of the Irish Bond Drive,’ he wrote, ‘and the same has been undertaken in my name as Chairman of the American Commission on Irish Independence, and I am under a very strong obligation during the period of that drive not to have my name upon any other literature whatsoever.’118 Although Walsh remained a passionate advocate of both Indian and Egyptian independence, he played little future role in the FOFI.119 The leadership of the Friends of Irish Freedom also took a somewhat wary attitude toward the FOFI. Not long after De Valera’s speech, the FOFI contacted the Friends of Irish Freedom to ask whether they might issue a circular letter to their local branches. The National Executive of the Irish organization agreed, but only ‘on the understanding that speakers delegated by our Indian friends to the Branches would confine themselves to the educational phase of the Indian political situation.’ In August 1920, the National Executive turned down the FOFI’s request to have their branches affiliated as associate branches of the Friends of Irish Freedom. In January 1921, the National Executive again turned down a request to hold joint mass meetings, but noted that if ‘the Friends of Freedom for India organized such mass meetings they would have the support of our local branches.’120 The FOFI seems to have gone ahead with its appeal to local branches of the Irish nationalist organization, a fact that the National Executive noted with displeasure. The Friends of Irish Freedom agreed to donate one thousand dollars to the Indian nationalists, but only after the Secretary was instructed to interview Ghose in order to determine if ‘the attitude of the Friends of Freedom for India’ was ‘satisfactory.’121 There are several reasons for the friction between the Irish–American and Indian nationalist organizations, and the decline in contact after 1922. One obvious potential source of friction between Irish and Indian nationalists was the issue of race. The status of the Irish as a ‘white race’ in the United States has a long and complex history, and the Irish have been at times both the victims and purveyors of considerable racial prejudice. Much of the latter, as we have seen, was directed against Asian—and particularly Chinese—immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In spite of its support of Indian nationalism, the Gaelic American characterized Indians as ‘human sheep’ and opposed Indian immigration to the United States, observing that India’s peoples should free their own nation from British rule first, since ‘the world has no respect for slaves.’122 A decade later, the Friends of Irish Freedom objected to the Immigration Law of 1924,

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

39

not on the grounds that it restricted Indian or other Asian immigration, but because it favored emigrants from Britain over the Irish Free State.123 In their appeals to the American public and politicians following the First World War, Irish nationalists emphasized the status of the Irish, in Eamon De Valera’s words, as ‘the one remaining white nation in the slavery of alien rule.’124 Yet at the same time, the status of Indians as non-white members of the British Empire seem to have been less important to Irish and Irish–American nationalists than their status as comrades in the anticolonial struggle.125 Clearly, class as well as race was a factor. Irish nationalists in the United States—especially those in New York—generally had contact with an elite group of Indians rather than the Sikh laborers on the West Coast who potentially competed with working-class Irish Americans for jobs. Although Indian seamen who had settled in the New York area participated in the FOFI, the organization was dominated by upper-caste Bengalis such as Ghose, Das and Basanta Kumar Roy.126 Part of the appeal of Indian nationalists was undoubtedly their status as exotic figures from far-flung parts of the British Empire. The flavor of this is captured in Harry Boland’s diary entry from 28 February 1920 that records an ‘Indian dinner’ with ‘Rajahs, Presidents, Revolutionists, etc.’127 Further, this linkage of the Irish with non-white peoples of the British Empire, such as Indians or Egyptians, gave additional credibility to Irish claims to be one of the ‘oppressed races’ of the world. At a meeting at New York’s Polo Grounds honoring Terence MacSwiney after his death as a result of his hunger strike in October 1920, ‘three Hindus, dressed in native costume’ of the FOFI dashed across the field in front of a crowd of almost 40,000 with the flag of ‘Free India’ and Sinn Féin, which they presented to Eamon De Valera.128 Indian nationalists in the United States, for their part, generally seem to have seen Irish ‘whiteness’ as only magnifying the injustice of their ill treatment at the hands of the British Empire. In spite of their status as a white race, the Irish were perceived first and foremost as fellow victims of British imperialism. The United States of India, the Hindustan Ghadr newspaper, observed in 1926 that ‘The people of Erin are of the White Race, yet they have suffered for centuries under the yoke of British Imperialism.’129 Indeed, in the 1920s, Indians, in a similar fashion to Irish immigrants of preceding decades, claimed status as ‘white’ as a mark of inclusion in American society. Most famously, the U.S. Army veteran Bhagat Singh Thind pursued a court case after his application to obtain United States citizenship was denied in 1920. Thind’s lawyers argued that he was of ‘high caste Hindu stock’ and should therefore be considered part of ‘the Caucasian or Aryan race.’ The Supreme Court, however, rejected this argument, concluding that while a ‘high-class Hindu’ might be an Aryan or Caucasian, he was not ‘white.’ In language that starkly marked the differing racial status of Irish and Indians in the early twentieth century, the court argued that while children of

40 Ireland and India

European parentage . . . quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin . . . . the children born of in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry. It is very far from our thought to suggest the slightest question of racial superiority or inferiority. What we suggest is merely racial difference and it is of such character and extent that the great body of our people instinctively recognize it and reject the thought of assimilation.130 While race does not seem to have been a major factor in limiting Irish– Indian relationships in the United States, the power imbalance between the two groups clearly was. The Indian nationalist organizations constantly appealed to Irish–Americans for money and political influence and had little to offer in return, except the propaganda value of uniting the ‘oppressed peoples’ of the British Empire. Another limiting factor was the nature of Indian nationalist representation in the United States. In contrast to Irish republicans, the Indian National Congress displayed surprisingly little interest in coordinating propaganda efforts overseas, and generally left matters to those who were willing to represent them.131 As a result, Indian nationalist representatives in the United States often carried little weight with Indian National Congress leaders and were sometimes less than scrupulous about financial matters. Sailendranath Ghose, for example, was the source of at least some of the financial problems of the FOFI. In the words of a British intelligence officer, he was ‘thoroughly unscrupulous in money matters,’ a sentiment echoed by many Indian nationalists who had contact with him.132 For a year, Ghose served as president of the American branch of the Indian National Congress, but Nehru and Gandhi quickly came to doubt Ghose’s fitness to serve as the principal Congress representative in the United States. After Ghose claimed that Congress Party members were arming for military resistance to British rule, the All-India Congress Committee disaffiliated his American organization in March 1930.133 The final—and most important reason—for the decline in Irish–Indian nationalist solidarity was the complicated and fractious politics of Irish and Irish–American nationalism. First, the very public and personal power struggle between De Valera and the American Irish nationalist leaders Devoy and Cohalan led to a split in Irish–American nationalist organizations.134 The De Valera-backed American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic quickly eclipsed the Friends of Irish Freedom as the major Irish–American nationalist organization. This division impacted the FOFI. In October 1920, the National Executive of the Friends of Irish Freedom refused to release funds to Gertrude Kelly, the FOFI treasurer and a supporter of De Valera.135 A few months later, Josephine Bennett, the General Secretary of the FOFI as well as an active supporter of the Irish republican cause, observed to Frank P. Walsh that her work for Indian nationalist groups ‘brings me in constant

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

41

contact with Irish groups and it is perilous sailing between the factional disturbances.’136 On several occasions, the fractious politics of Irish–American nationalism disrupted Indian nationalist gatherings. A 1923 dinner given by the FOFI to celebrate ‘India Nation Day’ ended in a near-riot when 20 Irishmen protested a speech by Commissioner of Accounts David Hirschfeld, who was representing the Mayor’s office. As soon as Hirschfeld stood to speak, the Irishmen rose to accuse him of insulting Charles Tiernan, a witness in an investigation into police graft, as well as the cause of Irish nationalism. One of the Irishmen shouted, ‘You are no friend of Ireland.’ Unable to speak, Hirschfeld angrily left the room. Clearly embarrassed, Sailendranath Ghose and a FOFI delegation went to Hirschfeld’s office to apologize, and promised ‘as a challenge to the group of disturbers’ to hold another dinner in honor of Hirschfeld and his ‘sincere interest in India and to all causes of human liberty.’137 This was not the last such incident, however. When Daniel Cohalan spoke with Saliendranath Ghose at an open meeting in May 1930, held both to commemorate the beginning of the 1857 Rebellion and protest the arrest of Gandhi, hecklers disrupted his speech condemning British imperialism. The New York Times reported that ‘several Irishmen in the audience objected to some of Mr. Cohalan’s statements in regard to the Irish situation.’138 In addition, there was less opportunity for Indian nationalists to make contacts with mass nationalist organizations in the United States after 1922, for the simple reason that the size of these organizations shrank dramatically. Most Irish Americans viewed the establishment of the Irish Free State as a victory for Irish republicans, and were at best bewildered and at worst disillusioned by the Civil War that followed. The membership of both the pro-Treaty Friends of Irish Freedom and the anti-Treaty American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic declined sharply after 1922.139 The Friends of Irish Freedom in particular became more concerned with American issues—specifically opposition to the League of Nations and immigration—rather than Irish politics. There are only a few scattered references to India in the minutes of the Friends of Irish Freedom after 1921.140 Even revolutionary organizations such as the reorganized Clan na Gael shrank dramatically in size, and in any case displayed little interest in the types of alliances that had been established from 1919 to 1921. In contrast to Ireland, where Indian speakers featured prominently in republican rallies and the IRA’s unsuccessful 1932 ‘Boycott British’ campaign, Clan na Gael organizers displayed much less interest in forging alliances with other anticolonial nationalists. Indeed, in 1930, the IRA Army Council criticized their American counterparts for their lack of interest in such alliances.141 Nonetheless, financial support from Irish–American nationalists— although miniscule in comparison to the almost $10 million raised by Irish

42 Ireland and India

Americans to support Republican forces in Ireland during these years— remained the single most important source of funding for the FOFI. This was illustrated in 1922, when Irish nationalist funding was withdrawn, threatening the organization with financial collapse. Harry Gloster Armstrong observed that the organisations of Indians in this city appear to be financially in a serious condition . . . . the weekly meetings held by the organization have had to be suspended as they find it impossible to secure money for the purpose of their work—the complete independence of India. It appears to me as very probable that this organisation will have to close its office before long owing to the lack of sufficient financial resources to keep it open.142

‘All Indians Should Help the Irish’ While they became less frequent, neither Indo-Irish nationalist relationships nor Indian interest in Ireland abruptly ceased. In particular, the Indian nationalist cause continued to appeal to republicans opposed to the AngloIrish Treaty, and India was frequently mentioned in anti-Treaty propaganda arguing against Ireland’s inclusion in the British Empire.143 In November 1922, anti-Treaty republicans held a joint meeting in New York with the FOFI to protest the imprisonment of political prisoners in Ireland and India. Speakers included Hannah Sheehy Skeffington, Gertrude Kelly and Sailendranath Ghose.144 Taraknath Das, meanwhile, maintained contact with supporters of both De Valera and Cohalan. In April 1921, he attended the National Convention of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic and spoke on the ‘boycott movement’ in India. The following year, he attended the National Convention of the Friends of Irish Freedom, where, according to intelligence reports, ‘The plans of the convention [were] reported to include shipment of arms to India.’145 Sailendranath Ghose also continued to enlist the support of Irish and Irish–American nationalists after 1922. A November 1925 intelligence report noted that Ghose remained ‘friendly with the Sinn Féin element in New York.’ In the same year, he founded an organization known as the ‘Indian Freedom Foundation,’ whose object was to disseminate ‘information concerning the efforts of India to secure political and economic freedom.’ J.C. Walsh, the former publicity agent for the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic, served as director. The Republican newspaper An Phoblacht noted that ‘Mr. Ghose, who speaks frequently from Irish platforms on this side, is in favor of a closer working alliance between all the revolutionary groups inside the noble Empire.’146 On the West Coast of the United States, the Gadar Party did not simply fade away after the conclusion of the ‘Hindu conspiracy case’ in 1918. The

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

43

Gadarites embraced Marxism, and although their ideological shift further isolated them from the mainstream of American society, they continued to work toward an anti-colonial revolution in India.147 Their monthly journal, The United States of India, like previous Gadar publications, was banned in India. In the 1920s, the journal published a wide range of materials relating to Ireland, including speeches by De Valera and Cohalan, anti-imperial poetry by former Fenian John Boyle O’Reilly and articles from the Gaelic American. In August 1924, the Gadar Party cabled congratulations to De Valera upon his release from prison ‘pledging support in your high resolve to free Ireland.’148 The Urdu-language Hindustan Ghadr of 1930 criticized the partition of Ireland and argued that ‘all Indians should help the Irish nationalists.’149 The Gadar Party clearly considered Ireland to be relevant to the Indian nationalist cause, and writings on Ireland in its journal ranged from discussions of the atrocities committed by Oliver Cromwell to the Irish Free State. In 1926, The United States of India grandly proclaimed, ‘The Irish and the Hindus are going to band themselves together. The day of empires is passing. The night of imperialism is passing and the rising sun will greet the dawn of the day of freedom.’150 In spite of its advocacy of Ireland as an example of anti-imperial struggle, however, The United States of India was far from uncritical of the Irish Free State. In 1924, Jack Carney, an Irish American who wrote a number of articles for the Gadar newspapers, wrote that in spite of eight years of ‘bitter struggle,’ ‘untold heroism and unexampled courage . . . Ireland stands today [in] a pitiful condition with her industries shutting down and her agricultural situation so deplorable that famine stalks the land. Men sold their souls for place and pelf and steeped their hands in the blood of their own friends.’ This critique extended to the position of organized labor in the independent Irish state. In 1923, The United States of India reproduced a letter from James Larkin, Jr. angrily denouncing Irish labor leaders for abandoning the goal of establishing a ‘free, Gaelic . . . nation one and indivisible, a Workers Republic.’ ‘Far better to die fighting for the independence of India,’ The United States of India advised, ‘than to live and to be a party to any political scheme that would make of India a second Irish Free State.’151 In fact, the journal at times suggested that Irish republicans could have learned from the techniques of Indian nationalists. ‘Ireland has demonstrated the failure of the policy of a mere boycott,’ Jack Carney wrote. In the storm and stress of the fight against British imperialism Ireland rejected Ghandism [sic] for virile Republicanism. The Irish Republicans might have achieved more if their party had adopted some of the tactics of the Swarajists of India. Obstruction can become as an effective tactic against the enemy as open combat.152

44 Ireland and India

British officials had monitored the contacts between Indian and Irish revolutionaries since prior to the First World War, and after the war new intelligence agencies such as MI5 began to take note of these relationships.153 In spite of the decline of Irish–American nationalist organizations after 1922, British diplomats and intelligence officials remained concerned about republican aid to revolutionary groups in India, as well as joint Irish–Indian efforts to influence American public opinion on the question of Indian independence. In 1930, the British Consul General in New York reported that Sailendranath Ghose was still associated with Daniel Cohalan, described as a supporter of Indian independence and ‘more or less the brains of the Irish movement in this country for many years.’ Ghose attempted to obtain the mailing list of the old Clan na Gael organization for his fundraising efforts. In the same year, Ghose was the guest speaker at a meeting of the Foreign Policy Association in New York. Eamon De Valera attended and sat with several prominent Indian guests, an event that the British Consul General reported as reflecting a typical American tendency to link the Irish and Indian causes.154 In 1931, the British Consul General in New York reported that Ghose was causing ‘considerable trouble’ through his efforts to raise money among Irish and Irish Americans in New York to support a plan to send 15 Indian supporters to ‘various large American cities to display the Indian Nationalist flag and speak at meetings to be organized by Irish societies against the Government of India and Great Britain.’155 British officials displayed even greater concern about the Gadar Party, which after the First World War extended its operations to Europe and Asia as well as the United States. In 1927, a British intelligence report considered the Hindustan Gadar Party to be the ‘most important’ of the revolutionary groups that drew support from Comintern.156 And at least some Irish Americans continued to regard the Indian nationalist movement with sympathy. Frank P. Walsh continued to correspond with Basanta Kumar Roy, who had turned from revolutionary activities to cultural nationalism. Roy translated the poetry of the Nobel-Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore, and edited a journal called The Oriental Press. After Fianna Fáil’s electoral victory in 1932, Roy scribbled a note to Walsh on a copy of the journal: ‘Thank God, De Valera—The oath of allegiance is gone, now the governor-general must go and then “The Republic of Ireland” will rise.’157 Daniel Cohalan spoke in support of Gandhi at a meeting organized by the Indian National Congress in honor of Gandhi’s 63rd birthday. In his address, broadcast on radio in New York, Cohalan praised Gandhi’s tactics of non-violent resistance, but stated that if England refused his ‘hand of friendship . . . is there one chance in a hundred that India will stop at passive resistance instead of going forward to take by force from England that which she may refuse to give in response to peaceful demands.’158 Although, as Cohalan’s speech demonstrates, the American public was becoming more aware of Gandhi’s non-violent civil disobedience campaign

Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America

45

of 1930, Irish and Indian revolutionaries continued to advocate violent resistance. Robert Monteith, who had accompanied Roger Casement on his U-Boat landing in Ireland in April 1916, spoke at a meeting organized by the Hindustan Association of American in Detroit in response to the Congress Party’s declaration of independence in January 1930. In December 1930, the Hindustan Ghadr claimed that ‘Irish revolutionists are in sympathy with India,’ and reported on a ‘huge meeting’ held by Irish people in San Francisco in support of Indian nationalism. Speakers stressed how ‘military strength’ led to Irish independence and how ‘revolution is the only way to complete freedom.’ The meeting passed resolutions in favor of Indian freedom and congratulated ‘all the Hindustani revolutionists and the republican army, who are making sacrifices to secure the freedom of India and to destroy the brutal imperialistic power.’159 The reference to ‘the republican army’ is an intriguing one, and leads to an important point about Irish–Indian nationalist relationships. It refers to Bengali revolutionaries who in 1930 styled themselves the ‘Indian Republican Army’ and attempted to restage the Easter Rising by attacking a police armory in the port city of Chittagong in eastern Bengal, an event that became known as the Chittagong Armory Raid. None of the revolutionaries involved had ever left India or met personally with Irish nationalists, yet they were well-acquainted with recent Irish history and with the writings of republican leaders such as Patrick Pearse. By this time, a clear and powerful image of Ireland as a model for anti-colonial resistance had been created, an image that involved myth and heroic national memory as much as tangible nationalist interaction. This chapter began with Irish and Indian nationalists marching together on the streets of New York in 1920, and concludes with Indian revolutionaries re-staging the Easter Rising in 1930. In the intervening decade, even though the relationships between Irish and Indian nationalists were sometimes fleeting and often characterized by mutual suspicion, events such as the St. Patrick’s Day parade of 1920, Eamon De Valera’s speeches to Indian nationalist organizations and local contacts between nationalists on both sides helped to make Ireland, in the eyes of Indian revolutionaries, a potent model for liberation from the British Empire. It was not, however, in the United States, where Irish republicans and Indian revolutionaries met, propagandized and conspired to bring down the British Raj that the impact of Irish anti-colonialism had the greatest impact in the interwar years. Rather, it was in India, in the province of Bengal. It is this experience of Irish–Indian nationalist relationships that the following chapter will examine.

2 ‘The Sinn Féin of India’: The Reception of Irish Revolutionary Nationalism in Bengal

On the evening of 18 April 1930, colonial officials in the province of Bengal in eastern India were startled to hear reports of an armed uprising in the port town of Chittagong. Over 60 young Bengali Hindu men, armed and dressed in military-style khaki uniforms, had carried out an attack on government installations there. They attacked and burned the local Police and Auxiliary Force armories, seized weapons and destroyed the local telegraph office. For several hours, until they retreated into the hills surrounding the town, the Bengali revolutionaries controlled Chittagong. Intelligence reports acknowledged the ‘careful organization and daring’ of the raiders, as well as the fact that their ‘coup’ was ‘unprecedented in the annals of terrorist crime in Bengal or any other province in India.’1 The timing of the raid was not accidental. One month earlier, Mohandas Gandhi and the leadership of the Indian National Congress had begun the civil disobedience campaign with Gandhi’s salt march to the sea. The organizers of what became known as the ‘Chittagong Armory Raid,’ however, were not motivated by a desire to support the civil disobedience campaign.2 Rather, they based their actions on events that had happened in Ireland almost two decades earlier. The raid took place on Good Friday, and was a conscious effort by Bengali revolutionaries to emulate the Easter Rising of 1916. This was immediately acknowledged by colonial intelligence officers. The Director of the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India noted this in his weekly report, in which he devoted substantial attention to the events in Chittagong: It appears almost certain that the raid was part of a carefully planned political conspiracy, engineered by the Bengal revolutionaries . . . . The comparative success of the methods adopted by the Irish terrorists from 1916 to 1922 had stirred the imagination of the revolutionaries, and there is no doubt that the latter’s tactics have been closely modeled on those of the Sinn Feiners. A good deal of Irish revolutionary literature had found 46

The Sinn Féin of India

47

its way into the hands of the young Bengali malcontents, and books such as ‘My Fight for Irish Freedom’, ‘Life of Michael Collins’ etc., were eagerly read, and the science of guerilla warfare, as practiced by the Irish rebels, was closely studied . . . like the Irish insurrection in Dublin in 1916, the raid took place at Easter, and the insurgents depended for their success on the secrecy of their preparations, and the dramatic suddenness of the attack.3 How did Bengali revolutionaries come to venerate Irish revolutionaries such as Michael Collins, and ultimately attempt to re-stage the Easter Rising? This chapter will analyze the history of the revolutionary terrorist movement in Bengal in order to answer this question. In Bengal, revolutionaries waged a 30-year campaign of violence in an effort to end colonial rule. Although the rise of the revolutionary terrorist movement there preceded the Easter Rising by more than a decade, after the First World War Ireland became the most important model for physical-force nationalists in the province. The example of Irish republicanism not only helped to sustain enthusiasm for the movement as it entered its second decade of armed struggle, but also expanded its scope. This was not—as in North America—a case of direct contact between sympathetic nationalists. The only Irishmen whom the vast majority of Bengali revolutionaries ever encountered were members of various branches of the imperial service. Rather, through newspaper reports, copies of publications by Irish revolutionaries and Bengali language translations of Irish materials, revolutionaries studied and sought to emulate the deeds of Irish republicans, hoping for at least the same measure of success that they had achieved in 1922. The Irish experience thus provided a heroic model of anti-colonial resistance, as well as what seemed to be a blueprint for national liberation. British officials were well aware of this Bengali emulation of Irish tactics and sought to ban Irish materials that they believed could contribute to revolutionary activities, as well to use their own ‘Irish precedents’ in order to counter Bengali terrorism. For the ‘British’ officers involved in countering terrorism in Bengal (some of the most important of whom, as we shall see, were Irish), the Anglo-Irish conflict offered a wealth of strategies to apply—or avoid—as well as a way of understanding the ‘terrorist mentality.’ The final section of this chapter will examine how colonial authorities attempted to use tactics previously developed in Ireland to counter the Bengali revolutionaries’ emulation of Irish methods. These linkages between Ireland and India were far from the first or only ones made by either Indian nationalists or British colonial administrators. Comparisons made after the First World War linked Irish and Indians even more forcefully as oppressed peoples of the British Empire. In this era, the experience of Ireland had special resonance as an example of anti-colonial rebellion. The Anglo-Irish conflict became a model for liberation from the

48 Ireland and India

British Empire, and in Bengal, both nationalists and imperialists gave it their full attention in the two decades following the Great War.

A ‘Decisively Disintegrating’ influence? The popular image of the relationship between Ireland and India within the British Empire has been that of two subject peoples striving for national freedom in the first half of the twentieth century. According to Ashis Nandy, Ireland signified for Indians a Western nation whose culture was ‘non-dominant,’ and therefore more accessible, and whose people were ‘a co-victim of British imperialism.’4 It nonetheless appears surprising that Ireland would exert a powerful influence on Indian nationalism between the world wars. The nationalist campaigns of the Indian National Congress after the ascendancy of Mohandas Gandhi featured explicitly non-violent protests, as in the case of the non-cooperation movement of 1920–22 and the civil disobedience campaign that began in 1930. In contrast, violence has constituted a prominent part of modern Irish republican history. Indeed, the Fenian bombing campaign in Britain during the 1880s has been posited, in one analysis, as the blueprint for modern terrorist movements of the twentieth century.5 While Irish nationalism in the late nineteenth century encompassed both constitutional Home Rule nationalism and the violent separatism of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Easter Rising of 1916 helped give birth to a period in which ‘an alternative, more aggressive brand of Irish nationalism,’ favoring armed struggle, replaced the Home Rule vision of the Irish Parliamentary Party.6 Mohandas Gandhi professed to admire the goals of Sinn Féin during the Anglo-Irish War, but condemned its methods. Although Gandhi advocated and practiced fasting as a non-violent form of self-purification, he opposed Irish republican use of hunger strikes as what he termed an ‘act of war.’ When he presided over a meeting offering condolences on the death of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, in 1920, he applauded MacSwiney’s bravery, but said he could not justify on ethical grounds the Irishman’s use of a hunger strike.7 In his Young India newspaper, Gandhi drew a comparison between Irish republicans who resorted to violence and General Reginald Dyer, the perpetrator of the Amritsar massacre. Indian noncooperation, Gandhi wrote in 1920, in contrast to Sinn Féin agitation in Ireland, depended for its success on non-violence. ‘The Sinn Feiners resort to violence in every shape and form. Theirs is a “frightfulness” not unlike General Dyer’s,’ he argued. ‘We may pardon it if we choose, because we sympathize with their cause. But it does not on that account differ in quality from General Dyer’s act.’8 Jawaharlal Nehru, who elsewhere expressed considerable admiration for Irish nationalism, maintained that by the late 1920s, knowledge of Ireland among Congress Party leaders had virtually

The Sinn Féin of India

49

disappeared.9 Some historians have endorsed this view, particularly the argument that the physical force variety of Irish nationalism had no impact in India after 1921.10 What relevance, then, could Ireland have to a nationalist movement dominated by Gandhi’s vision of non-violent resistance? First, it is important to note that Irish republicans, particularly those who embraced radical and socialist beliefs, displayed strong anti-imperialist sentiments during the interwar period, and readily identified with anti-colonial struggles elsewhere.11 This included the involvement of Irish republicans in the League Against Imperialism; the Indian–Irish Independence League’s support of the Irish Republican Army’s 1932 ‘Boycott British’ campaign; and the strong advocacy in the republican press of independence movements in India, Egypt, South Africa and New Zealand. A 1931 leaflet from the republican organization ‘Ghosts,’ which honored the Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh for hurling a bomb into the imperial parliament in New Delhi, praised ‘India’s soldiers of freedom,’ and predicted that ‘the coming Revolution in India will be our opportunity . . . against the common enemy—The British Empire.’12 As Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin observes, ‘By comparing their own experiences with that of peoples like the Indians or the Palestinians, republicans implicitly rejected the notion that the anticolonial struggle in Ireland had been resolved with either the signing of the treaty or with the assimilation of Fianna Fáil to the state.’13 In this pairing of militant republicanism with anti-colonial nationalism, India, with its well-developed nationalist movement and rich civilization and culture that was thought to parallel’s Ireland’s own, took pride of place. As we shall see, the republican newspaper An Phoblacht made such sustained comparisons between Ireland and India that the Government of India banned its circulation. In addition, at least some Indian nationalists continued to be receptive to Irish influences. Like its Irish counterpart, Indian nationalism was far from monolithic. Indeed, Bengali admiration for Irish nationalism demonstrates the regional variation of its Indian counterpart, and how the prominent focus on physical force in Bengal differed from the policies of the Indian National Congress. While some analyses of Indian nationalism have argued that, even prior to 1947, Indian nationalism replaced ‘the structures of colonial power with a new order, that of national power,’ this analysis downplays the extent to which alternative visions of the nation-state were formulated during the Indian ‘freedom movement,’ particularly around regional and linguistic lines.14 The Bengali reception of Irish nationalism calls attention to the distinctiveness of nationalism in Bengal, and more generally, to the significant linkages that obtained among far-flung nationalist groups within the British Empire. Colonial officials were well aware of the inspiration that the AngloIrish conflict provided for other nationalist movements within the British Empire, and in particular for those in India and Egypt. Administrators in Britain’s newly acquired empire in the Middle East feared that the

50 Ireland and India

region was becoming a nexus for elaborate anti-colonial plotting involving Irish and Indian nationalists, Bolshevists and Islamists, a ‘Moscow–Berlin– Irish–Egyptian–Persian–Indian conspiracy.’15 The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State as a dominion within the British Empire with the same constitutional status as ‘colonies of settlement’ such as Canada. Although this arrangement did not satisfy anti-Treaty republicans and led to a bitter Civil War in Ireland, within the British Empire, the influence of Ireland, as the historian W.K. Hancock observed in 1937, was ‘decisively disintegrating.’16 In particular, the 1932 election which brought Eamon de Valera and Fianna Fáil to power aroused concern among British observers for the security of both the Commonwealth and India.17 De Valera’s campaign to remove the oath of allegiance culminated in the External Relations Act of 1937, which removed all references to the King from the internal constitution of the Irish Free State, abolished the office of Governor-General and aroused British fears of its impact on mass colonial nationalism. Many British observers linked de Valera and Gandhi as advocates of colonial nationalism that posed a threat to the integrity of the British Empire. In Deidre McMahon’s memorable phrase, ‘The tall, sullen figure of de Valera, with his impassioned rhetoric of wrongs to be righted and injustices to be acknowledged, was the very personification of unreconciled nationalism, an image all the more potent at a time when Gandhi and his Congress party were challenging the British Raj.’18 The Secretary of State for India, Lord Zetland, who as Lord Ronaldshay had served as Governor of Bengal from 1917 to 1922, attended the meetings of the Cabinet’s Irish Situation Committee in the mid-1930s out of concern for the effects of Irish agitation upon the Indian situation. Zetland argued explicitly that ‘revolutionary elements in India had taken Ireland as their model; and when in 1921 it had appeared that the Irish extremists, as the reward of their resort to violence, were being given the substance of their demands, Indian opinion had been greatly affected.’19

Fenian agents and Sinn Feiners Bengal was the Indian province where these ‘revolutionary elements’ took Ireland as their model to the greatest extent. Although Bengali emulation of Ireland was significant and sustained, it also occurred, in contrast to the experience of North America, with little personal contact between Indian and Irish nationalists. As we shall see, Subhas Chandra Bose, a prominent Bengali nationalist who had links to revolutionary groups, in fact visited Ireland and met with both dissident republicans and Fianna Fáil ministers. Bose’s visit did not take place until 1936, however, and it represented the culmination, rather than the origin, of Bengali affinity for Irish nationalism. And no Irish republican seems to have visited Bengal. In part, this was due to the determined efforts of the colonial state. As we have seen,

The Sinn Féin of India

51

late nineteenth-century Indian nationalists closely followed contemporary debates on Irish issues such as land reform and Home Rule, and colonial authorities in turn were particularly concerned to monitor and prevent any seditious Irish influence on India. Although Fenian advocates of ‘Skirmishing’ invoked the prospect of aiding anti-colonial rebels in India and Africa, these schemes never went beyond wild plotting. After the Maharajah Duleep Singh, the son of the last independent ruler of the Punjab, fled England for Moscow in 1887, a Fenian in Paris told a reporter that ‘a couple of Fenian delegates have been appointed to meet Singh’ on the Indian frontier, where he was expected to arrive at the head of Russian army of liberation.20 In spite of the obviously outlandish nature of such schemes, the Thuggee and Dacoity Department, the precursor of the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India, exhibited concern about reports of potentially seditious Irish activity in India. In 1888, for example, the Bombay Special Branch informed the Thuggee and Dacoity Department of the existence of an organization called the ‘Gaelic Club,’ whose members included a number of Irishmen in various branches of imperial service, including the British Army, and who held ‘meetings in various houses there once a week . . . to collect and remit sums of money to Ireland, for the purposes of the National League.’ Later in the same year, the Thuggee and Dacoity Department reported that an Irishman named John M. MacDermott had appeared as a book salesman in Ahmedabad. The local District Magistrate remarked, ‘I have been informed that he talks Fenianism of a pronounced type to the natives, and says that the Irish will soon shake off the yoke of the English, and that the natives of this country should fight back and do the same.’ MacDermott also visited the Sergeant’s mess of a regiment of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. According to the Thuggee and Dacoity Department, however, the men were not receptive to his message; one considered him to be a Russian spy, and another a ‘Fenian agent.’21 The Government of India was particularly concerned to restrict ‘seditious’ Irish activity in India in the wake of the Easter Rising. The Irish poet and theosophist James Cousins was forced to step down from his post as literary editor of Annie Besant’s Indian Home Rule newspaper New India after writing a series of articles in May 1916 eulogizing Patrick Pearse, James Connolly and other leaders of the Easter Rising and blaming the British imperial ‘ruling caste’ for the rebellion.22 Following the introduction of passports after the First World War, the India Office, in consultation with Indian Political Intelligence in London, worked to restrict the movements both of Indians and non-Indians who were considered ‘seditious.’ At the beginning of 1920, the Viceroy asked for assurances that passports would not be granted to ‘undesirables,’ which the Government of India defined not only as pimps, prostitutes and ‘persons convicted of grave offenses,’ but also ‘persons likely to cause disorder or foment sedition by reason of their revolutionary political views,

52 Ireland and India

e.g. Bolshevists, Sinn Feiners, members of I.W.W. or Revolutionary Party in Egypt.’23 In February 1920, a passport to travel to India was denied to one such ‘Sinn Feiner,’ Maria M. Bulfin, who had secured a teaching position at Presentation Convent, George Town, Madras. She was the sister of Eamon Bulfin, one of the rebels who had occupied the General Post Office in Dublin in 1916, and who later served as a Dáil Éireann consul in Argentina.24 Although several young Irishmen had recently been approved for similar teaching positions in India, they had all been cleared by their local District Inspectors of Police in Ireland. In contrast, Bulfin, ‘one of a body of seditious Sinn Feiners,’ was considered to be a ‘bad case’ and was denied permission to travel to India. This decision was applauded by India Office official Malcolm Seton, who commented that ‘the lady’s father was an intensely anti-British writer (I have his writings), her brother a rebel, and her Sinn Fein proclivities are undisputed.’ Seton added that ‘Madras has quite as many advanced Irish nationalists, in the shape of Mr. and Mrs. Cousins, as that Presidency needs!’ In spite of a letter of support from Lord Pentland, the former Governor of Madras, Bulfin was not granted a passport to travel to India.25 The India Office’s concern about ‘Sinn Féin’ activities in India was not unwarranted, since Irish republicans after the First World War did make efforts to aid their revolutionary counterparts in India. In 1920, Dáil Éireann representatives Art O’Brien and Sean T. O’Kelly met in London with Indian revolutionaries, who requested assistance from the Irish Republican Army. Their discussions led to an agreement to send an IRA representative to India. Nothing came of the scheme, however, although Michael Collins was in favor of it. O’Kelly and O’Brien also met with representatives of the Italian government ‘to consider what help’ it ‘would be able to give to Egypt, Ireland and India.’26 And in 1921, a series of meetings took place in Berlin and Moscow between Irish and Indian revolutionary representatives under the auspices of the Soviet Communist Party. The idea of an Irish–Indian ‘Committee of Action’ with the goal of paralyzing the British government ‘in every possible way’ was approved, but monetary aid from Comintern was not forthcoming.27 Dan Breen, the anti-treaty republican who is often credited with firing the first shots of the Anglo-Irish War in 1919, also offered his services to Indian revolutionaries he met in London after the establishment of the Irish Free State. Breen was surprised when his offer, made in the spirit of anti-imperial solidarity, was rebuffed: I offered them my services in the hope of getting in one more blow for the cause of freedom. I got a rude shock when my advances were repelled, the reason proffered being that no Irishman could be trusted, seeing that his countrymen had abandoned the fight for the freedom of their own country.28

The Sinn Féin of India

53

Although Dan Breen never went to India, his memoirs, as we shall see, became one of the primary means through which Bengali revolutionaries learned about and attempted to emulate the Irish revolution. An important exception to this pattern of abortive Irish efforts to aid Indian revolutionaries was the Irishwoman Margaret Noble, who became better known in India as Sister Nivedita.29 Nivedita was born into an Ulster Protestant family in County Tyrone, and became attracted to the religious philosophy of the Bengali Hindu religious reformer Vivekananda while working as a teacher in London at the turn of the twentieth century. She was initiated as the Hindu nun Nivedita (‘the dedicated one’) within the Order of Ramakrishna Parahamsa, and moved to Calcutta, where she engaged in social work among the poor. Through her involvement with Vivekananda and the Ram Krishna Mission, Nivedita also became a committed Indian nationalist and a friend of a number of early Bengali revolutionaries.30 Despite Nivedita’s involvement with revolutionary and Swadeshi circles, many overstated claims have been made regarding her influence on the development of the Bengali revolutionary terrorist movement. The absence of her name from intelligence reports testifies to her marginal status within the early revolutionary groups, and there is no evidence that she was ever involved in the planning of any revolutionary activities.31 In addition, in spite of Vivekananda’s comment that her ‘Celtic blood’ ideally suited her to work on behalf of the Indian people, Ireland played relatively little role in Nivedita’s relationships with Bengali revolutionaries. Although Noble’s family had moderate Home Rule sympathies, she seems only to have become interested in nationalist politics after meeting Vivekananda. While Nivedita had contacts with both Celtic Revivalists and Home Rulers in England, India, not Ireland, was the focus of her nationalism. ‘India cannot afford to imitate foreign institutions,’ she wrote.32 Thus, while she helped to introduce revolutionaries to the writings of the Russian anarchist Kropotkin, she did not serve to increase their awareness of either Home Rule or Irish republicanism. While Nivedita presents a striking example of the type of cross-cultural and transnational encounter possible among the subordinate peoples of the British Empire in the early twentieth century, she played little role in the transmission and reception of Irish nationalism in India.

The ‘Sinn Féin’ of India What was the nature of the revolutionary terrorist groups with whom Nivedita associated? Nationalism in Bengal differed in many respects from what is generally regarded as the mainstream of Indian nationalism, based on Gandhi’s doctrines of non-violence (ahimsa). In particular, the sympathy of large numbers of middle-class Bengali nationalists for armed resistance to British rule distinguished them from the predominant attitudes of the Indian National Congress.33 To be sure, revolutionary movements were active in

54 Ireland and India

other parts of India during the interwar period. Members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) in north India carried out assassinations, committed dacoities (gang robberies) and in one dramatic episode disrupted the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi by throwing bombs. The revolutionary leader Bhagat Singh, who with other members of the HSRA engaged in a dramatic hunger strike prior to his execution in 1931 for the assassination of a police officer, was venerated for both his non-violent protests as well as his acts of revolutionary violence.34 Yet in terms of its scope, longevity and the threat that colonial officials believed that it represented, the Bengali revolutionary terrorist movement far outstripped all others. Intelligence reports emphasized that Bengal was ‘the main seat of the terrorists’ and ‘the home and breeding ground of terrorism.’35 The revolutionary movement in Bengal was rooted in the bhadralok, or educated Hindu middle classes, and was in large part a response to the racism of colonial rule. In Bengal, where British commercial interests had a particularly entrenched grip on power, stereotypes portrayed Bengalis—and particularly the bhadralok—as weak and effeminate. By the end of the nineteenth century, a well-established physical culture movement among middle-class youth sought to counter the British stereotype of Bengali ‘effeteness.’36 This physical culture movement became the basis for revolutionary terrorism in Bengal. In 1902, a revolutionary group named the Anushilan Samiti, or ‘cultural society,’ emerged in Calcutta, becoming the model for all later Bengali revolutionary organizations. Secret societies sprang up elsewhere in Bengal at this time but achieved little until the combined effect of the 1905 Partition of Bengal and the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War spurred interest in revolutionary activity.37 To be sure, the terrorist movement in Bengal was never numerically large and was limited almost exclusively to the bhadralok.38 Yet in spite of the limited segments of Bengali society who were attracted to terrorism, the movement was considered a great threat to the British rule. Prior to the passage in 1915 of the Defense of India Act, which allowed for the detention of revolutionary suspects without trial, the Bengal terrorist campaign seriously disrupted the province’s administration.39 From 1906 until 1935, the Bengal Police Intelligence Branch recorded a total of over 500 ‘revolutionary crimes’ involving terrorists and estimated that another 200 incidents of theft or disappearance of arms or ammunition occurred in the same period.40 In the early 1930s, revolutionaries carried out a series of assassinations whose victims included the Inspector General of the Bengal Police and three successive District Magistrates in Midnapore District, as well as an attack on the Writer’s Building, the seat of the Bengal Government in Calcutta. After a general amnesty issued in December 1919 for those imprisoned for terrorist offenses during the First World War, large numbers of former revolutionaries re-established their organizations. By the mid-1920s, traditionally considered a quiet period for Indian nationalism, Bengali revolutionaries

The Sinn Féin of India

55

had revived their campaign of political dacoities, or gang robberies, assassinations and plans for general risings. By the end of the decade, leaders of different terrorist groups were no longer able to contain the demands of younger members for action against the Raj, and assassination attempts on British and Bengali representatives of the colonial state began to increase. From 1930 to 1934, revolutionaries assassinated nine British officials, including the Inspector General of Police, and their activities were suppressed only when British and Indian army units were stationed in a number of districts. By the mid-1930s, however, the attraction of terrorism for those who had been its principal supporters, the middle-class Hindu youth of Bengal, began to wane. Marxism, which encouraged action based on mass organization and preparation for proletarian revolution, attracted many former terrorists. At the same time, the extensive use of police and military forces by the colonial state and the constitutional reforms of the 1935 Government of India Act combined to blunt Bengali support for the revolutionaries. In Bengal, the line between the mass agitation of the Indian National Congress and the clandestine activities of revolutionaries was a narrow one. Until the mid-1930s, the revolutionary terrorist movement in Bengal enjoyed the sympathy of broad segments of the bhadralok population.41 The first revolutionary organizations drew their support from many of the samitis, or societies, which were set up during the Swadeshi movement in protest of the 1905 Partition of Bengal. After the 1919 amnesty, large numbers of former revolutionaries re-established their organizations under the cover of Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement. Many former terrorists became organizers of non-cooperation activities, and, according to an Intelligence Branch report, they ‘recruited many of the volunteers as terrorists.’42 Terrorist groups also found a fertile recruiting ground in Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign, which began in 1930. This connection to revolutionary activity extended to the leadership of the Congress Party in Bengal as well. Surya Sen, a leader of the Jugantar revolutionary party and the principal organizer of the Chittagong Armory Raid, had been a member of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee, while Surendra Mohan Ghose was both a member of Jugantar and the President of the Bengal Congress.43 C.R. Das’ Swaraj Party also was closely allied with revolutionary cells of the two main Bengal revolutionary groups, Jugantar and the Anushilan Samiti, and a number of leaders from both groups held important positions within the Swaraj Party. At least 28 Bengalis convicted or detained for terrorist offenses held offices in the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee in 1924, and 21 Bengali revolutionaries were elected to the All-India Congress Committee in the same year.44 In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Jugantar Party was closely linked with Congress leader Subhas Chandra Bose, who, as we shall see, was to become one of the most enthusiastic proponents of Ireland as a model for Bengali nationalists.45

56 Ireland and India

From the beginning, British officials almost unanimously considered the Bengali ‘terrorist’ movement to be patterned after European nihilism and anarchism. Here, British stereotypes of Bengalis as unthinking imitators of western culture were used to explain the rise of revolutionary societies. One of the most influential proponents of this view was the Times correspondent Valentine Chirol, who argued that Bengalis were ‘of all Indians the most slavish imitators of the West, as represented, at any rate, by the Irish Fenians and the Russian anarchist.’46 In 1908, the Inspector-General of Police of Eastern Bengal and Assam wrote that there were rumors of contacts between Bengali and foreign revolutionaries, including gun-running by German steamers and reports of ‘nondescript foreigners strolling about this country.’ He concluded his report by requesting the assistance of a Scotland Yard police officer experienced in dealing with European anarchists and terrorists.47 In spite of the readily available indigenous inspirations for armed resistance to British rule, Bengali revolutionaries did in fact owe an enormous intellectual debt to European techniques of revolution.48 Prior to 1916, however, direct influences on revolutionary tactics came largely from continental rather than Irish sources. Bengali revolutionaries learned techniques of bomb-making from anarchists in Paris and copied the organization of secret cells of Russian revolutionary organizations. Irish influence was not entirely absent. The assassination of a police informer in the first major revolutionary conspiracy case in Bengal, the Alipore Bomb Trial, was proudly compared to the murder of James Carey, the informant in the Phoenix Park murder case.49 Barindra Kumar Ghose, one of the leaders of the first revolutionary cell in Bengal, recalled that he was influenced by the ‘Seinfinners,’ [sic] though he displayed little knowledge of Irish revolutionary tradition.50 Such references were few and far between, however. Bengalis regarded Irish nationalism with sympathy as ‘the nationalism of subject people,’ but its relatively quiescent and constitutional nature in the decades before the First World War meant that it provided a poor example of a nation gaining freedom through armed struggle.51 Ireland was thus at best a minor source of revolutionary inspiration in Bengal prior to 1916. One obstacle to Indian emulation of Irish tactics was the perceived racial difference between the Irish and the Indians, and commentary by the English language and vernacular Bengali press emphasized racial difference as much as nationalist solidarity. To be sure, the racialist beliefs of some Victorians branded Celtic races such as the Irish as inferior, and some Irish revolutionaries claimed that Indians shared a common Aryan heritage with the Irish. But for most Indian nationalists, the position of the Irish as a white, Christian race placed limits on their desire to imitate Irish tactics.52 Indian nationalists feared that because of racial similarity between the Irish and English, revolutionary activity by the Irish would be treated much more leniently than would such action by Indians.53 Bengali commentary on events in Ireland before and immediately after the First World

The Sinn Féin of India

57

War accordingly emphasized racial difference as much as nationalist solidarity, focusing in particular on the relative restraint with which the British disciplined Irish, as opposed to Indian, dissent. In 1902, for example, the Amrita Bazar Patrika of Calcutta, a prominent English language nationalist newspaper, contrasted the loyalty of Indians with the sedition of the Irish: The Indians are not the slaves of South Carolina; nor are they like the patriots of Ireland, ceaselessly fighting with their rulers; but are, on the other hand, subjects of His Majesty, who are proverbially gentle, submissive, and loyal. Why should they be treated in this cruel manner?54 In the wake of the Belfast riots of 1907, a common theme in Indian press coverage was the relative restraint of the police in dealing with the rioters. The Hindi Bangavasi of Calcutta concluded that race was a crucial difference in the treatment of ‘subject peoples’ of the British Empire, while the Amrita Bazar Patrika complained of the leniency of the British response in the wake of the Belfast disturbances ‘even though serious crime is being committed in different parts of the island; while in India even so much as the cry of Bande Mataram (Hail Motherland) by little urchins in streets leads to the posting of punitive police forces.’55 This theme was expressed with particular force in the wake of the Amritsar massacre of 13 April 1919, in which more than 400 non-violent demonstrators in the Punjab were killed by Gurkha troops under the command of General Reginald Dyer. The Bangali newspaper complained that the British had ‘ungrudgingly put up with all sorts of their turbulence and violence’ from the Irish, who were ‘a white and Christian race’ and the ‘kinsmen and near neighbours of the English.’ The newspaper also called attention to Irish imperial service in debating the differences between the two peoples: Is not the offense of the Punjab nothing as compared with that of Ireland? Punjab was trampled under foot by Sir Michael O’Dwyer, who is himself an Irishman and a Roman Catholic. Such is the difference between Ireland and India! India is a conquered country, inhabited by black people; she is merely a zamindari of the conquerors. So no comparison should be attempted between Ireland and India. Nor should Indians imitate the Irish.56 By the following decade, however, the relative indifference of Bengali revolutionaries to events in Ireland had changed dramatically. In June 1920, the Governor of Bengal, Lord Ronaldshay, wrote to the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, that the revolutionary parties in Bengal ‘naturally pay great attention to current events in Ireland and in talking among themselves they frequently refer to the happenings both there and in Egypt.’

58 Ireland and India

A police agent also reported one revolutionary leader’s conclusion that ‘England would not have been so eager to give Home Rule to the Irish unless the Sinn Feiners had disturbed the political atmosphere by repeated acts of violence.’57 In the following year, Ronaldshay noted that revolutionary activity in Ireland continued to attract attention. ‘Indications of late that those who have dabbled in anarchical crime in the past,’ he wrote, ‘are again turning their attention towards it. With the example of Ireland before them this was perhaps inevitable.’58 In 1926, the Daily Mail’s correspondent in Calcutta reported that Bengali fascination with events in Ireland was greater than ever: Ireland has furnished the inspiration for the revolutionary movement in Bengal. Nothing interests the Bengali so much as the story of the rising against Dublin Castle, with its attendant ambuscades, assassinations, and street fighting. Nearly all the literature dealing with the campaign of Michael Collins and his followers has been translated into the vernacular and is sold in native bookshops. The Bengali believes that if he adopts the same methods as the Irish Republicans he will achieve at least as great a measure of self-government.59 The writer and critic Nirad C. Chaudhuri, who was intensely critical of the terrorist movement, also noted the attraction of Sinn Féin for Bengali nationalists after the Anglo-Irish War. ‘The success of the Irish in securing independence for their country by this method made them think that they too would succeed,’ Chaudhuri wrote of Bengali revolutionaries. The Bengalis, he concluded, ‘thought they were the Sinn Féin of India.’60 British intelligence officers shared Chaudhuri’s conclusions. In 1934, Calcutta Police Commissioner J.H. Colson observed that terrorists believed that they had made ‘ “tremendous progress” over the previous three decades towards their goal of the “Irish parallel.” ’ As evidence, Colson cited a recent pamphlet of the United Socialist Republican Party, which emphatically stated that by following the example of Ireland, Bengali revolutionaries would force independence from the Government of India. The pamphlet began with portraits side by side of Subhas Bose in his uniform as General Officer Commanding, Bengal Volunteers, and the late Michael Collins, the head of the I.R.A. Above these portraits was printed in block letters ‘What Ireland has done Bengal will do.’ It is the expectation of terrorists that the Government’s policy in Ireland will be repeated in Bengal and India.61 In 1935, Subhas Chandra Bose wrote to the Secretary of the Indian–Irish Independence League in Dublin that ‘in my part of the country (Bengal), recent Irish history is studied closely by freedom-loving men and women

The Sinn Féin of India

59

and several Irish characters are literally worshipped in many a home.’62 In 1936, Bose fulfilled a long-standing ambition by traveling to the Irish Free State. During his stay he met three times with Eamon de Valera, who received him ‘as something like an “envoy” of a friendly nation,’ as well as with other members of Fianna Fáil, including Minister for Industry and Commerce Sean Lemass.63 Bose also met with Irish men and women whom Indian Political Intelligence director Philip Vickery described as ‘the ultra-Republican’ group. These included Mary MacSwiney, Maude Gonne MacBride and Hannah SheehySkeffington, who were the primary force behind an organization called the Indian–Irish Independence League. One Irish police detective expressed concern that Bose might ‘co-operate with one of the extreme political organizations in An Saorstat, viz. the I.R.A. or the Congress Party,’ and the Bengali politician’s activities were monitored by the police while he was in Ireland. For his part, Subhas Bose, as Kate O’Malley notes, ‘was agreeably surprised to find that all Irish parties were equally sympathetic towards India and the people’s desire for freedom regardless of their own internal differences.’64 During his Irish sojourn Bose consistently expressed the opinion ‘that India as a whole had been influenced by Ireland’s fight for independence.’65

Ireland’s appeal Why did Bengalis become so enamored of Irish republicanism after the First World War? The success of Irish revolutionaries in establishing the Irish Free State was clearly of great importance, but so were factors internal to Bengal. The frustration of mostly Hindu, middle-class Bengalis at the inability to enlist the largely Muslim population of the province in the nationalist struggle also played an important part in popularizing Irish nationalism in Bengal. The problem of mass mobilization of a majority Muslim populace by the nationalist movement’s largely Hindu, middle-class politicians in the face of concerted opposition by European commercial interests left Bengali bhadralok increasingly frustrated by legal constitutionalism and disposed to violent resistance or communal ideologies. As Rajat Kanta Ray has noted, nationalists were ready ‘to try any variant of political extremism based on a narrow social basis.’ In this ‘psychopathological atmosphere of cruelty, suspicion and treachery,’ Ireland was seized upon as a model of anti-colonial resistance to the hated British Empire.66 In contrast to north Indian revolutionary organizations such as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, whose goal was the ‘death knell of capitalism,’ the ideology of Bengal terrorism focused not on social revolution but on ‘courageous martyrdom’ and the overthrow of the ‘blood-thirsty English.’67 Increasingly by the late 1920s, the younger men of revolutionary parties began to push for immediate action against the British, rather than

60 Ireland and India

a patient campaign involving the collection of arms and the commission of dacoities to accumulate funds. Many of these younger revolutionaries were admirers of the Irish example. The vehemently anti-British tone of Irish nationalism held great attraction for radical Bengali nationalists, while the writings of Irish nationalists provided a further intellectual justification for the idea of physical force. In particular, both the ‘self-sacrificial idealist’ Patrick Pearse and the ‘pragmatic rebel’ Dan Breen provided models for Bengali terrorists in the 1920s and 1930s, as Bengali revolutionaries attempted to employ the practical tactics of the Irish Republican Army, while at the same time displaying a willingness to sacrifice themselves in the service of the motherland.68 In this period, Bengali nationalist leaders assimilated Irish Republican leaders into the canon of heroes fighting against the British Empire, and embraced the Irish as a fellow subject race. Michael Collins was lauded as a master strategist of guerilla warfare and intelligence operations. In 1926, the nationalist newspaper Forward ran a series of articles on Collins which dealt with the assassination of British intelligence officers during the AngloIrish War; the articles were proscribed by the Government of Bengal.69 The greatest Irish recipient of nationalist acclaim was, however, Eamon de Valera, who was praised as a nation-builder. One Bengali writer referred to Ireland as de Valera’s ‘handmade nation,’ and in 1923 a Bengali language newspaper esteemed de Valera, Gandhi, and the Egyptian nationalist leader Zaghul Pasha as the three greatest popular leaders of anti-imperial struggle.70 Numerous serialized accounts of de Valera’s life were published in the 1920s in Bengal newspapers. The Irish elections in 1932, which brought Fianna Fáil to power in a coalition government, were also the subject of ‘keen interest’ in the Bengali press.71 In this period, numerous books and articles displayed detailed knowledge of an interpretation of Irish history that was deeply influenced by Sinn Féin.72 Bengali accounts emphasized the physical force tradition of Irish nationalism, culminating with the victory of the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Féin in 1921. They also disparaged Daniel O’Connell and depicted Charles Stewart Parnell as a failed constitutional leader who opposed the use of violence. Bengali authors writing about Irish history saw Ireland’s ‘current of national life’ flowing toward political violence in the late nineteenth century.73 The parallel between Ireland and India as ‘colonial’ peoples included a presumption of general Irish sympathy for all forms of resistance to the British Empire. The ‘Irish jailor’ who was sympathetic to imprisoned revolutionaries became a stock figure in the memoirs and recollections of Bengali nationalists.74 Surendra Mohan Ghose recalled two Irish jail superintendents in Burma and Madras who had ‘some sort of sympathy for this kind of [revolutionary] political prisoner’ and ‘believed that we were unnecessarily persecuted because of political views.’75 While in Ireland, Subhas Bose had a

The Sinn Féin of India

61

cordial meeting with the former officer in charge of Mandalay Jail, where he had been detained in the previous decade. According to the Irish Press, ‘the two men had a talk and exchanged views on their last meeting in different circumstances.’76 In a more practical sense, Bengalis believed that the experiences of Irish nationalists provided a blueprint for liberation from British rule. Irish republicans offered a tradition of heroic martyrs who could be added to the ranks of Bengali revolutionaries who had already died in the campaign against the British. A famous revolutionary leaflet seized by the Bengal Police in 1929 quoted Patrick Pearse and urged Bengalis to imitate his sacrifice: This is how a nation awakes. Flare up with the fire of vengeance for the annihilation of foreign enemies. You will find that the victory is yours. History bears testimony to this. Read and learn the history of Pearse— the gem of young Ireland and you will find how noble is his sacrifice; how he stimulated new animation in the nation, being mad over independence . . . . Pearse died and by so dying he roused in the heart of the nation an indomitable desire for armed revolution. Who will deny this truth?77 A more direct link was the imitation of Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork who fasted to death in 1920, by the Bengali revolutionary Jatindranath Das, who died while on a hunger strike in Lahore Jail in 1929. According to Nirad C. Chaudhuri, ‘MacSwiney was almost worshipped by politically conscious Bengalis,’ and the mayor of Calcutta sent a message to MacSwiney’s widow in which he stated that ‘Terence MacSwiney showed the way to Ireland’s freedom. Jatin Das has followed him.’ In 1940, Subhas Bose wrote that he was inspired by ‘the classic and immortal examples of Terence MacSwiney and Jatin Das’ in beginning a hunger strike to protest his detention by the Government of Bengal.78 Probably the greatest single Irish inspiration for Bengali revolutionaries, however, was Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom (1924), one of the first memoirs of a member of the Irish Republican Army to be published. Much to the dismay of the Government of Bengal, Breen’s book was used as a manual for rebellion.79 According to Sir John Anderson, the Governor of Bengal in the 1930s, Breen represented ‘the individual terrorist as a heroic and romantic figure,’ a portrait that had tremendous appeal to Bengali revolutionaries.80 In My Fight for Irish Freedom, Breen glorified armed struggle against British authority in Ireland and outlined the need for a ruthless campaign against Irish ‘traitors,’ police, informers and high government officials.81 The book had great attraction for revolutionaries throughout India, and translations in Hindi, Punjabi and Tamil were published, all of which were banned by the Government of India.82

62 Ireland and India

Breen’s book was widely recognized, according to the Bengali revolutionary Chinmohan Sehanabis, as ‘one of our bibles.’83 Contemporary police intelligence reports also point to the status of Breen’s book as a canonical work for Bengali revolutionaries. By 1929, several terrorist leaders had begun to study the Irish rebellion, ‘particularly in Dan Breen’s book “My Fight for Irish Freedom,” which described inter alia successful surprise attacks on armed police posts. Niranjan Sen Gupta adopted this book as his terrorist text-book and conceived the idea of acting on similar lines in Bengal.’84 Kalpana Dutt, a former member of the Chittagong District revolutionary circle of Surya Sen, wrote that she read My Fight For Irish Freedom several times, and that Breen was Sen’s ‘ideal’ of a revolutionary guerilla fighter.85 Breen’s account of the Anglo-Irish War, as well as the Easter Rising of 1916, was the inspiration for the Chittagong Armory Raid of April 1930.86 As we have seen, the raid was staged by members of the Jugantar revolutionary party in self-conscious imitation of the Easter Rising on Good Friday, 18 April 1930, in the town of Chittagong in eastern Bengal. On the night of April 18th, three groups of more than 60 revolutionaries armed with revolvers and pistols captured and set fire to Police and Auxiliary Force armories in Chittagong and seized arms and ammunition, while others destroyed rail and telegraph communications. After a brief battle with police, in which 19 of the revolutionaries were killed, they were forced to retreat into the jungles surrounding the town. A number of those involved in the raid, including their leader Surya Sen, remained at large for three years, and were only captured through the deployment of British and Indian Army battalions to carry out search operations in the district.87 The Chittagong Armory Raid, the largest and most effective revolutionary action ever mounted by Bengali revolutionaries, occurred in the middle of the Congress Party’s civil disobedience campaign. The raid created a boom in recruitment for revolutionary organizations, and sparked British fears of similar raids elsewhere. According to the Bengal Police Intelligence Branch, When the truth was known the effect was electric, and from that moment the outlook of the Bengali terrorists changed. The younger members of all parties, whose heads were already crammed with ideas of driving the British out of India by force of arms . . . clamoured for a change to emulate the Chittagong terrorists.88 Bengali revolutionaries were never able to duplicate the Chittagong Armory Raid, however, in part due to the passage of the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act (1930), which allowed for the detention of suspected terrorists without trial. There was, however, a clear surge in revolutionary activity after 1930: the Intelligence Branch of the Bengal Police recorded 250 terrorist ‘outrages’ from 1930 to 1932, ranging from murder and attempted murder

The Sinn Féin of India

63

to dacoities and robberies to bomb explosions and wire-cutting. Over one thousand terrorist suspects were arrested during this period and thousands more detained without trial.89 The Irish inspiration for the Chittagong Armory Raid was acknowledged by both British and Indian observers. The members of Jugantar who carried out the attack afterward distributed leaflets signed by the ‘Indian Republican Army, Chittagong Branch,’ a name clearly modeled after the Irish Republican Army.90 According to Bhupati Mazumdar, a revolutionary and secretary of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee in 1922–23, the revolutionaries responsible for the Chittagong raid became ‘impatient’ because ‘they read that Irish rebel Dan Breen’s book.’ One participant in the raid, Lokenath Bal, later wrote, ‘The blood-stained memory of the Easter Revolution of the IRA [sic] touched our young minds with fiery enthusiasm!’91 In the immediate aftermath of the raid, police searches found evidence that ‘the present rising has been based on the Irish Rebellion which started on a Friday.’92 This was confirmed by the statements of the accused during the first Chittagong Armory Raid trial in 1930. The District Magistrate of Chittagong District observed that My Fight for Irish Freedom ‘might aptly be described as “The Revolutionaries’ Manual” ’ and that the Chittagong Raiders were ‘thoroughly conversant’ with it: The book throughout extols armed rebellion against constituted authority and is written in such a way as to win the sympathies of young emotional minds for the spirit of revolt . . . . Dan Breen’s book is held up as a text book for the revolutionaries of India . . . . the action of the revolutionaries was largely inspired by this book and that their plan of operations was based on its lessons.93 The Chittagong Armory Raid demonstrates how Bengali revolutionaries were inspired by both the Easter Rising and the guerilla tactics of the IRA as depicted by Dan Breen. More generally, Breen’s tales of IRA exploits inspired Bengali revolutionaries to draw up ambitious plans for cutting telegraph lines, blowing up bridges and railway lines and disabling the electricity supply of Calcutta.94 The Easter Rising was especially influential in promoting the idea of martyrdom as a means of obtaining national freedom. Ganesh Ghosh, one of the leaders of the raid, later recalled the preparations for the rising as ‘a programme of death.’ ‘The main object,’ he wrote, ‘was not to attempt to free the whole of India or the province of Bengal, but to set an example before the countrymen, particularly the youths and the students, and demoralise the British imperialists.’95 Surya Sen himself often quoted the words of the Irish Fenian leader James Fintan Lalor that ‘somewhere, somehow and by somebody a beginning must be made and the first act of resistance is always and shall ever be premature, imprudent, unwise and dangerous.’96 As Kalpana Dutt observed in her memoirs, ‘They knew that a

64 Ireland and India

handful of revolutionaries cannot destroy the British government. But they had the conviction that even a handful of revolutionaries with a properly planned programme and determination could give a severe blow to British administration.’97

Proscription British officials involved with the policing of the terrorist movement in Bengal had been aware well before 1930 of the connection Bengali nationalist revolutionaries made with the Irish nationalist movement. After the AngloIrish War, Bengal Police intelligence reports featured a new description for the tactics of Bengali revolutionaries: ‘Sinn Féin’ methods. ‘The attack on Government has been definitely organized on Sinn Féin lines,’ stated a 1924 police intelligence report. ‘Local administration is to be captured and controlled by revolutionary organizations throughout the province and Government officials terrorized by a campaign of assassination.’98 Two years later the Bengal Police Intelligence Branch reported that a secret section of the Labour Swaraj Party had a program ‘to smuggle arms from the Far East and to work on Sinn Féin lines in India.’ In British eyes, any attempt to combine armed resistance with mass agitation in the cause of anti-colonial nationalism became known as ‘Sinn Féin’ tactics.99 George Orwell, a former member of the Indian Imperial Police, acknowledged this in the first edition of his semi-autobiographical novel Burmese Days. The title Orwell gave to a fictional Asian nationalist newspaper was the Burmese Sinn Féiner.100 The Bengal Police Intelligence Branch regarded the Bengal revolutionaries’ infatuation with Irish revolutionary methods as an accurate predictor of future revolutionary action. The ‘Irish gunman,’ recalled one former Bengal police officer, was ‘regarded as an example to copy.’101 Two English policemen, both former heads of the Bengal Police Intelligence Branch, resigned in 1921–22, citing their fear of ‘an intensive campaign on the lines of Sinn Féin.’ One of the officers wrote that ‘it is the declared aim of the extremists to cause this development to follow on Sinn Féin lines,’ which he believed would be in large part directed at the Bengal police.102 Bengal policemen and civil servants cited Dan Breen as an authority nearly as often as did the Bengali revolutionaries. My Fight for Irish Freedom was seen by British observers as providing insight into the ‘terrorist mentality.’ A Government of India intelligence report noted that in 1929 ‘a new amalgamated party’ had been formed in Bengal ‘for immediate terrorism based on the methods, such as surprise attacks on armed police posts, and guerilla warfare, as described in Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom.’ In the aftermath of the Chittagong Armory Raid, a British police officer reported that individual members of the revolutionary groups were acting independently of

The Sinn Féin of India

65

their leaders, ‘just as Dan Breen and his desperadoes acted independently of the recognized leaders of the Irish Independent Party [sic].’103 In an attempt to counter the influence of ‘Sinn Féin’ ideology on Bengali nationalists, the Government of India attempted to ban literature dealing with Ireland which, in their view, had revolutionary implications.104 The proscription of Irish materials began even before the First World War with the banning of the Gaelic American, which circulated widely among nationalists in Bengal as well as elsewhere in India and, as we have seen, was proscribed in 1907.105 A member of the Government of India observed that the number of subscribers in India had increased dramatically in the previous year, and ‘as most Indian newspapers receive a copy, its influence is much greater than the number of subscribers indicates.’106 Forty copies of the Gaelic American were seized in the French enclave of Chandernagore, near Calcutta, in December 1907, addressed to one S.N. Sen. After the proscription of the paper, Sen ‘apparently at the instigation’ of Bengali revolutionaries based in Chandernagore sought to obtain copies for over 70 other subscribers, mostly newspaper editors in Calcutta and the mofassil, through the French postal service.107 After the Easter Rising, the Government of India was especially concerned to monitor news from Ireland. Reports of nationalist opposition to conscription in Ireland, for example, were censored in April 1918 because the Home Department felt that such news would be ‘a great encouragement’ to the Indian Home Rule movement.108 Until the end of the Anglo-Irish War, which coincided with the Congress Party’s non-cooperation campaign, the proscription of seditious materials relating to Ireland was undertaken with regard to their impact on the Indian nationalist movement generally. In 1920, for example, copies of an English pamphlet entitled ‘Hindustan and Ireland,’ Eamon de Valera’s speech on ‘India and Ireland’ published by the FOFI, the Sinn Féiner newspaper of New York and all publications of the Friends of Irish Freedom were banned in India.109 Although Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom and the Republican newspaper An Phoblacht were proscribed by the Government of India in 1929, by this time the proscription of materials about Ireland was considered specifically with Bengal in mind.110 Events in Bengal played a prominent role in the issues of An Phoblacht that came to the attention of the Government of India. In particular, the death from hunger strike of the Bengali Jatindranath Das, an associate of Bhagat Singh in the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, led An Phoblacht to proclaim ‘India and Ireland: United by a Common Bond’: We are sure that the sacrifice of Jatindranath Das will not be in vain; that his comrades, and the whole Indian people will find inspiration in his death, and will be strengthened in the fight in which they are engaged, and that they will not rest until British rule in India is overthrown.111

66 Ireland and India

Another issue featured several messages of sympathy regarding Das that were addressed to the Mayor of Calcutta, the nationalist politician J.M. Sen Gupta. The Adjutant-General of the IRA wrote that ‘there is probably no people who can appreciate the sacrifice of Jatindranath Das more than the Irish. We know of the sufferings he has endured, and we know the agonies of the people of India, who have watched him sinking slowly, day by day.’112 In addition to imported works, numerous Bengali language publications about Ireland were considered ‘seditious’ and proscribed by the Government of Bengal. These included biographies of the Young Ireland leader John Mitchel as well as books containing shorter sketches about the Fenian Luke Dillon and the Sinn Féin leader Countess Markievicz.113 A 1929 Bengali language book titled Vidrohi Ireland (‘Rebellious Ireland’) illustrated for British officials how Bengali revolutionaries viewed the events of Ireland as relevant to their own armed struggle. Vidrohi Ireland was presented as a translation of a book about the Anglo-Irish conflict by a French journalist, to which the editor, Narayan Chakravarti, claimed to have added only explanatory footnotes. In his preface, Chakravarti highlighted the relevance of Ireland to Bengal, and how Ireland provided a ‘striking illustration’ of Mazzini’s statement that ‘liberty which is the soul of the nation’ is ‘sacred’: The histories of all subject nations are nearly the same. It is at an inauspicious and uncertain moment that a nation falls a prey to a foreign power either by force or strategem and then having bound it by the bonds of subjection so difficult to sever, the conqueror proceeds gradually to rob it of all its possessions. Vidrohi Ireland also provided a solution to this loss of liberty and assault on ‘the manliness of a subject nation’: an explication of how ‘Ireland has alone regained her lost independence, by the strength of her own arms.’114 By the 1930s, the British considered any book about recent Irish history to be dangerous in the context of Bengal. In 1935, the Government of India debated the proscription of Louis DuBois’ account of the Anglo-Irish War, The Irish Struggle and its Results, at the request of the Government of Bengal. The request came from the Special Branch of the Calcutta police, who grouped Dubois’ book with Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom as books which were ‘very dangerous’ in India. ‘I base my request that this book be banned entry into this country for very much the same reasons as must have been put forward in the case of Dan Breen’s book,’ wrote a member of the Special Branch: The struggle of Ireland for freedom has always, as you know very well, been the example which the terrorists of Bengal have striven to follow. Dan Breen’s book, with its detailed description of how to run successfully a terrorist campaign, has been something in the nature of a bible to them.

The Sinn Féin of India

67

‘What Ireland has done Bengal can do’ has always been a slogan in Bengal, and so . . . to allow it entry into this country would be, in my opinion, really dangerous.115 The book, he concluded, was ‘a most dangerous recruiting weapon in the hands of revolutionary organizers’ and ‘inherently just as dangerous as Dan Breen’s.’ The Director of the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India, Horace Williamson, agreed that the book should be banned, arguing that ‘in practically every instance I have found that the very beginning of their initiation into terrorism has been caused by their being given exciting books such as My Fight for Irish Freedom to read.’116 The matter was eventually referred to the Governor of Bengal, Sir John Anderson. Anderson agreed that it was ‘unquestionable’ that the book would do harm if widely read, but that its author, unlike Breen, did not ‘represent the individual terrorist as a heroic and romantic figure.’ Anderson doubted that the message that terrorism ‘may force England to her knees’ would ‘at this time of day . . . cut much ice in India.’ The Government eventually decided that proscription would give undue attention to the book, and it was in consequence not banned.117 Even in the late 1930s, when terrorism in Bengal had virtually ceased, colonial officials subjected books on Irish revolutionary history to great scrutiny. This was further illustrated by the debate over the proscription of Dorothy Macardle’s The Irish Republic (1937). A republican interpretation of the Anglo-Irish conflict which was highly favorable to Eamon De Valera, Macardle’s study was exceptional at a time when most established writers on the subject were unionist in their political stance.118 In 1937, five copies of The Irish Republic were seized by customs authorities in Calcutta, ‘addressed to a bookshop well known . . . as dealing in doubtful literature.’ The Calcutta Police were advised to withhold the copies, and the book was seen by the Government of India as ‘more likely to appeal more strongly to Bengali youths than to others.’119 India Office official Robert Peel was skeptical about the utility of banning Macardle’s book, arguing that it would be difficult to defend the proscription of ‘what at any rate purports to be a historical work;’ he also observed that the book did not promote Communism, which by 1937 was an increasing concern to colonial officials in London. Nevertheless, the Government of India took a different view of the book’s potential impact. One official commented that Macardle’s study was ‘very strong meat for Indian nationalists, providing a ready reference book on the way the Irish obtained their freedom.’ For H.S. Stephenson, who had served as acting governor of Bengal in the late 1920s, reading Macardle prompted reflections on the Irish influence on Indian nationalism. Stephenson felt that it was possible to object to the book on two grounds: ‘the dangerous parallel which might and no doubt has been drawn between the Irish “struggle for freedom”

68 Ireland and India

and the course of events in India,’ as well as ‘the narrower point of view of terrorism.’ ‘It is I think tolerably clear,’ Stephenson wrote, ‘apart from terrorism that the Congress have modeled their policy largely on the Irish troubles.’120 In the end, the Government decided that the high price (25 shillings) of The Irish Republic would limit circulation and that ‘the book cannot be regarded as a textbook of instructions in republican or revolutionary methods.’121

Sir John Anderson and ‘Bengali Terrorism’ The efforts of the British in Bengal to combat Bengali terrorism were not limited to the proscription of literature by or about Irish revolutionaries and nationalists, however. In the formulation of legal and administrative measures to combat terrorism, the Government of Bengal looked first to the experience of the Irish Free State in dealing with militant members of the IRA after 1922, and later, after the appointment of Sir John Anderson as governor in 1932, to the British experience in the Anglo-Irish War. This strategy marked a shift in the British understanding of the relationship of Ireland to India in particular and the Empire in general. In the nineteenth century, Ireland had been a fertile source of precedents for the British Empire in two major areas: land tenure and law and order. In the former case, a greater concern for the concept of the rights of tenantry influenced legislation in both countries. Indian land legislation provided the precedent for the Land Act of 1870 in Ireland, while the Irish Land Act of 1881 in turn provided the basis for the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885.122 In terms of issues of law and order, specific legislation to combat nationalist movements in India was based upon similar measures enacted in Ireland.123 More generally, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) exerted a profound influence on the development of policing in India, as well as elsewhere in the Empire. The RIC was regarded as the ideal of what colonial policing ought to be, and the reorganization of the Indian Police in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 replicated its centralized control and semi-military aspects.124 After the disbandment of the RIC in 1921, large numbers of its officers, as well as auxiliary forces raised during the Anglo-Irish War, were recruited for service elsewhere in the Empire.125 In 1922, the India Office made an abortive attempt to secure places for demobilized members of the RIC in India. As Malcolm Seton of the India Office remarked, members of the RIC ‘a drilled, semi-military force,’ were considered ‘tactful—and painfully experienced—in handling crowds . . . . In a place like Calcutta, the men should do very well indeed after a short training.’126 Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill considered the plan to be ‘an admirable idea,’ and hoped that the success in attracting RIC recruits to the police force of Palestine could be replicated in India.127

The Sinn Féin of India

69

In the end, however, few members of the RIC were tempted by the prospect of Indian service after the British Government awarded them a generous pension.128 The British attempt to recruit members of the RIC for the Indian Police focused on the ‘regular’ recruits of the constabulary; the India Office specifically tried to avoid recruiting members of the Auxiliary forces or the ‘Black and Tans’ for service in India, for fear of inflaming nationalist opinion. Unfortunately, almost all of the volunteers for police service in India fell into this category. One former member of the Auxiliary forces, J. Lazell, boasted of the following as his qualification for police service in India: ‘Whilst in Ireland I was in three ambushes and was sentenced to death on two occasions by the Irish Rebels.’129 By later in the decade, however, the lessons that the British began to absorb from Ireland were not those of ‘normal’ police techniques of crowd control, but of ‘abnormal’ conflict: the suppression of terrorism and the development of counter-insurgency techniques. In the development of British ideas about how to best combat insurgency, Ireland played a crucial role.130 The initial interest of British officials in the relevance of Ireland to the policing of terrorism in Bengal came from the experience of the Irish Free State. Republican opposition to the Irish Free State government established in 1922 over the 26 counties continued after the end of the Civil War of 1922–23 and necessitated a series of ‘public safety’ laws.131 By the 1930s, Government of India officials had become thoroughly conversant with this legislation. While considering a bill proposed by the Government of Bengal to try terrorist offenders by military courts in 1932, for example, the Government of India noted its similarity to the Irish Free State Public Safety Act of 1927.132 The Irish legislation which attracted the most attention, however, was a 1931 amendment to the Free State’s Constitution which established military tribunals to try offenses without reference to any court of appeal. The tribunals were not limited by penalties fixed by the law, but were empowered to impose ‘any greater punishment (including the penalty of death) if in the opinion of the Tribunal such greater punishment’ was ‘necessary or expedient.’ The police were also given extensive powers of search and preventative detention.133 This act was regarded by British observers in India as a useful example of how to counter acts of terrorism.134 Malcolm Seton wrote, ‘This remarkable act is worth perusal. If its terms were known in India, the Indian public would begin to understand what “zulum” [repression] really is.’135 The Government of Bengal requested copies of the Act from the India Office in October 1931, and it was quickly seized upon as a possible way to stop the assassination of District Magistrates by Bengali terrorists.136 The Government noted that military tribunals would probably be more effective in dealing with terrorists because of their complete control over their own procedures and powers. R.E.A. Ray of the Bengal Police Intelligence Branch argued even more forcefully for a similar Public Safety Act permitting secret

70 Ireland and India

trials and granting the power to impose unrestricted penalties. ‘The Irish Free State Government,’ he wrote, ‘is composed of persons who themselves were terrorists and presumably know the best methods of dealing with terrorism.’137 The use of Irish precedents in the policing of terrorism in Bengal was expressed most clearly, however, after the appointment of Sir John Anderson as Governor of Bengal in 1932. In 1920, Anderson had been appointed Undersecretary of State at Dublin Castle in an overhaul of the British administration in Ireland that was designed to create a strong executive in a country which was rapidly becoming ungovernable.138 During Anderson’s tenure the ‘Black and Tans’ (composed of ex-servicemen) and the Auxiliary Division (composed of ex-army officers) were recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary, and in August 1920, the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act was passed, giving the government sweeping powers of arrest and imprisonment without trial. Anderson was a key figure in the implementation of this legislation and soon became, according to his biographer, ‘the most powerful force in the Government of Ireland.’139 After his tour of duty in Ireland, Anderson served as permanent Undersecretary of the Home Office, where, in his own words he was ‘for ten years responsible for internal intelligence in Great Britain.’140 British observers believed that Anderson was uniquely equipped to deal with terrorism in Bengal due to his experience in Ireland. Lionel Curtis wrote to Anderson that ‘everyone believes that you, better than any other Englishman, with your long experience at the Home Office and in Ireland will be able to grapple with the disorders in Bengal and suppress the terrorists.’141 Other observers drew parallels between Bengal and Ireland, but were less optimistic. During a visit to Bengal in March 1932, the Marquis of Lothian informed Anderson that the situation he would encounter in Bengal was not radically different from that which he had faced while at Dublin Castle. Lothian wrote that the Bengali revolutionaries possessed a ‘theatrical and pathological attitude, a state not unlike the state of Ireland before and after the Treaty.’ Sir Nevil Macready, former Commander-in-Chief in Ireland during Anderson’s tenure, wrote that he could not congratulate Anderson on the appointment, ‘for I fear it may prove a dirty job, not unlike our penance in Ireland.’142 More significantly, Anderson himself made frequent reference to his Irish experience while he served as Governor of Bengal.143 Anderson referred to the Government of Ireland Act as a model for financial and constitutional relations between the Government of India and the provinces.144 Nor was his use of his Irish experience limited to legislative analogies, for he also deployed it in the development of policies to counter terrorism, which he clearly considered to be his brief in Bengal.145 As Governor, Anderson sought to counter terrorism in two ways which serve to illustrate the complex interaction between British understanding of the Irish and Bengali situations:

The Sinn Féin of India

71

the consideration of legal measures against terrorism and the development of combined civil-military policies. After Anderson’s arrival, the Government of Bengal began to investigate whether legislation from the period of the Anglo-Irish War might serve as a possible solution for the ‘terrorist menace’ in Bengal.146 In September 1932, the Government of Bengal submitted the ‘Trial of Terrorist Offenses Bill’ to the Government of India. The legislation, based largely on the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act of 1920, was an attempt to allow military tribunals to try certain terrorist offenses under three broad headings of ‘waging war against the king,’ murder and dacoity. While the Chief Secretary, R.N. Reid, noted that ‘the Irish analogy does not exactly cover the case’ since there had been no ‘complete breakdown’ of law and order in Bengal, the courtmartial provision was applicable to Bengal and would provide a ‘stiffening’ of tribunals under the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act.147 In arguing in its favor, Anderson stressed that this method had ‘worked well’ in Ireland. If the civil administration of justice ceased to function effectively, he argued, it would be better ‘to institute another form of administration of justice properly recognized and well tried in the shape of the Court Martial procedure, rather than to introduce under civil forms a more drastic procedure than the existing one, which might hardly be consonant with civil ideas.’148 The Government of India, however, rejected the proposals on the grounds that they would place an ‘unreasonable responsibility’ on the military officers serving on tribunals and create general hostility among nationalists toward the Indian Army. The Government feared both a retaliatory outrage against soldiers and subsequent retaliation by the military. Anderson acknowledged that the proposals were not an ‘ideal solution,’ but argued that they were the only practical way of dealing with a situation in which the judiciary in Bengal were thoroughly cowed by the threat of terrorist violence. ‘I have seen the same system working, and working successfully under not dissimilar conditions in Ireland,’ he wrote. ‘Martial law in Ireland was not a success, but the courts martial system worked well.’149 In two other respects, however, Anderson successfully applied his Irish experience to the question of ‘Bengali terrorism.’ First, Anderson firmly opposed a policy of reprisals, in spite of pressure from both members of the Government of Bengal and the British community in Calcutta. The assassination of a number of British policemen, District Magistrates, and businessmen in the early 1930s generated increased pressure from both the European community and within the Government of Bengal for drastic measures.150 Government of Bengal officials made explicit references to the Anglo-Irish War in calling for reprisals. R.E.A. Ray noted that ‘during the [Irish] Rebellion hostages were shot in retaliation for outrages’ and that similar action should be carried out against ‘hostages’ at a detention camp for revolutionaries. R.N. Reid, the Chief Secretary, argued that ‘it would be

72 Ireland and India

easy to announce that for every Government official killed 3 or 4 or 5 or any number which Government thought suitable to the occasion, would be taken out and shot.’151 Anderson, however, was strongly opposed to reprisals, and he used his influence to ensure that no such policy was adopted. The repeated demands of one member of the Bengal Government for such measures prompted Anderson to give a ‘lucid and comprehensive’ discourse on the subject. ‘He drew on his Irish experience,’ R.N. Reid recalled, ‘to prove that reprisals were what was publicly remembered, not the outrages that provoked them.’152 The final component of Anderson’s Irish experience which influenced the campaign against terrorism was the use of military forces. Although there was never any question of relinquishing control of the Bengal administration to the military, Anderson made a concerted effort to increase military involvement in police operations against terrorists in Bengal. One of his first decisions was to enlist the Army’s help in boosting the morale of the civil administration in Bengal, and seven battalions of British and Indian troops were distributed over the province. More ambitiously, Anderson incorporated military officers into the civil administration. At Anderson’s request, General Sir Norman Macmullen was appointed in 1932 as a liaison officer to the Government of Bengal. Anderson also provided the impetus for the recruitment of military officers into the Intelligence Branch of the Bengal Police. Three officers were initially appointed, and the number was later increased to 12.153 These Military Intelligence Officers (MIOs) served as plain-clothes inspectors in the Intelligence Branch, and coordinated the use of military forces in search operations for terrorist suspects. Although most of the officers who volunteered for intelligence work had ‘no training in covert operations’ or experience of living among the Bengali population, the experiment nonetheless improved the flow of intelligence about terrorist groups to the Bengal Police. The most important function, however, of these MIOs was not amateur sleuthing but coordinating the use of Indian and British Army forces in the search for terrorist suspects. In Chittagong District, Military Intelligence Officers led the search for Surya Sen and other members of the Chittagong raiders who had eluded capture in 1930. The District Magistrate and Military Intelligence Officer in Chittagong developed a system of cordoning off villages for search by troops which one officer characterized as a ‘crude’ method ‘of countering violence with violence’ in which homes were ‘ransacked in a search—often fruitless—for arms.’154 These tactics, although they looked forward to later British experience of counter-insurgency in Malaya and Kenya, also owed a debt to the experience of the Anglo-Irish War. In 1932, Sir Samuel Hoare, the Secretary of State for India, expressed his fears to Anderson that ‘further outrages’ by terrorists in Calcutta would ‘lead to a really dangerous Black and Tan atmosphere.’ From the British perspective, such events were avoided in Bengal

The Sinn Féin of India

73

through a judicious use of military power; namely, the use of Military Intelligence Officers and British and Indian Army units in support of the Bengal Police that Anderson had coordinated. For Bengalis, however, fears that Anderson’s tenure would be a repeat of ‘Black and Tan’ repression in Ireland were realized. The repression of terrorism in Bengal provided one more linkage between Ireland and Bengal in the minds of Bengali nationalists. On the occasion of Anderson’s departure in 1937, the Ananda Bazar Patrika wrote that the Bengali people would not soon forget the ‘painful memory’ of Anderson’s regime ‘just as Ireland has not as yet been able to forget the story of the Andersonian era in that country.’155

Irish imperial service The impact of Ireland on the Bengali revolutionary terrorism movement also illustrates another dimension of Ireland’s relationship to the British Empire: Irish imperial service. The acknowledged ‘British’ expert on ‘Bengali terrorism,’ Sir Charles Augustus Tegart of the Indian Police, was himself an Irishman. At the same time as Bengali revolutionaries were avidly reading Dan Breen, their primary target for assassination was Tegart, who survived numerous attempts on his life until the end of his career in the Indian Imperial Police in 1931.156 Tegart’s Irish background was far from exceptional for a member of the Indian Police; Britain’s ‘Celtic fringe,’ especially Ireland and Scotland, contributed the majority of police recruits until the 1920s.157 Indeed, for several years during the 1920s, Irishmen headed the Calcutta and the Bengal Police, as well as Indian Political Intelligence in London. While Tegart served as Police Commissioner of Calcutta, the Inspector General of the Bengal Police was Alfred E. O’Sullivan, a Catholic Irishman whose father had served as an engineer in the Bombay Public Works Department.158 Philip Vickery, a fellow member of the Indian Imperial Police who had attended Trinity College, Dublin, headed IPI, the top-secret Indian intelligence office in London.159 In addition to his intelligence work in Bengal, Tegart also served as an assistant to the head of Indian Political Intelligence from 1918 to 1923. During that time, he was also assigned to Ireland, where in 1920 he attempted to bring his experience with Bengali terrorism to bear in an unsuccessful effort to improve and reorganize police intelligence there.160 While colonial officials often praised the quality of Tegart’s intelligence work, they also frequently commented on his Irishness. For fellow servants of the British Raj, Tegart’s fundamentally Irish nature was not in doubt. At a dinner honoring Tegart in 1924, the Governor of Bengal joked that the Police Commissioner ‘for all we know may be a Sinn Féiner at heart.’ Although Tegart was not by any means a republican, a fellow Irishman in the Indian Imperial Police, Sir Patrick Kelly, noted that Tegart shared his own nationalist outlook and that he had resigned a position with the London Metropolitan Police because ‘he

74 Ireland and India

was “sick to death” of the prejudice in Scotland Yard against young Irishmen whom he wished to get into the Metropolitan Police Constabulary.’ Kelly’s emphatic conclusion was that ‘Tegart was always a “damn good Irishman.” ’161 Bengali revolutionaries had a starkly different view, and loathed Tegart for his sometimes brutal interrogation techniques. In 1918, nationalist accusations of police brutality toward revolutionary suspects forced an investigation of Tegart and other members of the Bengal Police. A 1926 cartoon in the Dainik Basumati newspaper of Calcutta showed Tegart, armed to the teeth, arresting a small, tearful schoolboy carrying a piece of paper reading ‘hartal’ (general strike). A former Indian Police colleague recalled that Tegart’s favorite interrogation technique was to fire a loaded revolver above a suspect’s head, and then place the gun next to his head before asking a question.162 This chapter has argued that both Bengali nationalists and British administrators linked Irish nationalism to the experience of revolutionary terrorism in Bengal during the interwar period. For almost two decades, Ireland exerted a tremendous impact upon Bengali nationalists such as Subhas Chandra Bose and members of revolutionary groups.163 To be sure, Bengali revolutionaries had been inspired by the acts of European revolutionaries since the early twentieth century, but in the 1920s and 1930s, the example of Ireland took precedence over all others. The imagined bonds between Irish and Bengali nationalism were more important, however, than any concrete linkages. The tangible connections between Indian and Irish nationalists in this period were rather limited. As we have seen, while some anti-Treaty members of the IRA spoke of traveling to India ‘to carry on the fight against the Empire,’ nothing came of such talk. A decade later, V.J. Patel, the founder of the Indian–Irish Independence League, hoped to enlist the aid of the newly elected Fianna Fáil government for the Indian nationalist movement. Patel, however, was rebuffed by both de Valera and the Irish Republican Army, and he commented that de Valera had evolved ‘a kind of nationalism that is not anti-imperialist.’164 As Charles Townshend has observed, however, the campaign of the Irish Republican Army from 1919–21 ‘was as much a matter of myth as of reality,’ and for Bengali nationalists, the inspiration of de Valera, Dan Breen and Patrick Pearse helped inspire plans for revolution against the British Raj.165 From the British perspective, the threat of Bengali terrorism and the influence of Ireland upon it was taken seriously, and the connections made by British officials between India and Ireland were numerous and sustained. Furthermore, as this chapter has demonstrated, these Irish–Indian analogies had an impact on policy. John Anderson and other British officials did not necessarily equate the situation in Bengal with that of Ireland following the First World War, but they did recognize the utility of the Irish example in the attempt to suppress Bengali ‘terrorism.’ Ireland had been a model for British

The Sinn Féin of India

75

imperial policy in areas such as land tenure and policing in the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth it provided new lessons in counter-insurgency, as Ireland seemed to hold out models for how to neutralize ‘Bengali terrorism.’ The appointment of John Anderson as Governor of Bengal was itself a symbolic linkage between ‘terrorism’ in Ireland and Bengal, and he actively attempted to draw on the lessons of the Anglo-Irish War in suppressing terrorism in Bengal, most successfully through the use of the military to supplement the intelligence apparatus of the Bengal Police. Prior to 1921, the experience of Ireland within the British Empire was both imperial and colonial, and the role of Irishmen as Imperial servants in India was particularly prominent.166 This imperial role of Irishmen continued after 1921, as Tegart’s career demonstrates, even as Ireland was becoming a potent model of anti-colonial resistance. If Irish imperial servants were a matter of shame to Irish republicans, they represented the finest type of ‘Irishness’ to supporters of the British Empire. The following two chapters will analyze the construction of Irishmen as imperial heroes in both Britain and Ireland.

3 ‘Lord and Master Nikkal Seyn’: The Construction of John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

The climax of Flora Annie Steel’s novel On the Face of the Waters, written almost 40 years after the Indian Rebellion, takes place as the British attempt to recapture the Mughal capital of Delhi from rebellious sepoys in September 1857. Steel’s fictional characters interact with real-life figures, imperial heroes who were well-known to late nineteenth-century Britons. The greatest of these heroes is a 35 year old East India Company officer named John Nicholson. Known to the sepoys as ‘Nikalseyn,’ his powers seem to verge on the superhuman. Steel writes of how the heart of one rebel soldier positively ached as he listened to the tale told in the heart of Delhi of the man whom other men worshipped—the man who took forts singlehanded, and said that, given the powers of a provost-marshal, he would control a disobedient army in two days! . . . . he, and half the good soldiers in Delhi, were mad with themselves for having chosen the losing side, for with Nikalseyn on the Ridge, what chance had Delhi? Nicholson leads the assault, pressing forward at the head of his troops until the 1st Bengal Fusiliers begin to waver in a narrow lane leading toward the Lahore Gate. When Nicholson sees his men falter, he charges forward, ‘sword in hand, calling on those others to follow,’ and is shot in the chest. ‘ “Lay me under that tree,” ’ he gasps, as they carry him. ‘ “I will not leave till the lane is carried. My God! Don’t mind me—Forward, men, forward! It can be done.” ’ Mortally wounded, Nicholson lives just long enough to see Delhi in British hands. Steel depicts his death as a heroic sacrifice that secures Britain’s empire in India. Reflecting on the British heroes of 1857, one character observes, ‘Think of them all! Havelock, Lawrence, Outram—the names crowd to one’s lips; but they seem to begin and end with one—Nicholson!’1 As Steel’s novel demonstrates, by the late nineteenth century, John Nicholson ranked as one of the British Empire’s foremost heroes. The previous two chapters have analyzed contrasting examples of Indo-Irish anti-imperialism. 76

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

77

This chapter will shift the focus to the issue of Irish imperial service through an analysis of the construction of John Nicholson’s heroic image. As Max Jones has observed in his recent survey of heroic reputations in modern Britain, scholars have taken two broad approaches to the study of heroes and heroism. The first, which Jones labels an ‘instrumental’ approach, emphasises how heroes serve as instruments of ideologies such as nationalism and imperialism, and how governments, organizations and individuals shape heroic reputations. The second approach stresses the contested nature of the public reputations of heroes and how the reception of heroism is impacted by factors such as class, gender, region and ethnicity.2 Both approaches yield insights into the historical reputation of John Nicholson, and, consequently, into the place of empire in modern Ireland. On the one hand, Nicholson unquestionably functioned as an imperial icon, ‘one of the central figures of Victorian imperial romance.’3 Yet at the same time, his imperial reputation was contested and often intensely criticized.4 While Nicholson was often referred to as ‘English,’ and frequently held up as a model for Victorian and Edwardian youth to emulate, he was in fact an Irishman. Yet his actions on the Northwest frontier of India and in the Punjab and Delhi in 1857 made him a heroic and legendary figure to many Britons in the second half of the nineteenth century. This chapter will examine the genesis and trajectory of his reputation. First, we will examine Nicholson’s career within the context of Irish imperial service in India.

Nicholson the Ulsterman One issue that deserves prominence in John Nicholson’s biography is his family’s Anglo-Irish background.5 Nicholson’s father and mother were both descendents of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English and Scottish settlers. His father, a physician named Alexander, was a Quaker, born in Dublin, whose family was originally from Cumberland. Nicholson’s mother, Clara Hogg, was from Lisburn, County Antrim.6 In the early nineteenth century, the Nicholsons were associated with several country houses in the north of Ireland, in particular with Stramore, County Down, not far from Lisburn. Nicholson was, however, born in Dublin, possibly in a house on Lower Gardiner Street, where his father was a practicing physician.7 Nicholson’s mother, from an Ulster Church of Ireland family, possessed a strong evangelical faith that was to shape decisively not only Nicholson’s personal religious beliefs, but also his sense of imperial mission in India. A story about Nicholson’s childhood, related in the 1869 biographical sketch by the India Office official and historian John William Kaye and repeated many times, conveys the sense of evangelical devotion that characterized his life. When Nicholson was three, his mother found her son alone in a room with a knotted handkerchief in his hand ‘striking with all his childish force at some invisible object.’ When asked what he was doing, he replied,

78 Ireland and India

‘Oh! Mamma dear; I am trying to get a blow at the Devil. He is wanting me to be bad. If I could get him down I’d kill him.’8 Nicholson’s mother’s last words to him when he departed for India were allegedly, ‘Never forget to read your Bible.’9 In India, Nicholson’s religious faith was strongly evident to his colleagues, and he formed his closest relationships with fellow evangelical Christians, such as Herbert Edwardes, who by the mid-nineteenth century formed an increasingly prominent presence in the East India Company.10 In spite of his subsequent status as an imperial icon, Nicholson does not appear to have entered the service of the East India Company out of imperial or evangelical zeal. Instead, it was the death of his father from fever in 1830, and his practical need to find a career, that prompted his decision. At the age of 16, Nicholson left the Dungannon School in County Tyrone and entered the service of the East India Company. Nicholson’s path into the service of the East India Company was, however, facilitated by a family tradition of imperial service. His mother Clara was the sister of James Weir Hogg, who had made a considerable fortune at the Indian bar and later became chairman of the East India Company. Hogg secured for Nicholson a directentry military cadetship in the 41st native infantry, which meant that as a ‘covenanted cadet’ Nicholson could embark directly for India rather than first attending the company’s training college at Addiscombe. In February 1839, he departed for India, and upon arrival in Calcutta stayed with one of his uncle’s friends.11 Nicholson spent most of his imperial career on the Northwest frontier of Britain’s Indian Empire, where he played a role in some of the most important episodes in British imperial expansion in the mid-nineteenth century. Two years after his arrival in India, he participated in the British invasion of Afghanistan; he was taken prisoner in Ghazni and imprisoned there and in Kabul for a period of several months. Nicholson survived, but shortly after his release, he encountered the mutilated body of his younger brother, Alexander, who had also entered the East India Company’s service as a cadet officer. Exactly how Alexander Nicholson died is not certain, but his corpse was discovered ‘hacked to pieces,’ with his genitalia stuffed in his mouth. Nicholson left Kabul with a bitter hatred of Afghans, whom he called ‘the most vicious and bloodthirsty race in existence,’ and expressed regret that he departed the city ‘while one stone of it remained on another.’12 While in captivity, Nicholson befriended a fellow Ulsterman, George Lawrence, who brought him to the attention of his brother Henry. The Lawrences were to play a large role in Nicholson’s Indian career.13 Like many talented officers of the East India Company, Nicholson was seconded for political and administrative work, which offered a way around the Company’s fossilized system of promotion by strict seniority.14 He spent the following decade as an administrator on the Northwest frontier, first instructing the troops of the Maharajah of Kashmir and later serving as assistant resident at Lahore. Nicholson participated in the Second Anglo-Sikh

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

79

war, fighting in the battle of Chillianwallah. By 1857, he was a deputy commissioner in Peshawar, commanding a district the size of Wales in the most northerly outpost of the British Empire in India.15 During his career on the Northwest frontier, Nicholson earned a reputation among British–Indians as an upright and fearless imperial servant whose sense of justice did not exclude a ready willingness to use violence.16 Flogging was his preferred method of dealing with lawbreakers, and he did not hesitate to employ measures such as forcing an Afghan chief to lick up spittle he had lobbed in Nicholson’s direction or forcibly shaving the beard of a mullah who had not, in his opinion, shown him proper respect.17 Although far from universally popular with his colleagues—he did not hesitate to criticize policies he disagreed with and often clashed with the Commissioner of the Punjab, John Lawrence—by 1857, he had secured a reputation among British–Indians as a stern but effective administrator and a daring and ruthless military commander. One of his colleagues and close friends, the evangelical Herbert Edwardes, offered a typically laudatory view of the success of Nicholson’s violent methods in frontier administration: I had only knocked down the walls of the Bannu forts. John Nicholson had since reduced the people—the most ignorant, depraved and bloodthirsty in the Punjab—to such a state of good order and respect for the laws, that in the last year of his charge, not only was there no murder, burglary or highway robbery, but not an attempt at any of these crimes.18 It is Nicholson’s role in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, however, that secured his lasting reputation as an imperial hero. Still Deputy Commissioner of Pesahawar when the Mutiny began in May 1857, Nicholson was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General and assumed command of the Punjab Moveable Column. He played an important role in the disarming of Indian regiments in the Punjab suspected of disloyalty, a vital process in the restoration of British authority in north India. He did not hesitate to carry out summary executions on suspected mutineers. In the town of Sialkot he ordered eight sepoys to be blown from cannons, but afterward regretted the ‘waste of good powder and soon abandoned the practice in favour of hanging.’19 He later appealed to Edwardes for a Bill for flaying alive, impalement . . . of the murderers of the women and children at Delhi. The idea of simply hanging the perpetrators of such atrocities is maddening. I wish that I was in a part of the world that I might if necessary take the law into my own hands.20 On the orders of John Lawrence, Nicholson marched the moveable column to Delhi, where it swelled the British forces besieging the city to almost 9500 men. On August 25th, Nicholson commanded a force of 2500 men that

80 Ireland and India

routed a rebel force at Najafgarh, south of Delhi, which had been sent to intercept a siege train intended to re-supply the British forces.21 When the assault on Delhi began on 14 September 1857, Nicholson was given command of the first column of troops. His forces successfully took their first objective, the Kashmir Gate, but before they could take the Lahore Gate, Nicholson was shot while attempting to lead troops up a narrow lane. He lived in agony for nine days, dying on 23 September 1857.22

Irishmen and the military in India In terms of his social, economic and ethnic background, John Nicholson was in many ways a typical servant of the ‘garrison state’ of the East India Company in the first half of the nineteenth century. One of his most important attributes was his status as an Irishman.23 During the reign of James II, out of fears of Irish Catholic subversion, all Irishmen with the exception of Protestant officers had been banned from service in crown forces. The East India Company seems initially to have honored this prohibition, and of 349 recruits enlisted from 1740 to 1753, only 24 were Irish.24 But as the manpower needs of the Company grew, Irishmen formed an increasingly important part of its armies. By the time of the American Revolution, the Company was relying heavily on Irish recruits. Between 1778 and 1781, Irishmen never made up less than a third of the soldiers embarking for service in India.25 The reliance of the East India Company on Irish manpower increased further in the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1800, more than half of the soldiers recruited to the Company’s armies were Irish, and by 1813, the East India Company had established four recruiting offices in Ireland. According to one estimate, by the time of the Indian Rebellion, half of the Company’s 14,000 soldiers and around 40 percent of British Army soldiers in India were Irish.26 ‘Without Irishmen,’ Linda Colley concludes, ‘the rampant growth of Britain’s empire at this stage would scarcely have been possible.’27 Many of the soldiers commanded by John Nicholson during the assault on Delhi were Irish soldiers of the Bengal European Regiment, later the Royal Munster Fusiliers.28 Both of the men from the regiment who won the Victoria Cross on the first day of the assault were Irish as well: Sergeant James McGuire of County Fermanagh and Drummer Miles Ryan of County Derry.29 Economic necessity was the driving force behind enlistment for both the predominantly Catholic rank-and-file and the predominantly Protestant officer corps. Yet as Thomas Bartlett has observed, typical Irish recruits were not ‘poverty-stricken wretches from remote Irish-speaking regions.’ Rather, the typical Irish soldier of the East India Company came from the eastern counties of Dublin or Kildare; far fewer came from Ulster counties such as Antrim and Down or from Connaught. Close to 10 percent of men were

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

81

literate, a high proportion for pre-Famine Ireland. Indeed, the East India Company had a reputation for attracting a ‘superior’ type of recruit, and service in India, as Peter Stanley argues persuasively, ‘was sought by many men who saw in it not simply a refuge from poverty but a route to prosperity and even respectability.’30 Although Irish participation was far from limited to Protestants from the north of Ireland, employment in the East India Company was particularly attractive to men from the middle and upper levels of Ulster society. The reason, according to T.G. Fraser, was that ‘India provided a career outlet for the younger sons of gentry and professional families, who could find few prospects within the limited economy.’31 In the case of John Nicholson, three of his four brothers served as Company officers in India. All of them, like Nicholson, ultimately died there.32

The impact of 1857 Nicholson, as we have seen, achieved his status as an imperial hero in large part due to his role in the suppression of the Indian Rebellion and the recapture of Delhi. The Indian Rebellion was unquestionably one of the greatest imperial crises faced by nineteenth-century Britain. A military mutiny by the sepoys of the East India Company’s army led to a wider revolt in which much of north India stood outside British control in the summer of 1857. No less important than the military suppression of the revolt were the administrative and ideological changes brought about by the rebellion, as well as the prominent place it occupied in the British imperial imagination in the second half of the nineteenth century.33 While much initial reportage in the early summer of 1857 sharply criticized the East India Company, arguing that its arrogance and mismanagement had driven sepoys to rebel, events in the north Indian town of Kanpur (known to the British as Cawnpore) decisively altered British understandings of the rebellion. In what became known to the Victorians as the ‘Cawnpore massacres’ of 15 July 1857, approximately 450 British men, women and children were killed by rebels after the British garrison had surrendered and been promised safe passage. The massacre attracted immense public attention in Britain, where public attention focused on the issue of violence to white women. In spite of the fact that military authorities found virtually no evidence of actual occurrences, the ‘rape’ of white women became the focal point of British interest.34 Public attention to the events at Kanpur helped to construct a master narrative of the mutiny that structured British understanding of 1857 for decades to come: a story of ‘vengeance, (white) female purity, British masculine honor and rebel dishonor.’35 A persistent British fear in 1857 was that the events at Kanpur would be repeated elsewhere in India, and these fears focused in particular on the

82 Ireland and India

besieged garrison at Lucknow. From the end of June until mid-November, close to 2000 British and Indian troops, along with British men, women and children and Indian non-combatants were trapped within the sprawling complex of buildings known as the Residency. British forces ultimately broke the siege at Lucknow and rescued the surviving inhabitants, but only after a series of dramatic events. The first relief force, commanded by Henry Havelock and James Outram, suffered heavy casualties in reaching the Residency. Unable to evacuate the wounded and non-combatants, Outram decided to remain in Lucknow and fortify the defenses, and the relief force itself became besieged in the city.36 Stories of the Cawnpore massacre and the siege of Lucknow served not only to construct the image of the villainous, rapacious, unmanly and dishonorable rebel sepoy, but also created numerous heroes in the eyes of the Victorian public.37 John MacKenzie notes that ‘the Mutiny established the very model of the modern nineteenth-century Hero,’ a masculine figure who was both a man of faith and a man of the sword, evangelical in religion and Cromwellian in temperament, but above all chivalric.38 Comparisons were made between the heroes of 1857 and King Arthur’s knights; the historian J.A. Froude asked, ‘What knight of the Round Table beat Havelock and Sir John Lawrence?’39 Military officers became the subjects of the most intense adulation, and the greatest attention focused on the generals involved in lifting the siege of Lucknow: Henry Havelock, Colin Campbell and James Outram, as well as Henry Lawrence, the resident at Lucknow, who organized the defense of the Residency and died during the siege. These men, as Eric Stokes observes, became part of a ‘picture-book world of sunlit heroes with which the later Victorian age peopled its imagination and named its streets and public houses.’40 After his death in 1863, Outram was buried in Westminster Abbey under an inscription that read, ‘the bayard of India.’ Colin Campbell, who arrived as Commander in Chief of the Indian Army in August 1857 and personally led the forces that broke the siege of Lucknow, was venerated both in England and in his native Scotland.41 Henry Lawrence was buried at Lucknow under a gravestone which read, ‘Here lies Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty.’ Without question, however, the most famous of all midnineteenth century Mutiny heroes was Henry Holt Havelock, a 62-year-old evangelical Christian who led the first efforts to relieve Lucknow. Havelock captured the mid-Victorian public imagination as a dispenser of righteous justice to rebel sepoys. As Graham Dawson observes, Havelock’s ‘potent combination of Anglo-Saxon authority, superiority and martial prowess, with Protestant religious zeal and moral righteousness’ created a prototype for the popular soldier heroes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.42 His death (from dysentery) shortly after the relief of Lucknow cemented his status as a Victorian hero. More than 30 biographies were written about

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

83

Havelock in the years following 1857, and his name became an enduring part of the British town- and cityscape, as streets and pubs across the island were named for him. Most significantly, the monument to Havelock in London was located in Trafalgar Square, next to Nelson’s column, where it remains today.43 In the immediate aftermath of the mutiny, Nicholson did not achieve the same national stature as Havelock or Outram. The drawn-out and relatively static siege of Delhi did not capture the attention of the Victorian reading public as much as the battle to save the besieged British garrison at Lucknow. The battle for Lucknow—interpreted as the battle for the lives of white women and children against marauding ‘black’ sepoys—shaped the ways in which contemporary Britons understood the mutiny. In this strongly gendered understanding of the Indian Rebellion, Nicholson’s self-sacrifice in the name of empire, in spite of its obviously heroic mode and the symbolic and strategic importance of the recapture of Delhi, was not elevated to the same level as that of Havelock. Nicholson’s relatively low standing among the pantheon of heroes in 1857 was illustrated when Herbert Edwardes spoke about the ‘Mutiny’ at the Conference on Christian Missions, held in 1860 in Liverpool. Speaking of the heroism, ‘blessed by God,’ of the Mutiny heroes at the public meeting in the Philharmonic Hall that concluded the conference, Edwardes observed We had our noble soldiers there. We had our Henry Lawrences. (Loud cheers.) We had our Henry Havelocks. (Renewed cheers.) We had our John Nicholsons. (Cheers.) I perceive that you do not applaud enough the name of Nicholson. (Renewed and louder cheers.) Edwardes went on to narrate Nicholson’s accomplishments to the ‘immense applause’ of the conference attendees Let me tell you, that though he fell young—he fell at the age of thirtyfive—in no army, not only in your own, but in no army that stands a-foot in Europe, lived there a soldier in whom the greatest gifts of the warrior were more skillfully, and happily, and nobly combined with the highest order of humanity, than were welded together in the noble heart and form of John Nicholson, who fell at Delhi.44 No memorial was erected to Nicholson in London, or, indeed, anywhere else in Britain. Rather, in the decades after 1857, the focal point of commemorations for Nicholson was not in Britain, but India, and in particular in the places with which his imperial fame was associated: the Northwest frontier and Delhi.

84 Ireland and India

Commemoration in India Prior to 1857, Nicholson was an obscure figure in the eyes of the British public. He did have, however, a minor military reputation among the British–Indian community for his service in the Second Anglo-Sikh War.45 While on leave in England in 1850, Nicholson attended the prize presentations to graduates at Addiscombe College, where the chairman praised him as one of the ‘distinguished officers, whom he would wish to hold up to them as models to imitate.’46 After 1857, commemoration of Nicholson took place in two sites associated with his imperial service, both of which were also important locales in Britain’s Indian Empire. The first was Delhi, where he died. The British assault on Delhi had been a brutal episode, and the initial commemoration of Nicholson took place amid the carnage and destruction of the devastated former Mughal capital. A nineteenth-century historian of the Bengal European Regiment described the vengeful fury of the British troops who captured the Mughal capital, inspired by ‘retribution’ for sepoy atrocities real and imagined: The dense masses of the Sepahis now crowding to the front could not withstand the eager onslaught of our men, who for nearly three months had been thirsting for this day of retribution. This was not the usual excitement of battle, it was the individual burning lust of revenge for the atrocities committed by the Mutineers, and it is hardly possible to realize the intensity of passion that animated every British heart that day. There were volunteers in our ranks, Conductors and Non-commissioned Staff who had lost all that had made life dear; and these men dealt death around at every stroke, crying aloud, above the din of war, ‘Where is my wife?’ ‘Where are my poor children?’ It was a just Almighty retribution, beyond the influence or control of man.47 There were three immediate consequences to the fall of Delhi: the slaughter of thousands of civilians, the seizure of huge amounts of wealth and the expulsion of surviving inhabitants. The wife of C.B. Saunders, the chief commissioner of Delhi, recorded that ‘for several days after the assault every native was . . . killed; the women and children were spared.’48 An area of 300 to 400 yards around the Red Fort was cleared for artillery fire, destroying many of Delhi’s most important and beautiful buildings, and displacing as many as 12,000 residents. Hindus were not allowed to return to the city until January 1858; Muslims could not return until the following year. The debate about whether the city should be rebuilt or destroyed was not resolved until May 1858, eight months after its recapture by the British.49 At the same time, as the British destroyed roughly two-thirds of the Mughal capital, they also constructed a memorialized landscape that

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

85

reinforced their physical conquest of the city.50 The commemoration of John Nicholson formed an important part of the creation of the Mutiny memorial landscape in Delhi. His name featured prominently on the Mutiny memorial constructed on Delhi Ridge. One of the seven tablets on the large, octagonal monument states that it was constructed to honor the officers and British and ‘Native’ soldiers who died between 30 May and 20 September 1857; Nicholson is mentioned as ‘Brigadier-General J. Nicholson/Commanding 4th Infantry brigade.’51 In addition, the place where he was fatally shot became a site of commemoration. A tablet on the city walls between the Kabul and Lahore Gates marked ‘the spot where Brigadier General John Nicholson was mortally wounded during the assault on the 14th September 1857.’52 The most prominent way in which Nicholson was commemorated in Delhi after 1857, however, was through his grave and the cemetery that came to bear his name. No separate military cemetery for British soldiers killed in the rebellion was established; instead, their graves were dispersed over a wide area. Nicholson was buried not far from the spot of the initial assault on Delhi in a cemetery 300 yards from the Kashmir Gate. The cemetery included the graves of a number of officers and men who had died during or after the siege of Delhi, and a tablet on the cemetery wall commemorated three officers and 41 NCOs and enlisted men who died between 30 May and 30 September 1857.53 The inscription on Nicholson’s grave was far from elaborate compared to those of other officers commemorated in Indian cemeteries and on tablets in St. James’ Church in Delhi. It simply noted that Nicholson ‘led the assault of Delhi; but fell in the hour of victory, mortally wounded, and died 23rd September 1857; aged 35.’ The ceremony at Nicholson’s burial was brief and somber. As the chaplain who officiated at the ceremony recalled It was a solemn service, and perhaps the simplicity which characterised the arrangements of the funeral, added considerably to the solemnity of the occasion; particularly when you realised and contrasted with this simplicity the acknowledged greatness of the deceased. The funeral cortege was comparatively small; very few beside personal friends composed the mournful train . . . . The corpse, was brought from the General’s [Chamberlain’s] own tent, on a gun-carriage; whether covered with a pall or otherwise I cannot say. But no roar of cannon announced the departure of the procession from camp; no volleys of musketry disturbed the silence which prevailed at his grave; no martial music was heard. Thus, without pomp or show, we buried him.54 Although the inscription and ceremony were simple, Nicholson’s grave was a tangible sign of the British domination of Delhi after 1857, and the end of the Mughal dynasty in particular. General Neville Chamberlain

86 Ireland and India

ordered that a marble slab, which had served as a garden seat for Mughal Emperors, be removed from the Red Fort and placed over Nicholson’s grave.55 The second location where Nicholson was commemorated was the Northwest frontier, where he had made his reputation as an imperial administrator. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Northwest frontier occupied an increasingly prominent place in the British imperial imagination. The Sikhs and Pathans of northern India were seen as strong and manly figures, a stark contrast to the rebellious sepoys of the Bengal Army. The British officers who commanded regular and irregular army regiments composed of these nascent ‘martial races’ were thus thought to require great force of character in order to control them. The ‘Punjab school’ of imperial administration posited an ideal of authoritarian and paternalist rule by ‘manly,’ vigorous administrators who spent their days on horseback in their districts, not behind a desk. As John Cell observes, ‘Punjab officials were instructed to act firmly at the first sign of trouble lest their notoriously turbulent people should explode in violence.’56 The fundamental virtues of these heroes of the Northwest frontier were those of the Victorian middle classes: ‘self-control, hard work and independence.’ As Douglas Peers observes, ‘The heroes of the northwest frontier could easily be transformed into pillars of the Victorian parlour.’57 Nicholson’s colleagues played a crucial role in memorializing his service on the Northwest frontier in terms which epitomized the ideals of the ‘Punjab School.’ Herbert Edwardes composed an inscription for a marble tablet placed in St. George’s Church in Bannu, where Nicholson had served as an administrator. Edwardes’ inscription made reference to Nicholson’s heroic death in Delhi, but primarily praised him as a warrior and as a strong and ‘manly’ ruler who brought peace to the turbulent frontier of Britain’s Indian Empire: gifted in mind and body, he was as brilliant in government as in arms. The snows of Ghuznee attest his youthful fortitude; the songs of the Punjab his manly deeds; the peace of this frontier his strong rule. The enemies of his country know how terrible he was in battle, and we his friends have to recall how gentle, generous, and true he was.58 A larger memorial to Nicholson on the Northwest frontier was constructed by a committee established in 1857. Headed by Sir John Lawrence and composed of many of Nicholson’s colleagues in the East India Company, the committee had originally been formed to establish memorials to Nicholson in both the United Kingdom and India. After a letter from Nicholson’s brother, Charles informed the committee that his mother wished to establish a memorial to him in Lisburn, however, the committee focused its energies on India. ‘After considering many plans,’ the committee decided to erect

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

87

a plain stone obelisk on the crest of the Margalla Pass. Herbert Edwardes explained the rationale for the location: The Margalla Pass is a striking and remarkable spot; a range of rocky limestone here stands across the direct line of communication from Peshawur to Lahore, as if the warder of the Punjab. The Mahommedan invaders of India paved a winding causeway over its lowest point. The Sikhs built a tower on the crest to command the causeway. The English have run a broad military and commercial road, straight as an arrow, through the heart of the solid hill; and the ruined tower and disused causeway (once regarded as a wonder of skill and labour) remain emblems of the dynasties we have subdued. In the whole Punjab there is no more obligatory, or suggestive point than this. In peace or war, the stream of communication must flow through the Margulla Pass, and no traveler passing through the defile can fail to have his attention fixed on the Mahommedan causeway, the Sikh Tower, and the English road.59 In addition to the fact that the choice of location reinforced the British subjugation of the Punjab, it was also significant as the spot of Nicholson’s most famous exploit during the Second Anglo-Sikh War. In the midst of a skirmish, Nicholson and a small number of soldiers rushed a stone tower at the height of the pass. Discovering that the tower’s door was ten feet above the ground, Nicholson began to pull the unmortared stones apart until a stone thrown by a defender struck him in the face and forced him to withdraw.60 As Edwardes wrote, this act of foolhardiness was regarded as a brave exploit that made the Margalla Pass an appropriate place for a monument to Nicholson: When then it was remembered that the Pass stood midway in the District of Rawul Pindee (General Nicholson’s first charge in the Punjab; and associated with some of his happiest days as a public servant;) and that no exploit of his is re-called with more honest admiration by the people of the country round, than his desperate assault with a few followers on this very Margulla Tower, in the war of 1848–49, nothing seemed so good as to crown the Pass with a Monument to his memory, high, strong, and simple like himself. And, as there is no water near the Pass for miles, a tank below the Monument might be a blessing to many a weary traveller, in the name of a dear friend, and long keep kindly memories fresh and green around it.61 In addition to commemorating Nicholson’s valor in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, the memorial at the Margalla Pass also referred to his role in the suppression of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The monument, an obelisk of local blue-grey sandstone, was designed by Nicholson’s colleague, the Anglo-Irish engineer Alexander Taylor. Nicholson had recommended Taylor to John

88 Ireland and India

Lawrence in 1857 ‘as a young officer with siege-experience, who would be likely to do good service at Delhi.’ He subsequently carried out numerous reconnaissance missions with Nicholson in preparation for the assault on Delhi.62 Taylor supervised the initial construction of the monument, which was completed in 1868. The inscription on the memorial commemorated Nicholson’s deeds in Delhi: ‘Erected by friends, British and native, to the memory of Brig.-Gen. John Nicholson, C.B., who, after taking a hero’s part in four great wars, fell mortally wounded, in leading to victory the main column of assault at the great siege of Delhi, and died 22nd September 1857, aged 34.’63 Nicholson’s reputation was thus solidly established among the British Indian community in the immediate aftermath of the rebellion. A fellow Irishman, Charles Arthur Kelly of the Bengal Civil Service, composed what was probably the first poetic tribute to John Nicholson, which appeared in his Delhi and Other Poems (1864). The tribute appeared as part of a long poem in two cantos on the past conquests of Delhi and the British suppression of the rebellion there. Kelly’s poem highlights the importance of the recapture of Delhi to British rule in the subcontinent, as well as Nicholson’s role in it: Desperate the chance: they die, or win the walls, No hope for England’s sons till Delhi falls! ... On towards the gate of Death he pressed, and fell, The proud, stern man they feared yet loved so well; ... The princely heart of steel that would not yield, But, like the Spartan, died upon the shield. ... May loftier harps record his glorious youth, His love of honour, and his living truth; We only mourn for him whose work is done, And wish the world had more like Nicholson!64 In an article from 1873, the British–Indian journal The Chameleon referred to Nicholson as ‘a man whose splendid qualities outstrip the most ardent panegyric.’ While noting that only a ‘plain stone’ in a small cemetery in Delhi recorded his burial, the anonymous author observed that his deeds deserves [sic] to be—and will be—immortal: and wherever a young British officer in the East feels any doubt of his own character or any distaste for his calling, he can apply to his nerves no more healthful or bracing stimulant than the memory of John Nicholson.65

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

89

From ‘Obscurity’ to apotheosis In contrast to the adulation for Nicholson in India, relatively little attention was paid to him in Britain. Although the recapture of Delhi formed part of a narrative of ‘manly triumph and renewal’ constructed around the rebellion, the fact that Nicholson played no role in the relief of Lucknow meant that he occupied a lesser place in the domestic mid-Victorian imperial imagination.66 A good illustration of this is Mary E. Leslie’s Sorrows, Aspirations, and Legends (1858), which includes poems in honor of ‘Sir Colin Campbell,’ ‘Sir Henry Havelock,’ ‘General Neill’ and the heroes and heroines of Lucknow, as well as two in honor of Henry Lawrence. Nicholson is not mentioned, even in the poem ‘The Fall of Delhi.’67 To most mid-Victorian commentators, British atrocities during the Mutiny were seen as just retribution for the actions of the rebels. For Britons both at home and in India, this self-justifying narrative of heroic deeds led to a renewed faith in the British right to rule India. This was strikingly illustrated in the honors given to another military hero of the Mutiny, the Scotsman James George Neill. Neill was a colonel of the Madras Fusiliers, who like Nicholson had been promoted to brigadier general during the Mutiny and— again like Nicholson—had carried out violent and brutal acts of retribution. In addition to presiding over the executions of hundreds of rebel sepoys, sometimes on what one writer called ‘slight proofs of criminality,’ Neill also forced sepoys at Cawnpore to lick up congealed blood at the site of the massacre in Bibighar.68 Neill, who died while leading troops to lift the siege of Lucknow in September 1857, was honored with equestrian statues raised by public subscription in both his birthplace of Ayrshire in Scotland and in Madras.69 Other reactions in Britain, however, reflected greater ambivalence. Liberal mid-Victorians were uncomfortable with the extreme violence of Nicholson, Neill and other Mutiny heroes. In the context of evolutionary theory, these acts of retribution pointed to the potential for the unleashing of savagery within the ‘civilized’ British nature. In addition, the Cromwellian, Covenanting temperament of figures such as Nicholson and Neill—‘reincarnations of the Puritan warriors of seventeenthcentury England’—while appealing to evangelicals, was, as Christopher Herbert observes, ‘a heritage from which progressive mid-century Victorians recoiled.’70 Even John William Kaye, whose writings helped to establish the myth of Nicholson as an imperial hero, did not offer unqualified praise. Kaye noted that, while Nicholson displayed an ‘overwhelming force of character beneath which rebellion was paralysed,’ his fearsome reputation at times worked against Indian loyalty in 1857. ‘With the fear which that awful sternness inspired,’ Kaye wrote, ‘love could hardly co-exist; and, therefore, as intelligent natives testified, the people would not, during the Mutiny, have done as much for Nicholson as they did for his friend’ Edwardes.71

90 Ireland and India

Thus, for many Britons—as opposed to British–Indians—the reputation of John Nicholson was not nearly so prominent as those of other heroes of 1857. In the late nineteenth century, however, this would begin to change. When Reginald Wilberforce’s An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny, which focused on the deeds of John Nicholson, was published in 1894, an anonymous reviewer commented that the author has done ‘one notable service . . . of which future historians will have to take account, and that is to rescue from comparative oblivion the name and fame of one of the most remarkable men who played a part in the subjugation of the mutiny.’72 So why did John Nicholson’s reputation experience a late nineteenth-century apotheosis? Already a model of mid-Victorian ‘Christian militarism’ and, like General Gordon, an ‘uncorrupted’ bachelor and an evangelical Christian, Nicholson’s ascension occurred in the climate of late Victorian Britain’s obsession with all things military and imperial.73 In the context of Victorian adulation of the ‘martial races’ and the imperial frontier, Nicholson stood out as an exemplar of heroic imperial exploits, a leader who could command the respect and adulation of the most manly warriors of the British Empire. Nicholson thus functioned as an exemplar of British masculinity, constructed in opposition to the attributes of colonial subjects.74 This image, once established, remained relatively unchanged through the end of colonial rule in India. This was also an era, as Gautam Chakravarty observes, in which ‘the [1857] rebellion acquired form, meaning and mythography that was most fully elaborated in a spate of popular adventure novels.’75 Nicholson played a prominent role in these ‘Mutiny novels.’ As we have already seen, he featured prominently in Flora Annie Steel’s On the Face of the Waters, and the heroes of several other novels of this period also bore a close resemblance to him.76 In the late nineteenth century, the concept of ‘heroism’ for Britons came to be increasingly associated with military virtues.77 Robert H. MacDonald in his study of imperial rhetoric has argued that Victorians and Edwardians were taught that the ‘glorious deeds’ of the army and navy were associated with several easily recognizable acts of individual heroism, such as engaging in single combat, saving the Colors, a sacrificial deed by a ‘native’ or a heroic death by a Briton. MacDonald identifies Nicholson as an exemplar of ‘The Lesson,’ in which a ‘native’ is taught to respect the superiority of the British.78 This is one of the most important reasons for Nicholson’s heroic stature in the late nineteenth century, even more so because the peoples to whom Nicholson meted out ‘lessons’ were those considered the most ‘martial’ of India, the ‘manly’ Sikhs and the peoples of the Northwest frontier. The concept that certain peoples—the so-called ‘martial races’—were predisposed to make good warriors, became a central tenet of Victorian racialist

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

91

thinking in the second half of the nineteenth century. The concept was applied not only to Asians and Africans, but also to the peoples of Britain’s ‘Celtic fringe.’ The Scottish Highlanders were often regarded as the exemplar of the ‘martial races.’79 In the case of India, martial race thinking had originated in the debates of the East India Company in the early nineteenth century. After 1857, it became more prominent, and the masculinity of certain Indian ‘races’ was increasingly valorized. As the focus of the Indian Army shifted to the defense of empire on the Northwest frontier in the 1880s, further prominence was given, in Lord Roberts’ words, to ‘the more warlike and hardy races’ of northwest India, who increasingly formed the main source of recruits for the Indian Army. By 1900, half of the Army was composed of recruits from the Punjab, among whom Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims were most prominent.80 As the ‘martial races’—particularly Sikhs—became more important to the Indian Army in the late nineteenth century, Nicholson’s reputation correspondingly ascended. One early advocate of Nicholson as a model of control of the Sikhs summed up his appeal The almost superhuman power of Nicholson over the Sikhs was to be found in a perfectly just, yet relentlessly firm temper, and a bold and noble presence. ‘The tramp of his war-horse might be heard two miles off.’ Such was the description given of Nicholson by a rough Sikh who wept over his grave. A mere easy, good-natured man, who can only be nurum (soft), and never gurrum (hot), will not do for the Sikhs. The mixture of quiet benevolence and justice, with an ardent spirit, chains them to a leader for ever.81 Even after his death, Nicholson’s British–Indian admirers remarked on his ability to command the respect of ‘the martial races.’ In 1867, a police officer in Delhi heard a group of ‘wandering Punjabi minstrels’ singing a ballad in the streets about Nicholson. According to Colonel John William Younghusband, the Director-General of Police in the Punjab, ‘he was struck by hearing the name of John Nicholson frequently repeated,’ and ‘sent for the bard and took down this ballad for their own files.’82 Younghusband, who forwarded copies of the ballad to Herbert Edwardes and to John Lawrence, clearly regarded it as an indication of the way in which Nicholson commanded the respect of the ‘martial races.’ The ballad, he wrote, was ‘a remarkable testimony to the power Nicholson had over the warlike classes’ and pointed to ‘the extraordinary fact that such a ballad should have been sung in the city of Delhi by men singing for their livelihood, and therefore unlikely to sing any but popular songs.’83 A copy of the ballad was printed in 1867 in Lahore by the Indian Public Opinion and Punjab Times Press, and 30 years later it was reprinted in the first biography of Nicholson.84

92 Ireland and India

The untitled ballad valorized the British destruction of Delhi and Nicholson’s role in the slaughter. Above all, it exalts his bravery and the devotion of the ‘martial races’ to him: Oh, Nicholson was bravest brave that English chief could be; My brother, such a gallant man seems very God to me. ... O brother, we can ne’er forget John Nicholson the brave. Oh, dearest spark of chivalry, let a Punjabi cry All shame that British soldiery left Nicholson to die! Upon our father’s honoured grave thy Khalsa soldiers weep, Towanas brave and stout Pathans lament thy lifeless sleep ... We ceaseless pray the warrior’s God, with all a soldier’s love, That he would make brave Nicholson a prince in heaven above. Oh, Godlike chieftain Nicholson, our children lisp thy name; Thou’lt not forget the Khalsa’s prayers, their babies prate thy fame.85 In the following decade, another version of the Punjabi ballad was recorded by a British official in Multan.86 Similar in many respects to the version above, the ballad adopted a more critical tone, in spite of its reverence for Nicholson: The English are very brave, but there are none like Nicholson. Oh, Nicholson! hadst thou but lived, thou would’st have cherished the army. To the Towannah, the Pathan, and the Khalsa given great rewards But no one knows the army now, new Englishmen have come. These ballads present Nicholson as idolized by the martial races in a way that would have impressed Victorian Britons. Nonetheless, they should not be dismissed simply as colonial constructs. Sikhs were not passive recipients of the label of ‘martial race,’ but rather responded to this concept in ways that accorded with their own cultural ideals. Sikh identity as a ‘martial race’ was thus forged by Sikhs as well as British military officers and colonial ethnographers.87 As Richard G. Fox observes, The cultural selection to which the Lions of the Punjab adapted was a colonial one. It worked upon them when the British implemented selective policies based on their reconstruction of Singh ‘racial’ tradition; it equally worked upon them as an internalized cultural concept, when the Singhs themselves came to believe in the British reconstruction.88

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

93

Nicholson’s control over the martial races, and the devotion that this inspired, was a frequent theme in late Victorian and Edwardian accounts of his story. It features in one of the most popular and critically acclaimed imperial novels of the period, Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. Nicholson’s legendary status is evoked in an important scene in which Kim—the half-Irish son of an Irish color-sergeant89 —and the Lama meet an Indian veteran of the Mutiny, a former ‘native officer in a newly-raised cavalry regiment,’ who is now ‘an old, withered man,’ but nonetheless is ‘still a person of consequence.’ The Mutiny veteran, remembering when he ‘saw Delhi shake,’ sings for Kim and the Lama the ‘old song’ of ‘Nicholson before Delhi’: As they fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old man’s high, shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn wail he unfolded the story of Nikal Seyn (Nicholson)—the son that men sing in the Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the lama listened with deep interest. ‘Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead—he died before Delhi! Lances of the North, take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.’90 The story that above all, however, was seen to epitomize Nicholson’s control of the ‘martial races’ was an account of how during the Indian Rebellion he had commanded the loyalty of the Punjabi chief Mehtab Singh. The story appeared in the first edition of Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys (1908), which describes Nicholson as ‘one of the finest among many fine Britons who helped to rule India.’ He is the main character in one of Baden-Powell’s short plays for Scouts, designed to reinforce and inculcate attitudes of British racial superiority. In Baden-Powell’s story, which was intended to be acted out by patriotic Scouts, Nicholson upbraids a Sikh nobleman named Mehtab Singh who refuses to remove his shoes, a traditional sign of respect, in his presence: Thou camest here to intent to show contempt for me, who represent your Queen. But you forget that you are dealing with a Briton—one of the band who never brooks an insult even from an equal, much less from a native of this land. Were I a common soldier it would be the same; a Briton, even though alone, amongst a thousand of your kind, shall be respected, though it brought about his death. Nicholson orders Mehtab Singh to remove his shoes and walk out with them in his hand in front of the other assembled chieftains. ‘And so he had to go,’ Baden-Powell observes, ‘hanging his head with shame, disgraced and humbled by the firmness of the British ruler.’91 The same story had previously been told in poetic form by Henry Newbolt in Admirals All, and Other Verses (1897) in which ‘The Ballad of

94 Ireland and India

John Nicholson’ appeared alongside ‘Vitaï Lampada’ and poems honoring British naval and military heroes.92 In Newbolt’s version, like Baden-Powell’s, Nicholson makes it clear that the British will ‘brook no doubt of our mastery/We rule until we die’: ‘Were I the one last Englishman Drawing the breath of life, And you the master-rebel of all That stir this land to strife— ‘Were I,’ he said, ‘but a Corporal, And you a Rajput King, So long as the soul was in my body You should not do this thing. ‘Take off, take off, those shoes of pride, Carry them whence they came; Your captains saw your insolence, And they shall see your shame.’ ... When Mehtab Singh rode from the gate His chin was on his breast: The Captains said, ‘When the strong command Obedience is best.’93 Another nineteenth-century variant of the Nicholson legend extended his power over the peoples of India to the Irish general’s outright worship as the god-like ‘Nikkal Seyn.’94 (In Urdu, ‘Nikkal Seyn’ means something approximating ‘Let the army come out.’95 ) Stories of Nicholson’s worship by the peoples of the Northwest frontier were common currency among his colleagues there.96 Herbert Edwardes supplied the information for the first published version, which appeared in Charles Raikes’ Notes on the Revolt in the North-western provinces of India (1858). John William Kaye later wrote that Nicholson ‘was turned into a demi-god like Hercules of old.’ In the Lives of Indian Officials, Kaye attributed the worship of Nicholson to ‘a brotherhood of Fakeers in Hazareh’ in the northwest of the Punjab. Kaye explained that ‘that this sect of devotees arose when John Nicholson was scouring the country between Attock and the Jhelum’ during the second Anglo-Sikh War in 1848, ‘making almost incredible marches, and performing prodigies of valour, with a mere handful of followers. It was a simple case of the worship of Force, such as they had seen in no other man.’97 In the late nineteenth century, several variants of the story circulated, alternately attributing the worship of Nicholson to Hindus or Sikhs, and sometimes relating that the ‘Nikalsaynis’ chose to convert to Christianity

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

95

after the death of their ‘god.’ Monier Williams of the Royal Asiatic Society accepted the story of the worship of Nicholson—‘one of the bravest and best men’—by ‘Panjabi Hindus’ as a modern example of the exaltation of human heroes such as Rama and Krishna to the rank of the divine. ‘Heroism, undaunted bravery, and personal strength,’ he observed ‘will always find worshippers in India.’98 Another reviewer in Blackwood’s Magazine observed in 1861 that ‘we doubt whether there is anything to parallel this in all our history—great as have been the triumphs of intellect—great the influence of individual minds over uncivilised masses of men.’99 In An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny (1894), Reginald Wilberforce noted that Nicholson was worshipped by both Sikhs and a tribe on the frontier that called themselves the ‘Nicholson fakirs.’ Sikhs, Wilberforce wrote, declared to Nicholson that if he would openly profess the Sikh religion ‘they would raise a Taj to him besides which the Umritzur Taj would be as nought.’ The reasons, he speculated, had to do in large part with Nicholson’s bravery and disregard for death: ‘Doubtless John Nicholson’s face, his reckless bravery, his manner of life, his immunity from death—for it almost might be said that he sought for death, but could not find it—contributed to encourage the superstitions of a superstitious people.’100 The first full-length biography of Nicholson, Lionel Trotter’s The Life of John Nicholson (1897), detailed the origins of the ‘Nikalsain’ cult, extending its devotees to Hindus as well as Sikhs. According to Trotter, in 1849, a Hindu Gosain or devotee discovered in Nicholson a new Avatar, or ‘incarnation of the Brahmanic godhead,’ and several of his fellow Gosains embraced the worship of Nicholson as well ‘and the sect of Nikalsains became a historical fact.’101 According to one account, the worship of Nicholson increased after his death.102 Others stated that the devotees of Nicholson committed mass suicide in despair upon hearing of the death of their leader. Reginald Wilberforce added to the story of suicide a story of conversion of the ‘Nikkalseynis’ to Christianity: When the news was brought to them that Nicholson was dead, the two head men of the tribe committed suicide, but the next in command addressing the remainder, said: ‘Nickelseyn always said that he was a man like as we are, and that he worshipped a God whom we could not see, but who was always near us. Let us learn to worship Nicholson’s God.’ The tribe went into Peshawur, and putting themselves under Christian teachers, were baptized to a man. Truly ‘their works follow them,’ for this was probably the only instance in which natives of India in a body forsook their old faith, and became Christians on purely disinterested grounds.103 While some elements of the story of the worship of ‘Nikkal Seyn’ were doubtless embellished by Victorians, enough stories circulated that there is

96 Ireland and India

undoubtedly some truth to them. The ‘worship’ of John Nicholson may have been a calculated gesture by the peoples of the Northwest frontier to curry favor with a stern and violent colonial administrator, yet the resulting legend was also one that appealed to many Victorians, and reinforced their convictions about British racial superiority and the natural right of Britons to rule India.

An Anglo-Irish interlocutor: Lord Roberts In addition to a cultural climate that favored his elevation to heroic status, Nicholson also had a powerful interlocutor in Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Lord Roberts of Kandahar. Roberts, also from an Anglo-Irish military family, was one of the most popular military figures of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain.104 After gaining widespread fame as a military commander in the Second Afghan War (1878–80), Roberts rose to become Commander-in-Chief in India, Ireland, South Africa, and Britain. In 1911, the Strand magazine named Roberts one of the ten greatest living Britons.105 Roberts’ emergence as a popular hero was in no small degree due to his skillful manipulation of the press. In Afghanistan, Roberts overcame criticism of the brutality of the military justice his forces meted out in Kabul and emerged as a household name for his 300-mile march from Kabul to Kandahar in relief of British troops. With the help of the reports of a hand-picked war correspondent who emphasized the ‘romance and danger’ of Roberts’ mission, his reputation was transformed from a ‘blood thirsty little beast’ to a brave, courageous and enduring military leader.106 As the greatest public hero of late Victorian Britain, Roberts’ influence within the media was vast, and he used it to advance initiatives such as a ‘forward’ policy on the Northwest frontier of India and the National Service League, which advocated compulsory military service. In common with many military officers of his generation, Roberts was deeply affected by his experiences during the 1857 Rebellion. As a junior officer he participated in the recapture of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow and was awarded the Victoria Cross. Roberts’ praise of the deeds of Sikhs, Gurkhas and Scottish Highland troops in 1857 played a significant role in the popularization of the theory of ‘martial races.’107 Roberts not only helped to popularize the ‘martial’ qualities of the Sikhs, but to promote the legacy of the officer he served under in the Rebellion: Brigadier-General John Nicholson. Roberts served as Nicholson’s staff officer, where he ‘had opportunities of observing more closely his splendid soldierly qualities and the workings of his grand, simple mind.’ Roberts regarded Nicholson as a singularly impressive leader of men, and as nothing less than an ideal military commander. The depth of Roberts’ regard for Nicholson was demonstrated in 1893, when he accompanied the Director of Records of

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

97

the Government of India to Nicholson’s grave in Delhi. Roberts placed roses reverently on the tomb and stood for many minutes gazing at the resting-place of his loved and honoured friend. He then joined us at the gate, and as we drove away, beyond the cemetery walls we had, through the trees, a glimpse of the breach through which Nicholson led his victorious soldiers. ‘I never saw any one like him,’ was the only remark that broke the silence.108 When Roberts spoke at the Indian Mutiny Jubilee at the Royal Albert Hall on 23 December 1907, his address featured a roll call of the heroic generals of 1857—Havelock, Campbell, Neill and Outram—but he singled out for special praise two men who died heroic deaths: Henry Lawrence and Nicholson. Nicholson, said Roberts, ‘had all the instincts of a soldier,’ and ‘of all the men I have served under—for some of whom I had a great admiration—none of them impressed me in the same way as Nicholson.’109 Roberts’ immensely popular autobiography Forty-One Years in India (1897), which went through 34 editions by 1901, also gave a tremendous impetus to the legend of Nicholson. Throughout the book, Roberts stresses the importance of the Northwest frontier; Nicholson, through his control of the local peoples, serves as an important illustration of this theme.110 As Roberts stated in the preface to the first edition, The Natives of India are particularly observant of character, and intelligent in gauging the capabilities of those who govern them; and it is because of this that a mere handful of Englishmen are able to direct the administration of a country with nearly three hundred millions of inhabitants, differing in race, religion, and manners of life. Narrating Nicholson’s role in the siege of Delhi, Roberts wrote that Nicholson was ‘our guiding star’ and a ‘tower of strength,’ adding that ‘each man in the force, from the General in command to the last-joined private soldier, recognized that the man whom the wild people on the frontier had deified.’111 As this quotation suggests, Roberts’ portrait emphasized the image of Nicholson as an imperial servant whose powers of control over the ‘martial’ races approached the supernatural. ‘John Nicholson was a name to conjure with in the Punjab,’ Roberts wrote. I had heard it mentioned with an amount of respect—indeed, awe— which no other name could excite, and I was all curiosity to see the man whose influence on the frontier was so great that his word was law to the refractory tribes amongst whom he lived . . . . while he was styled a ‘pillar

98 Ireland and India

of strength on the frontier’ by Lord Dalhousie, he was looked up to as a god by the Natives, who loved as much as they feared him. Roberts went on to narrate the story of the ‘Nicholseyns’ who worshipped the Irish general as a god, as well as the depth of his personal admiration: Nicholson impressed me more profoundly than any man I had ever met before, or have ever met since. I have never seen anyone like him. He was the beau-ideal of a soldier and a gentleman. His appearance was distinguished and commanding, with a sense of power about him which to my mind was the result of his having passed so much of his life amongst the wild and lawless tribesmen, with whom his authority was supreme. Intercourse with this man amongst men made me more eager than ever to remain on the frontier, and I was seized with ambition to follow in his footsteps.112 Roberts’ description of Nicholson as the ‘beau-ideal of a soldier and a gentleman’ helped to establish Nicholson not only as a military hero, but as a masculine ideal, and an embodiment of modern-day chivalry.

‘The Beloved and Worshipped Nikalseyn Sahib’ In addition to lavishing praise on the Irish officer in his autobiography, Roberts played an instrumental role in the final major commemoration of John Nicholson in India. This tribute, a statue located near the location where Nicholson began the assault on Delhi on 14 September 1857, was in many ways the culmination of the memorialization of his heroic sacrifice for the British Empire. In late Victorian and Edwardian imperial culture, steadfastness in remaining at duty to one’s death was the ‘the ultimate emblem of disciplined sacrifice’ and ‘the highest form of heroism.’113 The memorial landscape honoring the sacrifice of Britons created after 1857 was thus still pronounced in India at the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, it was still being expanded. During his tenure as Viceroy from 1899 to 1905, Lord Curzon deeply involved himself not only with the preservation and conservation of ancient and Mughal monuments, but also with the creation of memorials that honored the sacrifice of Britons and sought to give meaning to their dominion over India. Curzon was scrupulously concerned about the accuracy of Mutiny memorials, and during one visit to Delhi, he retraced John Nicholson’s final hours, from the breach in the city walls near the Kashmir Gate to the lane where he was shot to his grave.114 In addition to memorials commemorating Clive’s victory at Plassey and the Britons who died in the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta,’ Curzon was responsible for a memorial obelisk outside the Delhi Telegraph Office honoring the telegraph operators who had sent news of the mutineers’ arrival in Delhi.115

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

99

Thus, at the turn of the twentieth century, Nicholson’s presence in Delhi still loomed large among the British Indian community. When Nicholson’s relative Quinton Hogg visited the city he found it full of memories of poor John Nicholson. The Nicholson Gardens mark the spot whence our batteries breached the Cashmere gate; Nicholson Road marks the lane where he was shot; while his name stands first on the memorial cross erected outside the walls, and his face looks down upon you from the walls of the museum.116 C.F. Andrews, who arrived in Delhi in 1904 to teach at St. Stephen’s College, was also struck by the continued presence of the ‘Mutiny.’ As his biographer Hugh Tinker observes The actual environment of the Delhi where he arrived in March 1904 was dominated by events which had occurred almost fifty years before: viz, the siege and capture of Delhi, the climacteric event of the Indian Mutiny. Delhi had never forgotten the Mutiny . . . . Indians and British hugged their memories. The Indians remembered departed greatness. The British remembered the killing of their countrymen, the heroism of John Nicholson and the others who had recaptured Delhi: ‘Never Again’ was their watchword.117 By the late nineteenth century, places associated with the Indian ‘Mutiny’ had become prominent places of pilgrimage for Britons visiting India. In Bernard Cohn’s memorable description For Englishmen in the latter half of the nineteenth century, traveling in India as visitors or in the course of their duties, there was a regular Mutiny pilgrimage to visit the sites of the great events—the Delhi Ridge, the Memorial Well and the Gardens in Kanpur, capped by the large marble statue of the Angel of the Resurrection, and the Residency in Lucknow. Tombs, memorials, stones and their inscriptions, and tablets which are affixed to the walls of European churches marked for the English the martyrdom, sacrifice and ultimate triumph of military and civilians whose death made sacred, to the Victorian Englishmen, their rule in India.118 Guidebooks such as John Murray’s A Handbook for Travelers in India and Ceylon (1891) gave particular prominence to the three ‘mutiny cities’ of Delhi, Lucknow and Cawnpore.119 According to one estimate, more European visitors to India visited the Cawnpore Memorial Gardens than the Taj Mahal.120 Tourists were encouraged to follow highly scripted routes of ‘Mutiny’ sites, and guidebook descriptions of these drew heavily on standard historical accounts of 1857 such as those by Kaye and Malleson.121

100

Ireland and India

In their discussion of travelers’ itineraries for Delhi, guidebooks gave particular prominence to sites associated with John Nicholson. Murray’s Handbook identified the siege of Delhi as the paramount event in the establishment of enduring British rule in the subcontinent. Delhi, ‘the Rome of Asia,’ was ‘one of the most important historical sites in Asia,’ not for its centuries of Hindu and Muslim architecture and history, but for the events of 1857 to which the guidebook gave pride of place.122 Murray’s Handbook recommended that British travelers spend a morning viewing the sites associated with the siege of Delhi, including ‘the tomb of General Nicholson, one of the greatest heroes of India.’123 The campaign to establish a statue of Nicholson was initiated by Major H.W. Douglas, the Deputy Commissioner of Delhi. In a fund-raising letter, the patrons of the ‘Nicholson Fund’ did not feel a need to explain anything about the general’s life, noting that those who have even a superficial acquaintance with the history of India have heard of John Nicholson, and know that, of all the great “leaders of men” that the country has produced, none have been more brilliant, more resourceful, more masterful, or more gallant and devoted in the service of their country than this hero of Delhi. Nonetheless, they expressed the view that it was ‘remarkable that to the present day, with the exception of a simple tombstone over his grave and a tablet affixed to the city wall at the spot where he fell, there is no monument to Nicholson in Delhi.’ The patrons proposed to erect a statue in the Nicholson Garden ‘on the spot where he formed up his column for the final assault.’ By 1902, the committee noted that almost Rs. 5000 had been raised in India, almost one-third of the total cost of £1600.124 As with other aspects of Nicholson’s imperial reputation, Lord Roberts played a prominent role in the establishment of the memorial statue in Delhi. This was consistent with his strong conviction that the places associated with 1857 should be sites of commemoration and remembrance. In Forty-one Years in India, Roberts expressed contempt for the view that ‘all outward signs of the Mutiny should be obliterated, that the monuments on the Ridge at Delhi should be leveled, and the picturesque Residency at Lucknow allowed to fall into decay.’125 Roberts served as one of the patrons of the ‘Nicholson fund,’ along with Lord Curzon and Sir Charles Rivaz, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. Roberts’ praise for Nicholson featured prominently in fund-raising attempts. The Daily Graphic reproduced Roberts’ letter to Lord Curzon’s private secretary, under the headline ‘ “The Grandest Man Under Whom I have Ever Served.” Lord Robert’s Tribute to John Nicholson.’ Roberts, who subscribed Rs. 200, noted that the site proposed for the statue in the Nicholson Garden was where he

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

101

last saw Nicholson before he received his mortal wound. I was standing on the wall close by the battery in which I served in the Ludlow Castle grounds, watching Nicholson waiting at the head of his little column for the sound of the bugle announcing that the Kashmir Gate had been blown in.126 The committee was not disappointed with the reception of its efforts, and Lord Curzon reported that ‘no difficulty was experienced in obtaining the funds’ for Nicholson’s statue.127 Although the initial plans to have a statue ready for the Coronation Durbar ceremonies of 1902 had to be abandoned, the statue was unveiled on 8 April 1906 near Nicholson’s grave on Delhi Ridge just outside of the Kashmir Gate. The eminent sculptor Sir Thomas Brock, designer of the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, created a bronze statue of Nicholson, sword in hand, leading the assault on Delhi Fort. The major difficulty experienced by the organizers of the Nicholson Fund was the challenge of constructing a realistic image almost 50 years after the Ulsterman’s death. H.W. Douglas had appealed for ‘the loan of any portraits of John Nicholson, or any information regarding dress or general appearance, etc., which might be of use to the sculptor.’ The effort apparently succeeded, and Brock was able to draw on a bust by the nineteenth-century Irish sculptor J.H. Foley, as well as artifacts including Nicholson’s cavalry saber and ‘the actual dust-coloured cloth coat’ he was wearing when he was shot.128 The Statesman of Calcutta observed that Douglas ‘succeeded in obtaining various authentic records of Nicholson’s appearance and characteristic attitudes, and the statue which Mr. Brock has turned out is the result of numerous interviews and consultations between the sculptor and Major Douglas.’129 The result met with critical approval: the Times referred to the statue as one of Mr. Brock’s happiest creations. It represents John Nicholson, the ‘Nikalsain Sahib’ of the warrior races of the Punjab, with his head inclined towards the Kashmir Gate and his sword unsheathed. The scabbard is lifted as if the General were about to point the way to the final assault.130 The unveiling of the statue was a decidedly martial occasion, attended by Lord Kitchener, detachments representing the various corps that had served under Nicholson’s command in 1857, and the 14 remaining veterans of 1857 who could be found. The Viceroy, Lord Minto, wore a general’s uniform, and with what the Times called ‘true soldierly instinct wore no decorations except the medals won on active service in the field.’ A battery of artillery fired a Brigadier-General’s salute in honor of Nicholson and the band played ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Minto referred to it as ‘a ceremony I shall never forget.’131 Minto also considered his speech, delivered at a time when

102

Ireland and India

Indian nationalist agitation had surged after the 1905 Partition of Bengal, as an opportunity ‘to say something of the historic relations between Indian and British troops,’ and to give ‘public recognition of the comradeship-inarms which has so long existed between British and Indian soldiers.’ Though he called Nicholson ‘a great soldier and administrator, whose name is such a household word that there is no need for me to attempt to sketch his career,’ Minto did not feel the need to speak at length on the general’s life. Instead, he conjured an image of ‘Nikalsain,’ the revered figure of the ‘martial races,’ and reminded his audience that they were all standing shoulder to shoulder close to the spot where he stood on the morning of the 14th September, nearly 49 years ago, looking down upon the Kashmir Gate and the Kashmir Bastion, waiting for the bugle to sound the advance which he was so magnificently to lead. British and Indian troops stand here together, as they have stood side by side on many a hard-fought field, to do honour to the memory not only of a British officer of the Indian Army,—the John Nicholson of his British comrades,—but to the memory of the beloved and worshipped Nikalsain Saheb, the revered leader of Pathan and Punjabi warriors. It is the statute of a great and chivalrous soldier, of a high-minded and straightforward man that I have been asked to unveil, a man whose memory may be reverently cherished by soldiers and civilians of whatever race and whatever creed.132 The Nicholson statue was thus added to the itineraries of ‘Mutiny’ sites in Delhi.133 One guidebook from the interwar era recommended that tourists ‘stop at Nicholson Park’ in order to view the statue, observing that the great hero of the assault (General Nicholson) is now worthily commemorated in the city where he fell, as a statue has recently been erected to the famous ‘Nicholson sahib’ on an appropriate site in the Nicholson Garden just outside the Kashmere Gate. It is on the very spot where on the eventful 14th Sept. 1857 Nicholson was awaiting at the head of his little column the bugle announcing the blowing up of the Kashmere Gate.134

Contesting imperial memory By the early twentieth century, the status of John Nicholson as an imperial hero was thus firmly established. This image persisted with little alteration through the Second World War, a forceful example of the persistence of Victorian and Edwardian imperial culture which historians have recently documented.135 Admiring articles and biographies of John Nicholson continued to be published after the Great War, such as a 1923 appreciation in the journal Nineteenth Century and After which declared that ‘of all the heroes

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

103

of the Indian Mutiny the greatest is John Nicholson.’136 A decade later, John O’ London’s Weekly contended that Nicholson still held the respect of the British in India and attracted the worship of the ‘natives’: It is small wonder that his name is held in reverence wherever Europeans gather together in India. It is small wonder that he is still a legend in the fierce North-West, and that the Nikkalseyni should still have some dim tradition—the generations succeed each other quickly in the tropics—of the big black-bearded youth, who was strong and fierce and very, very just.137 George Macmunn, a retired general and popular writer about the military and the ‘martial races’ in India, included a biographical sketch of Nicholson in his 1935 study of leadership, maintaining that ‘there is still a name among soldiers, nay, among English people, still to conjure with, and it is that of John Nicholson.’138 Hesketh Pearson’s 1939 biography of Nicholson cast him squarely in a heroic mode, relying heavily on Kaye, Trotter and Roberts to create of portrait of the ‘Saviour of India.’ Descriptions of Nicholson’s imperial heroism also appeared in new venues. Somewhat surprisingly, prior to the end of the nineteenth century, India was a neglected subject in boys’ adventure fiction. The rarity of Indian settings was a function of several phenomena, including a focus on naval adventures and a sense that ‘much of what happened in India was boring administrative duty.’ This situation changed markedly after the First World War, as boys’ adventure stories began to feature more tales with Indian settings.139 In 1920, the Boy’s Own Paper published When Nicholson Kept the Border, while another adventure story, Nikkal Seyn: A Tale of John Nicholson, Hero of Delhi, Saviour of India, was published in the year of South Asian independence in 1947.140 The stories focus on Nicholson’s exploits on the Northwest frontier, and give ample demonstration of his ‘mastery’ of the martial races (in the Boy’s Own Paper story, Nicholson subdues a frontier chieftain with his bare fists), although the assault on Delhi forms the climax of both tales. The ‘worship’ of John Nicholson as a god also features in both. In Nikkal Seyn, the leader of the worshipful fakirs chants, ‘Great and mighty is our Lord and Master Nikkal Seyn . . . . Powerful as the elephant, fierce as the buffalo, cunning as the mongoose.’141 Nicholson’s role in the ‘Mutiny’ continued to attract the attention of British travelers to Delhi in the interwar period. When the Anglo-Irish writer Pamela Hinkson visited Delhi in the late 1930s, her friend and guide asked her ‘ “What do you want to see?” I had answered that I wanted to see the place where John Nicholson fell at the siege of Delhi, and John Nicholson’s grave.’ Hinkson found that her friend, ‘Like many another young official in India . . . had a hero-worship for John Nicholson, and he was well content to

104

Ireland and India

find and guide someone who shared his feeling.’142 Artifacts associated with John Nicholson and the siege of Delhi, such as the coat he was wearing when he received his fatal wound and the field glasses he wore during the siege, were displayed in the museum in the Red Fort as late as the 1940s.143 As we have seen, even in the Victorian era, not all Britons shared in the cult of retributive, evangelical heroism exemplified by Nicholson and Neill. Similarly, by the early twentieth century, a critique of Nicholson as an exemplar of imperial heroism had begun to emerge among liberal Britons who deplored the racism of late colonial rule and sympathized with Indian nationalists’ demands for self-government. These critics included two former missionaries: Edward John Thompson and C.F. Andrews.144 Andrews objected violently to the Nicholson’s statue in Delhi, which he passed frequently while Principal at nearby St. Stephen’s College before the First World War. Andrews viewed the statue not as a glorious imperial symbol, but as an embodiment of racial hatred, calling it ‘insulting and humiliating’ to Indians. Nicholson, he wrote is there represented brandishing a naked sword against the wall of Delhi, and in an attitude of furious attack upon the Kashmir Gate. The moment of the assault is seized upon by the sculptor and Nicholson is portrayed in all the fury of passion and slaughter, threatening the city of Delhi with the sword. It needs to be understood as clearly and as quickly as possible that these kinds of things are racially offensive and humiliating and that they cannot do anything to-day except stir up greater and greater racial passion and hatred . . . . It tells Indians that India will be held by the British as conquered and as subject and as dependent; that even if India unitedly demands her independence, it will not be granted except by force; that just as in the time of the Mutiny force was ruthlessly applied, so force will be applied again. There can be no other meaning that this in such as stone perpetuation of naked physical power as the final arbiter.145 Edward Thompson, too, was angered and saddened by the valorization of Mutiny heroes such as Nicholson without any admission of British atrocities committed in 1857. In The Other Side of the Medal (1926), an attempt to introduce an Indian perspective on the British ‘heroes’ of 1857, Thompson argued that such an admission was necessary if the racial divide in India was to be bridged. ‘There is no commoner word on Indian lips to-day than atonement,’ he wrote, and Britain ‘must do it before we can be friends.’146 Yet, even these criticisms were sometimes tempered by admiration for Nicholson’s heroism. Possibly in reaction to the stridently martial character of Nicholson’s statue, Andrews composed a poem about him which, oddly, transformed the ‘great warrior’ into a harbinger of peace:

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

105

Great warrior, ever brave as thou were kind Thy sword was drawn to bring back gentle peace, Not to work endless vengeance. Thy pure mind Looked onward to the time when wars should cease147 The Tribune of Lahore, which reprinted the poem in 1920 along with Andrews’ criticisms of the statue, noted that Andrews was far from ‘lacking in appreciation of the merits’ of Nicholson.148 Similarly, Thompson noted that Nicholson stirred ‘passionate affection’ as well as ‘passionate resentment,’ and recalled how ‘the name of John Nicholson fascinated my own boyhood.’ Thompson viewed Nicholson as a conflicted figure, and while he did not glide over his acts of brutality in 1857, he viewed them as the products of ‘an anguished mind.’ He accepted ‘Nikkalseyn’ worship as a fact, and complained that the portraits in books such as Lionel Trotter’s biography failed to capture the personality of the Ulsterman, whom he clearly found compelling: There was no living man in that book; only a conventional, stained-glass saint limned by a very poor artist. There can be few duller books in any language; and, whatever else he was, the real John Nicholson was alive and he was very far from dull . . . . He died in the tempestuous sunset of the Mogul day, that day which had been so lurid and glorious; and a mighty city crashed about him as he fell, wrenching its pillars apart . . . . if Mr Lytton Strachey ever contemplates a second group of ‘Eminent Victorians,’ I can point out to him an interesting subject.149 Indian nationalists displayed less ambivalence in their attitudes toward Nicholson, and to Mutiny memorials generally. The memorials created to the Mutiny and to events such as the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ created ‘a past for the Raj in India which inevitably excluded, as equal participants, the people of India.’150 The Rasto of Allahabad was one of many newspapers to criticize Curzon’s fund-raising for a statue of Robert Clive, which was eventually placed in the Victoria Memorial, as well as his championing of Mutiny memorials such as Nicholson’s: ‘To erect memorials of such bloody historical events is to revive the spirit of hatred and animosity among Indians towards the English.’151 Not surprisingly, memorials to Nicholson and other Mutiny ‘heroes’ became contested sites. In the interwar period, Mohandas Gandhi periodically voiced objections to commemorations of some of the major British heroes of 1857. Gandhi urged a crowd in Lahore in November 1921 to remove, ‘even at the risk of imprisonment or death,’ a memorial to the Ulsterman John Lawrence, a statue inscribed with the motto ‘Will you be governed by the pen or by the sword?’ Two years later, the Lahore Municipality passed a resolution objecting to the inscription, and demanding the

106

Ireland and India

removal of the statue. During several years of protests, the Lawrence’s sword and pen were broken off and in 1926, the Punjab Government agreed to change the inscription to ‘With pen and sword I served you.’152 For six weeks in 1927, Congress supporters in Madras attempted to deface the statue of the Scottish general James George Neill of the Madras Fusiliers, which had been erected in 1860. The Times reported that ‘the police almost every day arrest members of the Tamil Nadu Congress Volunteer Corps, who are responsible for these attempts, and who argue that General Neill played an anti-Indian part in the Mutiny, and that his statue is an insult to Indians.’153 Writing in Young India, Gandhi gave his endorsement to the protests against Neill’s statue, as long as the campaign was conducted ‘in a clean manner and strictly in accordance with the conditions applicable to Satyagraha’: What we have to deal with is the statue and not even the statue as such. We seek to destroy the principle for which the statue stands . . . . Agitation for the removal of the statue is agitation for the removal of but a symptom of a grave disease. And while the removal of the statue will not cure the disease it will alleviate the agony and point the way to reaching the disease itself.154 From the time of its unveiling, Nicholson’s statue in Delhi attracted similarly vociferous criticism from Indian nationalists. C.F. Andrews recalled that it had to be guarded day and night by police armed with bayonets and rifles, ‘because it was feared that the statue might be defaced, so great was the resentment in the city of Delhi against it.’155 The Tribune newspaper of Lahore, which referred to the statue as an ‘imperialistic freak’ of Lord Curzon, sharply criticized the decision of Lord Minto to officiate at the unveiling in 1906, observing that anything which is likely to revive the memories of the Mutiny is to be strongly deprecated in the best interests of the country. The Mutiny of 1857 was an unfortunate and regrettable incident, and any remembrance of what happened in the course of it is hardly likely to promote friendly relations between Europeans and Indians in this country. These relations are very much strained at present, and we wonder if it has occurred to the high officials who have associated themselves with so much alacrity with the memorial which Lord Minto unveiled last week that the best way of straining these unpleasant relations still further is to revive the chief incidents connected with the Mutiny of 1857.156

Imperial hero or ‘Homosexual Bully’? In spite of a post-colonial climate far less sympathetic to imperial heroes, Nicholson’s heroism continues to command the attention of some

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

107

twentieth-century commentators. In her trilogy about the nineteenthcentury British Empire, Jan Morris expresses admiration for the force of Nicholson’s personality, in spite of his brutality: Even now, when tastes have changed and Victorian preferences often seem sickly or even comic, one can see between the lines of the lithographs how compelling his presence must have been. He looks utterly sure. You might not confide in him your innermost secret, especially if you were planning a holiday in Kashmir, but you would certainly trust him with your life.157 Nicholson also makes an appearance in one of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels. Flashman describes ‘Johnny Nicholson’ as ‘one of your play-up-and-fear-God paladins, full of zeal and athirst for glory,’ who ‘said his prayers and didn’t drink and thought women were either nuns or mothers.’ Fraser’s protagonist also notes that ‘there wasn’t a downier bird in all India than Nicholson, or one who knew the country better.’158 While waiting in Delhi for a period of several months in the 1980s awaiting permission to make a film about the life of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Welsh film director Kenneth Griffith studied the history of 1857 and visited ‘Mutiny’ sites in Delhi. Despite his often anti-imperialist views, he developed an admiration for Nicholson, and visited the grave of the man he referred to as ‘an ascetic, noble commander . . . known as the Hero of Delhi.’159 Continued depictions of Nicholson as the ‘Hero of Delhi,’ have, however, been far outweighed by a more critical stance that has acknowledged the brutality of his actions. In his recent study of Delhi in 1857, William Dalrymple refers to Nicholson as a ‘great imperial psychopath.’160 Such comments exist in the context of recent scholarship which has critically examined violence within the British Empire and treated it not as an aberration, but as something integral to imperial rule. Violence, as Rudrangshu Mukherjee reminds us, ‘was an essential component of the British presence in India.’161 This more open acknowledgment of John Nicholson’s violent character has led, however, to what might be considered another myth. Nicholson never married, or experienced any known romantic relationship with a woman. Instead, he formed his closest relationships with his male colleagues on the Northwest frontier. Such intense, emotional relationships with other men were common for both married and unmarried men, including Henry Lawrence and Herbert Edwardes, in the mid-Victorian empire.162 In the eyes of his contemporaries, Nicholson embodied the ideal of the ‘bachelor-hero’ for whom duty took precedence over romance and marriage.163 As one author of a biography of Nicholson for young adults wrote, Nicholson, in spite of ‘all the fascination which his personality exerted over women, gave no indication of being susceptible to the grand passion’ and took up ‘the great task that lay before him single-handed.’164

108

Ireland and India

Some modern writers, however, have interpreted Nicholson’s violent actions as the product of a repressed homosexuality that found its outlet in brutality toward Indian subordinates and rebel sepoys. Michael Edwardes, for example, refers to Nicholson as not only one of the ‘hard men’ of the Punjab and ‘a violent, manic figure,’ but also ‘a homosexual bully, an extreme egotist who was pleased to affect a laconic indifference to danger.’165 Christopher Hibbert likewise sees Nicholson’s ‘strange and forceful personality’ as shaped by repressed sexuality. According to Hibbert, Nicholson ‘seems to have been tortured by homosexual desires that shamed and horrified him.’166 Retired Major-General Frank M. Richardson included Nicholson as one of his case studies, along with General Gordon, Lord Kitchener and T.E. Lawrence, in his 1981 work Mars Without Venus: A Study of Some Homosexual Generals. Richardson confidently concludes that Nicholson was a homosexual ‘well to the right of centre on the Kinsey scale,’ and that ‘his dedication to soldiering was fired by sublimation of his repressed sexual feelings.’167 In his recent analysis of homosexuality and empire, Robert Aldrich cautions against making assumptions about sexuality based on scant evidence, such as the failure to marry or the lack of female romantic partners.168 Nonetheless, writings such as the ones cited above have led to a further shift in Nicholson’s reputation: he is not simply a ruthless and brutal imperial servant, but one whose actions, bordering on sadism, are rooted in a repressed and ‘deviant’ sexuality.

The cemetery controversy At the beginning of the twenty-first century, John Nicholson was once again the center of controversy. As we have seen, Nicholson’s grave was an important site for the British re-configuring of Delhi after 1857, but the cemetery fell quickly into a state of disrepair.169 A contemporary observer, the Chaplain of Delhi, D.P. Williams, found in the 1860s that many graves had been disturbed, and ‘the remains of the dead dragged out by jackals.’ Nicholson’s remains were, however, untouched, protected by the substantial marble slab atop his grave.170 The decrepit state of the Nicholson cemetery was far from unusual; during the British Raj, many colonial cemeteries were characterized by neglect. While initiatives by Lord Curzon led to the restoration of some cemeteries and monuments, the characteristic attitude during the final decade of colonial rule was apathy.171 The decline of British cemeteries in India continued after 1947. As Elizabeth Buettner observes, ‘indifference’ rather than ‘focused resentment’ was the predominant Indian attitude. In a fashion reminiscent of the British appropriation of Indian architectural features for their commemorative architecture, tombstones and other elements of British cemeteries were often removed and used for other purposes. Much more Indian press commentary

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

109

focused on condition of ancient, rather than Raj-era, monuments.172 It was a British organization, the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BASCA), which spearheaded the preservation and conservation of British cemeteries in South Asia. As Buettner notes, this work of historic preservation also had a pointed ideological agenda: ‘In the most direct sense, cemeteries materially attest to the Raj’s human contributions: Britons who died in India and can be depicted, literally, as giving their lives on its behalf.’173 The fate of the Nicholson cemetery after 1947 typifies the experience of British cemeteries in South Asia in the postcolonial era. The cemetery was one of nine deemed of ‘considerable historical interest’ and transferred to the authority of the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom following South Asian independence in 1947.174 The story of the cemetery thereafter was little different from that of other South Asian cemeteries. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the overgrown Nicholson Cemetery was a favorite location for drug users and was littered with rubbish from nearby apartments. Many tombstones had been vandalized, and Nicholson’s tomb, with its marble slab taken from the Red Fort, was broken in several places and hard to locate.175 In 1995, the Times’ correspondent observed that the Nicholson Cemetery offered not dignity, but ‘pathos’ to the dead: ‘This rambling, overgrown half-acre, hemmed in by modern Delhi, is the most forlorn monument of Empire. Crows circle overhead, angels weep and monkeys scramble over the tombs of young officers’ wives who survived just a few months in India.’176 As with other South Asian cemeteries, local residents, particularly the poor, converted the old burial grounds to new uses. In 2004, the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent observed that ‘the iron railings that enclose the grave of Brig John Nicholson . . . now provide a handy place for squatters to drip-dry their blue denims.’177 In the following year, R.V. Smith ‘chanced upon a couple making love on a tombstone late one evening,’ adding that ‘I’m sure it must have made Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, who is buried there, turn in his grave.’178 By 2003, however, plans had been made to renovate the Nicholson Cemetery. The primary motivation was complaints about the state of the grounds by family members who had visited the cemetery. One British High Commission official observed that ‘when family members came back to Britain after visiting the cemetery, they would complain of how ragpickers and urchins lived inside. The graves were not maintained—some were damaged very badly.’179 The High Commission gave official sponsorship to the project, although it did not provide any of the funds. Instead, the renovations were sponsored by Group 4 Securicor, a private British security company, which spent approximately £7000 on the project. The Government of India contributed no financial support, although the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage advised on the restoration.180 In addition to the restoration of the graves out of respect for the dead and the concerns of families, another

110

Ireland and India

motivation for the project was the hope that the renovated cemetery would attract additional British tourists to Delhi for the 150th anniversary of the Indian Rebellion in 2007. The Archaeological Survey of India identified 14 sites associated with the Indian Rebellion in Delhi that were to be renovated by June 2007, including the ‘portion of the city wall near which Brigadier General John Nicholson was mortally wounded on September 14, 1857.’181 On 24 October 2006, the British High Commissioner Sir Arthur Michael officiated at the ceremonial re-opening of the Nicholson Cemetery, along with the chair of the Delhi Cemeteries Committee, Father Valentine D’Silvia. Almost all of the graves had been restored to their original state, and the weeds and undergrowth that had blocked the paths had been cleared. The main entrance had been painted, facilities to rest were erected for visitors to the graveyard and plans were made for ornamental shrubs and bushes to be planted throughout the cemetery.182 The Mughal marble tombstone of Nicholson’s grave and the iron railing surrounding it had been restored as well and roses had been planted around the tomb. When I viewed the tomb on a winter morning in January 2007, it gleamed after being freshly washed, while a basket of flowers and a cross-shaped garland adorned the tomb. A plaque mounted on a brickstand marks the site, while another commemorates the re-opening of the cemetery in October 2006. In spite of this ‘entirely apolitical and civic-minded’ effort at restoration, the ceremonial re-opening of the Nicholson Cemetery drew what the Times called ‘angry responses’ from the Indian media.183 One reader of the Telegraph of Calcutta wrote that ‘the renovation of the Nicholson Cemetery by the British Government is an insult to those Indians who died fighting for the country in 1857.’ The historian of Delhi, Narayani Gupta, a consultant to the Indian National Trust, observed that ‘I’m a little baffled about why they are valourizing Nicholson now. He doesn’t come out well in the Mutiny, especially in his attitude toward Indians.’184 Residents of an apartment complex adjoining the cemetery also expressed at anger at what they perceived as the commemoration of a racist and imperialist hero. A reporter for the Telegraph of Calcutta noted that during the ceremony ‘a small crowd of residents . . . gathered at the entrance to the cemetery, disapproving looks on their faces.’ One called the ceremony ‘an insult to India,’ while another commented that the Government of India should ‘never have allowed a fancy ceremony in memory of someone who butchered so many Indians.’185 A member of the Delhi Cemeteries Committee, which collaborated on the renovation, observed that those who viewed the commemoration as a celebration of Nicholson, or the deeds of British soldiers in general, were missing the point: ‘We are not celebrating their lives, we are praying for their souls.’186 An Indian spokesman for Group 4 Securicor noted that Nicholson’s grave was only one of many in the cemetery, and that ‘yes, he led the assault on Delhi. But that is part of our heritage too.’187 A number of historians argued that the preservation of the historical and archeological heritage of

John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero

111

British cemeteries in India did not entail a valorization of Nicholson’s deeds. William Dalrymple commented that Nicholson is the personification of everything the British should be most embarrassed about, the ultimate racial psychopath who hated Indians with a passion and horrified even the bloodthirsty British . . . . But however complex both British and Indian reactions are to that past, it’s important to preserve colonial buildings and that includes cemeteries. The latter was especially important, Dalrymple noted, since the main Mutiny graveyard on Delhi Ridge had disappeared 15 years previously.188 The historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee offered one of the most eloquent defenses of the importance of historical sites associated with Nicholson and the ‘Mutiny’ in this regard: A historical site, be it an archaeological excavation, a monument, a grave, a cluster of temples and so on, is something more than its physical shape and presence. They are all repository of memories. Sometimes these memories are not kind and pleasant, yet they have to be preserved if India is to be mature and sensitive in the remembering of things past. In the case of the renovation of the Nicholson Cemetery, Mukherjee observed that those who fought to preserve British rule in India are also part of India’s history. If we neglect Nicholson’s tomb by extending the same logic, we should ignore all of Lutyens’ Delhi since it was built to represent the triumph of the British raj in India . . . . Nicholson’s grave and other similar remains of the raj should be seen as part of India’s rich and variegated past.189 This spirit seemed to prevail in September 2007, when, on the 150th anniversary of John Nicholson’s death, seven of his family’s descendents visited the Nicholson Cemetery. In addition to visiting his grave, they attended a commemorative service at St. James’s Church near the Kashmir Gate, ‘a solemn affair at which the dead of both the opposing forces were remembered.’190 One of the visitors, Mike Nicholson, observed that in spite of the ‘differing interpretations of the bloody events of 1857,’ the group felt that ‘not only had modern India tried to present a balanced view of those events but is also doing her best to preserve the relevant physical memorabilia.’ In addition to the state of the cemetery and Nicholson’s grave being of ‘the highest order,’ the descendents of Nicholson ‘were pleased to see General John’s Binoculars and some of his correspondence on display in the Red Fort Museum.’191

112

Ireland and India

The Nicholson Cemetery, because of the legacy of its namesake, clearly attracted more controversy than the usual renovations of British cemeteries in South Asia. The commemoration of an imperial hero of the Mutiny— particularly one with Nicholson’s reputation for violence—could still arouse strong emotions in India even 150 years afterward. Yet the controversy over the renovation of the Nicholson Cemetery in Delhi illustrates another aspect of Nicholson’s complex legacy as well: Nicholson’s heritage as an Ulsterman, or more simply, as an Irishman and an Irish imperial servant. As the Irish Times observed, the cemetery renovation ‘focused attention on a controversial Irish figure in Indian history.’192 Most newspaper accounts in British, Irish and Indian newspapers mentioned Nicholson’s Irish background, describing him as a ‘temperamental Irishman,’ a ‘taciturn Ulster protestant’ and ‘the Irishman who crushed the Mutiny.’193 For while Nicholson came to be regarded, as we have seen, as a British imperial hero and an embodiment of late Victorian and Edwardian masculine virtues, he was also remembered and commemorated in Ireland, and his ‘Irishness’ was the subject of commentary in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is to the subject of Nicholson as a specifically Irish hero that we will turn in the following chapter.

4 An ‘Irish Paladin’: John Nicholson as an Ulster and Irish Imperial Hero

On 12 April 1960, a crowd of 200 people assembled on a cold, windy, rainy afternoon at the Royal School Dungannon in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The occasion was the rededication of a statue of one of the heroes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, John Nicholson. Brought to Northern Ireland two years earlier, the statue had stood in Delhi for over 50 years. The honor of unveiling the statue on its new site fell to the man who had been the last viceroy of British India, Lord Louis Mountbatten. In his remarks, Mountbatten said he ‘well remembered’ the statue when it stood outside the Kashmir Gate in Delhi. He praised Northern Ireland’s prime minister, Lord Brookeborough, for his efforts in bringing the statue to Ulster, and concluded by stating ‘he hoped the statue would serve to remind coming generations of Britain’s great connection with India—a connection of which they could always be proud.’1 Like a number of Victorian imperial heroes, John Nicholson was an Irishman. He was the eldest son of a Quaker doctor from Dublin whose Scottish ancestors had first come to Ireland in the late sixteenth century and a devoutly evangelical Church of Ireland mother from Ulster. Although he was born in Dublin, Nicholson spent much of his childhood in the town of Lisburn, a center of linen manufacturing in County Antrim, not far from Belfast, a predominantly Protestant and, from the late nineteenth century onward, a ‘staunchly Unionist’ part of Ulster.2 Nicholson had attended the Royal School in Dungannon, ranking as one of the school’s most famous ‘old boys.’ Thus, the honor given to Nicholson on that windy and rainy day in April 1960 was not simply a commemoration of a British imperial hero, but of an Ulsterman. This sentiment was expressed by the chairman of the Royal School’s board of governors in a letter to the prime minister of Northern Ireland. ‘I can assure you,’ he wrote, ‘that the acquisition of this historic statue will give great pleasure, not only to the school authorities and the people of Dungannon, but also to the whole of Nicholson’s native province.’3 In the previous chapter, we saw how John Nicholson was transformed into an imperial icon in the late nineteenth century, and how that heroic 113

114

Ireland and India

image was altered and contested in the following decades. On one level, the construction of Nicholson’s image as a British imperial hero took place with little reference to his identity as an Irishman, or as a Protestant from Ulster. These aspects of Nicholson’s biography virtually played no role in his heroic image as the ‘saviour of Delhi,’ or as the ‘Nikal Seyn’ who was worshipped by the people of the Punjab and the Northwest frontier. There is, however, another dimension to John Nicholson’s imperial reputation, and that is his status as an Irish imperial hero. This chapter will analyze three major aspects of this: the issue of Nicholson’s ‘Irishness,’ his commemoration in Ireland and specifically in Ulster and how his reputation as an Irish—as opposed to a British—imperial hero was contested over time. A consideration of the reception of Nicholson’s heroic reputation in Ulster helps to answer a question of fundamental importance: how important was the empire to Ulster? As Andrew Thompson observes, ‘regional distinctiveness was as likely to be underlined as undermined by the empire.’4 Ulster may have been, in Jonathan Bardon’s words, an ‘Imperial Bastion,’ but the importance of empire to Ulster Protestant identity and to Ulster Unionism has been more often asserted than analyzed.5 Stephen Howe questions whether popular imperialism was ‘more intense among Ulster Unionists than in England or Scotland during what was, quite generally, a period of intense pro-imperial public expression.’6 Nonetheless, as Howe admits, this is not a reason to discard the concept of ‘empire’ in terms of understanding of Ulster and Unionist mentalities, but rather to apply the term more cautiously and with greater attention to historical context. The Siege of Derry, one of the fundamental mythical events in Ulster Protestant culture, provides a good example of the often complex interplay between Unionism and imperialism. Siege imagery was deployed with increasing frequency in the late nineteenth century as Home Rule became a political possibility.7 In the same era, the prominence of imperial culture in Britain also impacted Ulster Protestant interpretations of the Siege. A sense of ‘ “Britain’s unique imperial mission” ’ became ‘etched onto the Siege myth’ in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the Siege of Derry came to be viewed as a struggle between ‘imperial civilization’ and ‘colonized barbarity.’ The events at Derry in 1689 were thus seen as preserving the British Empire, not merely the Protestant population of Ulster, and the ideal of an imperial ‘civilizing mission’ also found ready acceptance in Ulster Protestant culture.8 An analysis of commemoration of John Nicholson, the hero of a different siege, can shed further light on the role of empire in Ulster.

Ulster hero: Nineteenth-century commemoration In the 1850s and 1860s, Nicholson was the subject of more sustained commemoration in Ulster than anywhere else in the British Isles, where as we

An Irish Paladin 115

have previously seen he received only limited adulation. The majority of this activity occurred in his mother’s hometown of Lisburn in County Antrim. A 1906 history of Lisburn observed that the names of many men born in the town ‘stand out prominently in connection with the civil, naval, military, and colonial developments of our great Empire.’9 This was not an idle boast, as numerous members of Lisburn’s Protestant families were active participants in empire. Several members of the Fulton family served in the East India Company in the first half of the nineteenth century. George William Wright Fulton, an officer of the Bengal Engineers, supervised the defenses of the Residency of Lucknow in 1857 and died there along with his friend and fellow Ulsterman Sir Henry Lawrence.10 In 1857, four members of another prominent Lisburn Protestant family, the Grahams, were also in the service of the East India Company.11 The small Church of Ireland cathedral in Lisburn contains numerous memorials to local men who died in the service of the Empire. A large and elaborate memorial honors William Dobbs, the son of the rector of the church, who was killed during the American Revolution in a naval battle in Belfast Lough against a ship commanded by John Paul Jones.12 Tucked away in the choir along the north wall is a memorial tablet to one of the Fulton family, Major Robert Bell Fulton, a staff officer in the Bengal Artillery. The tablet was funded by his fellow officers, who, in addition to erecting a monument over his grave in India, wished ‘to record in his native town the high character he established in that distant land.’13 Indeed, most of the north wall of the nave of Lisburn Cathedral is given over to memorial tablets commemorating the imperial service of individuals and families who devoted their careers—and in some cases their lives—to the service of the British Empire.14 By the time John Nicholson returned to Ireland in 1850 on leave from the East India Company, he already ranked as a hero in Lisburn. In May 1850, the town’s residents honored him with a public dinner. According to the Belfast News-letter, the town’s Assembly room was decorated in ‘the most brilliant and attractive manner.’15 A large banner behind Nicholson’s chair read ‘Cead Mille Failte’ in large letters, with laurels and inscriptions along the side honoring Nicholon’s imperial heroics at places like ‘Chillianwallah’ and ‘Goojerat.’ The News-letter commented, ‘Better attendance and more excellent arrangements we have seldom before witnessed on any public occasion.’ The speeches celebrated Nicholson’s achievements in India, and also linked them to Ulster. The toast by the Dean of Ross noted that the people of Lisburn were familiar with Nicholson’s deeds, as ‘they had all seen them described in the newspapers.’ While Nicholson was ‘young in years’ and had ‘left his country’ as ‘a mere schoolboy,’ he ‘had, perhaps, done as much, and seen as much service, and achieved as much military renown as had fallen to the lot of many a soldier who spent his whole life in the service

116

Ireland and India

of his country.’ In his response, Nicholson said that he was ‘deeply indebted to the town of Lisburn, and to this neighborhood generally, for the cordial and hospital reception which it has given me, on my return to my native country after an absence of nearly eleven years.’ In addition to honoring John Nicholson as a son of Lisburn, the dinner also celebrated the qualities of the Protestant ‘people of Ulster.’ The Dean of Ross noted ‘that Lisburn had been the birthplace of many a son devoted to the service of his country; and there were many young men from this part of the country who had already done so, as the monuments in the venerable Cathedral of this town gave proof.’ Another speaker, Jonathan Richardson, contended that ‘the prosperity of the people of the North was in great measure owing to their own industry, and their spirit and enterprise in creating trade with other countries.’ In 1857, Nicholson’s heroism was regarded more highly in Ulster than in Britain. The events of the Indian Rebellion were followed with keen interest in Ulster—and indeed throughout Ireland.16 There was no single ‘Irish’ reaction, or even a single ‘Ulster’ reaction, to the events of 1857, as articles and editorials reflected varying Irish political, religious and regional opinions.17 Within Ulster, broadly speaking, opinion divided between Catholic support for the sepoy rebels and Protestant repugnance at the events of 1857. The Ulsterman, the newspaper of the province’s Roman Catholic population, observed that there was ‘no doubt’ that ‘the Indian troops are infamously treated by their British officers’ nor that ‘the natives of that gorgeous land are subjected to tyranny and oppression unparalleled under the sway of Britain.’ At the other end of the political spectrum, the conservative Belfast News-letter and members of the Orange Order castigated Irish Catholics for their sympathy with Indian rebels. At an Orange meeting in Newry, County Down, a speaker complained that many of the caressed and subsidized Romanists of Ireland, instead of mourning for the deeds that disgraced humanity, openly expressed sympathy with the murderous and revolted legions, whose ferocity had done such foul dishonour to the name and rights of England; the Irish sepoy press exulted over butchery and slaughter; while placards were audaciously posted calling upon the Papists of Ireland to imitate the example of Indian Rebels.18 Liberal Protestant papers such as the Northern Whig criticized the East India Company and called for its abolition, but also argued that the punishments meted out to mutineers were just: ‘The Oude Sepoy seems to us, on a candid examination of the evidences about him, to be the most loathsome personage of modern history, and we hope that strict justice will be served out to him.’19

An Irish Paladin 117

Reports of Nicholson’s heroic death traveled quickly to Lisburn through fellow officers in the service of the East India Company such as the Grahams. William S. Graham wrote to a friend in Ireland in September 1857: Lisburn has to mourn over the loss of the finest soldier John Company could boast of; this is Nicholson . . . . India has met with an awful loss in him, for such men as he was, and [?Mackeson], and Sir Henry Lawrence are not to be found. It is useless my holding forth on him. His loss is greater than 2,000 Europeans at the present moment, and these are of no small value, at the present crisis.20 Several days later, James Graham wrote of Nicholson’s death to his sister Anne in Lisburn, enclosing a copy of the Punjabee newspaper ‘which gives Sir John Lawrence’s order concerning him.’ Graham once again stressed the devastating cost to the British Empire: He is a great loss in every way. No officer in this army showed more signs of a noble future. For the victory he won at [? Najafgarh] he would have been made a [? companion of the bath]. I sincerely pity his poor mother, tho’ she had much to be proud of, for no soldier lived who was more honoured, nor died who was more lamented.21 The major Ulster Protestant papers also mourned the passing of Nicholson. The conservative Belfast News-letter and the more reform-minded Northern Whig and Belfast Daily Mercury all reprinted his Times obituary.22 The Daily Mercury had previously criticized the low standard of officers recruited by nepotism and jobbery who populated the ranks of the East India Company, complaining that their incompetence helped spark the Mutiny. The newspaper, however, singled out Nicholson as an exception: John Nicholson . . . obtained from his uncle a direct appointment to India early in 1839 . . . and however glad we may be to see the East India Civil Service thrown open to public competition, we must do Sir James Hogg the justice to say that his nepotism in this instance was fully justified in its results.23 Not surprisingly, the conservative Belfast News-letter heaped the greatest praise on Nicholson, and also singled him out as a specifically Ulster hero. In its extensive coverage of the Indian Rebellion, the paper devoted considerable space to the ‘stirring narrative’ of the lifting of the siege of Delhi and the seizure of the Kashmir Gate. On 9 November 1857, they reproduced ‘an interesting account of a brilliant action’ from the Lahore Chronicle of Nicholson’s victory at Nagafganj outside Delhi. In the same issue, the News-letter

118

Ireland and India

underscored the vital role that Nicholson and his brother Charles played in lifting the siege: We hear it rumored that the gallant general, and his brother, were the first to enter Delhi; but we regret to learn that the former has been seriously wounded. We hope that the next accounts will bring us intelligence of his recovery. Truly, Lisburn, and indeed Ulster, may be proud of such a hero.24 One of the expressions of admiration for Nicholson which appeared in the Belfast News-letter in the fall of 1857 was a letter from a self-described ‘humble artisan.’ Under the heading ‘The Lion of the Punjab,’ the writer noted that the News-letter and other Belfast papers had carried notices not only of the ‘brave and heroic’ career of Nicholson, but also ‘some motion likely to be made towards perpetuating his name and deeds.’ The writer professed his willingness to subscribe ten shillings to a fund ‘for the purpose of preventing General Nicholson’s name from being forgotten, who though young in years, executed more valiant deeds than any other general of his age.’ In addition, he contended, ‘I know many others, in my sphere, who would gladly join, to assist with their shillings, half-crowns, and even half-sovereigns, in this honourable cause.’25 Although, as we have seen, after 1857 John Nicholson lapsed into relative obscurity in Britain, this was not the case in his hometown of Lisburn. Nicholson’s family, and in particular his mother, Clara, took the leading role in his memorialization there. Clara Nicholson was strong-willed and decisive; Herbert Edwardes described her as ‘a grand and noble woman, with a Spartan heroism about her.’ Nicholson’s mother made the decision to honor him in Lisburn and declined offers from his East India colleagues to establish a memorial to him there. According to one account, Nicholson’s friends and fellow officers in India were willing to fund the cost of a memorial tablet in Lisburn, but Clara ‘was determined to undertake that loving duty at her own cost.’26 To create the memorial, the Nicholson family secured the services of one of the most eminent Irish sculptors of the day, John Henry Foley.27 Born in Dublin in 1818 and educated at the art schools of the Royal Dublin Society, Foley produced busts and applied art, including the seal of the Confederate States of America, but gained the greatest fame for his statues.28 Today Foley is best known for the statue of Daniel O’Connell that occupies a central place in Dublin at the foot of the street which bears his name. Foley also, however, produced a number of well-regarded sculptures of imperial luminaries such as General James Outram, Lord Canning, Lord Hardinge and Lord Gough, as well as the ‘Asia’ section of the Albert memorial in London. Foley’s imperial sentiments were demonstrated in the creation of his equestrian statue of Major-General Sir Hugh Gough in

An Irish Paladin 119

Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Born into an Anglo-Irish County Limerick family, Gough served as commander-in-chief in India during the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars. The Irish general was nicknamed ‘Tipperary Joe’ by his troops, who regarded him highly in spite of the heavy casualties which his blunt and aggressive battle tactics incurred. Foley was inspired by both Gough’s imperial conquests (he suggested that the statue be cast from guns captured by Gough during the Anglo-Sikh Wars) and his Irish background, which led him to march his troops into battle to the tune of ‘St. Patrick’s Day’ and to return to Ireland in his final years ‘to pass his venerable age, wear his honours, and spend his fortune in his own land.’ One nineteenthcentury critic called the Gough statue ‘the finest equestrian statue in the British Isles,’ but as we will see, the statue was to have a controversial history.29 In producing his tribute to Nicholson, Foley was constrained by the fact that there was ‘no satisfactory portrait of the General at the time of his death.’ He therefore opted not to represent him on the memorial, possibly due to a request by Nicholson’s mother. This request may have been related to the legend of the general’s worship by the ‘Nikalsaynis.’ Stories of Nicholson worship, according to some reports, had reached Lisburn, and had become a source of embarrassment to the family, and in particular to Nicholson’s evangelical mother. Clara thus felt it best to avoid any ‘idolatrous’ representations of her son.30 The resulting sculptural frieze, a model of which Foley exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861, depicted the key moment of Nicholson’s triumph in Delhi: the storming of the Kashmir Gate. In the center of the composition are several twisted, dead bodies, including Indian soldiers as well as a British officer. The British troops climb over the bodies and piles of rubble as they enter the city of Delhi. A Union Jack flutters in the background and the Anglican Church of St. James, which had been damaged in the siege, stands prominently behind. At the far left of the frieze, a wounded soldier (who is not meant to be Nicholson, but is often mistaken for him) rests on his right elbow.31 His determined gaze follows the passage of the soldiers ascending into the city, while his left hand holds a hat with which he waves the soldiers forward. It is a moment, Foley assures his viewer, when victory is certain. The critic W. Cosmo Monkhouse ranked the ‘The Cashmere Bastion’ as one of Foley’s masterworks, praising him for finding the appropriate imagery with which to commemorate the ‘fearful beauty’ of modern warfare. Monkhouse wrote, ‘We must go back to Michael Angelo [sic] before we can find any approach to the concentrated power of this lifeless group, so horribly natural and yet so severely sculpturesque, so complicated and yet so simple in its elements.’32 Foley’s romantic, imperial iconography was matched by the inscription provided by Herbert Edwardes.33 Edwardes’ inscription was the most expansive of any of those thus far provided for Nicholson, and foreshadowed the

120

Ireland and India

heroic modes in which he was to be depicted in the late nineteenth century. Nicholson, Edwardes wrote, ‘served in four great wars’: In the first he was an Ensign; in the last a Brigadier-General, and Companion of the Bath; in all a Hero Rare gifts had marked him for great things in peace and war. He had an iron mind and frame, a terrible courage, and indomitable will. His form seemed made for an army to behold, his heart to meet the crisis of an empire; yet he was gentle exceedingly, most loving, most kind, In all he thought, and did, unselfish, earnest, plain and true; indeed, a most noble man Similar to previous monuments erected to Nicholson, the inscription on the Lisburn memorial noted his role in the conquest of the Northwest frontier of India as well as his heroic death in 1857. ‘Few took a greater share in either the conquest or government of the Punjab; perhaps none so great in both,’ Edwardes wrote. Yet his greatest triumph was unquestionably the reconquest of Delhi: Nicholson was a ‘tower of strength, the type of the conquering race,’ who ‘most mournfully, most gloriously’ dealt ‘the death blow to the greatest danger that ever threatened British India.’ The memorial was dedicated on the fourth anniversary of Nicholson’s death in 1861. In the same decade, a second memorial was established to Nicholson in Lisburn. Again, the impetus came from his mother, who used part of her East India Company pension to open a Sunday School in memory of Nicholson and his four siblings who had predeceased her, including her sons Charles, Alexander and William, who had also died in the East India Company’s service. Although the school was dedicated to all five of the Nicholson children, it came to be regarded primarily as a memorial to John. Not surprisingly, it honored Nicholson’s evangelical Christian faith. The address at the school’s opening by the Reverend Dr. Drew focused ‘mainly on the subject of the Indian missions,’ and laid the blame for the Indian Rebellion on what he termed the government’s subsidy of heathen ‘superstition.’ According to the Downpatrick Recorder, Drew sketched, at length, the unhappy details of policy by which Christianity was so long unwisely discouraged in India. He shewed what vast sums had been given for the support of idol temples; and how that all this fatal patronage of idolatry had only served to excite the suspicions of the natives whose dread of concealed treachery against their religion had its culmination in the fearful outbreak in which so many Europeans perished. A warning is thus given to our Empire as to what may eventually be

An Irish Paladin 121

expected if true Protestantism be discouraged and error and superstition be subsidized from the national revenues. The paper reported that many at the meeting were ‘deeply affected’ by ‘the reading of various testimonies to the bravery and decision of General Nicholson.’ Drew’s narration of how the general inspired Christian faith among ‘the natives’ recalled stories of how some ‘Nikalseynis’ contemplated suicide after their ‘god’s’ death: Some wished to commit suicide when he died, as they said, ‘life was no longer desirable when such a good man was taken from them;’ and one native did destroy himself on the occasion of the brave General’s death. Missionaries have written to say, that when they visit Peshawur, the first question which is put to them is, ‘Did you know General Nicholson?’ The second question, ‘Do your people pray?’34 In this reckoning, Nicholson was valued at least as much for his ability to inspire religious faith among the ‘natives’ as for his ability to command men in battle. In her will in 1873, Clara Nicholson bequeathed £200 to the Rector and Churchwardens of the parish of Lisburn for maintenance of the school. In 1885, the school was expanded into a daily school for the education of Protestant children under the auspices of the Educational Endowments (Ireland) Act of 1885. This prompted concerns from congregation members and some Protestant clergy that the school was being transformed into a secular institution. After allowances were made for ‘securing daily religious and Scriptural instruction,’ including ‘the full, free, and unrestricted use of the Holy Scriptures,’ as well as the use of school-house for church meetings, which had been mentioned in Nicholson’s original trust deed, the Nicholson Memorial School was established as daily school for Protestant education.35 A 1906 history of Lisburn noted with pride not only the linkage of the school with the ‘illustrious General Nicholson, of Indian fame,’ but also that the school was classed as ‘excellent’ by National Board inspectors.36 The memorials in Lisburn foreshadowed the depiction of John Nicholson as a imperial exemplar—a heroic figure of courage, bravery and religious faith who both inspired and controlled the ‘martial races’ of India—that was to become commonplace in the late nineteenth century. They also reflected, however, the relatively low stature of Nicholson as a mutiny hero during the years following 1857. He may have been well-remembered in Lisburn, but the reception of these Irish memorials elsewhere was relatively muted. Although the Illustrated London News reproduced an image of the frieze and Edwardes’ lengthy inscription, it misidentified the site of the memorial as ‘Lismore Cathedral.’37 And since Foley’s memorial did not depict Nicholson himself, the critical acclaim for his sculptural achievement focused on his

122

Ireland and India

depiction of the collective nature of British sacrifice in 1857, rather than his individual heroics. W. Cosmo Monkhouse praised Foley’s ability to depict so powerfully a scene of ‘modern warfare, where individual courage is clearly subordinate to discipline, and where the powers at work are the engines of man’s ingenuity rather than his personal attributes.’38 Thus, in the short term, Foley’s memorial had relatively little impact on the heroic reputation of John Nicholson.

‘A Strictly Irish Temper’ So far, we have examined Nicholson’s commemoration as a local hero in Lisburn, and as an exemplar of the imperial and martial tradition of Protestant Ulster. Are there any grounds for considering Nicholson to be an ‘Irish hero’ in a broader sense? One point worth stressing is that during Nicholson’s lifetime, ‘Britishness’ and ‘Irishness’ were not seen as incompatible identities, particularly for the Irish elite, whether Unionist or nationalist. While ‘Britishness’ had strong imperial connotations in the nineteenth century, empire also could be seen in positive terms by Irish Catholics.39 The identities of Irish imperial heroes were marked by a certain fluidity. Figures such as John and Henry Lawrence, quintessential Ulster Protestant imperial servants, could appear ‘Irish’ in one context and ‘British’ in another.40 After the 1870s, ‘Irishness’ and ‘Britishness’ became more contested and oppositional identities as nationalists began to reject ‘ “British” symbolism associated with crown and empire.’ For some Irish imperial servants, particularly Protestants, however, the link was never severed.41 In common with many of the military and imperial figures commemorated on the walls of Lisburn Cathedral, Nicholson spent almost all of his adult life outside of Ireland. Yet clearly Nicholson regarded himself as an Irishman. In 1841, when Nicholson’s family was wintering at Torquay, he wrote to his brother Alexander, ‘How do you like England? Not so well as Ireland, I suppose.’42 While on leave, Nicholson spent the greater part of his time in Lisburn with his mother and his sisters, possibly in an effort to be a consoling presence after a second brother, William, had died in the service of the East India Company. Two Anglo-Irish women mistook the ‘tall, dark, noble-looking’ Nicholson for a Frenchman when they encountered him in Paris until he replied, ‘Indeed, ladies, I speak English just as well as yourselves, for I am Irish.’43 Nicholson’s Irish identity was apparent to the European soldiers who served under him in 1857. In 1909, an Irish Times correspondent spoke with a ‘sturdy Donegal Mutiny veteran,’ Myles Hogan. Originally from County Wexford, Hogan had joined the East India Company’s service in 1847, and fought with the 101st Bengal Fusiliers, later the Royal Munster Fusiliers, for 20 years in India. He served under Nicholson at the siege of Delhi, and remarked that at his death ‘he was lamented by the whole troops [sic] in

An Irish Paladin 123

front of the city.’44 John Flynn, an Irishman who had served in the 1st Bengal Fusiliers and had also fought under Nicholson’s command in Delhi recalled that ‘in the canteens the men of our regiment, being nearly all Irish, naturally had a great liking for him.’45 Nicholson’s ‘Irishness,’ however, was in a strictly loyalist Ulster Protestant mode. During the height of Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Movement in 1843, Nicholson wrote a concerned letter to his mother, expressing surprise that ‘you say nothing in your letter about the probability of a rebellion in Ireland, though the papers are full of it. The knowledge that you are in one of the most loyal parts of Protestant Ulster makes me feel less uneasy about you than I otherwise should.’46 His posthumous interpreters depicted him in a similar manner. As Nicholson gained a reputation as an imperial hero in the late nineteenth century, some commentators referred to him simply as ‘British’ or ‘English.’ The Spectator, for example, referred to him as an exemplar of ‘the quality of the Anglo-Saxon race.’47 Yet there was also increasing acknowledgement of Nicholson’s Irish background in this era. There are several reasons for this, including the prominence of other AngloIrish imperial heroes such as Lord Roberts and Henry and John Lawrence, as well as political developments, which pushed Home Rule and Unionism to the forefront of political debate in the United Kingdom. Fraser’s Magazine observed in 1876 that ‘besides the gallant General Nicholson, Ulster has given a whole Gazetteful of heroes to India.’48 In 1898, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine observed that Nicholson was ‘the son of parents who both sprang from that mingled Scoto-Irish race which has given to the British empire so many great soldiers and pioneers of civilization.’49 Other writers referred simply to Nicholson’s ‘Irishness.’ Nicholson’s biographer Lionel Trotter dubbed him an ‘Irish paladin.’ A 1913 article in the Times entitled ‘Ireland and the Empire: The Share of Irishmen in Empire Building’ praised the deeds of Nicholson, ‘that typical Irish soldier,’ as ‘among his country’s proudest memories. No Irishman, perhaps, has made a more brilliant or dramatic contribution to the Empire.’50 After the First World War, when the Gaelic Revival had nurtured a separate Irish cultural identity for decades and independence became a political reality for most of Ireland, Nicholson’s Irish nature was further emphasized. In this era, Nicholson was sometimes depicted as a ‘Celtic’ Irishman rather than an Ulster Protestant. A short biography published by the London Missionary Society in 1924 referred to Nicholson ‘whistling Irish jigs’ as a young officer in India. The author of The Boy’s Own Paper story, When Nicholson Kept the Border (1920), portrayed him as a ‘Gaelic’ Irishman from Dublin: ‘Any mention of Ireland touched a tender chord in his heart, for Lisburn, outside Dublin, was the place of his own birth.’51 In Dreamers of Empire (1929), Achmed Abdullah and T. Compton Pakenham characterized Nicholson as a stereotypical moody Celt, calling him an ‘erratic Irish dreamer.’ The authors regarded his ‘Celtic’ nature as one of his strengths as

124

Ireland and India

an imperial administrator, and cited an incident in which Nicholson gave John Lawrence, who had complained about his inability to get on with others, a ‘typically Keltic answer’: ‘When in a great crisis an officer holds a strong opinion in any matter of consequence, I think he fails in his duty if he does not speak it out, at whatever risk of giving offense.’52 As Joe Cleary has recently observed, Ireland’s substantial imperial involvement never sparked a corresponding genre of Irish imperial literature as in England or Scotland.53 Yet there exists at least one contemporary attempt to integrate Nicholson’s imperial heroism into Irish tradition. In a story collection for children entitled Great Irishmen (1900), Nicholson merited his own chapter, along with Hugh O’Neill, Daniel O’Connell, Edmund Burke, Henry Lawrence and Saint Patrick.54 The author referred to Nicholson’s career as ‘merely the life of a simple soldier and a brave man,’ and observed that ‘so long as Irishmen care to read the story of that wonderful siege of Delhi, so long will the name of this their countryman stand out as an example of all that is brave and true.’55 David Fitzpatrick has observed that ‘Ireland’s military heroes were drawn from a stock equally alien to ordinary nationalists and unionists, and the Irish deeds that won the Empire were those of a caste rather than a people.’56 Yet as the above discussion indicates, there were depictions of Nicholson by both British and Irish authors which treated him simply as ‘Irish.’ And in the early twentieth century, the deeds of John Nicholson would attract genuinely popular support in Ulster.

‘The Imperial Province’ As Nicholson’s Irish background was increasingly emphasized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he began to receive corresponding attention in Ireland. Not surprisingly, in the polarized Irish political climate of the era, this attention was voiced by supporters of the Union. The Irish Times enthusiastically supported the proposal for a statue of Nicholson in Delhi, presenting his life as an exemplar for the ‘rising generation’ of Irishmen in imperial service and observing that ‘the older generation of Irishmen will not need to be reminded either of Nicholson or his work.’57 In particular, commentators in Ulster paid greater attention to Nicholson’s heritage. Ulster Unionists possessed what Ian McBride has referred to as a ‘multi-layered identity,’ in which Ulster heritage, ‘a profound and enduring identification with the island of Ireland,’ and the ‘racial, religious and cultural connections with the peoples of Great Britain,’ existed alongside each other in a ‘trinity of allegiances.’58 Somewhat surprisingly, the evidence suggests that Ulster’s embrace of empire lagged behind its British counterpart,

An Irish Paladin 125

where popular enthusiasm surged in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Ulster, as Graham Walker observes, in general held a more passive view of empire than Scotland; the British Empire was seen more as a fixed part of ‘Ulster’s inheritance’ and a bulwark against Home Rule rather than as an active sphere in which to fashion new achievements.59 This changed in the wake of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897 and especially following the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, in which more Irish troops and Irish generals were engaged than in any other imperial conflict.60 The Anglo-Boer War was a particular source of inspiration to Unionists. Memorials, press coverage and advertisements all helped to ‘propagate a mass audience for the imperial message.’ By the turn of the twentieth century, the Protestant population of Ulster increasingly saw themselves as ‘imperial British’ rather than ‘Irish British,’ and took considerable pride in Britain’s overseas empire.61 To be sure, Unionism is a broad and diverse phenomenon, and continues to be so to this day.62 But it also incorporated many of the images and much of the ideology of the new expansive phase of late nineteenth-century British imperialism. Notions of the civilizing mission of British imperialism, British subjects spanning the globe, the redefinition of freedom and patriotism in an imperial context, and of the Crown as a focus of patriotism were used in Ulster, as in Britain, as ideas which could unite otherwise conflicting classes and interest groups.63 With the Home Rule crisis of 1912–14, and the potential clash between the British government and Ulster Unionists on the issue of Home Rule, Unionists began to differentiate between the ‘British government’ and the ‘British Empire.’ It was to the abstract notion of the latter that Unionists could pledge undying support without compromising their loyalty. As Jennifer Todd observes, ‘The distinction between those Irishmen loyal to the Empire and the disloyal was central to Unionist discourse.’64 In January 1914, the Weekly Northern Whig reacted with indignation to the idea that the British government might choose to wage war ‘against a great community simply because of loyalty to the Throne and the Empire.’ Ulster’s sacrifice at the Battle of the Somme thus ‘came to be seen by unionists as the stage for their ultimate sacrifice for the empire.’65 One historian has described Ulster after the First World War as ‘a region whose Protestant population abounded in enthusiasm for the Empire.’66 The children of Ulster Unionists, like their British counterparts, read tales of imperial heroism in publications such as the Boy’s Own Paper. Empire Day was widely celebrated in Ulster in the interwar period and was ‘increasingly redefined as a celebration of Protestantism and Unionism.’67 The term ‘Empire’ came to be frequently deployed in the political vocabulary of Ulster Unionists. The Parliament at Westminster became the ‘Imperial Parliament,’ while Northern Ireland itself was sometimes referred to as

126

Ireland and India

the ‘Imperial Province.’ Loyalist ex-servicemen banded into a paramilitary ‘Imperial Guard’ in 1922, while an ‘Imperial Grand Master’ governed the Orange Order.68 This deployment of an imperial vocabulary was illustrated by a 1923 Orange Order gathering, referred to by the Lisburn Herald as a ‘wee Twelfth,’ in celebration of the opening of new Orange Hall for the Killultagh Lodge in Ballinderry District. The lodge’s banner reflected an imperial theme, depicting the Orange icon William III crossing the Boyne River on the front, and ‘on the reverse a picture of Queen Victoria handing over to one of her Indian native rulers the Bible, “The Secret of England’s Greatness,” ’ a not uncommon motif in Orange banners.69 In his speech, District Master H. Walkington highlighted loyalty to the Empire as the touchstone of the Orange Order: ‘Foremost in the principles of the great Order to which they belonged was loyalty to King and country; and there was evidence of that loyalty in the memorials that were to be seen in every village, town, and city of the great Ulster Province—(hear, hear)—the Imperial Province, in which they were proud to be subjects.’70 In addition to Ulster’s embrace of empire, the cultural climate in Ireland in the early twentieth century was bellicose in the extreme. Irishman fought on both sides of the Anglo-Boer War, and the pre-war Home Rule crisis saw both Unionists and Nationalists forming themselves into rival armies. In the wake of the Easter Rising and the Great War, more than 1400 deaths resulted from the Anglo-Irish conflict. As David Fitzpatrick has argued, ‘a common rhetoric of militarism transcended political divisions in Ireland’ during this era.71 Reverence for soldiering and the Irish military tradition was particularly strong among Ulster Protestants, who believed that they owed much to the military prowess of their ancestors. From the 1600s, Irish Protestants ‘valued military training and they took a fierce and sometimes petulant pride in the military achievements of their forebears.’72 Military exploits thus played an important role in Ulster Protestant self-definition in this era.73 Ulster Unionism also exhibited an intense localism in the period after the partition of Ireland in 1922. No Northern Irish War memorial was ever established along the lines of those in Scotland and Australia, as commemoration of the Great War dead remained focused very much on the local level.74 In this context, commemoration of John Nicholson as an Ulster hero focused once again on Lisburn. With the emergence of Home Rule as a political issue, the Protestant majority of Lisburn, like most of northeast Ulster, was ‘staunchly Unionist and ever anxious to display its loyalist convictions.’ During the Home Rule Crisis of 1912, Lisburn contributed many signatories to the Solemn League and Covenant, as well as many male recruits to the Ulster Volunteer Force. Catholic and Protestant enlistment in the First World War seemed to indicate a hope for the eradication of sectarian political divisions. A cordial meeting between members of the predominantly

An Irish Paladin 127

Ulster Protestant Royal Irish Rifles and the predominantly Catholic Connaught Rangers prompted the Lisburn Standard to proclaim that ‘at long last Lisburn stood united as one man in a common cause.’75 Mutual grief over the loss of both Catholic and Protestant recruits in the Great War—266 names were inscribed on the war memorial in the town center—again provided common ground, but during the Anglo-Irish War, the town witnessed its worst-ever sectarian violence. The assassination of Royal Irish Constabulary District Inspector Oswald Ross Swanzy as he was leaving Sunday service at Lisburn Cathedral on 22 August 1920 led to three days of rioting in which the Protestant working-class population sought literally to drive local Catholics from their homes. Hundreds fled as Catholic homes and businesses were set ablaze, creating destruction that led one observer to compare Lisburn to ‘a bombarded town in France.’76 This, then, was the background for the commemoration of John Nicholson as an Ulster hero: across Ireland, militarization; in Ulster, sectarian tension; and in Lisburn itself, staunch displays of Unionism and loyalism.

‘The Noblest Qualities Which Characterize the Irishman’ In the decade prior to the First World War, renewed interest was focused on Foley’s memorial to Nicholson in Lisburn Cathedral. In November 1906, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Aberdeen, whose wife was a distant relative of Nicholson’s, visited the memorial and praised the general’s ‘great and noble character.’77 Once again, however, Lord Roberts proved the greatest champion of Nicholson’s heroism. Roberts was one of the great military heroes of the Second Anglo-Boer War, the conflict that did much to stimulate the growth of imperial sentiment in Ulster. While Commander of the Indian Army, Roberts had made a reverent pilgrimage to Nicholson’s grave in Delhi.78 In 1903, while Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, Roberts fulfilled a long-standing ambition to see Nicholson’s hometown of Lisburn and view the memorial to him there. The visit, which took place on 10 September 1903, was a major civic occasion.79 The fact that it occurred on what the Lisburn Standard considered to be the wettest day of the year, with seven straight hours of heavy downpour, did not deter large crowds from greeting Roberts throughout the three hours he spent in Lisburn. The streets were decked with bunting, and a brass band awaited his arrival at the town’s railway station. When his train approached the station, detonators placed on the line exploded ‘by way of a salute,’ while the Lisburn Amateur Brass Band, stationed on the balcony of the nearby courthouse, struck up ‘See! the Conquering Hero Comes’ and the ‘dense crowd on the arrival platform broke forth into cheers.’ The crowd’s roars increased as the train pulled into the station and the band began to play ‘God Save the King.’80

128

Ireland and India

The main focus of the visit, from the point of view of the Lisburn community, was to honor Roberts. As the crowd cheered the ‘Hero of Kandahar,’ the town clerk, T.M. Wilson, read the welcoming address in praise of the accomplishments of the Irish general in the service of the British Empire: It is chiefly, if not entirely, to give expression to our high appreciation of your noble achievements for the pacification of this great Empire in former years in India, but most notably, of more recent years, in the South African campaign, that we approach your Lordship with honest sentiments of pride, that you as one of our fellow-countrymen have given proof of the noblest qualities which characterize the Irishman, and, by prowess, have turned the tide of what, for a time, proved a disastrous war to the happy days of peace. A local itinerant poet named Julius Leckey M’Cullough Craig presented Roberts with two poems on the relief of Ladysmith, while an elderly woman attempted to embrace him with the words, ‘You’re a great wee hairo.’ In response to the welcome address, Roberts stressed the importance of visiting Nicholson’s birthplace, remarks that drew frequent applause from the crowd: For many years I have wished to visit Lisburn. It has been my desire to see the birthplace of a man for whom I had a most profound respect and admiration—John Nicholson (applause)—a man who was known throughout India and who had an extraordinary influence and power over the wild tribes on the Northern frontier of that country. It was my great privilege to serve for a short time on General Nicholson’s staff and I perhaps had many opportunities which few others had of understanding his great military genius and of appreciating his many noble qualities. He did great things in Delhi and gave up his life there in defense of his country. (Applause) I am proud to think that I was associated with General Nicholson, and I am very much obliged to you all for coming here to see me to-day. (Loud applause.) The Lisburn Standard acknowledged that it was to Nicholson’s ‘association with Lisburn [that] we are indebted to Lord Roberts’ visit.’ The newspaper reproduced a copy of an engraving of ‘Foley’s beautifully sculpted memorial tablet’ by W.G. Baird, as well as Roberts’ remarks on viewing the memorial, and his praise for the inscription’s description of Nicholson’s ‘terrible courage’ and ‘indomitable will.’ Roberts’ silent viewing of the memorial, according to a newspaper account, was a further tribute to its emotional power: ‘It was with emotion too deep, perhaps, for utterance the war-worn veteran, so warmly loved by his countrymen, saw chiseled in masterly style a record of noble achievements and a soldier’s death.’

An Irish Paladin 129

‘A Fitting Memorial’: The Nicholson statue in Lisburn The largest-scale public commemoration of John Nicholson took place in January 1922, shortly after the partition of Ireland and the establishment of the Northern Irish government and illustrated how military, imperial and local concerns could intersect. On 19 January 1922, a statue of Nicholson was unveiled in the Market Square in Lisburn. The statue, which stood nine and half feet high and was mounted on a ten-and-half-foot high pedestal, was sculpted by F.W. Pomeroy, who had also been responsible for another important Ulster imperial memorial, the Dufferin Memorial at Belfast City Hall. It is a far more bellicose image of Nicholson than the Delhi memorial, depicting him, sword in one hand, pistol in another, rallying his men for the assault on Delhi. The man most responsible for the statue was not alive to see its unveiling. Henry Musgrave, a Belfast businessman whose family had originally come from Lisburn, died shortly before the ceremony. Described by the Lisburn Herald as ‘a staunch and sturdy Unionist,’ Musgrave, like Nicholson, had attended the Royal School Dungannon. Frustrated by the lack of a memorial statue to Nicholson in Ulster, he told Pomeroy that he wished ‘to place before his fellow townsmen a permanent and visible memorial to their great countryman as an example of courage and devotion to future generations.’81 The Urban District Council of Lisburn spent considerable time planning for the ceremony. This was in spite of the fact that they were grappling with considerable financial problems brought on by the riots following the shooting of Inspector Swanzy.82 In the six months prior to the unveiling of the statue, the Council looked in detail at the base of the statue; the platform, awning and invitations for the unveiling ceremony; and the question of where to move two former landmarks of the Market Square, the Jubilee Lamp and a decorative fountain, which were displaced by the statue.83 Since Musgrave died shortly before the unveiling, the Lisburn Standard observed that the ceremony was ‘much quieter than it otherwise would have been, and military honours were dispensed with.’84 Nonetheless, the ceremony was impressive. Lisburn came to a halt as shops and schools closed, and most factories and mills suspended business. With the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir James Craig, in attendance, the statue was unveiled by Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Unionist M.P. and former Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Wilson was ‘enthusiastically received’ by the crowd, as were his stories about Nicholson subduing ‘the most savage, the most warlike and the most terrible tribes’ of India. In the ceremony, Unionism and Empire were closely intertwined. Wilson, an ardent Unionist, stressed the contribution of Ulster Protestants to the suppression of the Indian ‘Mutiny,’ observing that ‘it is curious in these days, in this little quarter of Ireland— this Ulster, that in those terrible times, of the Mutiny it produced four men who stood out absolutely amongst all those gallant fellows who were there.

130

Ireland and India

John Lawrence, Henry Lawrence, both of Londonderry; Henry Pottinger, of County Down; and John Nicholson, of Lisburn.’85 Nicholson’s sacrifice in the preservation of the British Empire was elevated to near religious devotion; Wilson urged the men and women of Lisburn not only to treat the statue as something to be ‘intensely proud of but as something sacred and to teach your children the story of the life of John Nicholson of Lisburn.’ Wilson’s blending of imperialism and Unionism were echoed in the words of Dr. George St. George, who spoke on behalf of the Urban District Council: It had long been his desire to see a fitting memorial to the man who laid down his life at the moment of victory, in order to assist in building up the British Empire and carrying British justice and peace to the ends of the world. Alas! at the present moment it was rather the ideal of politicians to tear down and dismember that Empire, that men like Nicholson, Rhodes, and others had died to build up.86 The unveiling of the Nicholson statue in Lisburn established him as both an Ulster hero and a Unionist icon. The Belfast Telegraph accorded him the honor of being Ulster’s greatest imperial hero: ‘Ulster had given to the Empire many illustrious sons—sailors, soldiers, and statesmen—but none more truly great than Brigadier-General John Nicholson, to whose memory signal honour was done to-day in Lisburn.’87 In addition to its expression of Unionist and Imperial sentiments, the commemoration of John Nicholson at Lisburn also linked him with past imperial heroes. Both the Lisburn Herald and the Lisburn Standard compared the impact of his death to that of General Wolfe, saying that it tempered the joy of the British nation in an hour of victory.88 An Irish as well as British martial tradition was celebrated, as the Lisburn Herald noted how two Irish soldiers who served under Nicholson— Roberts and Sir George White—both rose to the rank of Field Marshall.89 The highest honor was reserved for Henry Wilson, ‘one of the greatest soldiers of the present day.’ Sir James Craig told the Lisburn crowd that they should certainly be honored by Wilson’s presence: ‘The memorial that has been erected in your midst will call to your minds deeds of gallantry in times past; the presence of the Field-Marshall on this platform will call to memory the deeds of those who have served our country and our honour.’ Craig also awarded Wilson, who was born in County Longford in Leinster but served as the Unionist M.P. for North Down, the honorary title of ‘gallant Ulsterman.’90

‘When Larens was Comrade to Nicul-Seyn’: Nicholson as Ulster hero Thus, by the time of the establishment of Northern Ireland in 1922, Nicholson had achieved the status of an Ulster hero. A 20-foot high monument

An Irish Paladin 131

dominating the town square of an overwhelmingly Unionist town, the Nicholson statue could not help but become a focal point for public ceremonies in Lisburn. In December 1922, a ceremony held to commemorate the centenary of his birth also served as a memorial to Sir Henry Wilson, who on 22 June of that year had been assassinated by two members of the IRA after unveiling a war memorial at London’s Liverpool Street Station.91 On 11 December 1922, members of Lisburn’s Urban District Council and a detachment of the Ulster Special Constabulary placed a laurel wreath on Nicholson’s statue. The ceremony honored not only Nicholson—the ‘Lion of the Punjab’ and ‘an illustrious soldier and Empire builder’—but also Wilson, ‘our beloved friend who is now gone, but who helped to build our great Empire.’ The chair of the Urban District Council placed the wreath on the statue as a constable played the ‘Last Post.’92 In the spring of 1923, the statue became the focal point for the visit of the Secretary of War, Lord Derby, who had come to Lisburn to inspect over 3000 members of the Ulster Special Constabulary. The town’s welcome address to Derby, who was accompanied by Sir James Craig, was delivered on a platform erected in front of the statue. Derby also examined the scenes of Indian Mutiny depicted in the bronze bas-reliefs on the base and recalled how, when attending the Delhi Durbar, he was taken to spot where Nicholson had fallen.93 Nicholson was also singled out as an exemplar for the boys of the Royal School Dungannon. In the first issue of the school’s magazine, R.S.D., published in 1917, Nicholson was prominently featured in an issue which emphasized themes of duty, heroism, death and sacrifice. One alumnus noted that a return visit to Dungannon revealed a view of ‘the ghosts of many other generations who were also of the School and learned there to play the game of life. Nicholson is there, young and proud and stern as of old, with a whole company of gallant gentlemen, soldiers all.’94 In the same issue, a fifth-form student named J.H. Strahan contributed an appreciation of Nicholson in which he outlined Nicholson’s heroism as a model for the Royal School boys who would soon fight in the trenches of the Western Front. He described Nicholson’s assault on Delhi—conflating the successful attack on the Kashmir Gate and the final assault on the Lahore Gate which cost him his life—in terms that made it sound like an assault on German trenches: Sept 14th saw Nicholson with his men at the post of honour in the assault. The attack commenced and the British troops charged forward only to be repulsed with heavy loss. Again and again they advanced only to meet with a withering hail of fire at the entrance to the breach. But Nicholson would not give in, it was the supreme moment of his life. Collecting his men for a final effort, he waved towards the breach and charged forward far in advance of his men. Inspired by his courage the

132

Ireland and India

men followed him in an irresistible rush and won the breach. The British had received a footing in Delhi—but Nicholson had received a mortal wound. Strahan concluded that ‘it makes one proud to be a Dungannon boy to think that a man who left his mark so gloriously in the annals of Britain’s history is numbered among our old boys. And it surely should be a stimulus to uphold above all the honour of our school and in doing so honour a man who was foremost in preserving the vast land of India for the British Empire.’95 In the interwar period, there are several instances of Nicholson’s commemoration by Northern Irish poets. William Forbes Marshall incorporated Nicholson into his vision of a distinctive Protestant, Unionist Ulster identity. Marshall, known as the ‘bard of Tyrone,’ was a strong advocate for the distinctiveness of Ulster culture and Ulster patterns of speech.96 His literary subjects included the siege of Derry, the Solemn League and Covenant and the contributions of Ulster Protestants to the founding of the United States. Marshall attended the Royal School Dungannon, and during the First World War composed ‘R. S. D.: A School Ballad,’ which was later adopted as the school song. The ballad, first published in the pages of the school magazine in 1918, paid homage to Nicholson as one of the school’s greatest heroes: Years have fled—three hundred, we’ve a shield without a stain R. S. D. for ever! it’s the school of Nichol-sayn! Glory to the good old school; we’ll sing it once again Who learned the holy Latin in Dungannon.97 During the 1930s, Marshall wrote a poem in the school magazine in which he dreamed that the statue of Nicholson was moved from Delhi to Ulster, and stood in front of the Royal School Dungannon.98 In another poem from this period, ‘Goordaspoore,’ Marshall celebrated Nicholson’s heroism, including his sacrifice at the Kashmir Gate, as well as the deeds of another prominent Ulster hero of 1857: John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, and later Viceroy of India. Lawrence had attended the Free Grammar School of Londonderry, which later became Foyle College, and Marshall celebrated the two Ulster public-school boys as saviours of the British Empire: Lay me a wreath at Kashmir Gate, And another in London town, These—for the Two who saved a State In the year of red renown; In the red, red year of the Ridge of Pain, Of murder, lust and spoil, When Larens was comrade to Nicul-Sayn And Dungannon saluted Foyle.99

An Irish Paladin 133

Another Ulster poet, James Logan, incorporated the British Empire—and in particular India—into a poem defining the characteristics of the people of Ulster. Ulster, Logan writes, is ‘th’ Imperial Province called, and rightly so.’ Logan includes a stanza on the deeds of Ulstermen in the service of the British Empire as a significant part of the ‘kingly deeds’ and ‘worthy toil’ of the ‘Ulster folk,’ particularly in India: Who speaks of heroes of the tented plain, Let Nicholson and White the glory gain, Let mighty Lawrences of Indian name, Hand on the torch of never-dying fame.100 Nicholson’s status also led to him being featured in radio productions of BBC Northern Ireland. In 1937, the program ‘Provincial Journey’ devoted one of its episodes to Lisburn. H.A.M. Barbour, a member of a prominent linenweaving family, noted that ‘Lisburn could point with pride to invaluable contributions towards the maintenance of the British Empire by her sons.’ Barbour mentioned Nicholson’s memorial in the center of Lisburn and read out the inscription on the memorial tablet in Lisburn Cathedral. He noted that ‘his name was better known in India than in this country, but in Lisburn they never forgot his name or fame.’101 After the Second World War, BBC Northern Ireland adopted a more regional focus, with greater emphasis on Northern Irish staff and the production of work by Northern Irish writers and producers.102 As producer John Boyd recalled, ‘The emphasis was almost entirely on the “Ulster” way of life, and “Ulster” was defined as the Six Counties only, and the Six Counties were predominantly Protestant.’103 This was the context in which on 11 January 1950 BBC Northern Ireland broadcast a one-hour drama on Nicholson entitled ‘ “Nikal Seyn”: A Story of the Indian Mutiny. The Hero of Delhi.’ As the title suggests, ‘Nikal Seyn’ was clearly a laudatory production. The Radio Times wrote that Nicholson ‘was a brilliant administrator, a man of passion and energy, and these qualities, allied to immense stature and extra-ordinary physical courage, made him not only one of the most powerful instruments of British policy in India during the mid-nineteenth century but an almost legendary figure throughout the subcontinent.’ The author of the play, John Body, said that Nicholson was ‘a man who had been a hero since boyhood.’104

‘Offensive to National Sentiment’: The removal of Nicholson’s statue from Delhi At the time ‘Nikal Seyn’ aired, the statue of Nicholson erected almost 50 years earlier still stood in Delhi. During the centenary of the Indian Rebellion, however, it once again became a subject of controversy. The Government of India’s commemorative ceremonies centered on two dates: 10 May, the date of the outbreak of the mutiny at Meerut that sparked

134

Ireland and India

the rebellion, and 15 August, the date of formal Indian independence in 1947. On the latter date, mutiny celebrations were twinned with the tenth anniversary of Indian independence. On 10 May, the Lok Sabha, the Indian Parliament, observed two minutes’ silence for the Indian dead of 1857. That evening, over 15,000 gathered at the Ramlila Gardens in Delhi to hear Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru speak. The centenary observations were celebratory, and many Western observers were surprised at the lack of bitterness that they engendered. A New York Times reporter observed that the atmosphere of the commemorations was ‘one of memorial rather than bitterness.’105 UK High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald found the events that he attended to be ‘uniformly dull’ and sensed a ‘general lack of interest in the Centenary celebrations.’ This, he wrote to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, has amply demonstrated that ‘the people’ did not wish to make more of them. For the time being at any rate the Mutiny has been written and talked out, and I think that now both the majority of the Indian people and their rulers will turn to the many tasks before them, somewhat relieved that they are no longer obliged to look over their shoulders at 1857.106 The general atmosphere of the Mutiny commemorations outside of Delhi, MacDonald noted, ‘were by no means memorable’ and gave the impression of a public holiday ‘rather than the commemoration of two notable anniversaries.’ In Bihar, for example, there was a symposium on the Mutiny at Patna University, a special exhibition at the Patna Museum, a poetry reading at Jagdishpur, the home of local Mutiny hero Kunwar Singh, a football match and the presentation of a sports trophy named after Singh. ‘Such events are hardly of international consequence,’ MacDonald dryly observed.107 The New York Times noted that the commemoration ceremonies in Delhi took place not only amidst monuments to the Indian heroes of 1857, but also to British officials who suppressed the revolt.108 Indeed, the main controversy which emerged from the centenary celebrations focused on the numerous statues of British monarchs and colonial officials in India. The Times of London argued that as 15 August 1957 approached, more and more talk focused on the Mutiny and ‘ever less about the peaceful and friendly transfer of power in 1947.’ The result, the newspaper argued hyperbolically, was a ‘holocaust of British statues’ in India.109 This was an exaggeration; though the centenary celebrations did spur the replacement of some Raj-era monuments with ‘statues or monuments more in consonance with the sense of patriotism and nationalism which has developed since the attainment of Independence in 1947.’ In the years after 1957, many statues of British monarchs and imperial administrators in places like Bombay and Delhi were

An Irish Paladin 135

removed and placed in less prominent locations, but few were targets of public animosity or the threat of defacement. The exceptions were those statues considered to be ‘offensive to the Indian sentiment from the point of view of either the uprising of 1857 or other Indian national movements.’110 At the center of the controversy was the statue of John Nicholson in Delhi. Press reports in Britain had suggested that in preparation for the 15 August celebrations, statues in memory of British monarchs, governors and military leaders were to be removed.111 Ten days after the commemoration of the Mutiny at Meerut in May 1957, the High Commissioner’s office in Delhi found these rumors to be greatly exaggerated. The only report of actual damage to a memorial came from Benares, where in a scuffle between police and students a statue of Queen Victoria was inadvertently damaged. The damage, noted Deputy High Commissioner W.A.W. Clark, was promptly repaired by the local government. Investigating rumors of damage to or the removal of the Nicholson statue, Clark noted that ‘General Nicholson still stands in his garden in Old Delhi, as I ascertained for myself the other day. Children played nearby and students sat on the steps reading English text books.’112 Several weeks later, however, the statues of John Nicholson and another Anglo-Irish military hero of 1857, General Sir Alexander Taylor, were removed from their sites in Delhi and placed in the Delhi Exhibition Grounds, out of public view.113 The High Commissioner in New Delhi announced this news to the Commonwealth Relations Office in a telegram on 7 June. Under pressure from left-wing political parties, who threatened to take direct action against British statues that they considered to be inappropriate relics of imperialism, the Government of India decided to move statues that were seen as ‘provocative or offensive to national sentiment.’114 Nehru refused to allow the removal of statues of British monarchs or Viceroys in Delhi ‘on the grounds that these are part of Indian history,’ although the High Commissioner warned that there was ‘a clear danger of growing political agitation both outside and within Congress. We must therefore be prepared for [an] increase in demands for removal.’115 As word of the Nicholson’s statue’s proposed relocation spread, parties in the United Kingdom, including an association of former members of the Indian Civil Service, became interested in removing it to Britain.116 In particular, the Royal School Dungannon expressed interest in acquiring the statue. In February 1957, the headmaster wrote to the Minister of Education for Northern Ireland expressing the fear that ‘rebel elements [sic] may, during the course of this year, see fit to destroy anything which bears relationship to the events of 100 years ago.’117 After negotiations with the Government of India, the statue was shipped from India at a cost of approximately £300, arriving in Dungannon in September 1958. The costs were raised by public subscription, including a three-day, five-a-side football tournament in Dungannon featuring Irish

136

Ireland and India

rugby international Noel Henderson.118 In October 1958, the Belfast Telegraph reported that the statue ‘has been rescued from certain destruction by a body of Ulstermen who urged the British Foreign and Colonial Office to get the statue out of India.’119 Two years later, after the completion of new school buildings and a new memorial gate, the statue was installed at the Royal School by Lord Mountbatten in the ceremony discussed at the beginning of this chapter. The following year, the headmaster of the school referred to the statue as one of the institution’s ‘most prized possessions.’120 Clearly, the Nicholson statue was intended to be relevant not only to the boys of the school, but to the people of Northern Ireland, and by implication, the Ulster Protestants most likely to take pride in his accomplishments as an imperial hero. The Royal School’s efforts to bring the statue of John Nicholson to Dungannon helped to inspire another public school, Foyle College in Derry, to import another statue of an Ulster imperial servant from South Asia. The controversial statue of Sir John Lawrence that had stood near the High Court in Lahore, Pakistan, had been placed in storage after 1947. The Old Boys of Foyle College had advocated its removal in early 1958, but the project had been abandoned after the death of L.G.P. Freer of the Ministry of Health and Local Government, an Old Boy who was carrying out negotiations with the Government of Northern Ireland. However, the arrival of the John Nicholson statue in Northern Ireland spurred renewed interest in the Lawrence statue.121 The agreement for Foyle College to take possession of the statue from the Government of Pakistan was coupled with an agreement that its notorious inscription, ‘Will you be governed by the pen or the sword,’ which had made the statue the target of nationalist protests in Lahore in the 1920s, would not be restored.122 Not all of Northern Ireland shared the enthusiasm of the Royal School and Foyle College for these projects. The unveiling of Nicholson’s statue in Dungannon was greeted with indifference in the nationalist press. The Dungannon Observer treated the ceremony as inconsequential, headlining the coverage ‘Dungannon Boys Lose a Holiday.’ The Observer noted that high winds foiled Mountbatten’s plans to arrive by helicopter, and that the former Viceroy of India ‘apologized to the schoolboys for having to unveil a statue at their school during the Easter holidays.’123 Another local nationalist paper, the Mid-Ulster Observer, did not include any coverage of the event at all.

An Irish imperial hero? In the years after the unveiling of the statue at Dungannon, Nicholson’s status as an Irish imperial hero was confirmed by two episodes. The first was his inclusion in an exhibit on ‘Great Irishmen’ held at the Ulster Museum in Belfast in June and July 1965. The exhibition of 243 portraits and photographs demonstrated a broad definition of what constituted a

An Irish Paladin 137

‘great Irishman’; those included ranged from the Duke of Wellington to Patrick Pearse. The curator, Anne Crookshank, explained that the exhibit began when she discovered that many historical figures she had known as ‘British’ were in fact ‘Irish,’ and had evolved into a quest ‘to find out who was and who was not Irish.’ No ‘settlers or planters’ were included, Crookshank contended, only those who were ‘distinctively Irish.’124 Nicholson was one of many Irish imperial figures included, along with Henry Lawrence, Lord Roberts and the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. The image of Nicholson on display was a posthumous nineteenth-century portrait by the English painter J.R. Dicksee, which since 1951 had been in the collection of the County Museum of Armagh. The Anglo-Irish writer Pamela Hinkson, who had viewed the painting in the ‘flickering candlelight’ of an Irish country house prior to its bequest to the museum, wrote that the image of Nicholson revealed the essential quality of his heroic nature.125 In the following year, Nicholson’s status as a ‘great Irishman’ again received attention, this time in the form of a long poem entitled ‘Nikal Seyn,’ composed by the American poet Louis Coxe.126 While Nicholson might seem an unusual choice of subject matter for a late twentieth-century poet, he was a characteristic subject for Coxe, whose poetry was described by one critic as ‘radically anti-modernist.’127 Coxe, who had served in the United States Navy during the Second World War, was particularly interested in the nature of heroism and in the impact of modern warfare on men. Several of his works feature British imperial subjects, including Admiral Horatio Nelson. The poem ‘Nikal Seyn’ explores the construction of the Irish general’s heroic reputation, as the narrator, a soldier who fought under Nicholson, unfolds his story to an American academic who is writing a book about the general. The soldier calls Nicholson a hero ‘for a blood-drunk, Biblevomiting age,’ ‘made to order for boys’ fiction.’128 The worship of ‘Nikal Seyn’ is central to the poem; the narrator comments that in ‘a country of a thousand gods’ They named him Nikal Seyn And worshipped him, a straight-out kind of faith Mixing hate and love . . .129 The narrator admits that he too worshipped Nicholson, observing that ‘Nikal Seyn’s the realest god I know.’ But he also calls Nicholson a ‘clayfooted god’ and mocks the academic for believing ‘all the lies’ about Nicholson and ‘the Raj at its heroic pitch, its finest hour’ and Nicholson’s ‘pure manhood.’130 From 1959 to 1960, Coxe had spent time in Ireland as a Fulbright lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, and an important theme in ‘Nikal Seyn’ is Nicholson’s Irishness. Coxe’s narrator is in fact an Irish Catholic, born, like his hero, in Lisburn. After his imperial service, he emigrated to the United States, but has returned to the ‘cut-off counties’ of Northern Ireland to die

138

Ireland and India

In Lisburn where Nick’s statue in the square Swings out the sabre like a lighthouse blade131 The former East India Company soldier describes Nicholson as ‘half real Irish’ and says, ‘I knew him in his black mad Irish rages.’ He recalls riding with Nicholson on the Northwest frontier, ‘one and half Irishmen to manage a province.’ Yet in spite of his bond with ‘Nikal Seyn,’ he warns the academic not to ‘mix me with his clan / Of blackblooded Prots and Popehaters who came here / To paint us Briton blue.’ The narrator also recounts how he served as a soldier not only of the British Empire but also of the IRA. ‘We Ulster Catholics must integrate, like the Indians,’ he says bitterly, ‘or Up the IRA.’132 Referencing the republican destruction of the statue of the Irish general Lord Gough in 1957, he recalls The way we bombed The odd lump of an Anglo-Irish monument In the Phoenix Park. Up the bloody rebels!133 Coxe’s Irish soldier is a liminal figure, an East India Company servant and member of the IRA, a white soldier of the Empire who loves his Indian mistress and befriends her brother, a sepoy who ultimately rebels against the British in 1857. Indeed, Coxe’s poem explores not only Irish imperial service but the affinity between Irish and Indian nationalism, as the narrator tells how he later applied lessons from the rebels of 1857 in Ireland: The Mutiny showed me a trick or two, my friend: I put them to use right here in Ireland, in ’21—134 Louis Coxe’s Nikal Seyn not only delves into the nature of John Nicholson’s nineteenth-century heroic image, and the question of how a modern audience might come to terms with it, but also explores the nature of his identity as an Irishman and an Ulsterman. Coxe’s narrator, a former East India Company soldier turned member of the IRA, introduces another important element: the increasing tension between imperial service and anti-imperial actions that was to mark Irish history in the twentieth century. With increasing force, distinctions were made between ‘the imperial province’ and ‘rebel Ireland.’ The following two chapters will explore these issues as we examine how members of a regiment of Irish soldiers, the Connaught Rangers, who were stationed in India after the First World War responded to the Irish republican campaign for independence, and how their actions were interpreted, remembered and commemorated in Ireland and India.

5 ‘The Remains of Ireland’s Loneliest Martyr’: The Commemoration of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny

On 3 July 1920, the India Office received two ‘clear the line’ telegrams from the Government of India, which featured urgent reports on the behavior of two companies of British Army regiments stationed in the Punjab. The Government reported that a company of the Connaught Rangers, stationed at the Wellington barracks in Jullundur, had refused to work on 28 June as a protest against the activities of the British Army in Ireland, ‘where they consider their friends are being oppressed.’ The attitude of the men, according to the telegram, was respectful, and the soldiers had deposited their arms in one of the barracks and placed a guard in charge. They were, however, ‘obdurate in their refusal to perform any military duty.’ After hearing word of the events at Jullundur, members of the Connaught Rangers stationed at Solon similarly refused to perform any military duties. They too handed in their arms, but on the evening of 1 July, some 30 members of the company attempted to recapture them from the armory. The guard, members of the same company as the mutineers, opened fire, killing two men and wounding another. The incident effectively brought the mutiny to an end, and the Government of India was able to report that ‘the detachment has been disarmed and all is now reported quiet.’1 Sixty-nine men were eventually tried for their role in the mutiny, and 62 were convicted. Fourteen were sentenced to death by firing squad, although the sentences of all but one were commuted to life imprisonment. The only soldier whose capital sentence was carried out was Private James Joseph Daly, who was considered to be the leader of the mutiny at Solon and the man responsible for the abortive attack on the armory. Daly was executed in Dagshai Prison in north India on 2 November 1920. With the exception of one man, John Miranda, who died in prison at Dagshai, by the middle of the following year, all of the convicted mutineers had been transferred to prisons in England to serve out the remainder of their sentences. On 10 October 1920, the Connaught Rangers were moved to Rawalpindi on the Northwest Frontier to take over garrison duty there. There were no 139

140

Ireland and India

further mutinous episodes. The regimental history reported that ‘reorganization had been satisfactorily completed and the men were again in excellent order.’ Major General G. de C. Barrow, Commander of the Peshawar District, who had previously served with the Connaught Rangers, told the men after inspection that he considered them to be ‘as good as ever they were.’2 From the point of view of colonial authorities, the episode was concluded, a mere footnote to the tumultuous period of anti-colonial activity in India following the First World War. Yet, the Connaught Rangers mutiny continued to resonate long past 1920. It has been the subject of books, radio and television programs, plays and ballads. The mutineers have been publicly commemorated as Irish republican heroes and linked to other events of Irish republican history. In 1949, a memorial to the mutineers was unveiled in the Republican Plot in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery, the resting place of many prominent nationalist heroes. Two decades later, the remains of James Daly and two other mutineers were repatriated to Ireland. This chapter will examine the process by which the Connaught Rangers mutineers came to be commemorated as Irish republican heroes. How did these Irishmen, members of the British Army stationed in India, come to be revered not for their imperial service, but for fighting (and in several cases, dying) for Ireland?

The motives of the mutineers Historians of the Connaught Rangers mutiny have for the most part focused on the question of what drove the mutineers to their actions in 1920.3 Two book-length treatments of the mutiny, T.P. Kilfeather’s The Connaught Rangers and Sam Pollock’s Mutiny for the Cause, both published in 1969, offer a straightforward interpretation of this issue. The Connaught Rangers, they argue, were motivated to take a stand for ‘Irish freedom’ by the atrocities of the Black and Tans.4 This is the argument often presented in press and public accounts of the mutiny as well. Anthony Babington, in The Devil to Pay: The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers, India, July 1920 (1991), casts considerable doubt on the issue of the republican motivations of the mutineers. Babington’s book is the most scholarly treatment of the events of 1920, and has done a valuable job of stripping away the accreted layers of myth surrounding the mutiny. Babington discounts, however, one of the most important aspects of the Connaught Rangers mutiny: the role of Irish nationalist sentiment. Neither interpretation ultimately does justice to the multiplicity of factors that motivated the mutineers in 1920.5 Furthermore, the mythology which developed around the Connaught Rangers, and its relationship to commemorative practices of Irish republicanism, is also a subject in need of exploration by historians. One of the most problematic issues in assessing the causes of the mutiny is the contention that the Connaught Rangers reacted to the activities of the

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

141

Black and Tans, temporary constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary who had been recruited from demobilized British Army veterans. The Black and Tans viewed themselves as ‘soldiers in enemy territory rather than policemen in their own country,’ and they were the main authors of the RIC policies of reprisals and casual violence that escalated over the course of 1920. As Peter Hart observes, they were instrumental in changing republican perceptions of the police: ‘The old image of the “peelers”—distrusted or despised perhaps, but familiar—was replaced by that of an occupying army. The label “Black and Tans” connoted lawless foreign invaders: “terrorists” with drunken and criminal habits.’ The ‘Tans’ were mythologized as products of ‘London’s underworld,’ deliberately recruited from Britain’s jails for service in Ireland.6 It has become accepted wisdom that news of Black and Tan atrocities in Ireland sparked the Connaught Rangers mutiny. RTÉ radio (1970) and television (2006) documentaries, for example, both attribute the mutiny to the Irish soldiers’ reaction to the ‘Black and Tans.’7 A similar version of the mutiny was recounted to the Sunday Independent in 1955 by one of the former mutineers, James J. Devers, originally from Ballina, County Mayo, who had been sentenced to 20 years penal servitude for his role in the Solon mutiny. ‘For weeks the mail-carts had brought letters to the khaki-uniformed men telling them of events in Ireland,’ Devers recalled. ‘In the simple language of letters from home the Connaught Rangers learned of the Black and Tan reign of terror in the land they had left.’8 This narrative of the mutineers’ response to Black and Tan atrocities was questioned as early as 1925 by a committee appointed by the Irish Free State to investigate the possible award of pensions to the mutineers. When former mutineer John Flannery stated that ‘the Connaught Rangers had been receiving letters from home as to the atrocities committed by the Black and Tans. It was pointed out that the Black and Tans had not arrived in Ireland at that time (June 1920).’9 This is inaccurate. The first Black and Tans arrived in Ireland prior to the mutiny in March 1920. It is conceivable, therefore, that word of Black and Tan atrocities could have come to the Connaught Rangers through the letters of family members or press accounts. This does not seem to have been the case, however.10 No mutineer or loyal officer or soldier ever stated at the time of the mutiny that the Connaught Rangers were reacting to the Black and Tans.11 Instead, all of the statements ascribing the mutiny to a reaction to the deeds of the Black and Tans were made well after 1920.12 While it seems clear that the mutineers’ response to the Black and Tans was a later invention, this is not necessarily a reason to completely discount the nationalist motives of the mutineers. Their motivations, like those of republicans in Ireland during the period 1919–1921, were varied and complex, and merged nationalist sentiment with private motivations.13 Shortly before the mutiny, discontentment spread through the British Army in India over the rate at which soldier’s pay was converted into rupees.14 Boredom and lack of

142

Ireland and India

activity, the sweltering summer heat of the Punjab plains (the mutiny took place after two of the hottest days of the year), slack discipline and poor relations between officers and their men also played a role.15 A soldier from a Welsh regiment stationed in the Punjab at the time of the mutiny recalled that the issue of compensation ‘put fuel to the fire which was smouldering in the Connaught Rangers, who were stationed at Jullundur, over the Irish troubles, the Black and Tans, and all the other grievances in the situation in Ireland.’16 Retaliation against officers at least in part motivated the actions of the Rangers at Jullundur. A letter from the leader of Jullundur mutiny warned their commanding officer that he was ‘not personally safe’ and threatened another unpopular officer with the following words: ‘The late Adjutant Mr. Leader may prepare for death.’17 Other ranks who refused to join the mutiny also received similar threats.18 But while the Rangers mutiny cannot be solely attributed to the Black and Tans, there is strong evidence that nationalist sentiment motivated at least some of the mutineers. A letter composed by the ‘Sinn Feiners of the Connaught Rangers’ to their commanding officer at Jullundur referred to ‘the recent trouble, committed by British troops in Ireland. The C.R.s are determined to stand by Sinn Fein . . . we cannot, as Irishmen, stand by and see our relations murdered. We demand the withdrawal of the military in Ireland until our orders are complied with.’19 The first reports attributed the mutiny to what a telegram from the Viceroy to the Secretary of State for India described as ‘the contamination of Sinn Fein.’ The telegram went on to state: ‘We have every reason to believe that the whole affair was engineered by Sinn Fein. Large Sinn Fein flags were hoisted in barracks when the mutiny first broke out at Jullundur. These flags were apparently not made in India. Sinn Fein colours and rosettes were also worn.’20 The first accounts of the mutiny in the Times on 5 July 1920, based on the official communique from the Government of India, referred to ‘Sinn Fein in India.’21 The Court of Enquiry at Jullundur, which recommended that 87 ‘ringleaders’ of the mutiny be tried by General Court Martial, found that ‘the outbreak was a pre-arranged and organized movement; cause was undoubtedly Sinn Feinism.’22 Military officials later revised their opinion that the mutiny was deliberately engineered by Sinn Féin or republican activists. This was also a charge denied by the mutineers. In ‘The Connaught Rangers’ Mutiny By One Who Knows,’ published in the Irish Independent in February 1925, mutineer John Flannery claimed that the mutineers were the authors of their own actions: ‘An idea seems to have gained currency which it would be as well at the outset to contradict. It has been suggested that the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers was organized and brought to issue by outside influences. That is not so.’23 However, the subsequent claims of the mutineers that their actions were inspired by events in Ireland deserve to be taken seriously. On the morning of 27 June, the day before the beginning of the mutiny at Jullundur,

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

143

a sergeant ordered a ‘Sinn Fein’ pamphlet to be removed from the regimental library. At the same time, a private found a paper hanging over the mantelpiece there that urged soldiers to ‘ground arms and be an Irishman.’ ‘If you were to be shot, stick up for your Irish home which is ruined by the troops in our dear country. It is our duty to fight now and try to make her free once more.’ The call to arms referred to both the Easter Rising (‘look at what they done, 1916’) and ended with the final verse of the emigrant ballad ‘Revenge for Skibbereen.’24 In the courts martial proceedings for the mutineers at both Jullundur and Solon, references to protests against events in Ireland featured prominently. In both places, soldiers flew the Irish Tricolor from flagpoles and worn ‘Sinn Fein rosettes.’ The men of C Company at Solon refused to parade in ‘protest against the employment of British troops in Ireland,’ and on 30 June, a group of at least 20 men at Solon under the command of Daly marched ‘in the direction of the Bazaar, singing rebel songs.’ That evening ‘Sinn Fein songs’ were sung in the barracks until midnight.25 Although the offending Sinn Féin pamphlet seems to have been the sole example of outside republican influence on the mutiny, military authorities strongly believed that the events at Jullundur and Solon were triggered by the arrival of letters from friends and family in Ireland that painted a picture of atrocities by crown forces. Shortly after the mutiny was brought under control, the Army Department commented, ‘there can be little doubt that the men have been influenced in their misconduct by letters from home.’26 The Government of India initially advocated the censorship of all mail sent to and from Irish regiments in India, but after objections from the War Office on the political consequences of re-imposing mass censorship and the lack of evidence that ‘Sinn Feinism’ was spreading to any other regiment, the plan was dropped.27 The regimental history concurred with the judgment of military officials in 1920, stating that the mutineers at Jullundur ‘were influenced, as they declared, by political news from Home contained in letters which had arrived before. The numbers of the disaffected were such that they controlled the situation, and they were deaf to reason or argument, declaring that their action was intended as a political gesture of protest.’28 In addition to the judgments of military officers, another important witness to the Connaught Rangers mutiny at Solon concurred that the mutineers were motivated by nationalism. Father Benjamin Thomas Edward Baker, an Englishman, was the Catholic priest at Solon from 1912 to 1928 and witnessed the attack on the armory there. By most accounts, Baker enjoyed the confidence of the mutineers at Solon, and may have helped to persuade them to surrender their arms.29 He saw clear nationalist motivations behind the mutineers’ actions; indeed, he suggests that discontentment was brewing at Solon prior to the arrival of news of the mutiny at Jullundur. About a week before the mutiny, Baker noticed that about a dozen of the men were ‘very reserved.’ When questioned, they revealed that

144

Ireland and India

‘in their letters from Ireland they were getting details of harrowing things that the Black and Tans were doing in various places, and when they showed these letters to the Adjutant, he would fling them back into their faces saying that it was all propaganda.’ When the outbreak began, the men named their barracks ‘Liberty Hall,’ after the headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union that had served as one of the staging points for the 1916 rebellion and wore ‘the Irish Cockade and Rosette.’ Later, when the mutineers were held at Dagsahi Prison in the fall of 1920, one prisoner drew on the walls of his cells a map of Ireland ‘marking the big spots the places where the Black and Tans had done mischief,’ as well as ‘a scene of London with St. Paul’s in the background, with Irish bombers plastering London [sic]’ and ‘a big man-of-war bombarding the English coast.’ ‘The men,’ Baker recalled, ‘were highly delighted whenever they got a chance of peeping into this cell.’30 A soldier with the First Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, who was stationed in the Punjab at the time of the mutiny, recalled seeing carvings of ‘IRA’ with a cross underneath in wooden pillows in cells at Dagshai Prison in 1922.31 The nationalist motivations of the Connaught Rangers mutineers thus need to be taken seriously. However, we must not only try to understand what happened in Jullundur and Solon in 1920, but how the mutineers’ actions were remembered, commemorated and mythologized in twentiethcentury Ireland. This reveals much not only about Irish republican modes and methods of commemoration, but also the bitter contentions over the legacies of the Irish military service in the cause of the British Empire, the Anglo-Irish War and the subsequent Civil War that have marked twentieth-century Irish history.

Contemporary reaction in Ireland In spite of the often-repeated cliché that Ireland is a country obsessed with the past, scholarly analysis of Irish commemoration and historical memory is a relatively recent development. Recent studies have illustrated how Irish patterns of commemoration have been shaped by ‘a complex interaction of individual actors, cultural patterns, social forces and technological developments.’ In the words of Ian McBride, ‘present actions are not determined by the past, but rather the reverse: that what we choose to remember is dictated by our own contemporary concerns.’32 The commemoration of the Connaught Rangers mutineers illustrates McBride’s point, for historical memory of the regiment and the mutiny has been far from static. At times their actions have been almost completely forgotten in Ireland; yet at certain periods they have garnered significant public attention. And although the Connaught Rangers came to be commemorated as republican heroes, this process was a complex one in which the actions of individuals

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

145

and organizations who promoted the mutineers’ legacy as national heroes intersected with broader cultural and political concerns. After the India Office issued a report on the mutiny on 4 July 1920, most Irish newspapers limited their coverage to reprinting official reports of the events.33 However, several nationalist newspapers devoted substantial stories to the affair. The Freeman’s Journal under the headline, ‘Irish Troops Revolt,’ called the events ‘one of the most sensational events of Irish interest.’ The paper also noted the imperial context of the mutiny, observing that ‘the incidents are the more sensational because of their occurrence in the Punjab, where Amritsar is still unforgotten.’34 The following day the Freeman’s Journal quoted a report on the mutiny in the Westminster Gazette, placing in bold the statement that it ‘is a sign of widespread feeling amongst Irishmen against the present policy of the Government.’35 The Freeman’s Journal also devoted two leading articles to the events in India, which placed the mutiny within the context of Loyalist army mutiny in Ireland prior to the First World War. The Connaught Rangers, the Journal argued, were only following the precedent set by the British Army officers in the Curragh mutiny of 1912, who had announced their refusal to act against Ulster Unionist forces in Ireland: With the revolt of the Connaught Rangers another Carsonian chicken has come home to the Coalition roost. We shall watch with curiosity, not unmixed with anxiety, how it will fare with the Irish soldiers who have dared to imitate the great Curragh precedent, and to avail themselves of the principles laid down for their own benefit by the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord High Chancellor of England, and the ex-Attorney-General of England, in 1913 and 1914.36 The mutiny also attracted commentary from the Irish–American press, including Joseph McGarrity’s strongly republican Irish Press of Philadelphia, which published two articles on the Connaught Rangers in July 1920. ‘The warm sympathy of all patriotic Irish people goes out to these lonely Irishmen out in India,’ wrote the newspaper, ‘who, though wearing a British uniform, suddenly discovered that Irish hearts beat under it.’ The Irish Press suggested that the Rangers’ mutiny would inspire other Irish regiments and Irish civil servants to question their loyalty to the crown.37 The mutiny had at least some small resonance in this regard. Four members of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers stationed in 1921 at Multan in the Punjab who heard of the Connaught Rangers’ mutiny decided to stage a small protest of their own. As the mutineers had done, they obtained the fabric for an Irish Tricolor from local Indian merchants, and on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day ran the flag up the flagpole at their barracks.38 For a brief time following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Connaught Rangers became a prominent subject of public debate. As the

146

Ireland and India

issue of amnesty for republican prisoners was discussed with the British government, Irish politicians began to lobby for the release of the mutineers, who were held in several prisons in England. In January 1922, Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill pressed Prime Minister David Lloyd George for an early release of the prisoners. ‘The release of the Connaught Rangers is essential,’ Churchill wrote. ‘Unless I get this I cannot settle with the Irish Govt.’39 Concerns about the impact of the prisoners’ release on discipline in both the British Army and the Indian Army delayed the Rangers’ release for almost another year, and in December 1922, William T. Cosgrave, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State reported that the question of their release was still ‘occupying the public mind very considerably and also the minds of many members of our Parliament.’40 When the Connaught Rangers were finally released at the beginning of 1923, they received a rapturous welcome upon their return to Ireland. They were greeted at the ferry port in Dun Laoghaire by an official Reception Committee, which included the Chairman of the Irish Self-Determination League and four Dáil members. A large crowd greeted them at Westland Row train station in Dublin, and they were treated to a celebratory breakfast in their honor at the Grosvenor Hotel. Many were feted in their home towns as well. A large crowd assembled for a ceremony honoring 21 year old Private William Coman of Cashel, County Tipperary, which was preceded by a fife and drum band parading through the streets. After speeches lauding ‘the deeds of these true Irish patriots’ who vowed ‘to dissociate themselves from England’s services and to consecrate themselves to the service of the Green Flag of Ireland,’ the Right Reverend Dean Ryan opened a subscription for Coman with a donation of £1. The Nationalist reported that ‘pound notes and ten shilling notes were handed in spontaneously and even poor women gave as much as 2s. 6d.’41 When three of the former Connaught Rangers mutineers returned to their home town of Boyle, County Roscommon, the site of a regimental barracks, ‘an enthusiastic welcome’ was given to them by the National Army, local politicians and the people of the town. ‘The brass and reed band from the military barracks, and over 100 National soldiers, under Vice-Brig. Lenehan marched to the station,’ and afterward officers entertained them in the barracks.42

British soldiers in the Irish Free State The warm welcome received by the Connaught Rangers proved to be fleeting, however, as over the longer term their status as British Army veterans complicated their place as national heroes. Tommy Moran of Athlone, County Westmeath, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the Jullundur mutiny, returned to a ‘hero’s reception

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

147

in Athlone.’ However, as the son of a former Royal Irish Constabulary officer recalled, ‘Republican purists were disposed to devalue his heroism (which was undeniable) because of his having been in the service of Perfidious Albion.’43 The Anglo-Boer War had intensified the long-standing republican prejudice against Irishmen who joined the British military, and anti-recruitment activities increased in the first decade of the twentieth century.44 During the First World War, advanced nationalists rejected the sacrifice of ‘the blood and lives of the sons of Irishmen and Irish women to the services of the British Empire’ without the existence of an independent Irish government.45 In July 1920, less than a month after the Connaught Rangers’ mutiny, speakers at a Convention of the Comrades of the Great War meeting held at Mullingar, in James Daly’s home county of Westmeath, complained how Irish veterans of World War I had been ‘most ungratefully treated.’ One speaker from Longford stated that the ex-soldiers ‘were looked down upon more or less by their fellow Irishmen.’46 Although some British Army veterans—most famously West Cork flying column commander Tom Barry—later joined the Irish Republican Army—most were regarded with considerable suspicion.47 Indeed, during the Anglo-Irish War, ex-servicemen became prime targets of the IRA. At least 82 army veterans were murdered prior to the truce of July 1921, a total that would be much higher if veterans who joined the Royal Irish Constabulary or the Auxiliary Division were included. Even after independence, ex-servicemen remained a popular target for both supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. As Jane Leonard observes, ‘Ex-servicemen, by virtue of long absence on military service and the altered cultural and political identities that years of foreign service with the British army tended to have forged, were no longer part of the communities to which they returned on demobilisation. This made them an acceptable target.’48 There is no evidence that any of the Connaught Rangers were ever victims of violence upon their return to Ireland (something made less likely by the fact that they returned when the Civil War was in its final months), but as veterans of the British Army, they were marginal figures in post-independence Ireland.49 The case of former Lance Corporal John McGowan illustrates the difficulties that some former Connaught Rangers had after their return to Ireland. Originally from Boyle, County Roscommon, McGowan had served in the Great War and re-enlisted in the regiment in 1919. At Jullundur he ‘took command of the men when they marched up, 200 strong, to the Officers’ Mess to refuse to soldier any longer.’ The court martial identified him as one of the leaders in the Jullundur mutiny and sentenced him to life imprisonment, although his sentence was commuted to 20 years.50 McGowan had served as a corporal in a company commanded by the Home Rule MP and writer Stephen Gwynn during 1916 and 1917. Gwynn, who campaigned for the release of the mutineers from prison,

148

Ireland and India

described McGowan in the following terms in a letter to Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law: He was an Irishman who had lived much in Glasgow and become infected with a certain turbulence. He was vehemently political but he was one of the five or six best men in my company for intelligence, honesty and hard work. I take it hard that he, for an action not morally disgraceful, should be in jail while others with a very different record are released.51 In a 1922 letter to the Roscommon Herald, Gwynn wrote that ‘there was no harder working or more courageous N.C.O. in our battalion.’52 After his release from prison, McGowan served in both the Civic Guards and the National Army, but pursued neither occupation for long. In 1924, McGowan wrote of his poverty-stricken state in a letter forwarded to William T. Cosgrave: I served in National Army for 10 months I am in a bad fix and I was suffering from T.B. glands in Prison caused through my incarceration and I am not able to do much so if I got any assistance I could try and start for myself I am sleeping out and I am near starved I applied for the Guards and was not taken and several other jobs.53 In the summer of 1925, McGowan, who was unemployed, left his wife in Boyle and illegally entered the United States from Canada, where he had been working on a tobacco farm in Ontario. From November 1938, he served as a merchant seaman but by August 1940, he faced deportation from the United States after being treated for alcoholism at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Irish Consular authorities confirmed that McGowan was in fact a former Connaught Rangers mutineer, and arranged for him to receive his pension in New York. He continued to draw his pension until 1948, when the consulate reported in June that he had not requested his pension in six months and was considered ‘unaccounted for.’54 McGowan’s case illustrates two issues relating to the experience of the former Connaught Rangers in the Irish Free State. First, as his police and military service demonstrates, the Connaught Rangers may have expressed Irish patriotism, but they also tended to support the Irish Free State, rather than the Anti-Treaty cause. In 1922, 28 of the mutineers in Maidstone Prison had petitioned to be released so that they could join the Free State Army. In forwarding the petitions, a prison official commented that in these appeals they are almost identical in saying that the death of Michael Collins and Mr Griffith make them feel that their duty lies in supporting the Provisional Government of Ireland against the rebels, and

Illustration 1 Eamon de Valera and Gadar Party representatives, San Francisco, 1919. Credit: www.sikhpioneers.org

Illustration 2 Eamon de Valera’s speech on ‘India and Ireland,’ published by the Friends of Freedom for India (1920). Credit: Joseph McGarrity Collection. Digital Library@Villanova University

Illustrations 3 and 4 Cover and title page of Hindi translation of Dan Breen’s ‘My Fight for Irish Freedom,’ banned by the Government of India. Credit: Courtesy of the South Asia Microform Project (SAMP) of the Center for Research Libraries

Illustration 5 The sword and Irish flag de Valera received from the Gadar Party. Credit: Reproduced courtesy of UCD Archives and the UCD-OFM Partnership

Illustration 6 John Nicholson’s grave after 2006 restoration, Nicholson Cemetery, Delhi. Credit: The Author

Illustrations 7a. and 7b. (detail) Memorial to Nicholson by John Henry Foley, Lisburn Cathedral, Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Credit: The Author

Illustration 8 Nicholson as Imperial Hero: ‘The Lion of the Punjab.’ Credit: E-Gutenberg

Illustration 9 Nikalseynis worshipping John Nicholson. Credit: E-Gutenberg

Illustration 10 Author

Death of Nicholson, Bas-relief, Nicholson Statue, Lisburn. Credit: The

Illustration 11 Ceremony Marking the Centenary of John Nicholson’s Birth, Lisburn, 11 December 1922. Credit: Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum

Illustration 12 The Freeman’s Journal on the Connaught Rangers mutiny. Credit: The British Library

Illustration 13 The Connaught Rangers in India. James Daly is at the lower right. Credit: Courtesy of King House, Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland

Illustration 14 Private Daly prays in his cell in the ‘Fighting Men from Connaught’ exhibition at King House, Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland

Illustration 15 Connaught Rangers Cenotaph, Republican Plot, Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Credit: Stephanie Barczewski

Illustration 16 Memorial by Imogen Stuart to ‘the men of Westmeath and Offaly who died on Irish soil and foreign wars for independence,’ Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath, Ireland. Credit: The Author

Illustration 17 Remains of the Base of the Gough Statue, Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, England Credit: Stephanie Barczewski

Illustration 18 Barczewski

Restored Statue of Lord Gough, Chillingham Castle. Credit: Stephanie

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

149

they all with one exception give this as the reason they are asking for reconsideration of their sentences.55 The petition of Thomas Devine, one of the Solon mutineers, showed the way in which the Rangers blended their patriotism with loyalty to the Empire and a desire to serve what they regarded as the legitimate government of Ireland. Devine had been one of those to attack the magazine in an attempt to recapture the arms, shouting, ‘Let us charge them. It’s only blank [sic] they are firing.’56 In his petition, Devine stated that The reason that I got into this trubble was for my Country Sake and I think I have did nothing Disloyal. I have Faught in France and have been wounded on two different occasions in 1914 and 1915 and now I wish to show my loyalty to the Empire by giving my service to the Free State Army of Ireland. Several signed their petitions ‘God Save the King,’ while others combined tributes to Michael Collins with scorn for Eamon De Valera. Joseph Hawes wrote that he wished to join the National Army because of ‘the desolation and misery caused to my country by a Spanish adventurer De Velera [sic] and his followers,’ while Michael Kearney wrote of the ‘deep indignation at the atrocities which are being perpetrated by the followers of the renegade Spaniard Devalara [sic], and which culminated in the crowning piece of Bolshevism in the cruel murder of our dear leader Michael Collins.’57 Many of the former mutineers, like McGowan, did in fact continue their military careers in the National Army after their release in early 1923. In this respect as well their actions were similar to those of other British Army veterans in the Irish Free State who chose to serve in the new National Army. Indeed, until the end of the Civil War, British Army veterans, particularly those with specialist skills, were actively recruited by Richard Mulcahy and the National Army.58 A list compiled by the Irish Free State Government in 1925 stated that of 57 surviving Connaught Rangers mutineers, 23 had served in the National Army, while another nine had served in the Civic Guards.59 Eight of the former mutineers were still in military service in 1925, while seven still served in the Guards.60 Second, McGowan’s experience demonstrates that for a number of the mutineers, their experience in an independent Ireland was a life of poverty. The mutineers’ experience in this regard reflected the realities of the weak economic situation of the Irish Free State, in which there was scant industrial employment and little job creation in the 1920s.61 A number of mutineers in addition to McGowan clearly had difficulties in adjusting to life in Ireland in the 1920s. One former mutineer, James Casey, was arrested in Carrickon-Suir less than a year after his return to Ireland for throwing bricks and

150

Ireland and India

stones, and for threatening a woman with a revolver if she did not wash his clothes and give him dinner. In attempting to justify his conduct, Casey frequently referred to his experience in the mutiny and stated that ‘with all that he went through he had a bad head when he took drink.’62 In 1928, the secretary to William T. Cosgrave described John Flannery, who led the mutineers’ campaign for government pensions, as ‘a waster’ who had ‘got employment on two or three occasions but did not succeed in retaining it.’63 A 1925 government report did not list the occupations of most of the former mutineers, but noted that 14 of the men were ‘idle.’64 In 1933, the government noted that four former Rangers had died in Poor Law Unions, and that two of these men had left widows behind with five and six children, respectively. Six former Connaught Rangers resident in Dublin were listed as being out of work. One of them was a former farm laborer from Ballina, County Mayo, named James J. Devers, who had worn a Sinn Féin badge and taken part in the attack on the armory at Solon. After his release, Devers had joined the National Army, but had been discharged after a year because of poor health. Devers’ wife Mary was apparently unaware of his return to Ireland, and during his absence from Ballina married another man named Walsh. In 1925, a judge sentenced Mary Devers to one day of imprisonment for bigamy; her defense counsel pleaded that ‘her husband had failed to support her.’65 The couple reunited, but their financial situation was poor, and a government official described them as being in ‘desperate need.’66 In 1939, the republican and anti-imperial activist Maude Gonne MacBride attempted to intervene to gain additional relief for the couple. ‘It is sad,’ she wrote, ‘that a man with this record should have to apply for relief from his grateful country—but such is the case.’67

Pensions Given the generally poor post-mutiny fortunes of many of the Connaught Rangers, it is not surprising that efforts to earn recognition for their service in the cause of Irish independence focused for more than a decade on the issue of compensation rather than commemoration. Those arguing on behalf of the Connaught Rangers mutineers claimed that they deserved compensation from the Irish Free State—or at the very least relief from the state of poverty in which many found themselves.68 The first literary treatment of the events of the Mutiny, a three-act play entitled ‘Flag of India’ by M.P. O’Cearnaigh, was performed at a concert at the Royal Theatre in Dublin on 18 March 1928 in support of the ‘Connaught Rangers Distress Fund.’ The Irish Times observed that ‘well-known Dublin artists’ took part in the concert, including Miss Eily Power’s dancers and the St. James brass and reed band.69

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

151

In addition to the impoverished state of many of the mutineers, another reason for the focus on pensions and compensation rather than memorialization was the often contentious process of nationalist commemoration in the Irish Free State. This was a period characterized by what David Fitzpatrick has described as ‘the often painful and embarrassing experience of official commemoration in southern Ireland between 1922 and 1939.’70 The Irish Free State demonstrated a reluctance either to expend public funds on commemoration or revisit contentious issues in the recent Irish past. The Irish Civil War sharply divided Irish political life, while De Valera’s establishment of Fianna Fáil and its participation in parliamentary politics further split republicans. As Anne Dolan has demonstrated, this does not mean that efforts at commemoration were abandoned. Nonetheless, many efforts were halting and incomplete. The cenotaph erected on the lawn of Leinster House as a memorial to the Pro-Treaty dead of the Civil War was cheaply constructed and never replaced by a permanent structure.71 As Keith Jeffery notes, with the opening of the Irish National War Memorial at Islandbridge outside Dublin in 1939, those Irishmen who had fought with the British in the First World War were better commemorated than those who fought against them.72 In this context, in which commemorations of events as diverse as Armistice Day and the Easter Rising were marked by contention rather than consensus, a memorial to the mutineers who existed in, as one government official stated, ‘peculiar circumstances’ in the Free State, was unlikely to attract much interest.73 Instead, the issue of pensions was most prominent. Former Connaught Rangers mutineers played a prominent role in this campaign, beginning with the ‘Ex-Connaught Rangers Committee,’ an organization formed by John Flannery, a former corporal in the regiment at Jullundur. Flannery was a controversial figure, considered to be one of the ringleaders of the Jullundur mutiny and sentenced to life imprisonment for his role, but also regarded as a traitor by some of his comrades for testifying at their trial that he was merely trying to exercise a ‘moderating influence’ on the mutineers. A War Office summary of the trial at Jullundur described the ambiguous nature of Flannery’s role, noting that he ‘took command of the mutineers at Jullundur,’ and that ‘all negotiations between the Officers and the mutineers were conducted through him . . . His defense was that the part he took in the affair was not due to any sympathy with Sinn Fein, but to the fact that he knew he had influence among the men and that someone was needed to control them.’74 As head of the Ex-Connaught Rangers Committee, Flannery organized public meetings, wrote letters to the Irish Independent and aggressively lobbied Irish Free State President William Cosgrave. In March and April 1925, the Irish Independent published a series of articles on the Connaught Rangers mutiny. Ostensibly from an anonymous source, the articles were largely

152

Ireland and India

based on Flannery’s account.75 Public meetings resulted in resolutions such as the one passed at Foster Place in Dublin in July 1924, which was forwarded to Cosgrave by Flannery: That this public meeting of the Citizens of Dublin place on record our appreciation of the services rendered to the cause of Ireland by the Connaught Rangers in grounding Arms in India, June 1920 as a protest against the conditions prevailing in Ireland during the Black and Tan Terror, and we demand that those services should be adequately recognized.76 A resolution passed at an outdoor meeting on Upper O’Connell Street in February of the following year similarly praised the stand of the mutineers against ‘English barbarism’ and noted that ‘the men who suffered cruelty and long terms of imprisonment are in destitution . . . this treatment of Irish Valour and Chivalry must cease, and the claims of the Connaught Rangers 1920 Mutineers must be dealt with.’77 Flannery was clearly an erratic figure. In February 1928, he was arrested at the Queen’s Theatre in Dublin for possession of a revolver. Flannery claimed that the weapon was to create a realistic sound effect for an upcoming play (presumably ‘Flag of India’) about the Connaught Rangers. At his trial, when he stated that ‘the Free State Government had done nothing for these men,’ the magistrate interjected ‘that has nothing to do with this case’ and fined him 20 shillings.78 In spite of Flannery’s troubles, he succeeded in placing the Connaught Rangers mutiny on the public agenda. Until the end of 1932, however, the Irish Free State government maintained the position that the Connaught Rangers had contributed to the struggle for independence, but no more so that many Irish men and women who were members were not entitled to compensation for their role. In 1930, a motion in the Dáil to establish a select committee ‘to investigate and report as to the claim for compensation by way of pension or gratuity of certain members of the Connaught Rangers who mutinied in India in 1920’ was defeated by 68 votes to 57. The vote marked a clear division between pro- and anti-Treaty forces: while Cosgrave and members of Cumann na nGaedheal strongly opposed the motion, Eamon De Valera and his Fianna Fáil colleagues supported it.79 After Fianna Fáil was returned to power with an absolute majority in January 1933, a Committee of Inquiry was established that finally led to the Connaught Rangers (Pensions) Bill of 1936. The bill was introduced in the Dáil on 29 April 1936 and became law in July of the same year. The establishment of a pension for the surviving Connaught Rangers mutineers helped to clarify their ‘official’ role in the Irish struggle for independence. In spite of their problematic status as British army veterans, it placed the mutineers on a par with veterans of the Irish Republican Army as architects of an independent Ireland. The public debate surrounding the

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

153

Pensions Act also raised their profile as Irish national heroes. This was illustrated the following year when one of the mutineers, Valentine Delaney, served as the guest of honor at the second annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in Newark, New Jersey. A crowd estimated at more than 100,000 braved a driving snowstorm to watch over 25,000 marchers. Delaney, a native of County Mayo, had emigrated to New York, and his role in the mutiny had come to the attention of the parade’s organizing committee.80 As guest of honor of the St. Patrick’s Day committee, Delaney was introduced to those standing at both reviewing stands by the parade’s Grand Marshal, Domenic Walsh. Walsh’s praise was fulsome, if inaccurate. He credited Delaney with being the leader of the mutiny, along with Daly, and called him ‘probably the only Irishman to ever escape with his life after being sentenced to death before a British firing squad.’81 The story of the provision of pensions for the Connaught Rangers illustrates two important issues relating to their memory and commemoration in modern Ireland. First, by the late 1930s, the Connaught Rangers had received a measure of recognition from the Irish Free State as well as from the Irish people and Irish–Americans. Second, the efforts of the mutineers themselves to bring attention to their struggles on behalf of Ireland had an impact as well.

‘Brave Soldiers of Ireland’ With the Connaught Rangers’ contribution to the independence struggle officially acknowledged by their government pension, the efforts of former mutineers shifted to the establishment of a suitable memorial. Like the provision of pensions, this was to be a protracted process. According to the Irish Press, a number of mutineers contributed a share of their pensions toward the construction of a cenotaph, which was completed by 1938. However, it spent 11 years ‘lying in a sculptor’s yard in Dublin . . . until a place worthy of it could be found.’82 An organization known as the ‘Connaught Rangers’ Mutineers Association’ approached the Irish government in order to request a location for the cenotaph. On the one occasion in 1944 when the matter was raised in the Dáil, the Minister for Finance acknowledged that an application for a location for the memorial, ‘which would take the form of a stone on which is inscribed the incident of the mutiny and the names of those who were killed or executed,’ had been received from the Association, ‘who have been informed that consideration of the application must be deferred until the end of the present period of emergency.’83 It is not clear what became of the request, but by the late 1940s, the Connaught Rangers had enlisted the aid of an organization devoted to the memory of republican heroes, the National Graves Association (NGA). While the NGA was established in 1926 (as the National Graves and Monuments Committee) ‘to commemorate those who died in the cause of Irish

154

Ireland and India

freedom,’ the organization’s political orientation was strongly republican. Some members of the NGA refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Irish Free State.84 Initially, the NGA took a stance that ‘no memorials be erected’ on the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery ‘until the country was united,’ but was unable to enforce this principle without control of the Plot. In the 1930s, the NGA abandoned its stance against the erection of republican memorials in Glasnevin without the establishment of a 32 county republic, and for the following two decades focused instead on the establishment of memorials to ‘those who had died in the Irish republican cause.’85 As we have seen, many of the mutineers had displayed attitudes that are best described as pro-Treaty rather than republican. It should not be assumed, however, that all of the Connaught Rangers mutineers were supporters of the Irish Free State rather than the republican cause. Some displayed republican or strongly nationalist sentiments from the outset; others clearly shifted their beliefs over the decades between the mutiny and the establishment of the memorial. The mutineer Charles Kerrigan recalled that it was only while in prison that his compatriots obtained detailed information about the nature of the postwar conflict in Ireland, and began to formulate more sophisticated political views. As was the case with other efforts to suppress mutiny within the armed forces of the British Empire, the experience for some of the Connaught Ranger mutineers was a radicalizing one.86 Several mutineers had specific connections to the republican cause during the Anglo-Irish War. Joseph Hawes, one of the leaders of the Jullundur mutiny, had a brother in the IRA.87 Others, such as Joseph Walsh, had friends with republican connections. While Walsh was in prison in Liverpool, he corresponded with his friend James Clarke, who was detained at Ballylinlar Internment Camp.88 Corporal James Davis, who was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with labor for his role at Jullundur, escaped from Woking Prison in 1921 and less than a week later joined the Second Northern Division of the IRA and ‘took part in engagements against the Specials in the Sperrin Mountains.’89 The best example of a mutineer who in the decades after 1920 acquired strong republican convictions was Stephen Lally. A friend of Joseph Hawes and John Flannery, Lally had been raised in Workington in northeastern England, where his parents had emigrated from Ireland, and served in the Great War. Hawes later recalled that Lally was one of four soldiers, along with himself, C.P. Sweeney and Patrick Gogarty, who proceeded to the guardroom at Jullundur on the morning of 28 June 1920, and announced that ‘as a protest against British atrocities in Ireland we refuse to soldier any longer in the service of the King.’90 The War Office noted that Lally was ‘one of the first to volunteer for the guardroom’ and wore the ‘Sinn Fein rosette’; he was sentenced to 15 years’ penal servitude, a comparatively light sentence, given his prominent role.91

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

155

In August 1922, Lally was one of the 26 mutineers who petitioned the British Government to be released so that he might join the army of the Irish Free State. ‘The sad news of the shameful disorders in Ireland,’ he wrote, which recently culminated in the sad death of General Collins has filled me in common with every loyal Irish man with feelings of intense indignation and a burning desire to play my part in ridding the land of these Rebels and traitors who are bringing about her distress at the present time.92 At some point, however, Lally’s sympathies clearly shifted from the Free State to the republican cause, or else the pro-Treaty sentiments expressed in his prison petition were not sincere. In 1940, Lally’s wife wrote to Eamon DeValera, ‘You will Sir remember my husband as he was a great follower of you all his life.’93 In 1924, Lally composed a memoir of his experiences in the mutiny while stationed at Renmore Barracks in Galway. Lally claimed to have joined the Connaught Rangers in 1919, after his discharge from military service in the First World War, in order to build republican support within the Regiment. He maintained that he and other sympathetic soldiers had handed over rifles and ammunition to the IRA in Galway, and began ‘speaking secretly among the Connaught Rangers, rebellion and sedition till I had them all to a man in Galway in sympathy with the movement.’ Lally’s tale of his republican activities prior to the Connaughts’ posting in India may be a later interpolation, but what is certain is that Lally gave a copy of his memoir to the Galway Brigade of the IRA.94 By October 1924, Lally was serving as an intelligence operative for antiTreaty forces, and by 1925, he was Intelligence Officer of the Galway IRA. Lally, who married James Daly’s sister Margaret in 1923, later moved to Manchester, where he continued his IRA activities by serving as Intelligence Officer and later as commanding officer of the small IRA organization there. Shortly before the beginning of the Second World War, the Lallys were deported to Ireland. Less than a year after their arrival, Lally was briefly detained under wartime legislation. He wrote to the Commandant of the Curragh Barracks, where he was detained, that he had no connection with any Military body opposed to the Government. I am one of the Connaught Rangers Mutineers India 1920. My wife is the sister of James Joseph Daly who was executed for that mutiny. I am in receipt of a pension from the Government and if my release be granted my services are needed at home with my wife & family and disabled father. The Detention Commission set up to review appeals by detainees agreed that Lally posed no threat, and he was ordered to be released on 4 May 1940 after signing a standard undertaking that he would not ‘engage in any activity

156

Ireland and India

calculated to be prejudicial to the peace, order or security of the State.’95 After serving in the Defense Forces in Ireland during the Second World War, Lally returned to Manchester in the late 1940s. Although during the war Lally had informed Irish army intelligence about an IRA plan to attack convoys carrying ammunition from Northern Ireland to Éire, his continuing sympathies with republican and socialist politics were noted by the Irish Ambassador in London in 1953, who observed that Lally was a ‘prominent member’ of the socialist republican Connolly Association and a contributor to its newspaper, the Irish Democrat.96 Lally was acquainted with the Irish writer and former IRA member Brendan Behan, who described him as ‘a brave soldier of England and a very brave soldier of Ireland.’97 Thus, by the time the mutineers came to be honored with a permanent memorial, some of these former soldiers of the British Empire had developed strong republican loyalties.

Republican heroes The Connaught Rangers’ nascent status as heroes of the independence struggle was confirmed in 1949, when a Cenotaph in honor of the mutineers was unveiled at Glasnevin Cemetery on the anniversary of the mutiny, 26 June. Topped by a harp bordered with a Celtic design, the monument honored the members of the 1st Connaught Rangers Battalion ‘who gave their lives during the mutiny and subsequently for Irish freedom.’ The cenotaph was inscribed with eleven names: James Joseph Daly, who as we have seen was the only soldier to be executed; Peter Sears and Patrick Smythe, both of whom were shot during the mutiny at Solon; John Miranda, who died in Dagshai Prison; and seven other Connaught Rangers who had died after their release from prison.98 Mutineer Francis Kearney had the honor of unveiling the monument while three other mutineers formed a ‘guard of honor’: Joseph Hawes, Patrick Gogarty of Athlone and Stephen Lally of Manchester.99 In his remarks Kearney stated that ‘the heroic men who died there deserved commemoration amongst the long line of those who had given their lives for Ireland.’100 How were the ‘heroic men’ of the Connaught Rangers commemorated in comparison to those who came before them in giving their lives for Ireland? In many respects, the commemoration of the Connaught Rangers, in spite of the anomalous nature of their protest, was celebrated in stereotypically republican fashion. The inaugural ceremony at Glasnevin combined a number of elements of long-standing republican modes of commemoration. The ceremony strongly emphasized both Catholicism and a linkage of the mutineers with other republican heroes. Following a requiem mass at the Franciscan Church on Merchant’s Quay, members of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA, the Citizen Army, Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the NGA marched to the cemetery to airs played by the Dublin Girls’ Pipe Band and the Emerald Girl Pipers. Before the memorial was unveiled, a

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

157

decade of the rosary was recited in Irish, while the 12 members of the firing party were all veterans of the Easter Rising. The linkage of the mutineers with the republican cause was also forcefully articulated by Francis Kearney, secretary of the committee that organized the memorial, who stated that ‘the Rangers, in protest against British atrocities in their homeland, refused to serve under the British flag. They tore down the symbol of imperialism and raised the Tricolour of the Republic.’101 Republicans with linkages to 1916 were also prominent among the guests, including Sean Lemass, Senator Margaret Pearse (the sister of Patrick) and Captain Robert Monteith, who had accompanied Roger Casement on his mission to Ireland in 1916. As in many republican commemorations, the Last Post was played before wreaths were laid on the cenotaph by mutineers and their relatives.102 The emphasis of the ceremony described above was on the sacrifice of the mutineers in the service of the republican cause, and the modes in which the Connaught Rangers were honored were far from unique. Indeed, these commemorative practices owed much to the late nineteenth-century traditions of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, popularly known as the Fenians. In particular, they conformed to ideals of republican heroism, specifically the idea of sacrifice in the name of Ireland. The elaborate Fenian funerals of the nineteenth century—particularly those of Terence Bellew MacManus and the three ‘Manchester Martyrs’ of 1867—established what was to be a common pattern—the intertwining of nationalist politics and the commemoration of the dead—that was to continue well into the following century.103 As many historians have observed, the Victorians were obsessed with funerary culture, and the second half of the nineteenth century witnessed not only the growth of Irish nationalism, but also the development of elaborate political funerals.104 In this context, the Fenians helped to create ‘a Republican cult of revolutionary martyrdom,’ which Patrick Pearse and the martyrs of the 1916 Easter Rising amplified into a vision of shedding blood for redemption of the nation.105 Public commemorations of the martyrs of 1916 began soon after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. No ceremonies were held in 1923 during the Civil War, but in the following year began the tradition of marches to Glasnevin Cemetery to lay wreaths on the Republican Plot. These were organized by republicans, and the Irish Free State government played no role. The 1930s featured two rival parades. One was organized by the semi-official National Commemoration Committee and attended by de Valera and Fianna Fáil T.D.s, who marched to Arbor Hill, where the executed leaders of 1916 leaders were buried. The second, organized by republican groups, including the IRA, marched to Glasnevin.106 One element that was consistently emphasized in public commemorations of Irish republicans throughout the twentieth century was self-sacrifice, defined as martyrdom in the service of the nation.107 As Anne Dolan has observed, ‘The nation could not be born without blood and suffering. While

158

Ireland and India

Ireland was not alone in this . . . the dead had a special place in Ireland.’108 The Connaught Rangers mutineers embraced this self-sacrificial republican ethos, and were celebrated for it. One of the earliest poetic tributes to the mutineers appeared in the Roscommon Herald shortly after the return of the mutineers to Ireland in January 1923: Minced with bullets, their comrade’s Living flesh Is spat into their face, As if to crush their Irish hearts Or kill the spirit of their race. Hopelessly the ruse met blank dismay, Their determination stronger grew. Their vows were made and sealed that day To die for Roísín Dubh Had not kind Providence stepped in And saved them from their doom, Their hearts would now be lying still Within the convict’s tomb109 The Connaught Rangers became so identified with the rebels of 1916 that many thought their protest took place during or in direct response to the Easter Rising. When the Grand Marshal introduced Connaught Ranger Valentine Delaney at the 1937 St. Patrick’s Day parade in Newark, he referred to him as ‘one of the organizers of the revolt of the Connaught Rangers in the 1916 rebellion.’110 In a note to his composition ‘The Connaught Rangers,’ the singer and songwriter Dominic Behan, the brother of Brendan, similarly set the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in 1916.111 Even members of the Dáil were sometimes confused about this issue. In February 1966, a spirited exchange took place in the Dáil on the issue of whether any commemorations in 1966 were to be devoted to the mutineers. Michael O’Leary asked the Minister for External Affairs ‘whether any arrangements have been made with the Indian Government to commemorate the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers who 50 years ago made their historic gesture in sympathy with the 1916 leaders.’ Even though the Taoiseach, Sean Lemass, pointed out that the mutiny took place four years after the Rising, O’Leary still insisted that ‘specific reference should be made to this mutiny.’112 The dead, as we shall see, came to occupy an increasingly important place in the commemoration of the Connaught Rangers mutiny, and ceremonies came to focus on the sacrifice of the one soldier who was executed for his role in the protests: Private James Joseph Daly. With the establishment of both pensions and a public memorial to the Connaught Rangers, surviving mutineers and republicans began to call for the return to Ireland of Daly’s

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

159

remains. Just as attention had shifted from the practical matter of compensation for the surviving mutineers to the commemoration of their deeds within a framework of republican ceremony, the focus of commemoration shifted once again. More strongly than ever, the focus came to be on the sacrifice of the mutineers, and in particular on the death of James Joseph Daly.

The repatriation of James Joseph Daly James Joseph Daly, the only soldier executed for his role in the Connaught Rangers mutiny, typifies the ambiguous nature of the protest, and in a broader sense the nature of Irish military service in the British Empire. Daly’s family combined Irish nationalist convictions and a tradition of service in the British Army. Daly was born in the town of Ballymoe in County Galway, and spent his youth in the town of Tyrellspass in County Westmeath, where his father was a baker. Daly’s father had served in the British Army, and during the First World War he returned to service in a field bakery in France. Daly’s three elder brothers, Paddy, William and John, served in the artillery, transport and infantry, respectively.113 James Daly continued this family tradition of soldiering: he enlisted in the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the First World War at the age of 16, although his mother’s objections ended his service. Daly re-enlisted in 1919 in the Connaught Rangers; in a photo taken in India prior to the mutiny, he is wearing the General Service and Victory medals awarded to British soldiers on active service in the First World War.114 While there are many points of disagreement on the motives of the Connaught Rangers between the principal historians of the mutiny, they all agree that Daly, in spite of his zeal to enlist in the British Army, held strong republican convictions.115 Frank Geraghty of Castleblayney, County Monaghan, who was one of the two men dispatched to bring word of the Jullundur mutiny to the Connaught Rangers stationed at Solon, approached Daly, whom he regarded as ‘the most competent man’ and ‘inclined to the republican movement.’116 At the time of the mutiny, Daly was 20 and had enlisted in the army just over a year before. Described by a fellow private as a ‘hot-head’ who generally kept to himself, Daly’s military service seems to have been uneventful prior to beginning of the mutiny.117 He quickly emerged, however, as the leader of the events at Solon. At the court martial hearing, Major W.N.S. Alexander recalled how his efforts to dissuade the mutineers from their refusal to parade on the morning of 1 July 1920 were impeded by Daly: A man named Daly stood in front of the parade; he informed me that similar action would be taken simultaneously by every Irish Regiment in the Army, and that the news would be published in every paper in the United Kingdom: whatever influence I had said may have had on the less determined of the mutineers was promptly wiped out by this man.

160

Ireland and India

Immediately afterward, Colonel Woodbridge, the commanding officer of the Ambala Brigade, also attempted to persuade the mutineers to cease, but ‘Daly intervened and succeeded in wiping out the good impression made.’118 In his summing up at the court martial, the Judge Advocate said of Daly, ‘It would take too much of your time if I read you all the evidence regarding this accused but every witness who has been asked the question has stated that he was the ringleader of the mutineers.’119 One of the most baffling aspects of the mutiny was the decision by soldiers, led by Daly, to attempt to recapture their rifles from the barracks’ magazine shortly after they had surrendered them. On the night of 1 July 1920, two days after the mutiny began, approximately 20 men, led by Daly, rushed the armory. This resulted in the death of one mutineer, the wounding of another and the accidental shooting of a third soldier who was watching the proceedings. Afterward, according to one witness, Daly shouted, ‘I challenge any one to combat with a naked bayonet, if you want to know who the leader is, its [sic] Number so and so Pte. J. Daly comes from Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland.’120 News of Daly’s execution was reported in Irish newspapers, and public commemoration of Daly began in his home county of Westmeath just over a month after his execution. The Westmeath Examiner published a pair of letters, one from Daly and one from the Catholic Chaplain at Dagshai, A.M. Correigh, informing his parents of the execution. This early commemoration took a different form, however, than later portrayals of Daly as a stereotypical republican hero. The initial focus was on his Catholic faith and the suffering of his family; Daly’s nationalist convictions and his embrace of ‘dying for Ireland’ were mentioned, but in a more muted fashion than in later accounts. The Westmeath Examiner referred to Daly’s last letter to his mother as ‘heartbroken and pathetic.’ Father Corryea informed his father that ‘your son met his death like a brave Catholic soldier.’ The chaplain’s letter sought to assuage the grief of Daly’s parents by assuring them of the devout nature of his faith and his hope of ultimate salvation. His last words, according to the chaplain, were ‘Jesus, mercy, receive my soul.’ ‘I know this letter will wring your heart with sorrow,’ Corryea wrote, ‘but you will draw consolation from our holy faith. Jim is gone to Heaven a little before you.’121 In a similar vein was a letter published in the Westmeath Examiner the following February from a fellow mutineer, apparently written while the soldier was being transported to England to serve out his sentence of five years’ penal servitude. The anonymous Connnaught Ranger wrote of Daly’s bravery, saying that a British officer said that Daly ‘had walked to death just as if he were walking to a football match.’ But his main purpose was to assuage the grief of Daly’s parents by reassuring them that their son ‘died a martyr and a saint,’ and that his grave was well looked after. The soldier enclosed a cigarette which Daly had handed to the priest at his execution and ‘a bit of the palm tree which is over his grave.’122

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

161

The presence of Irish patriotism was muted in these early accounts, which were intended primarily for the private audience of Daly’s family. What is most notable are efforts to bridge the distance between Daly’s family in Tyrrellspass and their son’s burial site in northern India: the bit of palm tree from his grave, the cigarette and a story told by the chaplain of children placing flowers on Daly’s grave. To be sure, the bravery of Daly’s death was stressed, but this seems to have been done primarily to console his family; there was little talk of Daly ‘Dying for Ireland.’ Daly’s last letter as reprinted in the county newspaper included an expression of patriotism, saying of his death that ‘it is all for Ireland,’ but also regrets that he had become involved in the mutiny: ‘I wish to the Lord that I had not started on getting in to this trouble at all. I would have been better off. But it is done now, and I have to suffer.’123 This final line was often omitted from future accounts.124 The James Joseph Daly of these early accounts is therefore not a stereotypical republican martyr. In these first public accounts of the Daly’s death, the closer parallel was to the private bereavement of the families of those killed in the Great War rather than the public commemorations of Republican martyrs such as Kevin Barry and Terence MacSwiney, whose deaths occurred roughly contemporaneously with Daly’s. The families of British soldiers killed in the Great War, as Jay Winter has observed, displayed a concern with commemoration on a ‘much more intimate level.’125 This mode of commemoration was particularly important because soldiers’ bodies were not normally repatriated. War memorials thus served an important role for grieving families, functioning as ‘surrogate graves,’ which, through visits and Remembrance Day ceremonies, could enable ‘the bereaved to grieve and try to make sense of, or at least come to terms with, their loss.’126 The return of belongings also took on great significance in this context. Daly’s possessions, which were returned to his family in Tyrrellspass, still retained emotional significance even decades later. Almost 60 years after his execution, Daly’s sister showed a reporter a copy of his prayer book with blood-stained pages, which he had apparently been holding at the time of his execution.127 By the following year, however, the representation of James Daly had shifted markedly. On the first anniversary of his execution, the Westmeath Examiner printed a letter to Daly’s parents from John Fitzpatrick, one of the Dublin Fusiliers who had engaged in the St. Patrick’s Day protest and been detained at Dagshai Prison. In ways similar to the chaplain and anonymous Connaught Ranger, Fitzpatrick sought to reassure Daly’s parents about their son’s final resting place. He described the location of the grave in Dagshai cemetery and noted that ‘it is well looked after by an Indian.’ Yet, clearly Daly’s death was already entering the realm of myth. Fitzpatrick claimed that, inspired by Daly, he had been ‘charged with mutiny and sedition’ and ‘having in my possession a rebel flag, revolvers and ammunition.’ The James Daly described by Fitzpatrick was also not only an ascetic and devout Catholic who periodically fasted on bread and water and received

162

Ireland and India

communion every morning for ‘some time’ before his execution, but a committed nationalist, who ‘knew and gloried in the thought that “it was all for Ireland” ’ and whose favorite saying was ‘revenge for Balbriggan,’ a reference to Black and Tan reprisals in a County Dublin town in which over 50 buildings were destroyed and two civilians killed in retaliation for the shooting of a Royal Irish Constabulary officer.128 Daly also, according to Fitzpatrick, ‘often spoke at some length on the condition of Ireland, and he mentioned the ruined Irish industries, backward education and other important things, and strongly condemned England’s treatment of this country.’129 In the same issue of the Westmeath Examiner appeared a ballad written by J.C. Keane of Tyrrellspass. In this ballad, Daly was, as in Fitzpatrick’s letter, transformed from an obscure soldier to a republican hero, ‘The Martyr of Jallandor.’ [sic] Replete with image of self-sacrifice, Keane’s ballad narrated how the Connaught Rangers, hearing ‘the story of Ireland’s brave fight . . . rose in defense of the right’: They failed—and their hopes swiftly perished— Though true until death they had stood— And the dream-light of freedom they cherished Shone red through their young leader’s blood. The Daly of Keane’s ballad, like the Daly of Private Fitzpatrick’s letter, frequently expressed republican sentiments: To his mother he wrote a last letter, And he said, ‘Dearest mother, good-bye Than to live as a slave ‘tis far better In the cause of old Ireland to die. The author ended with a plea for the people of Ireland to keep Daly’s memory alive, even though his body was far from Ireland: His ashes—alas! he lies sleeping— Afar o’er the ocean’s wild tide; But his memory green we are keeping In the old land for which he has died; And Ireland’s true sons and true daughters A prayer for Jim Daly shall breathe, Who sleeps by the Ganges’ dark waters, So far from his own loved Westmeath.130 Within a year after his death Daly was thus well on the way to being transformed into a martyr for the republican cause.

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

163

Daly’s sacrifice was acknowledged in the efforts to secure pensions for the mutineers. In 1925, when the issue of government compensation for the surviving mutineers was first raised, John Flannery and other members of the Ex-Connaught Rangers Committee also lobbied for compensation for Daly’s mother. Through the efforts of the committee and P.W. Shaw, the Cumann na nGaedheal T.D. from Mullingar, she was awarded £40 in a series of payments from the Prime Minister’s special fund in 1925 and 1926.131 In April 1925, Mrs. Daly was introduced at the Cumann na nGaedheal meeting in Mullingar, which provided an opportunity for Shaw to relate the story of Daly’s sacrifice, already identifying him as protesting against the actions of the Black and Tans: Here was a sad story, one which should thrill the heart of every Irishman. Her son, who was executed, as a result of what was known as the Connaught Rangers Mutiny, was a soldier at the time in the British Army and was in India. In that far off land he heard of the deeds at home, of the ‘Black and Tans.’ He heard of the burnings of Balbriggan and Cork, and of many another horror and atrocity in Ireland, where Irishmen were scourged by a country which spoke of the Independence of small Nationalities. Young Daly heard in India of all these things and he remembered too, that he was called on to fight for the independence of small Nations, and when he thought of it all he threw down his arms, and got his comrades to do the same.132 Mrs. Daly received great applause when she appeared on the stage to say, ‘I am proud he died for Ireland, and he was no spy (applause). That’s all I’ll say, as I’m not much to talk.’ Shaw suggested starting a public fund for Mrs. Daly, stating that ‘it was a terrible and shameful thought that she should be almost thrown out on the roadside in the midst of her own people and country, when her son had made so bravely, the supreme sacrifice, as a protest against Ireland’s treatment at the time.’ Daly’s mother died in 1930, but the pension established for the Connaught Rangers mutineers in 1936 included a weekly allowance for his father. A Department of Defense memorandum noted that the amendment was inserted on the grounds that ‘the part played by Private Daly deserves some recognition by the State, and that the best manner of doing so is to provide for his aged father.’133 The most sustained expression of the recognition of Daly’s sacrifice, however, were the calls for the return of his remains to Ireland. Death and self-sacrifice became central to the republican understanding of the mutiny. Without the execution of Daly, the Connaught Rangers mutiny would never have achieved even the modest place it came to occupy in republican lore. In republican memory of the mutiny, the crucial element became the sacrifice of Daly and other Connaught Rangers—the other three soldiers who died in 1920 and, as the years passed, those who died subsequently—in the

164

Ireland and India

nationalist cause. Daly’s sacrifice was linked to a tradition of republican martyrdom. Dorothy Macardle’s The Irish Republic (1937) quoted an anonymous member of the Connaught Rangers as giving the following explanation for Daly’s execution: ‘It is for Emmet’s crime.’134 This emphasis on sacrifice, and on Daly’s sacrifice in particular, was given particular expression with the annual commemoration ceremonies which took place at the Connaught Rangers’ cenotaph in Glasnevin. The cenotaph to the Connaught Rangers at Glasnevin was unveiled on 27 June 1949, the anniversary of the beginning of the mutiny at Jullundur, but the annual commemoration ceremonies took place on the 2nd of November, the date of Daly’s execution.135 The cenotaph sometimes came to be referred to as ‘a memorial stone to the memory of James J. Daly of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny.’136 After the ceremony in 1955, Joseph Hawes observed that it ‘again reminds us of our duty to our dead comrades whose bones are interred so far from their native land.’137 The 1960 ceremony was organized by the Connaught Rangers Memorial Committee and the Dublin Brigade Council of the IRA. The attendees met at the cemetery gate and marched to the memorial in the Republican plot, where Stephen Lally read out the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic in the presence of the color brigade of the IRA, which included 1916 veteran Edward Lane, and ‘paid tribute to all Irishmen at home and overseas who gave their lives for Ireland.’138 Commemoration of the Connaught Rangers mutiny thus came to celebrate the mutineers as ‘republican dead.’ Originally, the Connaught Rangers’ cenotaph in Glasnevin Cemetery was inscribed with the names of the Daly and the other three men who were identified as fellow victims of the mutiny: Peter Sears, Patrick Smyth and John Miranda. Over the years, the names of the Connaught Rangers who had subsequently died were inscribed on the monument. By the time of the commemoration ceremony in November 1961, the names of seven other deceased mutineers had been added, and the Dublin Brigade of the IRA appealed to the public to submit the names of others who had died so that they might be inscribed as well.139 After 1949, surviving mutineers and republicans began to call for the return of the bodies of Daly and other mutineers to Ireland. As with the commemoration of Daly’s sacrifice, calls for the return of his body were a part of a republican tradition that traced its origins back to the nineteenth century. As Pauric Travers has observed, tradition was established by the public funerals of nationalists such as Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell and the Fenian Terence Bellew MacManus, all of whom died outside of Ireland. Their remains were buried, with great ceremony, in Glasnevin Cemetery. The funeral of MacManus was particularly precedent-setting, in that the remains of the Fenian were exhumed and returned to Ireland for re-burial, an effort coordinated by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The funeral of MacManus set a precedent for the idea that those who died for the nationalist cause

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

165

outside of Ireland should be returned for reinterment.140 In 1934, a ‘Roger Casement Remains Repatriation Committee’ was formed in London to lobby for the remains of the nationalist, who was buried in London’s Pentonville Prison after his execution on 3 August 1916.141 As discussed in Chapter 3, in an imperial context, graves in distant lands could be a source of pride, even in the postcolonial era. For nationalists, however, the return of heroes who were buried overseas became a patriotic imperative. As the Irish Press editorialized in 1954, ‘A nation possesses in the graves of its dead an assurance of its own permanence.’142 In the twentieth century, one of the most aggressive proponents of this ideal was the NGA, which by the 1950s had come to champion the repatriation of remains of republican heroes.143 In 1976, the NGA noted with pride that they had ‘made all of the arrangements for’ the repatriation of several Irish nationalists. These included Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, who assassinated Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson in 1922 and who were reinterred in the Republican Plot in Deansgrange Cemetery, Blackrock, County Dublin, in 1967. In the 1960s, a decade which the NGA regarded as one of its most fruitful, the organization also became deeply involved in the repatriation of the remains of James Joseph Daly and several other Connaught Rangers mutineers.144 The issue of the return of Daly’s body was first raised publicly in 1924, when the mutineer Joseph Walsh wrote to the Irish Independent, requesting the surviving mutineers to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the execution of James Daly by attending a Mass on 2 November. Walsh also expressed the hope that Daly’s body might one day be returned to Ireland, stating, ‘It is a pity that his remains are not buried in the land he loved so much.’145 As with the campaigns for pensions and a Connaught Rangers memorial, surviving mutineers like Walsh provided the impetus for public interest in repatriation, and something approximating a public campaign for the return of Daly’s remains began to develop during the 1950s. In the early years of the decade, Joseph Hawes and Stephen Lally became the two most visible spokesmen for the cause. Lally corresponded with both the Government of India and the Irish Government in his effort ‘to bring this noble martyr’s remains home and his comrades back to the land for which they died.’146 Although Hawes and Lally agreed on their objective, however, they did not agree on the way to achieve it. In 1955, Hawes objected to a proposed meeting in Dublin to appeal for funds for bring Daly’s remains home. ‘If this native Government of ours does not think sufficient of their memory,’ he wrote in the Irish Press, ‘to bring back their remains for burial in their native soil, then leave them in peace in India, and don’t make them the subject of street corner collections in Dublin and anywhere else.’147 Lally and James J. Devers wrote to reassure Hawes that ‘this great work is the duty of all the Nation,’ and that ‘no individual or political parties will use Daly’s great sacrifice for political ends.’ They added that the IRA veterans of

166

Ireland and India

Offaly and Westmeath and two local T.D.s, both of whom were IRA veterans, were leading the efforts.148 The Offaly-Westmeath Old IRA Memorial Committee voted in June 1954 to petition the Irish government to return the remains of Daly and the other mutineers buried in India to Ireland.149 This inspired a number of resolutions that were passed by local government bodies in the following years requesting the Irish Government ‘to take steps to have the remains of the late James Daly and his comrades of the Connaught Rangers who were executed for their part in the Mutiny in India, 1921, in protest against the Black and Tan atrocities in Ireland, returned to Irish soil for reinterment.’150 The first such measure was passed unanimously by the Offaly County Council in August 1954. Council members strongly expressed the sentiment that since ‘the British had now scuttled out of India as they had scuttled out of this part of Ireland,’ an independent India would give a sympathetic hearing to a request for repatriation. Charles Kelly, who presented the proposal, a member of the Offaly-Westmeath Old IRA Memorial Committee, expressed the hope that decades of Indo-Irish nationalist solidarity would ease the process of Daly’s repatriation: The people of India, like the people of Ireland, had succeeded in asserting their independence and raising the flag of Indian independence all over that great land. They now had their own Government and he was sure what if their Minister made an appeal to a friendly Government in India, would meet with sympathetic consideration because the Indians knew what it was to suffer and die as the people in Ireland knew it.151 The Offaly County Council’s motion was adopted by the county councils in Limerick and Wicklow in the following month,152 while the Birr Urban District Council in County Offaly also asked the Minister for External Affairs to communicate ‘with the Government of India with a view to having the remains of the late Patrick Daly [sic] brought to Ireland for burial.’153 In the following year, Sean McGuinness of Kilbeggan, County Westmeath (another member of the Offaly-Westmeath Old IRA Memorial Committee), who was later to assume leadership of the NGA, expressed the hope that Daly’s remains could be returned ‘for burial in Tyrrellspass before the installation of the Memorial to honor him and others by our President and all parties perhaps the year end.’154 The attitude of successive Irish governments to these entreaties was, at best, lukewarm. Although a Department of External Affairs official observed in 1955 that ‘the successful repatriation of the remains might be the occasion for a national ceremony and would cause great rejoicing in the WestmeathLongford area,’ the government gave little attention to the issue for over a decade.155 One reason was that enquiries to the Government of India, far from generating the anti-imperial solidarity that the Offaly County Council

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

167

expected, instead generated a reply that ‘the British Government was the proper authority to consider the question, because the cemetery at Dagshai was handed over to the British Government in 1948 for maintenance.’ A Department of External Affairs official observed that ‘the question is obviously a delicate one for the Indians. If, however, they are at all mindful of their own history, they should be sympathetic to our point of view.’156 The Irish Government decided that any approaches to the British Government should be made through Indian authorities. This was not a particularly surprising decision, specifically in light of the negative response Irish officials had earlier received from the War Office in their attempts to obtain a list of mutineers for the purpose of determining eligibility for pensions under the 1936 Act. After several attempts, J.W. Dulanty, the Irish High Commissioner in London, wrote, ‘I doubt the advisability of a further approach to the British War Office on the Connaught Rangers question since I gather we should draw only the same reply which that Office made previously.’157 Even in the late 1950s, the Connaught Rangers mutiny could be a sensitive issue in Anglo-Irish relations. In 1959, the British Embassy in Dublin was alarmed to read a press report that Col. F.W. O’Brien, the Military Attaché to the United States Ambassador, had laid a wreath on the Connaught Rangers cenotaph at Glasnevin (which a British diplomat referred to as the ‘James Joseph Daly Memorial’). G. Kimble of the British Embassy in Dublin wrote, ‘I find it difficult to understand how a serving officer in any army could take part in a ceremony in honour of a mutineer, particularly when the soldier in question was in the army of an ally.’ Kimble went on to state that the embassy would be confronted with ‘extremely embarrassing questions’ over the issue from ex-servicemen’s organizations and individual army veterans, as well as the danger that ‘some Irish, including presumably the Minister for Defense who was at the ceremony, will probably read more into O’Brien’s action than was intended.’158 Although the Department of External Affairs (DEA) suggested a personal approach to the wife of Jawaharlal Nehru by the Irish ambassador in London, the generally unsympathetic response of Indian authorities gave little incentive for further overtures from the Irish government. One DEA official observed in 1956 that ‘it is quite clear that the Indian authorities have no desire to help in this matter.’159 In addition, what public pressure there was for the repatriation of Daly had begun to ebb by the early 1960s. A DEA official noted that ‘the local committee in Tyrrellspass has lost interest—we have not heard about them for years,’ and concluded that ‘the pressure to repatriate the remains of James Joseph Daly is hardly strong enough to warrant further action on our part.’160 What changed matters was the repatriation of the remains of other more prominent Irish republicans, first those of Sir Roger Casement in 1965, and two years later those of Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan.161 The process by which this took place was a protracted one, particularly in the case

168

Ireland and India

of Casement, whose homosexuality and desire to be buried near his family’s home in County Antrim in Northern Ireland greatly complicated matters for both the British and the Irish governments.162 The establishment of a burial site for Casement in Glasnevin Cemetery was of decisive importance in the ultimately successful negotiations for the return of his remains; the British Cabinet agreed in 1965 to the repatriation of Casement’s remains only on the grounds that they would be buried in the Republic of Ireland, rather than in Northern Ireland, a request to which the Irish government readily acceded.163 Casement’s burial at Glasnevin Cemetery, however, did not resolve the status of the repatriation of other Irish patriots buried overseas. The initial position of the Irish government was that the repatriation of Casement in fact precluded the return of the remains of Daly, or anyone else who died abroad for Ireland. In 1966, Róisín Nic Aongus of the Ministry for External Affairs stated in reply to an enquiry from E. Sweeney of the Federation of IRA 1916–21 that the return of Daly’s body ‘would create a precedent and the Government could not undertake to repatriate the remains of all who served the cause of Irish freedom and died abroad.’ ‘The Government,’ Nic Aongus added, ‘regarded the repatriation of the remains of Roger Casement as having a symbolic significance extending to all Irish patriots interred abroad.’164 In the same year, a DEA official expressed the fear that, if Daly’s body were repatriated, ‘the door would then be open to applications from the next of kin of Irishmen buried in various quarters of the globe who could just as legitimately be regarded as patriots or martyrs in the cause of Irish freedom,’ including ‘cases involving patriots who died abroad many decades ago.’165 Proponents of the reinterment of Daly’s body, including surviving members of his family, took a different view. In 1965, the Federation of Old IRA 1916–21 corresponded with Daly’s sister Teresa Maher about the return of Daly’s body. Maher gave her enthusiastic assent to the idea: ‘As when we got Rodger [sic] Casement back I did say now maybe they will bring back Jim’s remains so I hope he will be back for the 1916 Commemoration or the near future if it can be done.’166 Following the repatriation of the remains of Dunne and O’Sullivan in 1967, Maher asked the T.D. Brendan Crinion, ‘Now I was disappointed by this mornings news, two Irish men’s remains are to be brought back from England is not one Irish man as good as another.’167 In the mid-1960s, the Irish government began to make efforts to ensure that the grave sites in Dagshai Cemetery were maintained adequately. In 1965, one ‘Brother Doyle’ alerted the Minister for Education of the poor condition of Daly’s grave. After partition and independence in 1947, Christian cemeteries such as Dagshai were placed under the control of the Government of India, while their maintenance was under the authority of the British High Commission in New Delhi. This was normally entrusted to ‘cemetery committees’ of local Christians whose funds were extremely limited. In 1956, the British High Commission proposed closing two cemeteries

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

169

in Dagshai, including the one where Daly and Miranda were buried, and allowing them to ‘revert to nature,’ but was persuaded by church authorities in India to allow a cemetery committee in the hill station of Kasauli, about ten miles away, to assume the supervision and maintenance.168 In 1967, the DEA noted, however, that funds to maintain cemeteries such as Dagshai had been completely exhausted for seven years.169 The following year, the First Secretary of the Irish Embassy in New Delhi secured the consent of the local cemetery committee and the local bishop for the exhumation of the remains of Daly and Miranda, but the Irish Ambassador, Valentin Iremonger, displayed little enthusiasm for the idea. ‘So far as the Government is concerned,’ he wrote, ‘it will be sufficient for the Embassy to be given authority to pay for the maintenance of the graves for the next few years. The grave yards visited by Mr. Drury are going back to nature and soon there will be no more.’170 Although the Irish Ambassador’s observations may have been an accurate assessment of the condition of Dagshai cemetery, they ignored the fact that within Ireland, the campaign to repatriate Daly’s body was once again gaining momentum. In addition to numerous press accounts, the Sligo journalist T.P. Kilfeather published a strongly nationalist account of the 1920 mutiny. Kilfeather had one main purpose: to persuade the Irish people ‘to seek the return of the remains of Private James Daly for re-burial in his native land— for this young Connaught Ranger played his part unto death in the Fight for Irish Freedom.’171 A few months after the Irish Ambassador’s report, the Irish government agreed in principle to repatriate Daly’s body. A DEA official noted that all of the men who were executed between 1916 and 1921 following courts martial had been buried in Ireland, with the exception of Casement, who had already been repatriated, and listed the reasons for his body’s return: There is, therefore, a case for the repatriation of the remains of Private Daly. The State has already taken official cognizance of the mutiny by awarding pensions to the surviving mutineers so that by extension there is also a case of State repatriation and burial of Pvt. Daly’s remains it being fairly clear that while he may not have been the leader of the whole mutiny, he appears to been the leader at Solon and led the attack on the magazine. One may anticipate that with the fifteenth anniversary of the mutiny occurring in June, 1970 there may be considerable pressure for repatriation of the remains of Daly and/or his comrades. In addition, we have been approached by his next of kin among others to arrange repatriation.172 Initially, the Irish Government agreed to repatriate the remains of Daly alone, because his execution placed him in a ‘special category,’ and because he was the only one of the four Connaught Rangers who died in India whose

170

Ireland and India

next-of-kin had petitioned for his return.173 But by the following year, the Irish government had agreed to repatriate the remains of Sears and Smythe as well. In part, this was due to the campaign of the NGA, which argued strenuously that not only the body of Daly, but those of Sears, Smythe and Miranda should be repatriated. At a meeting with Government representatives in February 1970, members of the NGA argued that not only the Connaught Rangers Association (CRA), but also ‘public opinion in the country would demand that the remains of all four be repatriated.’ While acknowledging that ‘special consideration’ would have to be given to the case of the Englishman John Miranda, the NGA argued that precedent set in the repatriation of Reginald Dunne, one of Sir Henry Wilson’s assassins, who had no living relatives and was born outside Ireland, meant that Miranda should be repatriated: ‘Regarding the repatriation of the remains of Pvt. Miranda . . . the question was no different from that of the repatriation of the remains of Reginald Dunne, who was also born in England.’174 Further, the NGA claimed at a press conference that Miranda—in the republican tradition— had died of a hunger strike, although the reality was that he died of enteric fever in Dagshai prison.175 Of the four Connaught Rangers who had died in India, Miranda was the only one whose body was ultimately not brought to Ireland. No relatives had ever approached the Irish government about the return of his remains, and so little was known about him that the Irish consular official who toured Dagshai cemetery in 1969 found no evidence that he was an Irishman. He speculated that Miranda was an Indian Catholic, possibly from Goa, and that he may have had his own patriotic motives: ‘The fact that Miranda took part in what was, for the majority of the mutineers, a protest against Black and Tan atrocities in Ireland does not rule out the possibility that his motives were those of a patriotic Indian—the massacre at Amritsar had occurred only a year before.’176 The reality was more prosaic. Rather than an Indian forging solidarity with Irish mutineers, Miranda was an Englishman born in Liverpool who for unknown reasons sided with the mutineers. Once this became known, the repatriation of an Englishman who seemed to have no family or family connections to Ireland seemed pointless.177 The NGA was forced to alter their plans for Daly’s repatriation out of respect for the wishes of his family. Initially, the NGA argued that Daly should be reinterred at the site of the Connaught Rangers Cenotaph in Glasnevin Cemetary. The DEA, however, pointed out that former Connaught Rangers mutineer Stephen Lally, Daly’s brother-in-law, had asked that he be buried in Tyrrellspass.178 The Irish government, which viewed the requests of family members as an important element of the case for Daly’s repatriation, took the consistent stand that the family’s wishes regarding the burial site should be respected.179

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

171

While some national attention focused on the return of the bodies of the three Connaught Rangers in October 1970, the event had by far the most impact in Tyrrellspass, the town where Daly’s family had lived prior to his enlistment in the British Army and where his relatives still resided. The expenses of repatriating Daly, Sears and Smythe, as well as Daly’s headstone, were borne by the state, but residents of Tyrrellspass contributed to a subscription fund as well. The commemoration of Daly began even before his body was returned to Ireland on 26 October 1970. On 30 August, a memorial was unveiled on the green in Tyrrellspass ‘in memory of the men of Westmeath and Offaly who died on Irish soil and foreign wars for independence.’ Daly was one of the six men whose names were inscribed on the memorial. (The other five were men killed on the Anti-Treaty side during the Civil War.)180 A crowd estimated at around 2000 witnessed the unveiling of the memorial, which depicted three children of ‘pre-teen ages’ on their way to school, by the German-born sculptor Imogen Stuart of Sandycove, Dublin. Stuart, an artist who had produced a number of works of religious and public sculpture, persuaded the organizing committee ‘not to add to the already long list of uniformed-gunman statues commemorating patriots throughout the country and, instead, to honour the dead who laid down their lives so that others could live by erecting a statue to the younger generation who were ultimately the greatest beneficiaries of their sacrifice.’181 But while the imagery of the monument invoked hope for a peaceful future, the speeches at the ceremony sounded a martial note. In addition to calling for national unity and a revival of the Irish language, speakers praised the sacrifice of Daly in the republican cause. Old IRA leader Thomas Malone ‘paid special tribute to Connaught Ranger, James Daly, Tyrrellspass.’ Malone urged those in attendance to read T.P. Kilfeather’s The Connaught Rangers ‘and familiarize themselves with the heroism and gallantry and patriotism of one of our best and bravest.’ Although Malone said that he did not want to add fuel to an ‘explosive’ situation in Northern Ireland, he stated to ‘loud applause’ that none of the men honored, including Daly, had died for a 26 county republic and articulated the need to help comrades rid Ireland of ‘this last vestige of British imperialism.’182 Two months later over 6000 people turned out to witness the reinterment of Daly in the Roman Catholic cemetery in Tyrrellspass. According to one local press report, the ceremony paid ‘tribute to a man whose name has finally been raised from the ignominy which oppressors unsuccessfully sought to cast on it, into its rightful place high up on the Nation’s Roll of Honoured Martyred Dead.’ Although there was no official participation of the Irish military, save the Commanding Officer of the Custume Barracks in Athlone, who represented the Taoiseach, the Westmeath-Offaly Independent described the proceedings as a ‘military tribute.’ Gardai, both in and out

172

Ireland and India

of uniform, were well-represented, while members of the NGA and republican organizations from Westmeath and Offaly served as stewards. The Irish Transport and General Workers Union Brass Band and the Tullamore Pipers played during the procession through Tyrrellspass. Wreaths, many in the form of the republican tri-color, were contributed by the CRA, the NGA, the Limerick Roger Casement Association, Saor Éire and ‘various republican movements.’183 In emphatic fashion, the ceremonies in Tyrrellspass linked Daly with past republican martyrs. The tri-color that draped Daly’s coffin was the same flag which had lain on the coffin of Terence MacSweeney, the Lord Mayor of Cork who died from a hunger strike in October 1920, shortly before Daly’s execution. The flag was brought to Tyrrellspass by Patrick O’ Sullivan, the brother of the second man executed for the murder of Sir Henry Wilson, whose body had been returned to Ireland just three years before. Old IRA representative Thomas Malone spoke again at the ceremony at the cemetery, referring to Daly as ‘the noblest of all Irish martyrs.’ Malone linked Daly explicitly to republican ideals of a 32 county republic and to republican heroes: It was in the words of Pearse who said the seeds sown by our martyrs of all generations fructify in the hearts of future generations . . . The purpose for which James Daly died had not yet been achieved and much still remained to be done before the republic of Pearse, Tone, Connolly and James Daly was achieved. Although newspaper reports noted that while ‘traditional military honors of the Last Volley were omitted’ at the graveside ceremony, ‘after shots were heard from the direction of the cemetery on Sunday night a statement was issued by the I.R. [sic] Publicity Bureau to the effect that a party from the local IRA unit had rendered these honours in the presence of Daly’s relatives.’184 Four of the surviving Connaught Rangers mutineers attended the funeral, and Joseph Hawes spoke at the ceremonies. In his remarks, the idea of partition was a prominent theme, and he expressed the wish that North and South could be united.185 He concluded by quoting the poem which a Tyrrellspass man had written about ‘The Martyr of Jallandor’ almost 50 years earlier. The Westmeath Examiner observed that the poet who wrote in praise of James Daly ‘might well re-echo the sentiments of most of those who attended at Tyrrellspass on Sunday’: They failed—and their hopes swiftly perished— Though true until death they had stood— And the dream-light of freedom they cherished Shone red through their young leader’s blood.186

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

173

On the day prior to the ceremonies in Tyrrellspass, the two other Connaught Rangers whose bodies had been repatriated to Ireland, Sears and Smythe, were reinterred in the Republican Plot at Glasnevin Cemetery. The ceremony had many of the same elements as the commemoration in Tyrrellspass: the presence of ‘many members of the Republican movement,’ a discussion of the mutineers’ reaction to the atrocities of the Black and Tans, a memorial mass and the laying of wreaths and a message from Joseph Hawes, who was unable to attend, expressing his thanks that ‘at last, the bodies of my murdered comrades are at their final rest in the warm soil of Mother Ireland.’187 In one additional way, the ceremony at Glasnevin demonstrated how significant the sacrifices of Daly and the other mutineers had become to the story of the Connaught Rangers, for one of the soldiers reinterred at Glasnevin was most likely a victim of, rather than a participant in, the mutiny. Patrick Smythe, one of two soldiers who died in the abortive attack on the armory at Solon, is generally agreed to have not been one of the mutineers, but simply a spectator to the proceedings who was killed by a stray bullet. Nonetheless, when the Connaught Rangers memorial was unveiled in June 1949, Smythe’s name was one of those inscribed on the cenotaph.188 The NGA listed Smythe in its roll of honor of republican dead as ‘killed in action during mutiny of Connaught Rangers.’189 The DEA initially resisted the pleas of the NGA to repatriate Smyth, but ultimately relented, fearing adverse publicity: ‘As Smyth was killed during the mutiny it is this Department’s opinion that the National Graves Association will go on plaguing us indefinitely about his remains and may use the Press to put pressure on us.’190 Thus the remains of Smythe, as well as those of Daly and Sears, were returned to Ireland. In the weeks and months following the repatriation of the three mutineers’ bodies, the surviving members of the Connaught Rangers received more public attention than they had in almost five decades. Several appeared on RTÉ’s ‘Seven Days’ program.191 The publicity surrounding the return of Daly’s remains and the mutiny led to local initiatives elsewhere in Ireland to honor the mutineers. James Daly was honored not only in Tyrrellspass, but in Ballymoe, the village in eastern County Galway where he had been born. Hundreds attended the unveiling of a black marble memorial to Daly in August 1971, which proudly noted Daly’s place of birth and his death leading the mutiny ‘on behalf of Ireland.’ His sister and two surviving Connaught Rangers mutineers witnessed, once again, military honors rendered to Daly.192 In County Galway, a monument was erected over the grave of mutineer Patrick Donoghue in Kilmacduagh Cemetary. Donghue had died in 1941, but his grave had been unmarked until a local committee raised funds to provide a burial stone. At this point, there were only five surviving mutineers, two of whom—Joseph Hawes and James Gorman—attended the ceremony. Another mutineer, Eugene Egan, was the guest of honor at a function arranged by the people of Claremorris, County Mayo.193 When Charles

174

Ireland and India

Kerrigan died in 1991, the sandstone cross over his grave in Killenora Cemetery, Glencar, County Leitrum, commemorated him as ‘the last survivor of the Connaught Rangers Indian Mutiny 1920.’194 In 1979, a play about the Connaught Rangers, The 88, premiered at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Written by the South African playwright and actor Glyn Jones, it told the story of the mutineers in sympathetic fashion, ending with a dramatic depiction of Daly’s execution, in which the firing squad ‘fired’ their weapons at the audience. The play only ran for two weeks, and reviewers commented that while the story of the mutiny made ‘sobering history,’ the dramatic version was ‘dull, heavy-handed stuff.’195 Some of the play’s negative reception in London, however, related to its perceived glorification of Irish rebellion in the midst of the continuing conflict in Northern Ireland. Although Jones insisted that the play ‘had nothing to do with the IRA or the troubles in Northern Ireland or the murder of Mountbatten,’ which took place three months prior to the opening of the play, the Financial Times’ reviewer commented that ‘this hardly seems like the most discreet time to put on a play about Irish disaffection in the British Army, when the British Army is trying to keep the peace, with great hardship and difficulty, in Ireland today.’196 In Tyrrellspass, Daly’s grave became an attraction for visitors (site number 13, ‘The Connaught Ranger’s grave’ on one tour route), but it also remained a site for politically-charged commemoration of his martyr’s death for Ireland.197 In 1970, the Irish government had agreed to repatriate not only Daly, but, at the request of his family, the gravestone from Dagshai Cemetery.198 In 1973, on the 53rd anniversary of Daly’s death, the Sinn Féin branch of County Westmeath unveiled another memorial to the mutineer at his gravesite in the presence of his sister Teresa Maher and several other family members. The text was in Irish (a language which there is no evidence Daly spoke) and identified him as ‘Shéamuis Uí Dálaigh,’ ‘leader of the Indian Mutiny’: ‘All for the Sake of Ireland, and I Do Not Fear Death.’199 In spite of heavy rain, over 400 people paraded to the churchyard to hear an address by Ruari Ó Brádaigh, the president of Provisional Sinn Féin, who told the crowd that ‘what motivated James Daly was motivating young people today in their fight to bring about a democratic republic in this country.’ Daly, he said, had stood against the atrocities of the Black and Tans, to which he drew a parallel with ‘the atrocities of British paratroopers in Belfast.’200 The memorial at Daly’s grave remains a site for periodic Sinn Féin ceremonies. In November 1995, Sinn Féin commemorated the 75th anniversary of the Connaught Rangers mutiny—and Daly’s execution—with a wreathlaying ceremony. Once again, the honor paid to Daly was mixed with republican commentary on Northern Ireland. A brief history of the mutineers’ ‘protest at Black and Tan atrocities’ was narrated ‘before Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle member Peter Rodgers spoke, warning in his speech of the present real danger that the whole peace process could fragment if a date for

The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers

175

all-party talks was not set.’201 On Sunday, 28 October 2007, Ruari Ó Brádaigh again spoke at the grave of the lessons to be learned from the sacrifice of Daly and his comrades. Ó Brádaigh’s conclusion, once again, not only linked Daly to other republican heroes, but to contemporary politics: ‘Following close on the hunger strike death of Terence Mac Swiney and the execution of Kevin Barry, James Daly’s sacrifice on 2 November 1920 has continued to inspire those striving to end English rule in Ireland, a task that has yet to be completed.’202 As this chapter has shown, by 2007, James Daly could be mentioned in the same breath as republican icons such as Robert Emmet and Terence MacSwiney. In the 80 years following the mutiny, the mutineers were transformed into republican heroes and were the subject of various memorials and commemorative ceremonies. Their identity, their place in Irish history and Irish understandings of them would seem to be settled issues. However, there are other dimensions of the Connaught Rangers story, and other understandings of them, both inside and outside Ireland, involving both national and imperial perspectives. The meaning of the Connaught Rangers mutiny has been more contested than events such as the Sinn Féin commemorations of Daly’s death suggest, and it is to this subject that the following chapter will turn.

6 ‘Enemies of the Empire’? The Imperial Context of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny

At a Calcutta bookstall in 1920, an Irish soldier named Shane O’Neill meets and falls in love with a young Bengali woman named Aparajita as they peruse the Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats. During their discussion of the poem ‘September 1913,’ their talk turns from literature to political nationalism. O’Neill confesses that he is a ‘rebel at heart’ in spite of his British Army uniform: his father was a Fenian, his grandfather took part in the Young Ireland uprising of 1848, and his great-grandfather ‘was hanged for being a rebel in ninety-eight.’ He is surprised to learn from Aparajita ‘that India, too, has fought for freedom thru the centuries’: ‘Freedom for India,’ cried Shane, ‘sure I haven’t heard a word about it. I didn’t know your people were thinking that way. Sure, why shouldn’t ye have freedom if ye want it?’ he went on. ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If freedom is good for Ireland, it ought to be good for India. I know we want freedom in Ireland. We’ve fought for it for seven hundred years.’ Inspired by his new understanding of Indian nationalism, and by his love for Aparajita, O’Neill trades his British Army uniform for a ‘native costume,’ declaring, ‘I hereby renounce the Impire [sic] now and forever.’ Having ‘gone native’ in this fashion, O’Neill behaves like an anti-imperial Kim, using his military knowledge to lead raids that obtain weapons and ammunition for Aparajita’s revolutionary cell. His exploits come to the attention of colonial authorities when a spy brings reports to a British general of a mysterious rebel leader, ‘tall and utterly without fear and very crafty,’ from one of the ‘stalwart races of the north.’ Not long afterward, O’Neill and Aparajita die in a gun battle with the British Army, sacrificing themselves so that their comrades may escape with papers detailing where weapons, ammunition and captured military ciphers are hidden. O’Neill is shot by a British soldier while cradling the body of Aparajita in his arms, but his sacrifice enables the 176

Enemies of the Empire? 177

rebels to carry on the anti-imperial struggle. The news of the couple’s demise is brought to the general, who asks his informant if the two were lovers; he receives the reply, ‘They were enemies of the Empire, Excellency.’ The story of Shane O’Neill and Aparajita is fictional, but the context of the story’s publication reveals much of importance about Irish–Indian mutual perceptions and imperial relationships in the years after the First World War. Composed by a (possibly pseudonymous) writer named Brian Padraic O’Shasnain, ‘Shane O’Neill Discovers India’ appeared in the Independent Hindustan, the newspaper of the Gadar Party.1 As we have previously seen, the Gadar Party continued after the Conspiracy trial of 1918, and in the following year feted Eamon De Valera on his visit to San Francisco.2 The dreams of Irish–Indian imperial rebellion expressed in O’Shasnain’s story were thus articulated at a time when there was considerable interaction between Irish and Indian nationalists in the United States. The story also references events in India. Calcutta, the capital of the province of Bengal, was indeed one of the foremost sites of anti-colonial revolutionary activity. The ‘general’ in the story is none other than General Reginald Dyer, the commander responsible for the Amritsar Massacre. In July 1920, Parliament had debated the Hunter Commission report on the massacre, which had censured Dyer for not giving the crowd in Jallianwala Bagh a chance to disperse before firing. In these debates, Ireland was also an implicit topic of discussion. Defenders of Dyer, among whom Ulster Unionists numbered prominently, feared that the general’s censure would inhibit British ability to suppress rebellion not only in India but Ireland. As Derek Sayer observes, ‘In one way, crystal clear at the time, the whole Dyer controversy was a thinly-coded discussion of Ireland, then in open revolt.’3 Lastly, the fictional story of Shane O’Neill also references the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India, which took place five months before its publication. The story appeared in the Independent Hindustan in November 1920, the same month in which James Daly was executed for his role in the mutiny. The editors were clearly aware of the protest of the Connaught Rangers; in the first issue of the Independent Hindustan in September 1920, one of two front-page editorials focused on the ‘Irish Revolt in India,’ and commended ‘the actions of the Irish soldiers who have laid down their arms in expressing their sympathy with the gallant Sinn Feiners who are sacrificing their lives for the cause of the Republic of Ireland.’4 The previous chapter analyzed the enshrinement of the Connaught Rangers in the pantheon of Irish republican heroes, and the increasing attention paid to the issue of the return of James Daly’s body from India. This chapter will analyze both the imperial and the colonial legacies of the Connaught Rangers mutiny. Should the mutiny be understood as a story of anti-imperial solidarity, a revolt for Indian as well as Irish independence? How have Indian, Irish and British commentators on the events in Jullundur

178

Ireland and India

and Solon understood this colonial dimension, and how did the imperial context impact the actions and the treatment of the mutineers? These are the issues that this chapter will consider. The association of the Connaught Rangers with India did not, however, begin with the 1920 mutiny, but rather shortly after the formation of the regiment in the late eighteenth century. In order to better understand the imperial and anti-imperial associations of the Connaught Rangers mutiny, it is necessary to place the events of 1920 in the context of the regiment’s history.

Imperial context Irish military service was especially prominent during the nineteenth century, in spite of the fact that for much of the century, enlistment in the British Army involved long terms of difficult service away from the British Isles.5 Although, as Terence Denman observes, there never developed ‘a cult of the Irish soldier’ to match that of the Scottish Highlander, the Connaught Rangers, the ‘quintessential Irish regiment,’ came closest to fulfilling this role.6 From their establishment in 1793 until their disbandment in 1922, the Connaughts were, according to Anthony Babington, ‘one of the proudest and most trustworthy regiments in the British Army.’7 The regiment fought in campaigns ranging from the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimea, from the Second Anglo-Boer War to the Western Front in the First World War, where they ‘fought in practically every battle from 1914.’8 Originally raised in 1793 at the outset of the Revolutionary Wars with France, the Connaught Rangers first came to prominence during the Peninsular campaign against Napoleon. The regiment played a prominent role in the battles of Busaco and Fuentes de Oñoro, where, according to Lord Napier, ‘the best soldiers in France gave way before the Connaught Rangers.’9 The Duke of Wellington, in joking with an officer of the 88th Regiment, said, I hang and shoot more of your old friends for murders, robberies, etc., than I do of all the rest of the Army . . . . One thing I will tell you however; whenever anything very gallant, very desperate is to be done there is no corps in the Army I would sooner employ than your old friends the Connaught Rangers.10 At the battle of Salamanca in 1812, the Connaught Rangers captured a sevenfoot-high brass and silver standard of North African origin from the French which became a ‘treasured and famous’ regimental relic known as ‘the Jingling Johnny.’ This was carried in front of the band on ceremonial parades by the tallest man in the regiment until its disbandment.11 By the early twentieth century, the Connaught Rangers had evolved a tradition of commemorating the centenary of every action recorded on the regimental colors. Inspecting the 1st Battalion of the Connaught Rangers at Athlone in 1899

Enemies of the Empire? 179

prior to their departure for the Anglo-Boer War, Lord Roberts observed ‘In no regiment of the British Army is there finer esprit de corps.’12 Like all nineteenth-century Irish regiments, the Connaught Rangers had a strong Irish element, both in terms of their recruits and regimental traditions. In 1857, a Scottish broadside invoked the Connaught Rangers in calling on Irishmen to suppress the Indian ‘Mutiny’: Let the harp of Old Ireland sound clear through the air, From the County of Down to the Curragh of Kildare . . . Ye heroes of Ireland, gae list hear and hand In the bold Connaught Rangers the pride of your land.13 The Irish recruiting base of the Connaughts was further consolidated after the Cardwell military reforms of 1881, which strove to develop local identities for battalions. The Connaughts’ recruiting area was established as the western Ireland counties of Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon, Leitrim and Galway. Approximately two-thirds of the battalion’s soldiers were Irish in the 1880s.14 One of the favorite regimental marches of the Connaught Rangers was ‘Brian Boru,’ and according to the regimental history, ‘at a time generally given by the Sergeant-Major, all ranks would give a regular “Connaught Yell,” during which the Band would make a pause, and then continue playing.’15 On the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, the regimental band would play ‘St. Patrick’s Day,’ another of the Connaught Rangers’ marching tunes, ‘and after marching round the Square, generally marched round the officers’ quarters, followed by all the eager spirits, who were awake, and who cared for a route march at midnight.’16 Even T.P. Kilfeather, whose strongly nationalist reading of the Connaught Rangers’ mutiny stresses the brutality and exploitation of the regiment’s history, argues for the predominance of their Irish character: ‘There was an élan about everything that the Connaught Rangers did. Among the privates and non-commissioned officers there was the traditional effervescence of the Irish character, a light-hearted gaiety and the complete ability to adapt to unusual circumstances.’17 Empire was a particularly important factor in the identity of nineteenthcentury Irish soldiers, and the Connaught Rangers served in many parts of it during their history. In the early nineteenth century, the regiment carried out garrison duties in the Ionian Islands, the West Indies and Canada, and also fought in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. The Connaught Rangers had a particularly long relationship with India, dating from 1799, when the regiment served at Bombay and Madras.18 In 1857, the regiment arrived in Calcutta, where the commander-in-chief Sir Colin Campbell was organizing the second relief of Lucknow. The regiment fought in a series of battles against rebel sepoys in central India in 1857 and 1858, including an attack on the fort of Birwah held by the rebel leader Gholab Singh, which the regimental historians called ‘one of the hardest fights of the last phases of

180

Ireland and India

the Mutiny.’19 During the 13 years the regiment was stationed in India, they lost nine officers and 407 non-commissioned officers and men; the names of the former were recorded on a marble memorial tablet in the Memorial Church at Cawnpore. In total, the Connaught Rangers were stationed in India for almost three decades in the period from 1857 to the outbreak of the First World War. As part of the British Army’s garrison force, the Connaughts helped to uphold colonial authority; a typical example took place in 1882, when the regiment occupied the city of Multan in the Punjab for several days following Hindu–Muslim riots.20 As British soldiers in colonial India, members of the Connaught Rangers participated in the racially divided world that marked late colonial rule. Although the Victorians at times stereotyped the Irish—and Irish Catholics in particular—as an inferior ‘race,’ in India ‘the wild Irish’ were seen as an important part of the colonial civilizing mission. As Terence Denman observes, ‘Any white soldier in India—English, Scottish, or Irish—was a member of a racial elite, whatever his rank.’21 Acts of individual violence by British soldiers against Indians also became an object of increasing concern to the colonial state in the late nineteenth century. As Martin J. Wiener observes, ‘Among soldiers, treated with little respect by their white superiors, the racism common to Europeans in India was present in an exaggerated form, enhanced by a sense of corporate solidarity, and not offset by the restraints of civilian or official life.’ New colonial strategies to manage this violence, including the imposition of collective punishments on British troops, coincided with late Victorian anxieties about the brutality of ‘Tommy Atkins,’ the quintessential working-class soldier.22 Indian observers sometimes saw the Irish soldier as a particularly contemptible figure. In contemporary Urdu fiction, ‘Tommy Atkins’ was considered a lowly figure, but the ‘Irish Tommy’ was considered the lowest of the low.23 Even the Indian nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai, who forged warm relationships with Irish nationalists in the United States, observed, ‘The Irish, you know, are even worse than the English to us in India.’24 The Connaught Rangers in particular enjoyed a reputation as one of the most brutal British regiments in their treatment of the Indian population. One former soldier recalled that the Connaughts had a reputation second to none for the way they handled the natives. When they arrived at a new station they soon expounded their views of the race-question and, by the time they left, they were not many natives around the place who even thought that they were the equals of white men. The Connaughts were strong believers in the saying that what had been conquered by the sword must be kept by the sword but not being issued with swords they used their boots and fists to such purpose that they were more respected and feared by the natives than any other British unit in India. It must have been a

Enemies of the Empire? 181

glad day in the Bazaars of Northern India, shortly after the war, when the Connaughts mutinied as protest against the same sort of methods being used by the Black and Tans among their own families in Ireland, as what they were using among the Indians; and the Regiment had to be disbanded.25 Corporal Fred Williams, who was stationed with the Connaught Rangers in Ferozapore prior to the First World War, wrote in similar terms of the casual violence against ‘the natives’ by members of the regiment. ‘Out here we don’t half boss the natives,’ he wrote to his sister Louisa. ‘We say to any native toff “Come here you SUAR” (that’s pig) and if he does not come we murder him. One of our fellows killed one, kicked him to death and he only got fined 100 Rupees.’ Williams justified the conduct of the Connaughts by referring to the recent assassination attempt on the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, in December 1912: ‘We have to do that or they would quick do us in they tried to kill the Viceroy last Tuesday.’26 Another member of the Connaught Rangers stationed at Ferozapore before the First World War, William Crutchlow, recalled the attitudes toward Indians of his closest friend, an Irish private named O’Hara. O’Hara could speak Hindustani well and ‘was very popular with the natives.’ For several weeks, the two men, ‘dressed up in native clothes,’ went to dine and drink with ‘a babu with whom O’Hara was very friendly.’ After two weeks, according to Crutchlow’s narrative, the two were attacked for no reason by ‘fifty natives’ at the babu’s home. ‘After our fight with the natives,’ he recalled, ‘O’Hara swore eternal warfare on them and especially on babus.’ The Irish private subsequently led expeditions to steal from the cashbox of merchants who sold to the Connaughts’ canteen, and counterfeited iron disks sold by a local merchant which could be exchanged for goods. During the 1911 coronation durbar, O’Hara observed of the jewelry of the assembled maharajas, ‘Fancy the blasted niggers having all that and we soldiering for a shilling a day and don’t know where the next pint is coming from.’27 The mutiny of the Connaught Rangers cannot be considered in isolation from its Indian context, although this was a factor which was often ignored in republican commemorations. The fact that the protest took place in India—during a time of emergent mass Indian nationalism and considerable imperial anxiety about anti-colonial demonstrations—was often considered to be of little consequence to the actions of the Rangers. A ballad entitled ‘Connaught Rangers,’ which was recorded by the republican traditional music band the Wolfe Tones in 1993, does not even mention that the events of the mutiny took place in India, only that the regiment was serving in ‘a far-off land.’28 In light of the insularity of much subsequent republican commemoration of the mutiny, it is thus worth restating that events in India as well as Ireland were decisive in shaping not only the course but the aftermath of the mutiny.

182

Ireland and India

‘Crisis of Empire’ In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, Britain faced a ‘crisis of empire’ with its epicenters in Ireland, Egypt and India. ‘No analysis of any of these crises,’ John Gallagher argues, ‘will be complete without establishing its interplay with the others.’29 Events in Ireland, for example, were an important factor in why the Connaughts were stationed elsewhere in the British Empire after the First World War. Even though Irishmen continued to enlist in British Army regiments in steady numbers throughout 1919– 1921, ‘Roman Catholic Irish regiments’ such as the Connaught Rangers were excluded from service in Ireland.30 This was noted shortly after the Connaught Rangers mutiny by a cartoon which appeared in the Freeman’s Journal, in which David Lloyd George asks Winston Churchill, ‘What do you mean by sending my Irish troops to India?’ Churchill, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, replies, ‘Where do you want me to send ’em—Ireland?’31 Of particular importance was the fact that the regiment was stationed in the Punjab. As we have seen, the Punjab achieved immense importance as a military recruiting area for the Indian Army in the second half of the nineteenth century, as Sikhs were considered the most valued of the ‘martial races.’32 This was no less true after the First World War; in 1920, one out of every 14 adult Sikh men in the Punjab was in military service.33 During the First World War, however, there were scattered mutinies involving Sikh and Punjabi Muslim troops inspired by Gadar Party revolutionaries. The military importance of the Punjab made its prominent role in anti-colonial movements of various types particularly disturbing for colonial authorities. The Punjab played a central role in the first all-India mass campaign coordinated by Mohandas Gandhi, the Rowlatt satyagraha. The ‘Rowlatt Act,’ based on recommendations of the 1918 Sedition Committee Report, sought to make wartime laws allowing detention without trial and trial by special courts a part of the justice system in peacetime India. The measure created deep resentment across a wide spectrum of Indian political opinion. As Sumit Sarkar observes, the Rowlatt satyagraha was ‘the biggest and most violent anti-British upsurge which India had seen since 1857 . . . an elemental upheaval, sparked off by a combination of post-war economic grievances, rumours about Gandhi that were potent precisely in their vagueness and inaccuracy, and the brutal provocation and repression, particularly in the Punjab.’34 Colonial officials, including the Tipperary-born Irish Catholic governor of the Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, were particularly alarmed by the show of Hindu, Sikh and Muslim unity during the Rowlatt satyagraha.35 Colonial repression of the strikes and demonstrations of the satyagraha led to one of the most notorious incidents of British colonial rule: the Amritsar massacre of 13 April 1919. Overall, an estimated 1200 Indians were killed and 3600 wounded in the Punjab in the brutal colonial response to the Rowlatt satyagraha.

Enemies of the Empire? 183

In the following year, the Punjab played a prominent role in another Gandhian campaign, the Khilafat movement. In June 1920, the Central Khilafat Committee adopted a program of non-cooperation crafted by Gandhi, who in turn urged the Indian National Congress to adopt a similar program based on the issues of Khilafat, ‘the Punjab wrong,’ and swaraj, or self-rule.36 Just over two weeks after the Connaught Rangers mutiny in Jullundur, Gandhi was met by a crowd of over 1000 people, including most local politicians, at the railway station there. That night, more than 6000 crowded into ‘Gandhi Hall’ to hear the Mahatma urge Hindus to join the Khilafat movement. ‘I believe the Khilafat to be a righteous cause, and I consider it an opportunity for us Hindus to prove faithful to the Mahommedans and to bridge the gap that once existed between the two communities.’37 The Punjab in 1920 was the center of another movement that was particularly troubling to colonial officials given the province’s importance to the Indian Army. The Akali movement attempted to wrest control of Sikh temples, or Gurudwaras, from managers appointed by the colonial government.38 The Akali movement sought to have Sikh religious sites placed under the control of elected, representative Sikh bodies, rather than managers appointed by the colonial government who often displayed attitudes which were anathema to many Sikhs. The manager of the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the most important site of the Sikh faith had, for example, invoked the imperial icon John Nicholson in issuing an invitation to General Reginald Dyer to become an honorary Sikh, ‘even as Nikalseyan Sahib . . . became a Sikh.’39 A new political party, the Central Sikh League (1919), supported the non-cooperation movement and by the end of 1920 had formed local bands of volunteers known as Akali Jathas. These developments are often referred to as the beginning of the ‘Third Sikh War,’ a conflict rivaling the two mid-nineteenth century wars which established British rule of the Punjab. As Tan Tai Yong observes, ‘the Akali episode was stark reminder to the British that the “loyalty” of the Indian Army could not be taken for granted, but was conditional upon a pacified recruiting ground.’40 Widespread political unrest in the Punjab unintentionally provided a catalyst for the revolt, and clearly impacted the Connaught Rangers’ activities in India. Tensions within the battalion stationed at Jullundur seem to have begun before the end of 1919. The battalion arrived at Jullundur in late November, and on 26 December 1919, routine duties abruptly came to an end when the battalion received orders to mobilize for ‘frontier operations.’ This state of readiness continued for weeks, until it eventually became clear that the mobilization had been intended as a ‘more or less precautionary measure.’ Yet as the regimental historians observed, ‘Of this, however, in the orders received by the battalion there was no indication, with the result that, through the want of clearness and precision on the part of the authorities, the men were subjected to a great amount of hardship.’41

184

Ireland and India

One of the factors that clearly contributed to the mutiny was the somewhat unusual step of stationing recently arrived recruits to the first battalion of the Connaught Rangers in a single group, rather than dispersing them to the companies to which they had been assigned. The regimental history observes that the causes of the mutiny at Jullundur were partly attributable to ‘the precarious internal situation in India at the time,’ which prevented the distribution of a large draft of men who arrived at Jullundur in May 1920 to the companies to which they had been posted.42 Subsequent Irish nationalist accounts depicted highly exaggerated versions of the brutal training regimens that the men were forced to undergo during the heat of the summer in the Punjab. Although the Rangers do not seem in reality to have been subjected to anything beyond normal army discipline, the stationing together of large numbers of men recently arrived from Ireland, with little for them to do, was clearly a strong catalyst to the spread of nationalist political sentiment. This provides at least a partial explanation of why the Connaught Rangers, and no other Irish regiment, mutinied during the period 1919–21. In addition, the response of the authorities to the mutiny was strongly impacted by its perceived effect on Indian military forces and Indian nationalist opinion. The paramount concern was the impact of the mutiny on Indian troops, and in particular on the prevention of any future unrest. Mutiny, of course, was a recurring fear, even an obsession, in the decades following the Indian Rebellion. In reality, in the 80 years following 1857, there were remarkably few acts of dissent in the Indian Army.43 Nevertheless, as Amitav Ghosh has observed, ‘mutiny (and the anticipation of it) was woven into the very fabric of the British Indian Army.’44 In a telegram sent to the War Office four days prior to the execution of James Daly, the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army expressed this concern over the potential impact of the mutiny on Indian troops: ‘Case of Daly was referred to me. I regarded it as most important flagrant case and I do not conceive how if clemency were extended to this man we could ever again inflict capital punishment in the case of an Indian soldier.’ The Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, concurred in this judgment. As he wrote to the Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu There was no doubt on the proceeedings that the man in question was the ringleader in the whole affair, and as this mutiny led—apart from the fact that it is the most heinous offense that a soldier can commit—also to the death of two men who were shot dead by the guard at Solon, I feel sure that you will admit that the sentence was well merited. We should find ourselves in a position of great difficulty in the future with regard to Indian troops in similar circumstances if, in the case of British soldiers, we did not enforce the supreme penalty where the conditions justified it . . . . both the Commander-in-Chief and I felt that no course was open to us but to confirm the sentence and the wretched man will be shot.45

Enemies of the Empire? 185

Montagu was the only high-ranking colonial official to express any reservations about the execution of Daly. He did not recommend clemency or make any attempt to overturn the sentences of the convicted men, but he did express concern about the commutation of the sentences of the 13 other condemned soldiers, and in particular about its effect on Anglo-Irish relations. Montagu recognized that the Connaught Rangers’ protest was in some sense a political one, and he hoped that an awareness of this had factored into the Government of India’s decision. ‘I should, however, like to bring to your notice that so far as I know cause of this grave occurrence was political,’ Montagu wrote in a clear-the-line telegram, and, while this does not in any degree minimise the gravity of the offense and the justice of punishment, it does render it possible that if hereafter relations between Ireland and England were ever happily adjusted, we might wish, as part of an amnesty which might possibly then be granted, to reconsider the sentences.46 In his reply Chelmsford reminded Montagu that the paramount concern was the impact clemency for Daly might have on Indian troops: It should be realised by you that in this case the interests of Ireland have not only to be appraised, but also the possibility of maintaining future discipline in the Indian Army. The Commander-in-Chief is of opinion that if condonation is practised, the example of mutiny set in this case by a British Regiment cannot fail to react with disastrous results on the Indian Army.47 Thus, in spite of the rhetoric of Irish republicans, it is more accurate to say that James Daly in a very tangible sense died for India rather than for Ireland.48 The release of the mutineers following the establishment of the Irish Free State continued to be complicated by the same issue: fear of the impact on India. In February 1922, the Secretary of State for War characterized the sentences of the mutineers as ‘undoubtedly severe’ and proposed a scheme for remission so that none of those convicted would serve more than seven years in prison. Nonetheless, he reminded the Cabinet that ‘in the interest of discipline’ the Commander-in-Chief in India had recommended that the death sentence be carried out in the case of James Daly, and stressed the grave difficulties that may be anticipated in India in enforcing discipline in our Indian troops, if it becomes known that British soldiers guilty of the most serious military crime have had their punishment reduced as a result of political pressure.49

186

Ireland and India

At the end of the year, John Anderson, former Undersecretary in Dublin Castle, commented that the British Army still strongly opposed the release of the Rangers and that ‘very great’ difficulties remained from a ‘disciplinary point of view.’ ‘It has been customary in such cases to shew [sic] leniency after the state of emergency has passed,’ Anderson wrote, ‘but in this case, having regard to the situation in India, the emergency still continues. The Indian Government have native soldiers in custody for similar offenses and must hold them.’50 When Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law made this point to Stephen Gwynn, the former nationalist MP and Connaught Rangers officer who campaigned for the release of the mutineers, Gwynn too acknowledged the potential impact on India, but from a nationalist rather than an imperial perspective. ‘As to the Indian effect,’ he asked, ‘will the deterrent results outweigh the contagion from continued discontent in Ireland—as the inference that Ireland has nominally but not really been admitted to equality and that India has no better to expect.’51 It is clear that the punishment of the Connaught Rangers mutineers was thus dictated by the concerns of the colonial state in India. How, then, did Indian nationalists interpret the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers?

The Indian response As we have seen, the Connaught Rangers, with their reputation for brutality toward the Indian population, would seem to be unlikely candidates to provide inspiration to Indian nationalists. Yet the reality of the brutal behavior of the Connaughts and other Irish regiments in India was also weighed, in press accounts, against the substantial competing history of collaboration between Indian and Irish nationalists. Some of this plotting involved hopes of a mutiny of Irish or Indian troops that would provide the catalyst for nationalist revolution. In the 1880s, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, the deposed and exiled ruler of the Punjab, conspired with members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood to regain his kingdom. One plan to which the Maharajah enthusiastically responded was ‘a proposal for the establishment of an Irish military colony near the Indian frontier −600 to 1,000 men engaging to attract to it 11,000 to −13, 000 Irish deserters from the British army.’52 Early twentieth-century revolutionary groups similarly hoped for Irish rebellion to complement an Indian revolt. A 1908 leaflet of the Bengali revolutionary Jugantar organization claimed that if there was rebellion in India, reinforcements from England could not be sent, since the Irish ‘like hungry wolves, would jump upon the English precisely at the same moment as the fire of rebellion will blaze out in India.’53 The revolutionary Gadar Party in California also, as we have seen, worked to promote an uprising by Sikh troops in the Indian Army. In its coverage of the Easter Rising, the Ghadr newspaper depicted an uprising of Indian troops in support of the republican cause: ‘In the recent rebellion

Enemies of the Empire? 187

in Ireland the Hindustanees joined the Irish.’ The story, according to Ghadr, was told by ‘an Irishman who has just arrived in the United States from Ireland,’ and concerned an Indian officer in charge of a machine gun outside the rebels’ headquarters in the General Post Office, who instead of firing on the Irish rebels turned the gun on British soldiers, killing 250. The Ghadr claimed that the ‘English Government offers a reward for his arrest, but he is not yet found,’ and that the story was ‘known to everybody’ in Ireland.54 The Indian nationalist press took considerable interest in the actions of the Connaught Rangers in July 1920.55 Indeed, the nationalist press throughout India initially included more commentary on the events in Jullundur and Solon than their journalistic counterparts in Ireland, which, for the most part, simply reprinted reports issued by the India Office and Reuters.56 In his memoir of the mutiny, published in 1925 in the Irish Independent under the pseudonym ‘One Who Knows,’ former Connaught Ranger John Flannery recalled that ‘the natives’ took a ‘keen interest in the actions of the men in the barracks’ at Jullundur and ‘various press representatives visited the place during the day.’ When on the following day the soldiers were marched from a compound where they had been detained back to the Jullundur barracks, several Indian press photographers were stationed on the road, ‘but these were prevented from taking any photographs or interviewing the Rangers.’57 From the outset, military authorities had anticipated Indian press interest in the mutiny. Although for obvious reasons military authorities restricted the access of the press to the mutineers themselves, they provided essentially the same information to the Indian press that they had provided in their first two telegrams to the Secretary of State for India in an effort ‘to avoid circulation of exaggerated rumours which were certain to ensue if information were withheld.’58 Articles on the Connaught Rangers mutiny appeared in a number of Indian nationalist papers in July 1920. The Tribune of Lahore reported on the mutiny on 5 July 1920, and ten days later ridiculed an editorial in the British–Indian Pioneer which attempted to ‘minimize, if not actually to condone, the conduct of the Irish troops and to emphasize their respectful behavior.’59 In spite of the efforts of the Government of India to head off ‘exaggerated rumours,’ some papers claimed that the mutiny had spread beyond the Connaught Rangers. The Fateh newspaper of Delhi, for example, asserted that ‘from reliable sources we learn that in many places in India, Irish and British regiments have refused to co-operate with Government.’60 Much Indian press coverage was highly positive, and had no doubts about the nationalist motivation of the Irish soldiers. Fateh interpreted the Jullundur mutineers’ actions as an adoption of Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of civil disobedience and an illustration of ‘how patriotic people can preserve their honour, defy the orders of the Government, and defeat its unjust aims.’61

188

Ireland and India

The Kesari of Bombay, a newspaper founded by the Marathi nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak, was perhaps the most enthusiastic in its praise of Connaught Rangers mutineers. The Kesari linked their actions to the growing power of Sinn Féin and their demand for ‘absolute swarajya’ [independence] and favorably compared the nationalist sentiments of the Irish to those of Indian troops: The patriotism of Irishmen and their abstention from treason to the nation are really indescribable. As soon as the news became known in India that troops were sent to Ireland and that repression had begun there, three-fourths of the soldiers belonging to the regiment called the Connaught Rangers in Jullunder laid down their arms and said plainly that they, too, would not perform military service . . . . Where stand the Irish patriots who, on hearing the news from 6000 miles away of repression exercised over their compatriots, decline to serve such a Government, and where stand the Indian sepoys who shot down their innocent countrymen and children at the devilish order of Dyer?62 The Andrapatrika of Madras argued that the actions of the Connaught Rangers at Jullundur meant that ‘the British Cabinet should at once understand that the time has approached for settling the Irish problem with a liberal heart.’63 References to the Connaught Rangers mutiny also found their way into the remarks of Indian politicians. At a meeting for the Khilafat conference at Salem in southeast India on 20 August 1920, Abdul Majid Sharar delivered a ‘vehement speech’ in Urdu in which he referred to ‘the Connaught Rangers incident.’64 Some Indian press reaction to the mutiny was, however, more critical. In particular, this reflected a common theme in Indian commentary on Ireland in this era: the belief that the Irish, though generally seen as a fellow colonized people, committed far greater atrocities and greater acts of violence against the British colonial rulers than anything attempted by Indian nationalists. Furthermore, because of their status as a ‘white’ race, the Irish were treated much more leniently by the British than were Indians. A frequent comment was that no ‘General Dyer’—the infamous general of the Amritsar massacre—had emerged in Ireland or been sent there. In July 1920, the Desabhaktan of Madras observed that we cannot but question why the House of Lords, which decided that the massacre at Jallianwallah Bagh was a just punishment for the loss of two or three English lives and the affliction caused to one English lady, did not send heroes like Dyer to Ireland. There seems to be no other reason for this than the fact that the Irish are white and the Indians black.65

Enemies of the Empire? 189

The Bangavasi of Calcutta complained of what it regarded as the lenient treatment of the mutineers, and expressed doubts that the Government of India would have been so tolerant if Indian soldiers commanded by General Dyer had refused to fire at Amritsar.66 In an article entitled, ‘What Do You Say to This?’ which appeared one week after the beginning of the mutiny at Jullundur, the Qaumi Report of Madras made a similar argument with respect to the Connaught Rangers. Why, the Muslim paper asked, were the mutineers not accorded the same punishment as Indian rebels in 1857? Is it a rebellion? If the answer is in the affirmative, why were they not destroyed by gun fire? Has the regiment mutinied? If the answer is ‘Yes’, why was not Martial Law enforced against them? Has it proved disloyal and false to its salt? If the answer is in the affirmative, why were the men not sent to jail?67 After the initial interest, the sentencing of the mutineers and the execution of Daly seem to have been elicited little comment from the Indian nationalist press.68 This did not mean, however, that the press ignored events in Ireland in the second half of 1920. The atrocities of the Black and Tans, the ostensible subject of the Connaught Rangers’ protest—helped transform Indian nationalist skepticism regarding the Irish revolution to support and sympathy.69 The sentiments expressed by the Tribune of Lahore in December 1920 were typical: ‘However much one may deplore and condemn the terroristic outrages committed by the Sinn Feiners, the reprisals by the police and the army are even more reprehensible.’70 Indeed, if Indian newspapers paid little attention to what Irish republicans would come to see as the glorious sacrifice of James Daly, they devoted a tremendous amount of attention to the death of an Irish nationalist figure with whom Daly would later be linked: Terence MacSwiney, who died in October 1920 following a 74-day hunger strike. MacSwiney’s hunger strike was a strongly masculine act of protest which drew not only on his republican convictions, but on his strong Catholic faith. His suffering and self-sacrifice was thus imbued with religious as well as political meaning. As Kevin Grant observes, MacSwiney’s ‘representation of the strike would remain the dominant republican discourse on the subject over the next several decades.’ It also attracted considerable attention in India.71 Literally dozens of stories appeared in the Indian press in November 1920 honoring MacSwiney’s memory. Some newspapers, such as the Swadesamitran of Madras, viewed MacSwiney’s willingness to sacrifice himself as a sign that Ireland was close to gaining independence.72 Others drew lessons for India. The Al Bureed of Cawnpore stated that ‘if India desires her freedom, every Indian child should regard himself as a Lord Mayor of Cork.’

190

Ireland and India

The Aj of Benares featured a poem in praise of his ‘patriotism, courage and self-sacrifice’: ‘The teacher of such laudable principles! The repository of such sentiments was he.—On whom the British policy Practiced tyranny to its hearts content. O! ‘Ugra’ the pen has been sanctified. Simply by writing the name of that Lord Mayor of Cork . . .’73 The small but radical Indian nationalist community in the United States also paid great attention to the Connaught Rangers’ protest. The Gadar Party, as we have seen, was at the forefront. In September 1920, the first issue of the Independent Hindustan interpreted the mutiny as opening a ‘new era’ of nationalist solidarity, predicting that ‘their example will certainly inspire confidence in the minds of the people of India that the Irish soldiers are now realising the importance of co-operation between the two great peoples who alone can break the hegemony of the British Empire.’ Yet the Gadar Party journal also saw the Irish soldiers’ actions as a missed opportunity for Indo-Irish solidarity, arguing that their refusal to fight would have been more effective had ‘the Irish soldiers taken decisive action as a protest against the inhuman Punjab massacre and atrocities’: The old imperialistic game has been to set one people against another. And the sooner the imperialism-infested people understand this, the nearer will be the emancipation of their countries from alien control. The Independent Hindustan also felt compelled to editorialize against continued Irish enlistment in the British Army after the First World War, and to ‘urge the Irish people to see that “a shilling in glass of beer” does not get any more Irish soldiers to shed their blood for perpetuation of the menacing imperialism.’ The journal also urged the people of India ‘to take immediate action’ so that ‘not a single Indian’ is sent to Ireland, Egypt, Palestine or any part of the British Empire. ‘Indo-Irish entente,’ the Independent Hindustan concluded, ‘will be an effective weapon in destroying . . . British imperialism.’74 The Hindustan Gadar Party organized a protest of Indians in Stockton, California, against the death and prison sentences imposed on the Connaught Rangers mutineers. The Gadar resolution expressed the ‘sincere appreciation of the invaluable services rendered by these Irish martyrs and patriots to the cause of a nation suffering under the yoke of the British.’ It also pleaded that ‘the inspiring action of the Irish martyrs and heroes should be followed by an effort by the workers for independence to bring about a

Enemies of the Empire? 191

cordial co-operation between all the peoples for united action against the despicable and destructive British Government.’ Copies of the resolution were sent to ‘all the Irish papers in the United States,’ and to ‘Irish societies in San Francisco and New York.’75 An assembly sponsored by the Sikh League was also held at Jullundur in the Punjab, one of the two locations of the Rangers mutiny. It condemned ‘the atrocious action of the British government in Ireland,’ expressed sympathy for the family of Terence MacSwiney and ‘offered cordial cooperation for the success of the Republic of Ireland.’ Although the protest in California was reported in Joseph McGarrity’s republican Irish Press newspaper, the effect of these protests in America and India was muted by the fact that they did not take place until January 1921, two and a half months after Daly’s execution.76 In contrast to its sustained afterlife in Ireland, the Connaught Rangers mutiny had little resonance in India after 1920, in spite of the growing attention that Indian nationalists paid to Irish events in this era.77 Some Indian nationalists, to be sure, did regard the mutiny as a tangible link between their own country and the Irish struggle for independence. K.F. Nariman, a member of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee and the former mayor of Bombay, wrote admiringly of the Connaught Rangers mutiny in What Next? (1934), in which he compared the trajectories of the independence movements in Ireland and India. Nariman interpreted the mutiny as an example of the force of the Irish struggle for independence, arguing that while it was ‘perhaps natural and inevitable’ that Irish rebellion would have an impact in America, the fact that it ‘traveled to distant India, across stormy seas of over 6000 miles, and penetrated into closely guarded and isolated barracks hundreds of miles interior, is a phenomenon that clearly indicates the impetuosity and all absorbing force of this national wave.’ Nariman noted the Rangers’ ‘remarkable and clear record of great war and military service in different parts of the Empire,’ but also observed that they were ‘stirred and excited’ by news of the ‘Irish atrocities, and courage, sacrifice and sufferings of their countrymen.’ He compared the mutiny favorably with an incident in which Gharwalli troops in Peshawar in 1930 refused to fire on an unarmed crowd: ‘It was a conflict between unpleasant military duty and inner conscience. There was no such excuse for Connaught Rangers, who were impelled only by patriotic sentiment and spirit of revolt due to resentment.’ Nariman concluded that while ‘this sensational event in our country was naturally kept back from publicity, but created a great stir and enthusiasm in Ireland.’78 The mutiny continued to be remembered in the places where its events took place: at Solon and Jullundur, as well as at Dagshai, where the Connaught Rangers had been imprisoned until early 1921 and where James Daly and John Miranda were buried. The Reverend James Masih, Chairman of the Solan Cemetery Committee, who had been in Solon since 1934, told an Irish embassy official in 1970 that the story of the mutiny appeared ‘to

192

Ireland and India

have made a great impression on the local people at the time.’ The undertaker at the exhumation of Sears and Smythe in Solon also recalled that he had heard stories of the mutiny from several older residents.79 In 1954, an official from the United Kingdom High Commissioner’s office toured Dagshai cemetery, and was told by a retired British army officer that Daly’s grave was ‘a point of pilgrimage for Indian nationalists.’80 Even 30 years after the repatriation of Daly’s remains to Ireland, when a reporter from the Indian Express asked the caretaker at Dagshai cemetery about Daly, Miranda, Sears and Smythe, he responded, ‘you want to know about the soldiers who rebelled?’81 In spite of these local traditions of the mutiny, Daly’s grave does not seem to have been treated with any particular reverence by the people of Dagshai. Rather, the grounds and tombs of Dagshai Cemetery were adapted for the same varied uses as many other cemeteries in post-1947 South Asia.82 A military station in the Simla hills at an elevation of 6000 feet, Dagshai was an isolated location, even more so after the withdrawal of British Army units after 1947. The historian of the missionary order of Redemptorist Fathers, who were stationed at the Catholic church there from 1950 to 1956, described the settlement as ‘remote, lonely and difficult of access.’83 In the decades after 1947, the cemetery fell into a dilapidated state.84 The Secretary of the Irish Embassy in New Delhi, who visited the cemetery in 1966, noted that many headstones had been broken during tree-felling in the cemetery. (The former caretaker was allowed to sell timber from the cemetery in lieu of a salary.) Since the gate was never shut, local people drove their sheep and goats through the cemetery, another source of damage to headstones. Some memorials had also been ‘deliberately desecrated’ by local Muslims who objected to their representation of human figures. The Secretary concluded that ‘the whole cemetery has obviously been neglected for years, but the two Connaught Ranger graves are less overgrown than most, probably because they are partly sheltered by a large tree,’ although ‘a regularly-used track or path runs across the foot of Daly’s grave,’ a shortcut to the nearby road. The tombstones of Daly and Miranda were not damaged, although the lead filling was missing from their inscriptions, which the chaplain of the local Protestant Church believed had been taken by local residents in order to make shot. The Irish Embassy made arrangements for a colleague of the chaplain ‘to keep the Connaught Ranger graves “under his special care.”’85 Two years later, the same official returned to find the condition of the graveyard ‘considerably less neglected,’ in large part due to the efforts of the 2nd Battalion of the Bihar Regiment, which renovated it in the spring of 1968. However, since the men of the regiment had applied a coat of whitewash to all the graves, in addition to repairing broken and damaged headstones, ‘the inscriptions were almost completely obscured.’ In spite

Enemies of the Empire? 193

of the improved appearance of the cemetery, the Secretary was pessimistic about the chances of properly maintaining the graves of the Connaughts: I fear that there is no possibility of finding a local civilian who would be prepared, or who could be trusted, to tend the graves in which we are interested in return for a small honorarium. Before leaving I did what I could to improve the legibility of the inscriptions on Daly’s and Miranda’s tombstones. The track or footpath across the former’s grave . . . is clearly still in regular use but there is nothing we can do to prevent or discourage that.86 In 2003, the Indian Express reporter could not locate John Miranda’s grave in the waist-high weeds, observing that ‘there is no Daly, no Miranda, only fear of snakes slithering in the grass. The Irish saga turns out to be not only a victim of history, but also of nature.’87

The mutineers and India What attitude did the Connaught Rangers mutineers take toward India, and Indian nationalists? One point is worth stressing here. In spite of the commentary in the Indian press on the mutiny, and the interest of nationalists in the events, there is no evidence that the Connaught Rangers ever attempted to make common cause with Indian nationalists. Indeed, the episode of anti-colonial resistance that seemed to be foremost in the minds of the Connaught Rangers in 1920 was not the ongoing non-cooperation campaign, but rather the ‘Mutiny’ of 1857. Sam Pollock, the writer and narrator of the 1963 BBC radio programme ‘In Search of A Mutiny,’ acknowledged that the Punjab as well as Ireland was in a state of revolt in 1920. In a portion of the script edited from the original broadcast, he noted that ‘yet none of the men I spoke to seemed to have felt that this created any community of interest.’ In July 1920, the Indian Army noted that the mutineers had refused to hand over their arms and ammunition to Indian troops, and 40 years later some of the Connaught Rangers told Pollock that because of their fears of an Indian uprising similar to 1857, they refused to be disarmed until additional British troops arrived.88 William Keenan (identified as ‘Frank Geraghty’ in ‘In Search of a Mutiny’) was one of the two representatives who traveled from Jullundur to Solon to spread word of the protest. Clearly, Keenan was one of the most enthusiastic of the Jullundur mutineers: he one of the first to volunteer for the Guard Room, and before his departure for Solon marched through a bungalow shouting ‘Fall in, all Sinn Feiners.’89 However, in spite of his ‘Sinn Féin’ outlook, Keenan also recalled that soldiers had told stories of the ‘horrors of the Indian Mutiny of 1857.’ One of those tales was of the massacre at Cawnpore, which as we have seen dominated the imperial imagination in the late

194

Ireland and India

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to Keenan, ‘some of the soldiers who knew more about India than I did at that particular time, related that Indians massacred the British wives and children, and put their bodies down the wells, and we were not prepared to have that happen.’90 If their status as British soldiers was to prove a bar to the Connaught Rangers mutineers’ acceptance as Irish republican heroes, from the mutineers’ perspective, it was an even more of a bar in 1920 to any common cause with Indian nationalists. John Flannery’s account of the mutiny in the Irish Independent in 1925, as well as his subsequent statement to the Bureau of Military History Bureau, captures how the relationship between the mutineers and the local Indian population was highly ambivalent, if not outright hostile. In his published account of the mutiny ‘By One Who Knows,’ Flannery noted how at Jullundur the soldiers responded to an appeal by an officer to place their own guard over rifles in the guardroom in order to prevent a repeat of the 1857 ‘Mutiny’: He said that if the natives became aware that the guardroom and magazine were unprotected they would lose no time in attempting to secure their contents. If such an attempt were successful the natives would use the arms thus obtained to murder every European in the Cantonment.91 James Daly made a similar argument at Solon, pointing out to officers ‘that it was quite possible that the natives would attempt to attack the camp when they learned that a state of mutiny existed; and that for this reason the men should be in possession of their arms.’92 As British Army soldiers, the Connaught Rangers’ principal contacts with Indians were with servants and merchants from the cantonment bazaar; the album of drawings that the mutineers compiled in Dagshai prison included several far-fromcomplimentary depictions of various servants and merchants captioned ‘Ali Baba and his forty thieves.’93 In his recollections of the mutiny at Jullundur, Flannery included a rather stereotypically Orientalist description of ‘a native bazaar,’ which focused on the exotic and intimidating nature of ‘the East’ to an Irish soldier: the ‘dense fog of flies,’ ‘the excited, jabbering and bargaining natives, the noise and stifling heat,’ and a tattoo artist inscribing ‘a portrait of a native lady seated on a British Tommy’s chest.’94 Flannery also, however, recorded that one speaker (who is not identified, but is probably Flannery himself) suggested the Connaughts could undo the image of their regiment as imperial oppressors: You can prove to the people of India . . . by your good behaviour, that your fellow-countrymen and women are not bands of hooligans out for murder, rape and loot – as the people of India were led to believe they were – but bands of heroes fighting for a noble and righteous cause – the freedom of their native land.

Enemies of the Empire? 195

Flannery also recalled that the same leader met with all of the ‘native merchants’ in the regimental bazaar and explained that the Rangers had mutinied, and pointed out that they had nothing to fear from them. He recalled to their memory what had taken place at Amritsar in 1919 when close on 3,000 of their own fellowcountrymen and women were fired on by British forces, 359 being killed. To the native merchants he also pointed out that the same forces were shooting down our fellow-countrymen and women in Ireland, and Irishmen in India would not stand idly by without making a protest, the only thing they could do when they were so far from their native land. He concluded with a promise that the Rangers would not molest any of the native people or interfere with their property, so long as the natives themselves did not try to take advantage of the crisis in the Rangers’ barracks. On the contrary, the Rangers would come to their aid should any mob attempt to loot the bazaar.95 Flannery also reported that an ‘Indian leader’ said, ‘Had I a few divisions of men like the Connaught Rangers, I would free my country in a very short time.’96 As soldiers in the British Army, the context in which the Connaught Rangers interacted with Indians was, of course, very different from the Irish and Irish–American men and women who met with the Indian nationalist representatives who traveled to Ireland and America. Nonetheless, mutual interest in Ireland and India, particularly among progressive politicians and revolutionary leaders, was growing in the interwar period. It is thus not surprising that in the decades after the mutiny, several of the mutineers, particularly those who had developed strong republican beliefs, stressed that their mutiny had been for Indian as well as Irish nationalism. The mutineer James J. Devers became acquainted with Maude Gonne MacBride, who was active in both republican politics as well as the Irish India Independence League. Devers, along with a half-dozen other former mutineers, attended a meeting of the Women Prisoners’ Defense League in their office at 44 Parnell Square, which was chaired by MacBride. MacBride in turn lobbied to gain additional recompense for Devers and his wife even after the passage of the 1936 Pensions Act.97 In his 1955 recollections of the mutiny, Devers portrayed it as a shock to British rule in India, one which colonial authorities were determined to keep from the Indian public: Not only had they mutinied but they had placed themselves under a flag which was strange to India—a green, white and orange flag which they flew from one of their huts. In the Indian bazaar below men with brown skins and dark eyes looked in wonder at the Irish Tricolour that floated above the barracks of the troops of occupation. At all costs, the

196

Ireland and India

officers decided at their conferences, the meaning of the flag must be kept from the people of India and a security net was thrown around the encampment. But the flag continued to fly.98 Devers’ description is somewhat condescending: there is no hint that the Connaughts were located in the middle of a province that was engaged in various forms of anti-colonial resistance on a broad scale. Two of the men who emerged as spokesmen for the mutineers in the decades after 1920, Joseph Hawes and Stephen Lally, displayed a greater affinity for Indian nationalism. Both men, as we have seen, developed strong republican beliefs. Hawes, one of the leaders of the mutiny at Jullundur, was one of the few Connaught Rangers who understood in the summer of 1920 that their protest had potential to resonate not just in Ireland but in India. At the Court Martial of the Solon mutineers, Lieutenant S.A. Gibbons testified that when Colonel Deacon met with the leaders of the mutiny he attempted to persuade them ‘how serious the men’s conduct was, and how bad an example to Indian troops.’ Hawes replied, ‘“They have a grouse as well as ourselves” and that he would rather be shot by them than by an Englishman.’99 However, at the time, these gestures of solidarity went no further than this. In his Witness Statement to the Bureau of Military History (1949), Hawes displayed both his attraction to Indian nationalism and the stark limits of such solidarity for the Rangers in 1920. Hawes recalled how he and several other Connaughts became ‘very friendly’ with an Indian barber who came in to shave the prisoners once a week at Dagshai. ‘This barber was a follower of Gandhi’s and spoke English fairly well when the sentries were not listening,’ he recalled. The barber was able to arrange for some of the prisoners to escape temporarily from Dagshai. This was accomplished, Hawes explained, by enlisting the aid of the sweeper who cleaned the lavatories in the prison, who allowed the men to exit the prison through passages designed for the removal of buckets of waste. Hawes related the somewhat fantastic story how six of the mutineers, including James Daly, raided the army canteen at Solon, six or seven miles away, one night to bring back food and cigarettes for the other prisoners.100 Hawes asked rhetorically why the mutineers ‘did not make a break for freedom’ given the opportunity to escape. The answer related to their status as ‘British’ soldiers serving as part of a colonial garrison: You must remember that we were in an alien country, thousands of miles from home, even unable to speak the language. Every man would be our enemy, both the King’s men and the native Indians to whom none of us could explain our position over the language barrier . . . . we had nowhere to go, even if we escaped; every man’s hand would be against us, as soldiers were not popular in India at the time.101

Enemies of the Empire? 197

Nevertheless, Hawes expressed considerable affinity for Indian nationalism, and came to regard the mutiny as an anti-imperial act. He contended that on the night of Daly’s execution, an area several miles around Dagshai was put under curfew as ‘the authorities feared a rising of the natives or attack from some other source.’102 In the 1970 RTÉ radio programme ‘Mutiny at Solon,’ Hawes stated, ‘That was the proudest moment of my life, when I seen our own flag of Ireland flying abroad in India, in the heart of the British Empire.’103 At Daly’s reinternment ceremony in Tyrrellspass in 1970, Hawes expressed his satisfaction not only with return of Daly’s remains, but also that ‘there was the body of one of their comrades, John Miranda, left behind in India to be a connecting link between two countries, Ireland and India, divided and partitioned by the British Government and he hoped that someday the two countries would be united, each under its own Government.’104 Stephen Lally, one of Hawes’ comrades at Jullundur, also claimed in his 1924 memoir to have supported Indian as well as Irish nationalism. The Connaught Rangers, he wrote, ‘thought we might as well kill two birds with one stone, and if we could get the Indian national Movement with us it would mean a great victory not alone for Ireland but for India as well.’ Lally claimed that, when the mutiny at Jullundur began, the soldiers expected an Indian nationalist rebellion to begin, and claimed that ‘Mr Gandi’ [sic] sent the mutineers a telegram stating that due to divisions within the Indian nationalist movement, no help would be forthcoming, which he said ‘scattered our hopes in regards India.’105 Lally’s identification of the mutiny with the Indian independence movement came to be shared by a number of Irish republicans, particularly those of more radical and socialist beliefs. As we have seen, these republicans, such as Maude Gonne MacBride, displayed strong anti-imperialist sentiments, and readily identified with anti-colonial struggles elsewhere. When an ultimately unsuccessful relief bill for the Connaught Rangers mutineers was debated at length in the Dáil in 1930, arguments in favor of the mutineers included their bravery at staging their protest in the British Raj and their impact on Indian nationalism. In introducing the bill, Frank Fahy, implicitly compared the Connaught Rangers to the sepoy rebels of 1857, arguing that ‘a very high kind of courage and a very high form of patriotism were required in the case of those men who mutinied’: In India they were surrounded by British regiments and they had undoubtedly memories of or had known of other mutinies which took place in India on two previous occasions when the mutineers were blown from the cannon’s mouth. These men took the chance of a similar fate befalling them. The fact that they took action far away from Ireland and surrounded by those thousands of British troops makes their action all the more meritorious from the Irish point of view.106

198

Ireland and India

Responding to criticisms that the Connaughts’ protest had had little impact in Ireland, Patrick Hogan of County Clare argued that the mutiny had not only resonated in Ireland and America, but also in India: What effect had the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers upon a country like India, seething at that time with discontent, which is now expressing itself? What effect had the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers in India, seething with disaffection, and what effect had the incitement to dissaffection in India upon the mind of those who were governing this country with steel and fire? . . . They were not asked to take part in the struggle, and yet we cannot deny the fact that they did mutiny and blazon the position of affairs in Ireland throughout India, throughout America, and throughout the universal world.107 During the Second World War, the anniversary of Daly’s execution was celebrated at Glasnevin Cemetery by an obscure republican organization called the Green Front, which used the occasion to send greetings to the Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, at the time the leader of the Indian National Army (INA) and the leader of the Provisional Indian government. Bose, as we have seen, was, like many Bengali nationalists, an ardent enthusiast for Irish nationalism who had visited the Irish Free State in 1936. While leader of the provisional government, he broadcast a series of five radio messages directed at Éire, which underscored his deep affinity with Irish nationalism. In February 1943, he observed Of all the freedom movements we Indians have studied closely and from which we have received inspiration, there is perhaps none that can equal the Irish struggle for independence . . . . The debt of gratitude which India’s patriots owe to Irish heroes for the inspiration they have received will be difficult to repay. In fact, it would not be the slightest exaggeration to say that among the fighters against alien imperialism, whom I have known personally, there are perhaps none whose friendship I cherish more than that of those brave men and women who have uncompromisingly stood and fought for the Irish Republic.108 The message sent in return by the Green Front, which Irish intelligence officials believed to be in contact with Bose’s representatives in London, noted that members were ‘assembled on the day of remembrance of James Daly who was condemned by the British oppressors of India,’ and offered congratulations to Bose on his military leadership: ‘We look forward with confidence to the fight that the INA will wage, in emulation of the fight for freedom of the Army of the Irish Republic.’109 The ceremony and message confirmed not only Daly’s status as a republican hero, but also the identification of the Connaught Rangers mutiny as an anti-imperial act. Francis Kearney, at the

Enemies of the Empire? 199

unveiling of the cenotaph in 1949, conveyed this same message. The Connaughts, he said, ‘refused to serve under the British flag. They tore down the symbol of imperialism and raised the Tricolor of the Republic.’110 After the reinterment of James Daly at Tyrrellspass in 1970, the Provisional IRA asserted that the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers had been a ‘big boost’ to Indian nationalism.111

The Connaught Rangers mutiny in fiction The relationship of the Connaught Rangers to the Indian population and Indian nationalists has also engaged the authors of fictional treatments of the mutiny. Some more recent interpretations have taken what might be termed a postcolonial approach, stressing Indo-Irish solidarity and interpreting the protest as an act carried out for Indian as well as Irish freedom. In Vincent Corrigan’s novel 1916 (2001), James Daly wanders through the bazaars and befriends Indians, drawn by his fascination with the ‘haunting and different’ music of India. Following in the footsteps of the many Irish writers who found kinship between ‘Celtic’ and ‘Oriental’ cultures, Daly’s path toward mutiny is fueled by India as much as by news reports of army brutalities in Ireland. A ‘Hindu spiritual man’ transforms the rebellious Irishman into ‘a great Indian warrior from the family of Vishnu.’112 The James Daly of 1916 is not so much a republican martyr as an Irish seeker after Eastern wisdom in the tradition of James Stephens, W.B. Yeats and James Cousins.113 In addition to nationalism and decolonization, partition is one of the defining events of twentieth-century Irish and Indian history. The Connaught Rangers make an appearance in one fictional treatment of the traumatic division of South Asia in 1947—the British director Ken McMullen’s 1987 film Partition. McMullen’s screenplay, co-written with Tariq Ali, is an adaptation of the Urdu author Hasan Sadaat Manto’s short story ‘Toba Tek Singh,’ which concerns an exchange of inmates in insane asylums across the newly drawn border between India and Pakistan. Interspersed with scenes of the (literal) lunacy of partition are scenes in which British colonial officials and Indian politicians at the time of the ‘transfer of power’ in 1947 debate the nature of colonial rule and the implications of its ending. McMullen had originally planned to call the film ‘Ten Meditations on Partition,’ and commented that ‘I think this film is a kind of guided, concrete meditation on the events of 1947 . . . indeed on all imperial history.’114 The Connaught Rangers mutiny comprises one of these ‘meditations.’ At a farewell reception for the departing British in the summer of 1947, a Sikh army officer observes that ‘mutiny and partition seem to go hand in hand for the British,’ and draws a striking parallel between Ireland and India: just as the 1946 naval mutiny in India preceded partition, he notes, the 1922 partition of Ireland was preceded by the mutiny of the Connaught

200

Ireland and India

Rangers. McMullen and Ali’s reading of the 1920 mutiny converts it into the sort of Indo-Irish act of imperial solidarity that the Gadar Party and the FOFI had striven for after the First World War. The mutiny is presented as a top secret affair, knowledge of which the Sikh officer has rescued from papers shredded by the departing colonial masters. ‘Top secret for fifty years, extended by another twenty-five,’ he notes, and adds in a reference to the ‘Troubles’ sparked by the partition of Ireland: ‘Your grandchildren might learn the truth in 1995 unless the war with Ireland is still going on.’ In Ali and McMullen’s retelling of the story, the republican convictions of the mutineers and their solidarity with Indian nationalists are far more pronounced than what we have seen was the reality in 1920. The mutiny is led by one ‘Michael O’Leary,’ whose brother is ‘a supporter of De Valera.’115 The Connaughts are first inspired by events in India—the news of the Amritsar massacre—while the mutiny is triggered by the news that O’Leary’s brother has also been shot by the British: Secret meetings were held, late at night. The rebels struck like lightning. They captured the amoury, and arrested all the British officers, treated them as hostages. The British laid a siege. Eventually, the Irish surrendered. An example must be made, and O’Leary, ‘the commanding officer,’ is executed. McMullen and Ali’s retelling of the mutiny makes one final connection between the Connaught Rangers and Indian nationalism. The Sikh officer reveals that his brother became a terrorist, and like one of the mutineers, died in revolt against the British Raj, killed by his own bomb as he attempted to assassinate the governor of the Punjab. ‘My brother and O’Leary,’ says the officer sadly, as the Indian and British guests sit down to an elaborate farewell banquet. In contrast to these reimaginings of the events of 1920 as a gesture of anti-imperial solidarity, two plays produced in recent decades about the Connaught Rangers mutiny focus instead on the tension between the mutineers’ tentative expressions of sympathy with Indian nationalism and the soldiers’ contempt for ‘the natives’ and an overriding fear of revolt and disorder if an Indian rising follows that of the Connaughts. In Glyn Jones’ The 88 (1979), Joseph Hawes gives a long speech in which praise of Gandhi’s power as a nationalist leader is mingled with amazement and disdain for his physical appearance. ‘Such an ugly little runt,’ Hawes muses, yet these people, they follow him like he’s twelve popes all rolled into one . . . Now this man, Ghandi, he’s going to give the King of England a terrible headache, that’s for sure . . . I tell you he’s a saint that man. Isn’t it a pity now he’s not a Catholic? What a grand martyr he would make.116

Enemies of the Empire? 201

Jones also accords an Indian barber named ‘Nappi,’ likely an acknowledgement of Hawes’ recollections of the sympathetic Indian barber, a crucial role in the mutiny at Solon.117 In The 88, it is Nappi, rather than two Connaught Rangers from Jullundur, who brings the news of the mutiny to James Daly and his comrades. The barber reports the ‘big news’ he has heard from a dhobi or washerman: ‘The Rangers make big trouble at Jullundur. They are saying no more fighting for England, not any more.’ In line with their reallife reputation, however, the Connaughts in The 88 treat Nappi with the contempt of imperial masters. Daly refers to Nappi as ‘that poor skinny little black bastard I’ve kicked up the arse so often my foot hurt.’ When the barber slips in shaving Daly, the Irishman says, ‘I’m going to kick your arse for you,’ while another soldier complains ‘God he stinks of curry.’ One reviewer singled out this scene ‘in which the mutineers, though so eager to proclaim their solidarity with oppressed Indians, insult and kick around their Indian servant’ as one of the most effective in the play.118 The tension between the Connaughts’ tentative attempts at solidarity with Indians (and their understanding of parallels between the two nationalist movements) and their contempt for the ‘natives’ is particularly evident in the Irish writer John Kavanagh’s No Comet Seen (1993), by far the most historically accurate treatment of the events of 1920. The potential impact of the Connaughts’ protest on India, as well as Ireland, is frequently discussed by the regiment’s officers: Badham:

There are tri-colours flying over three of the huts—now what kind of signal do you think that is sending out to the tribal militants? Alexander: . . . This is the British Army on the North-West Frontier of India and outside these gates are millions, and I mean millions, of little brown men who will take all of this away from us given the slightest encouragement. While the officers of the regiment have little doubt about the impact of the mutiny in India, the mutineers themselves debate the issue of how much their protest of the actions of crown forces in Ireland parallels the political situation in India. After reading, in a copy of the Dublin Evening Mail which one of the Connaughts from Jullundur has brought, an account of shootings by the British Army at Dublin’s Portobello Bridge, Daly is moved to think about Amritsar. Others point out that the ‘Hindus’ are a different case: Daly: Look what [the army] did at Amritsar only a few months ago—a massacre—mowed down all and sundry with machine guns—anything that even looked like an Indian man, woman or child—and not so much as a how-do-you-do about it back in Blighty. Browne: They were Indians.

202

Ireland and India

Kerrigan: (Sarcastically.) They were inciting disturbances the authorities said. Daly: So was the lassie standin’ on Portobello Bridge I suppose— Lally: The only reason they were different was because they are Hindus, colored, different to us and smell like shit—

Even the more sympathetic Daly argues that the mutineers need to retain their rifles in order to repel any possible attack by Indians: ‘God knows what the Indians will try when word gets out—we could have a full scale uprising on our hands. And I wouldn’t like to be depending on the British Army to be saving any of our necks right now.’ When Father Baker attempts to persuade the mutineers to surrender their arms, a soldier replies, ‘We have to mind against the Hindus father.’119

The Connaught Rangers Association As the treatment of the mutiny in the film Partition demonstrates, in the years after the repatriation of James Daly, the name ‘Connaught Rangers’ had become strongly associated, if not synonymous, with the mutiny of 1920. Yet there is another tradition of commemoration of the Connaught Rangers in post-independence Ireland: the commemoration of the long and distinguished history of the Regiment’s service to the British Empire. This was, however, to prove an even more difficult and protracted process than that of the commemoration of the mutineers. As John Morrissey observes, ‘The Connaught Rangers, as a former Irish regiment in the British Army, were simply never destined to figure prominently in any dominant cultural narrative in post-independent Ireland.’120 Some former Connaught Rangers who were not involved in the Mutiny did not see any contradiction between honoring the mutineers and the broader history of the regiment. When James Daly’s body was repatriated to Ireland, Michael Kenny, who had served with the regiment in Silesia at the time of the mutiny, represented the Connaught Rangers Old Comrades Association at the ceremony. Although he was an active member of the British Legion, he was not uncomfortable representing the regiment at a ceremony coordinated by the strongly republican NGA.121 The British Army, and British soldiers, in fact played a role in memorializing Daly. Daly is commemorated on one British Army memorial, the Kirkee 1914–1918 Memorial in Kirkee Cemetery near Poona in western India, which honors more than 1800 British Army soldiers who served in the Great War and who are buried in Indian cemeteries where ‘their graves can no longer be properly maintained.’122 In the interwar period, when relatively little attention was paid to James Daly in Ireland, British Army soldiers in India helped

Enemies of the Empire? 203

to preserve the legacy of his role in the mutiny. Songs of mutiny and punishment were popular genres for British soldiers’ singing sessions in ‘wet canteens’ (canteens where beer was sold) at army cantonments in India after the First World War. In addition to serving as the subject of new ballads being composed about the sacrifice of the Connaught Rangers, Daly also became associated with existing ‘rebel songs’ such as ‘Lay Him Away O’er the Hillside,’ a ballad about ‘a young Irish soldier’ sentenced to die. Along with other songs commemorating Irish republican heroes such as ‘Kevin Barry,’ ‘Lay Him Away O’er the Hillside’ became a popular song among British Army soldiers stationed in India between the two World Wars, where English, Scots and Welsh ballad singers seem to have learned the song from Irish soldiers.123 A former lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery, S.H. Harper, recalled how the ballad, which he knew as ‘Macaffery,’ was a popular one among soldiers, even though the singing of it was forbidden: ‘Nevertheless, it was sung, and with considerable gusto, especially if there were a few Irishmen present.’ The chorus in particular was a favorite one in the ‘wet canteens’: They laid him away on the hill-side, Along with the brave and the bold; Inscribed his name on a role of fame, In letters of flaming gold; ‘My conscience shall never convict me,’ He said with his last dying breath, ‘May God speed the causes of freedom, For which I am sentenced to death.’124 By the 1960s, this song—and Daly’s association with it—had become a republican ballad, sung by Brendan Behan while dictating his autobiography and included by his brother Dominic in his compilation of Irish folk songs.125 Most officers—and some other ranks—of the Connaught Rangers, however, displayed little interest in acknowledging the mutiny, much less commemorating the events at Jullundur and Solon. Shortly after the dissolution of the regiment in 1922, Lieutenant-Colonel H.F.N. Jourdain, the last commanding officer, established an organization called the Connaught Rangers Association (CRA). His main object—one strikingly similar to the mutineers associations which were to be formed later in the decade—was not to commemorate the regiment, but to provide financial assistance to former members of the Connaughts whom he had found to be living in poverty in Ireland.126 In addition to providing relief to ex-servicemen, the association published its own journal, The Ranger, held meetings and an annual dinner in London and participated in the annual parade of the disbanded Irish regiments held each May, in which wreaths were laid at the Cenotaph. An annual memorial service for the regiment was held at

204

Ireland and India

St. Patrick’s Church in Soho Square, London, where the regiment’s banners were preserved. In 1939, the sermon spoke of the ‘imperishable memory’ of the Connaughts.127 Beginning in 1925, former officers in Dublin began to organize annual dinners as well.128 The dinners, such as one held at the Imperial Hotel in London’s Russell Square in June 1931, were occasions not simply for reunions of comrades, but also to celebrate the regiment’s Irish identity and its history of service to the British Empire. The Rangers entered to the fife and drum accompaniment of the jig ‘Father O’Flynn.’ The Irish Times reported that the speeches were ‘commendably brief, and the major portion of the evening was devoted to a musical programme and reminiscences of the Rangers’ battles in the South African Wars and on the fields of Flanders.’ One of the decorations of the center table was tattered green flag, ‘the emblem which led the Rangers to victory in their second battle of Ypres.’ The highlight of the evening was the recitation of the poem ‘Draailbosch,’ ‘commemorating the gallant stand of a small body of Rangers in southern Africa in 1877.’ The poem was given a ‘fiery rendering’ by a Chelsea pensioner who had fought with the Connaughts in Southern Africa in the late nineteenth century.129 One subject which was often discussed at these dinners and meetings was the erection of a memorial to the Connaught Rangers in Ireland.130 In addition to the display of the regiment’s colors in St. Patrick’s Church, plaques in the Chapel of Saint Patrick in Westminster Cathedral in London honored the Rangers and the other disbanded Irish regiments. Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ireland sometimes took on the aspect of regimental commemorations, as in Ballina, County Mayo, in 1927, when 150 ex-servicemen, mostly Connaught Rangers who were veterans of the Great War, assembled at the town hall to observe the two minutes’ silence.131 By the 1930s, however, the members of the CRA were acutely aware of the ascending status of the mutineers, and this spurred the desire of members for a general memorial to the regiment. This tension regarding the rising status of the mutineers was illustrated by a brief controversy which erupted during the construction of the Irish National War Memorial in Islandbridge, outside Dublin. In February 1934, a rumor reached the Old Comrades of the Connaught Rangers that one of the former mutineers had been appointed as caretaker of the grounds. Not surprisingly, this was considered ‘a painful slight to those who fought [in the Great War] and survived.’ This prompted an angry statement that when ‘Remembrance Day celebrations are held there in a few years’ time . . . the Connaught Rangers’ Association will stay outside the park unless the appointment is revoked.’ The Irish Times was unable to determine the truth of the report, but opined that ‘a man who mutinied against the British flag is no fit caretaker of a memorial which embodies the pride, the loyalties, the solemn memories of tens of thousand of Irish ex-Service men and other thousands of bereaved wives and parents.’ The controversy proved unfounded, however; five days later the Minister

Enemies of the Empire? 205

for Finance, Sean MacEntee, stated in the Dáil that no former Connaught Rangers mutineer had been hired in any such position at the National War Memorial.132 At the same time, as the campaign for the return of James Daly’s body was gaining momentum, the construction of a new cathedral in the city of Galway, which began in 1958, provided an opportunity for a memorial to the Connaught Rangers. The contract for construction of the cathedral was for £600,000, a figure which did not include altars, windows or other interior decorations; and various organizations with Galway connections, including the CRA, were approached to contribute.133 The Association was asked to fund a memorial window to the regiment, and the organization responded enthusiastically. Over £600 was raised for the window, of which £350 was eventually expended.134 The memorial was located in the west transept of the cathedral, the second in a series of four windows designed by the Dublin artist Manus Walsh representing Old Testament scenes of the Kings of Israel. The Connaught Rangers window depicts David slaying the Philistine giant Goliath, with the inscription, ‘In Memory of all ranks of the Connaught Rangers,’ with the regimental motto ‘Quis Separabit,’ the regimental numbers ‘88’ and ‘94’ in shamrocks along with the Elephant and Sphinx emblems of the Connaughts. The Ranger noted with satisfaction that ‘this, so many years since disbandment, when the lives of so many of us have been filled with other loves and other loyalties, is indeed a touching tribute to the Memory of the Regiment.’ The Connaught Rangers window was completed in time for the consecration of Galway Cathedral on 15 August 1965. A number of former Connaught Rangers attended, including Captain Russell Maguire, the driving force behind the establishment of the memorial. Russell also visited the Rangers’ former barracks at Renmore, County Galway, now a base for the Irish Army, ‘where he was made very welcome, including the greeting “We are all Connaught Rangers here.” ’135 The satisfaction expressed by the CRA over the establishment of a suitable memorial to the regiment in Ireland soon gave way to disillusionment, however. Even before the completion of the cathedral, members of the CRA were forced to defend the memorial from criticism. In the Sunday Independent, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa related the story of the Connaught Rangers mutiny and Daly’s execution and observed

The country that has failed to honour them properly may, however, now be surprised to learn that there will shortly be a memorial in Galway, not to those who realized that their first loyalty was to Ireland and who risked death in a far-off land for the Irish cause, but to the old British Regiment itself. The men of the Mutiny are forgotten; those who remained loyal to the Empire will be commemorated in Galway.136

206

Ireland and India

Almost a year after the consecration of the cathedral, the inscription honoring the Connaught Rangers had still not been added to the image of David and Goliath. In any case, as The Ranger observed, the window was too small and too high up in the cathedral for any inscription to be legible. By July 1967, the window was at last completed.137 One former Connaught Ranger, who traveled to Galway to visit the cathedral on a rainy day, was disappointed in the memorial window, observing that ‘it is very high up and small, and the inscription can only be read with the aid of field-glasses! Being thus almost anonymous as a memorial, subscribers can hardly feel their purpose has been respected.’ Worst of all, Cathedral authorities reported that someone—‘for alleged political reasons’—fired two shots at the window, which was fortunately not damaged. The IRA was suspected. The Ranger bitterly observed that the ‘volley’ was ‘for military reasons . . . an odd sort of compliment,’ but that ‘the soldier, David, would have resented being shot in the back.’138 Today, the memorial is just as difficult to identify as when it was completed over 40 years ago; the guidebook on sale in the cathedral describes the David and Goliath window, but does not mention its dedication to the Connaught Rangers.139 Less than a decade later, the CRA came to an end following a final regimental dinner and parade to the Cenotaph in London in June 1972, the fiftieth anniversary of the regiment’s disbandment. In the CRA’s final newsletter, Jourdain wrote that the Rangers’ dwindling numbers created both practical and financial difficulties for any continued activities. The Association’s remaining funds would be used for what had been a perennial problem since the regiment’s disbandment: the relief of veterans ‘living in reduced circumstances in Ireland and elsewhere.’ The final newsletter expressed a rare political comment, a hope that the institution of ‘Direct Rule’ in Northern Ireland would ‘lead to an ending of the grim situation which has existed for so long in the six counties of Ulster.’ Jourdain struck an elegiac note in his commentary, an acknowledgement, perhaps, that the 50 years since the Connaught Rangers’ disbandment had only furthered their marginalization in independent Ireland: At this moment we have to leave the scene because we are all old, and our place is now in the past, in the history books and no longer in the present . . . . All this, we know, must sound brusque and almost unfeeling, but we are sure it is better to bring our activities to an agreed and organized conclusion than to let them gradually disintegrate and fall apart because the office-holders are no longer able to operate efficiently, and because there is no-one left who is able and willing to take their place.140 By the early 1970s, in the context of the Northern Irish conflict, the legacy of the imperial service of the Connaught Rangers seemed to have been eclipsed by the anti-imperial and republican legacies of the mutiny of 1920. Yet as

Enemies of the Empire? 207

we have seen, the Connaught Rangers mutiny represented more than simply a straightforward protest for the establishment of an independent Irish republic. The conclusion will reflect on the impact of these multiple legacies of the Connaught Rangers mutiny, and of Irish associations with India more generally.

Conclusion

On 7 August 2004, the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Ireland and the British Ambassador participated in a formal military ceremony at Aughavale Cemetery in County Mayo. They were, appropriately, joined by military re-enactors dressed in redcoat uniforms, for the ceremony honored a nineteenth-century Irish soldier, a sergeant major in the Connaught Rangers named Cornelius Coughlan. Coughlan had earned the Victoria Cross in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and had died in 1915 in the nearby town of Westport. He was buried with military honors at a well-attended public funeral, but for many years his body had lain in an unmarked grave.1 The Minister of Defense and the ambassador watched as a new headstone was unveiled over Coughlan’s grave and the ‘redcoats’ fired a musket volley. To the ambassador, the ceremony ‘symbolized the development of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, the new willingness to discuss things which were not so easily discussed at all and the willingness to think about the extent of our shared history.’2 One of these ‘things which were not so easily discussed at all’ was the role of Irish men and women in building the British Empire. Coughlan earned his Victoria Cross during British efforts to recapture the city of Delhi in the summer of 1857. He first led an assault that completely destroyed a rebel position in a Delhi suburb, and later organized the retrieval of wounded British soldiers under heavy enemy fire. Speakers at the ceremony were aware that the sergeant represented a different tradition from that commonly associated with Ireland: a tradition of imperial service rather than anti-imperial militancy. A retired Irish Army officer noted that Coughlan deserved recognition for his ‘tremendous personal integrity’ and ‘personal bravery’ rather than derision for his service in an imperial cause. He added: ‘The fact that this man served in an imperial army is not the point. The fact that he was denying the Indians their independence and imposing colonial rule was not the point.’3 After the ceremony, some Irish people expressed unease in the national press with the Irish government’s role in a ceremony honoring a soldier 208

Conclusion 209

who had participated in the ‘subjugation of India.’ One letter writer suggested that the British conquest of India amounted to genocide; another argued that Ireland should issue a formal apology to the Indian people ‘for the part played by Irishmen in suppressing their rightful claim to national independence.’ Others called attention to the Connaught Rangers mutiny. These men, one writer suggested, were the ‘genuine heroes’ whose sacrifice on behalf of Ireland was deserving of honor.4 Nollaig Ó Gadhra, the author of an Irish-language biography of Mohandas Gandhi, called Coughlan a ‘brave soldier,’ but also noted that he earned his VC ‘in a bloody conflict against some other “natives”,’ adding that if those who wished to honour Cornelius Coughlan in Westport wanted to make a balanced contribution to the Irish historical experience, then one might have expected an active presence and an invitation to the Indian Ambassador and Embassy in Dublin so that the full facts of the Connaught Rangers’ contribution to British Imperial policy in India might justly be recalled.5 The belated honors given to ‘Mutiny’ hero Sergeant Coughlan illustrate the complex legacies of Ireland’s relationship with India over the past two centuries. This book has sought to analyze historical memories of that relationship, as reflected in nationalist contacts, imperial heroism and the mutiny of the Connaught Rangers. One important objective has been to demonstrate how empire was an important expression of the global nature of modern Irish history. Another has been to demonstrate the continuing tension between Irish imperial service and anti-imperial activity. These aspects should not be considered paradoxical. As Kevin Kenny reminds us, ‘There is nothing anomalous in members of one colonised people helping to govern their homeland, or to conquer and govern another country elsewhere in the same Empire.’6 Both aspects have been the subjects of commemoration, both within and outside of Ireland, at different times and for different groups of Irish people. The memorialization of John Nicholson and James Joseph Daly epitomize these different traditions. Nicholson’s death was viewed as critical to the preservation of the Empire; Daly’s death was viewed as a step toward the establishment of an independent Irish republic. Nicholson’s grave in Delhi was a tangible symbol of the British domination of India; the return of Daly’s body to Ireland became an imperative for republicans. For both men, an emphasis on their sacrifice and martyrdom was central to the heroic narratives crafted about them. Overall, while the legacy of anti-imperial Indo-Irish relationships has been the most substantial one, Irish imperial service in India has also formed part of an important commemorative tradition in the twentieth century.

210

Ireland and India

Nationalism In case of nationalism, symbolic force outstripped personal contacts in the two decades following the Great War. Diaspora contacts between Indian and Irish nationalists were disappointing in terms of concrete results (i.e., arms and money for the Indian independence struggle), but rich in terms of antiimperial symbolism, and they contributed to deepening Indian admiration for Irish nationalism. A decade after Irish and Indian nationalists marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York, Bengali revolutionaries attempted to re-stage the Easter Rising in the Chittagong Armory Raid. These contacts helped lay the foundation for later personal interactions by major nationalist politicians: the visits of Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru to Ireland, and of Eamon De Valera to India.7 The symbolism of antiimperial rebellion also continued to contribute to these evolving Indo-Irish relationships. We have seen how Eamon De Valera was presented with a flag and a sword by the Gadar Party, an Indian revolutionary organization in North America, in 1919. These items were used in subsequent anti-imperial commemorations. In 1950, De Valera accepted an invitation to attend a celebration of Republic Day by the Indian community of Birmingham, England. There he met the son of Congress Party leader V.V. Giri, later to become President of India, who had been a student in Ireland at the time of the Easter Rising and an ardent supporter of Sinn Féin. During the ceremony, De Valera presented the Irish tri-color he had received in San Francisco to the Indian Association of Birmingham.8 By the 1960s, De Valera could only recall that the Gadar Party was an ‘Indian group,’ and his office instructed the Irish consulate in San Francisco to obtain information about its ‘aims, associations etc.’9 Nonetheless, he considered the sword that he had received in 1919 as a symbol of IndoIrish solidarity to be a cherished possession, and proudly displayed it to President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, at the time of his 1964 visit to Ireland, the first ever by an Indian President.10 Contacts between the statesmen, along with the symbolic trappings of earlier nationalist encounters, illustrated the importance of the revolutionary Irish legacy for Indian nationalism. Similarly, the Irish celebrations of the centenary of the birth of Mohandas Gandhi in 1969 featured a radio address by the Taoiseach, John Lynch, in which he expressed the opinion that we in Ireland are in a unique position to appreciate that heroic struggle. We watched the familiar pattern of sacrifice and repression in a country in many ways so different form our own yet united to us by a common love of freedom and by a common history of struggle for self-government.

Conclusion 211

The celebrations also featured a symposium which focused on ‘Ireland and India: Revolutionary Interplay.’11 This might seem a jarring note at a celebration of the leading advocate of non-violent resistance in the modern age, but it was an important acknowledgment of the shared revolutionary dimension that was such an important part of Indo-Irish nationalist interaction in the twentieth century. This interaction was important in Indian memory as well. In 1946–7, Ireland was a frequent point of reference among British officials and nationalists in India and Burma during negotiations about the ‘transfer of power’ in South Asia. Jawaharlal Nehru cited Ireland as an example of a republic within the Commonwealth while Burmese nationalists expressed the wish for ‘some form of association like Eire’s.’12 Even as Ireland served as an inspiration to constitutional developments in the region, the revolutionary legacy continued. Subhas Chandra Bose, who as we have seen was one of the most fervent Bengali admirers of Irish republicanism, found inspiration in the Easter Rebels and the writings of Patrick Pearse during the final phase of his life. As leader of the INA during the Second World War, Bose issued a proclamation of Indian independence that closely echoed the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic. After the INA’s chance of military victory evaporated as the rebels were forced to retreat from the Indo-Burmese borders, Bose’s rhetoric began to closely echo Patrick Pearse’s ideal of blood sacrifice in the service of the nation.13 These linkages continue today. In March 2007, a street in New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave was named for Eamon De Valera. At the ceremony, Ireland’s Minister for State Equality Frank Fahey quoted De Valera’s 1920 speech to the FOFI in New York: ‘Patriots of India, your cause is identical to ours.’14

Empire and unionism In Unionist eyes, the legacy of Irish imperial service would seem to be relatively uncomplicated. Yet while Ulster Protestants ardently embraced the heroism of John Nicholson in the early twentieth century, there was much less enthusiasm at the end of the century. This declining interest was evident even in mid-century; the ceremony unveiling the second Nicholson statue in Northern Ireland was a much smaller-scale affair, conducted in front of a captive audience of schoolboys, than the celebration that had dominated the civic life of Lisburn four decades earlier. The re-situating of John Nicholson’s statue in the United Kingdom attracted interest from constituencies in Northern Ireland, but little popular enthusiasm.15 With the surge of nationalist movements and the onset of decolonization in the mid-twentieth century, the British Empire ‘represented neither a political nor a spiritual resource’ for Unionists.16 And that process only accelerated in the second half of the century. As Hiram Morgan observes, ‘Modern

212

Ireland and India

unionists have little time for this imperial angle—the Empire has long since disappeared, the British state has betrayed them and colonial exploits were those of the Church of Ireland landlord class.’17 The status of John Nicholson reflects this. The portrait of Nicholson that was reproduced in imperial biographies and featured in an exhibition of ‘Great Irishmen’ four decades ago is currently in storage at the County Museum of Armagh. It has not been exhibited recently, and there are no plans to display it. Even in his adoptive hometown of Lisburn, Nicholson is an all-but-forgotten figure. To be sure, his statue still dominates the Market Square, and I came to Lisburn in July 2006 expecting to see what one historian had described as the statue’s strong association with the traditions of the Loyal Orange Order and its integration into celebrations of the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne on 12 July. But rather than seeing John Nicholson’s statue as ‘an Orange Order totem,’ linked by bunting to the large arch of William of Orange at the other end of the square with ‘a bright orange sash . . . draped over its right shoulder and pinned together at the waist,’ it stood alone, unadorned with Orange regalia and unconnected to any of the elaborate preparations for the Boyne commemorations on the following day.18 Nicholson, the epitome of the nineteenth-century imperial conqueror, could still arouse strong feelings in India, but in Ulster, he met with only indifference.

The Connaught Rangers The legacies of the Connaught Rangers in twentieth-century Ireland illustrate how Irish imperial relationships cannot always be easily categorized as pro- or anti-imperial. Rather, the mutineers provide an example of shifting imperial identities: from soldiers of the British Empire, to Irish nationalists and supporters of the Irish Free State and its imperial linkages, to republican icons. As both mutineers and devoted Irish imperial servants, the Connaught Rangers have often been obscure figures in modern Ireland, yet today the regiment is honored by a museum and a revived Connaught Rangers Association dedicated to the memories of the regiment’s soldiers.19 The museum, which opened in 2005 at King House in Boyle, County Roscommon, seeks to portray both the history of the regiment and the mutiny that helped lead to its dissolution. Boyle was one of the locales in Ireland where the mutiny resonated most strongly; the town merged strong republican sentiment with the presence of a military barracks for the Connaughts.20 Boyle enthusiastically welcomed the four local mutineers home in 1923, but thereafter the town’s associations with the regiment faded and King House fell into a dilapidated state; when it was purchased by the Roscommon County Council in 1987, one plan was to demolish it and make it into a car park.21 In 1995, however, a renovated King House re-opened as a museum and gallery. The Connaught Rangers Museum depicts the history

Conclusion 213

of the regiment, including the experience of its soldiers and its numerous overseas campaigns, as well as the mutiny. The soldiers are placed into an Irish military tradition (‘The Fighting Men from Connaught’), and displays include artifacts of imperial service in India and Africa, as well as a replica of the ‘Jingling Johnny,’ the famous regimental standard captured in the Napoleonic Wars. The museum’s presentation of the regiment’s history concludes with a room devoted to the mutiny. James Daly is the focus here, with a life-size representation of him praying in his cell the night before his execution, and a blow-up of the first Times report of the mutiny, headlined ‘The Sinn Féin of India.’ A display attributes the mutiny to reactions to the ‘Black and Tans,’ but stresses the concern of the mutineers for their friends and family at home rather than an abstract republican ideal: ‘Many of those in the ranks of the Connaught Rangers could not reconcile the idea of an army, of which they were a part, being mobilized against their own families and friends.’ The CRA played an integral part in the establishment of the museum. While much of the organization’s energy focuses on family histories and the commemoration of war service, particularly in the Great War, the revived CRA does not ignore the history of the mutiny. After the opening of the museum, its journal, The New Ranger, presented a sympathetic account in which the author attempted to balance two seemingly irreconcilable traditions: ‘This story of Mutiny within the Ranks of the Connaught Rangers is seen by some as a glorious deed. To others it was seen as a betrayal of loyalty to the Regiment.’22 In the museum, the room devoted to James Daly and the mutiny also includes a 1919 memorial plaque to the regiment from Dover and letters from a Connaught Ranger who fought in the First World War.

Ireland, India and Empire In 1994, Hiram Morgan observed that ‘no history book records Irish involvement in the British Empire, largely because its memory is of little political value to modern Unionism or Nationalism.’23 That situation has changed markedly in the last decade and a half; as we have seen, the historiography of Ireland and the British Empire has deepened, and popular perceptions in Ireland have also shown signs of shifting. Clearly, both imperialism and anti-imperialism affected the memorial landscape of twentieth-century Ireland. In the same year—1957—that parties in Northern Ireland began negotiations to bring John Nicholson’s statue to Ulster, an Irish republican bomb destroyed one of John Henry Foley’s great imperial works, the equestrian statue of the Irish general Lord Gough in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. In 1964, the Irish government refused a request from the Royal Irish Fusiliers to display the head of the shattered statue, which had been kept in storage at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, at the regimental museum in Armagh.24 In a controversial decision two decades

214

Ireland and India

later, the remains of the statue were sold to Robert Guinness for the nominal sum of £100 on the condition that they never be returned to Ireland. The restored statue of Lord Gough is now on display at Chillingham Castle in northeast England, where the castle’s museum preserves the original base which was shattered by the bomb. Even more recently, however, the horse from Foley’s statue has been recast by the sculptor John Byrne to serve as part of a new statue in the Dublin suburb of Ballymun. In Byrne’s version, a local girl serves as the model for the rider, rather than the nineteenth-century general. Byrne’s sculpture references both the historic monuments of Ireland (many of which, like Gough’s statue, were of imperial figures) and also the nation’s future, represented by youth. In spite of the destruction of the Gough statue, Ireland today features more public sculptures by John Henry Foley than any other artist. Foley has been the subject of a recent novel and film documentary, which highlight both his artistic achievements as well as their connection with the British Empire.25 Other Irish imperial figures, meanwhile, have experienced a resurgence in popularity. After decades of neglect in their native country, two Irish Antarctic explorers, the Kerryman Tom Crean and County Kildare Anglo-Irishman Ernest Shackleton have been enthusiastically embraced as Irish icons.26 As Irish people increasingly acknowledge the global dimensions of their history, empire may have more relevance today to Irish nationalist rather than unionist identities. Irish imperial and anti-imperial involvement with India demonstrates that both facets are part of a broader Irish tradition. In recent years, Irish people of all political persuasions have attempted to come to terms with what was once regarded as an ‘unwelcome heritage.’

Notes

Introduction 1. Michael Edwardes, A Season in Hell: The Defense of the Lucknow Residency (New York, 1973), p. 249. 2. T. Henry Kavanagh, How I Won the Victoria Cross (London, 1860), p. 22. 3. Kavanagh, Victoria Cross, pp. 81, 82. 4. At the time, the Victoria Cross was a relatively new honor, established toward the end of the Crimean War to reward exceptional individual acts of heroism. 5. Joany Hichberger, ‘Democraticising Glory? The Victoria Cross Paintings of Louis Desanges,’ Oxford Art Journal 7: 2 (1984), pp. 42–51. 6. S.O. Beeton, Our Soldiers and the Victoria Cross (London, 1867), pp. 221–35. 7. Times, 25 April 1905. 8. Kavanagh, Victoria Cross, p. 219. 9. Times, 29 September 1859. 10. A.L. Haydon, The Book of the V.C. (London, 1906), p. 111; and Philip A. Wilkins, The History of the Victoria Cross (London, 1904), p. 390. 11. Kavanagh, Victoria Cross, pp. 17, 219. 12. Ibid., p. 64. 13. Edwardes, Season in Hell, p. 249. 14. No. 80 of 1858, 9 June 1858, GOI Home (Public) No. 46, NA India. 15. Richard Doherty and David Truesdale, Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross (Dublin, 2000), p. 55. 16. Kavanagh, Victoria Cross, p. 219. 17. Thomas Henry Kavanagh, Guilty or Not Guilty of Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman (Lucknow, 1876), p. 11. 18. R.F. Foster, ‘Marginal Men and Micks on the Make: The Uses of Irish Exile, c. 1840–1922,’ in his Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History (London, 1993), pp. 281–305. Kavanagh was far from modest; he became known as ‘Lucknow Kavanagh’ partly because he was so inclined to boast about his feats. Doherty and Truesdale, Victoria Cross, p. 55. 19. Kavanagh, Victoria Cross, np; and George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman in the Great Game (1975; London, 2006), pp. 276, 280. 20. One exception is Scott B. Cook’s unpublished dissertation, which combines analysis of Irish imperial service with Irish–Indian nationalist relationships. Scott B. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland: Political and Administrative Aspects of the Imperial Relationship with British India, 1855–1922,’ Ph.d. diss., Rutgers University, 1987. The essays in Tadhg Foley and Maureen O’Connor, eds, Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture and Empire (Dublin, 2006) also give emphasis to both aspects, as well as the diversity of Irish–Indian interactions and comparisons. Nini Rodgers’ analysis of Irish involvement with the slave trade and abolition also illustrates the diversity of Irish imperial relationships. Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1612–1865 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2007). 21. Joe Cleary, ‘Amongst Empires: A Short History of Ireland and Empire Studies in International Context,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), p. 45. 215

216

Notes

22. Simon J. Potter, ‘Empire, Culture and Identities in Nineteenth- and TwentiethCentury Britain,’ History Compass 5: 1 (2007), pp. 51–71; and Andrew Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century (London, 2005). 23. Joseph Lennon, Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History (Syracuse, NY, 2004), p. xxxi. 24. David Harkness, ‘Ireland,’ in Robin W. Winks, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume V: Historiography (Oxford, 1999), p. 115; Kevin Kenny, ‘Ireland and the British Empire: An Introduction,’ in Kevin Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford, 2004), p. 3; Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair, The Wearing of the Green: A History of St. Patrick’s Day (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. xxvi; and Seán Ryder, ‘Ireland, India and Popular Nationalism in the Early Nineteenth Century,’ in Foley and O’Connor, Ireland and India, p. 12. As Kevin Kenny observes, ‘Ambiguous, anomalous, complex, exceptional, unique, or even paradoxical: these are the words most commonly used to describe Ireland’s historical relationship with the British Empire. Yet the past is often ambiguous and always complex. Categories of this sort cannot take us very far in historical inquiry.’ 25. Sean T. O’Ceallaigh, India and Ireland (New York, 1925), p. 9. 26. For example of the latter, see Barry Crosbie’s forthcoming analysis of the career of an outspoken Irish imperial servant of nationalist views, C.J. O’Donnell. Barry Crosbie, ‘ “L’enfant terrible of the ICS”: C.J. O’Donnell and the British administration of Bengal, 1872–1882,’ in Robert Blythe and Keith Jeffery, eds, The British Empire and Its Contested Pasts (Dublin, 2009) pp. 115–35. For the shift from imperial service to anti-imperialism, see also the essays on Roger Casement and Erskine Childers in Eóin Flannery and Angus Mitchell, eds, Enemies of Empire: New Perspectives on Imperialism, Literature and Historiography (Dublin, 2007) and Séamas Ó Síocháin, Roger Casement: Imperialist, Rebel, Revolutionary (Dublin, 2007). 27. T.G. Fraser, ‘Ireland and India,’ in Keith Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (Manchester, 1996), p. 77. 28. Tony Ballantyne, ‘The Sinews of Empire: Ireland, India and the Construction of British Colonial Knowledge,’ in Terrence McDonough, ed., Was Ireland a Colony? Economics, Politics and Culture in Nineteenth-century Ireland (Dublin, 2005), pp. 145–61. David Fitzpatrick notes that the Union masked ‘a hybrid administration with manifest colonial elements,’ and that ‘Ireland’s rulers, whether grim or benevolent, tended to regard the Irish as a separate and subject native population rather than an integral element of a united people.’ David Fitzpatrick, ‘Ireland and the Empire,’ in Andrew Porter, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999), pp. 494–521 (quotations on pp. 494, 498). For the role of Irish precedents and Irish imperial servants in shaping land legislation in late nineteenth-century India, see S.B. Cook, Imperial Affinities: Nineteenth Century Analogies and Exchanges between India and Ireland (New Delhi, Newbury Park, CA and London, 1993), pp. 81–107. 29. Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781–1997 (New York, 2008), p. 316. 30. The literature on this topic will be discussed in Chapter 1. 31. On the transnational nature of the British Empire, see Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy, eds, Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World (Delhi, 2006); and Kevin Grant, Philippa Levine and Frank Trentmann, eds, Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Transnationalism, c. 1880–1950 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2007).

Notes

217

32. Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Mutiny of the Mavericks,’ in Life’s Handicap (1891; Oxford and New York, 1987), pp. 159–77; and A. Conan Doyle, ‘The Green Flag,’ in The Green Flag and Other Stories (New York, 1900), pp. 21, 23. For an analysis of the ‘fiction of counter-insurgency’ which Doyle’s writings represent, see Yumna Siddiqi, Anxieties of Empire and the Fiction of Intrigue (New York, 2008), pp. 86–121. 33. John Buchan, The Three Hostages (Boston, 1924), p. 169. 34. John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal (London, 1951), pp. 324–25. A similar theme is presented in the novel by former British Army officer Tom Gibson, A Soldier of India (London, 1982), in which an Irish officer, Martin Lalor, who sympathizes with the struggle of the Rani of Jhansi against the British, is accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy and is court-martialed for conduct unbecoming an officer. 35. Pamela Clayton, ‘Two Kinds of Colony: “Rebel Ireland” and the “Imperial Province”,’ in McDonough, ed., Was Ireland a Colony?, pp. 235–46. 36. W.H. Fitchett, The Tale of the Great Mutiny (London, 1901), pp. 97–98. 37. Jennifer Ridden, ‘Britishness as an Imperial and Diasporic Identity: Irish Elite Perspectives, c. 1820–70s,’ in Peter Gray, ed., Victoria’s Ireland? Irishness and Britishness, 1837–1901 (Dublin, 2004), pp. 88–105. 38. Terence Denman, ‘Ethnic Soldiers Pure and Simple? The Irish in the Late Victorian Army,’ War in History 3 (1996), pp. 253–73 (quotation on p. 273). 39. Thomas Bartlett, ‘The Irish Soldier in India, 1750–1947,’ in Michael Holmes and Denis Holmes, eds, Ireland and India: Connections, Comparisons, Contrasts (Dublin, 1997), pp. 12–28; and Scott B. Cook, ‘The Irish Raj: Social Origins and Careers of Irishmen in the Indian Civil Service, 1855–1914,’ Journal of Social History 20: 3 (1987), pp. 507–29. 40. Ryder, ‘Ireland, India and Popular Nationalism,’ pp. 12–25. 41. The poem was reprinted in the Ballymena Observer, 3 October 1857. 42. Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Haggis in the Raj: Private and Public Celebrations of Scottishness in Late Imperial India,’ Scottish Historical Review LXXXI: 2 (2002), pp. 212–39. 43. Cook, ‘The Irish Raj,’ p. 509. 44. Cronin and Adair, Wearing of the Green, pp. 77–93, 110–32, 138–46. 45. Irish Times, 23 April 1869. 46. See the Irish Times for 20 April 1907, 8 April 1908 and 7 April 1913. 47. Irish Times, 10 April 1924. 48. Of 106 Irish members of the ICS, only three retired prematurely as a result of the Anglo-Irish War or the Irish Civil War. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland,’ p. 182. 49. J.W. Dulanty to the Sec., Dept. of External Affairs, Dublin, 20 August 1940, DFA A 6, NAI. 50. Joe Cleary, ‘Postcolonial Ireland,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, p. 256. 51. V.V. Giri, My Life and Times, Vol. I (Delhi, 1976), p. 14. 52. Irish Times, 16 December 1946. 53. Kate O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire: Indo-Irish Radical Connections, 1919–1964 (Manchester, 2008), pp. 64–65. The IRA also delivered a message to Gandhi via his son ‘wishing him success and warning him to be careful “not to repeat errors made by Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith and Co.” ’ in settling for less than complete independence from the British Empire. Extract from New Scotland Yard Report dated 30 September 1931, IPI, L/P&J/12/235, OIOC. 54. Aubrey Menen, Dead Man in the Silver Market (New York, 1953), p. 78.

218

Notes

55. Hindustan Times, 26 September 1964, clipping in Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 17563/95, NAI. 56. Yvonne Whelan, Reinventing Modern Dublin: Streetscape, Iconography and the Politics of Identity (Dublin, 2003), p. 192. 57. Guy Beiner, ‘Between Trauma and Triumphalism: The Easter Rising, the Somme, and the Crux of Deep Memory in Modern Ireland,’ Journal of British Studies 46 (2007), pp. 366–89 (quotation on p. 367). 58. Alvin Jackson, ‘Ireland, the Union, and the Empire, 1800–1960,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, p. 122. 59. O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire. 60. Cleary, ‘Amongst Empires,’ p. 37; and Eileen Hewitt, The Forgotten Irish: Memorials of the Raj (Wem, England, 2004). 61. Paul A. Townend, ‘Between Two Worlds: Irish Nationalists and Imperial Crisis 1878–1880,’ Past and Present 194 (2007), p. 141; and Kevin Kenny, ‘The Irish in the Empire,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, p. 94. 62. Amitav Ghosh, ‘Mutinies: India, Ireland and Imperialism,’ in Clare Carroll and Patricia King, eds, Ireland and Postcolonial Theory (South Bend, IN, 2003), pp. 122–28 (quotation on p. 123). 63. Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford and New York, 2007).

1 ‘An Assertion of Liberty Incarnate’: Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America 1. Michael Doorley, Irish–American Diaspora Nationalism: The Friends of Irish Freedom, 1916–1935 (Dublin, 2005). 2. New York Times, 18 March 1920. 3. The Irish World, 27 March 1920, clipping in Frank P. Walsh Papers, Vol. 10, NYPL. 4. Support for Irish nationalism was, for example, far more pronounced in the United States than among Irish emigrants of the ‘white dominions’ of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Malcolm Campbell, Ireland’s New Worlds: Immigrants, Politics and Society in the United States and Australia, 1815–1922 (Madison, 2008); and Lawrence J. McCaffrey, ‘Diaspora Comparisons and Irish–American Uniqueness,’ in Charles Fanning, ed., New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Illinois, 2000), pp. 19–20. 5. Lajpat Rai, ‘Recollections of his life and work for an independent India while living in the United States and Japan 1914–1917,’ p. 44 (microfilm), 6 June 1919, NYPL. 6. Sandhya Shukla, India Abroad: Diasporic Communities of Postwar America and England (Princeton, 2003), p. 13. Shukla refers primarily to differing conceptions of the nation within nationalist movements at home and abroad, but her comment also applies forcefully to the interaction of two different diasporic nationalist movements, as in the case of Ireland and India. 7. Kevin Kenny, ‘Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study,’ Journal of American History 90: 1 (2003), pp. 134–62. 8. Niamh Lynch, ‘Defining Irish Nationalist Anti-imperialism: Thomas Davis and John Mitchel,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 82–107. 9. Lynch, ‘Anti-imperialism,’ p. 93. 10. Ibid., pp. 94–103.

Notes

219

11. Carla King, ‘Michael Davitt, Irish Nationalism and the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century,’ in Gray, ed., Victoria’s Ireland?, pp. 116–30. 12. For the place of India in Irish political discourse in the early- and mid-nineteenth century, see Ryder, ‘Ireland, India and Popular Nationalism,’ pp. 12–25. 13. Salahuddin Malik, 1857: War of Independence or Clash of Civilizations? (Delhi, 2008), pp. 2, 60, 62, 199 (quotation on p. 199). 14. Belfast News-Letter, 2 November 1857. For a survey of press reactions to 1857 in Ireland, see Jill C. Bender, ‘Mutiny or Freedom Fight? The 1857 Indian Mutiny and the Irish Press,’ in Simon J. Potter, ed., Newspapers and Empire in Ireland and Britain: Reporting the British Empire, c. 1857–1921 (Dublin, 2004), pp. 92–108; and Jennifer M. Regan, ‘ “We Could Be of Service to Other Suffering People”: Representations of India in the Irish Nationalist Press, c. 1857–1887,’ Victorian Periodicals Review 41: 1 (2008), pp. 61–77. Ulster reactions to 1857 will be discussed in Chapter 4. 15. Regan, ‘Representations of India,’ pp. 63–66, 73 (quotation on p. 65). 16. Jill C. Bender, ‘The Imperial Politics of Famine: The 1873–74 Bengal Famine and Irish Parliamentary Natonalism,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 132–56. 17. Townend, ‘Between Two Worlds,’ p. 172. 18. There is a substantial literature on the connections between Irish and Indian nationalism before the First World War, most, but not all, of which focuses on constitutional nationalists in both countries. See C.A. Bayly, ‘Ireland, India and the Empire: 1780–1914,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10 (2001), pp. 377–97; Sarmila Bose and Elilis Ward, ‘ “India’s Cause is Ireland’s Cause”: Elite Links and Nationalist Politics,’ in Holmes and Holmes, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 52–73; Howard Brasted, ‘Indian Nationalist Development and the Influence of Irish Home Rule, 1870–1886,’ Modern Asian Studies 14: 1 (1980), pp. 37–63; his ‘Irish Models and the Indian National Congress, 1870– 1922,’ South Asia New Ser. 8: 1–2 (1985), pp. 24–45; his ‘Irish Nationalism and the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century,’ in Oliver MacDonagh, W.F. Mandle and Pauric Travers, eds, Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750–1950 (London, 1986), pp. 83–103; Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland,’ Part Three; Richard P. Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda, 1905–1922,’ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 22: 1 (1977), pp. 66–89; and his ‘The Influence of the Irish Revolution on Indian Nationalism: the Evidence of the Indian Press, 1916–1922,’ South Asia New Ser. 9: 2 (1986), pp. 55–68. 19. Brasted, ‘Indian Nationalist Development,’ p. 47. 20. Marie-Louise Legg, ed., Alfred Webb: The Autobiography of a Quaker Nationalist (Cork, 1999), pp. 67–72. At this point, the Indian National Congress did not have an institutional existence outside of its annual meetings. The 1894 meeting lasted for four days. Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre’s forthcoming study of Alfred Webb will further illuminate his anti-imperial activism. 21. Jonathan Schneer, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (New Haven and London, 1999), p. 185. 22. Lynch, ‘Anti-imperialism,’ p. 106; and Bender, ‘Imperial Politics of Famine,’ pp. 149–50. 23. Brasted, ‘Irish Nationalism and the British Empire,’ p. 95. In 1892, Naoroji was elected as a Liberal candidate for the Central Finsbury constituency in London. 24. In his discussion of Irish reactions to the Anglo-Zulu War, Paul A. Townend observes that ‘The imperial relationship remained both complex and contingent, and imperial concerns ebbed and flowed over time within nationalist

220

25.

26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41.

42.

Notes movements at both the elite and popular level.’ Townend, ‘Between Two Worlds,’ p. 173. According to Howard Brasted, ‘Nationalism, as revealed by Ireland, was always regarded as a model as much to avoid as to emulate. Instead of an inflexibly designed blueprint, Ireland presented an agenda for debate and supplied a frame of reference that permitted India to define its own attitudes to British rule.’ Brasted, ‘Indian Nationalist Development,’ p. 42. Bayly, ‘Ireland, India and the Empire,’ p. 378. Ibid., p. 395. ‘The Irish American Fenian, who could strike anywhere in Britain with little care for collateral casualties, replaced the savage peasants of 1798 as the popular image of Irish rebellion and disaffection.’ Michael De Nie, The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882 (Madison, WI, 2004), p. 167. Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (New York, 2000), pp. 171–72. On the radical dimensions of late nineteenth-century Irish–American nationalism, see also Eric Foner, ‘Class, Ethnicity and Radicalism in the Gilded Age: The Land League and Irish-America,’ in his Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (New York and Oxford, 1980), pp. 150–200. Kenny, The American Irish, p. 173. Niall Whelehan, ‘Skirmishing, the Irish World, and Empire, 1876–86,’ ÉireIreland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), p. 198. Una Ni Bhroimeil, ‘The South African War, Empire and the Irish World, 1899– 1902,’ in Potter, ed., Newspapers and Empire, pp. 195–216. Patrick Ford, The Criminal History of the British Empire (New York, 1915), p. 44. Whelehan, ‘Skirmishing,’ p. 190. Vivek Bald, ‘Overlapping Diasporas, Multiracial Lives: South Asian Muslims in U.S. Communities of Color, 1880–1950,’ Souls 8: 4 (2006), pp. 3–18. In addition, in 1900 there were just under 3.4 million second-generation Irish Americans. S. Chandrasekhar, ed., From India to America (La Jolla, CA, 1982); and Kenny, American Irish, p. 184. Judith M. Brown, Global South Asians: Introducing the Modern Diaspora (Cambridge, 2006) Chapter 1. For Indian migration to the United States in this era, see Joan M. Jensen, Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America (New Haven and London, 1988); and Lavina Dhingra Shankar and Pallassana R. Balgopal, ‘South Asian Immigrants Before 1950: The Formation of Ethnic, Symbolic, and Group Identity,’ Amerasia Journal 27: 1 (2001), pp. 55–84. Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2006), p. 148. Schneer, London 1900, pp. 184–202 (quotation on p. 201). ‘Memorandum on the Anti-British Agitation Among Natives of India in England. Parts One to Four,’ (1909–1910) in A.K. Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal: A Collection of Documents [TIB] (Calcutta, 1995) V: 248. ‘Memorandum on the Anti-British Agitation,’ in TIB V: 245–455 (quotation on p. 248); and Richard J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defense of the Indian Empire 1904–1924 (London, 1995), pp. 125–46 (quotation on p. 125). ‘Memorandum on the Anti-British Agitation,’ in TIB V: 260, 320, 368, 445. See also Nicholas J. Owen, The British Left and India: Metropolitan Anti-Imperialism, 1885–1947 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 22–77.

Notes

221

43. Peter Heehs, ‘Foreign Influences on Bengali Revolutionary Terrorism 1902– 1908,’ Modern Asian Studies 28: 3 (1994), pp. 537–51. 44. Don Dignan, ‘The Hindu Conspiracy in Anglo-American Relations During World War I,’ Pacific Historical Review XL: 1 (1971), p. 61. 45. Jensen, Passage from India, pp. 22–23. 46. For a brief survey of American attitudes toward India and Indians prior to the Second World War, see Kenton J. Clymer, Quest for Freedom: The United States and India’s Independence (New York, 1995), pp. 1–10; and Gary R. Hess, America Encounters India, 1941–1947 (Baltimore and London, 1971), pp. 1–16. South Asians in the United States in this era were commonly referred to by the white population as ‘Hindus,’ (in other words, natives of Hindustan) no matter what their religion. For Canadian opposition to Indian migration, which led a number of Sikhs to relocate to the western United States, see T.G. Fraser, ‘The Sikh Problem in Canada and its Political Consequences,’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 7: 1 (1978), pp. 35–55. 47. As Mark Juergensmeyer has observed, ‘The struggle against the oppression in America and in India became fused into one struggle.’ Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘The Gadar Syndrome: Ethnic Anger and Nationalist Pride,’ in Chandrasekhar, ed., From India to America, p. 48. 48. Emily C. Brown, ‘Revolution in India: Made in America,’ in Chandrasekhar, ed., From India to America, p. 43. The party’s name, meaning ‘mutiny’ or ‘revolt,’ and spelled as ‘Gadar,’ ‘Ghadr’ or sometimes ‘Ghadar,’ referred to the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The Gadarites also expanded the meaning of the term to include ‘freedom.’ Following the practice of other historians, I have used the spelling ‘Gadar’ to refer to the political movement, and ‘Ghadr’ to refer to the party’s newspaper. 49. Kenny, The American Irish, p. 157. 50. Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda, 1905–1922,’ p. 74. 51. Arun Coomer Bose, ‘Indian Nationalist Agitations in the U.S.A. and Canada till the Arrival of Har Dayal in 1911,’ Journal of Indian History 43: 27 (1965), pp. 228–29. 52. Gaelic American, 12 August 1905. 53. Syed Razi Wasti, Lord Minto and the Indian Nationalist Movement 1905–1910 (Oxford, 1964), p. 90. 54. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland,’ pp. 431–33; and Bose, ‘Indian Nationalist Agitations,’ p. 229. 55. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, p. 152. 56. Ibid., pp. 147–64, 236–57, 321–24. 57. Note by C.J. Stevenson-Moore, 11 July 1907, GOI Home Dept. (Political) [Home (Pol)] A, August 1907, 243–50, NA India. 58. Jensen, Passage from India, pp. 190–93. 59. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, pp. 167–74. 60. On what became known as the ‘Hindu-German conspiracy’ see Thomas G. Fraser, ‘Germany and the Indian Revolution,’ Journal of Contemporary History 12: 2 (1977), pp. 255–72; Jensen, Passage from India, pp. 194–225; and Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, pp. 236–57. 61. Thomas G. Fraser contrasts this seriousness of purpose with the much betterknown but ‘curiously lukewarm relationship with Irish nationalism in the person of Roger Casement.’ Fraser, ‘Germany and the Indian Revolution,’ pp. 255, 263.

222

Notes

62. Although Matthew Erin Plowman has highlighted both Irish support for and involvement in the Indo-German conspiracy, it is difficult to agree with his conclusion that during the First World War ‘Irish involvement in such Indian revolutionary activities as the Indo-German Conspiracy was far more instrumental than that of the Germans.’ Matthew Erin Plowman, ‘Irish Republicans and the Indo-German Conspiracy of World War I,’ New Hibernia Review 7: 3 (2003), pp. 81–105 (quotation on p. 105). 63. Plowman, ‘Indo-German Conspiracy,’ pp. 97–99. 64. Translations and abstracts of Ghadr can be found in MSS Eur. E 288/3, OIOC. Some entries feature full articles, others abstracts or the title only. After a split in the party in early 1917, two Ghadr newspapers were published, one by Ram Chandra and one by Bhagwan Singh. 65. In 1917, for example, Ghadr reported that 3000 people in Ireland had died of famine while thousands were reduced to eating grass. Translation of Ghadr [Ram Chandra], 22 April 1917, MSS Eur. E 288/3, OIOC. 66. Translation of Ghadr, 10 May 1916, MSS Eur. E 288/3, OIOC. 67. Translation of Ghadr [Bhagwan Singh], 19 August 1917, MSS Eur. E 288/3, OIOC. 68. Milton Israel, Communications and Power: Propaganda and the Press in the Indian Nationalist Struggle, 1920–1947 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 279. For Lajpat Rai’s career in the United States see Manela, The Wilsonian Moment, pp. 85–97; Naeem Gul Rathore, ‘Indian Nationalist Agitation in the United States: A Study of Lala Lajpat Rai and the India Home Rule League of America, 1914–1920,’ Ph.d. diss., Columbia University, 1965; and Rai’s unpublished memoirs, cited above. 69. Schneer, London 1900, p. 183. Matthew Pratt Guterl observes that ‘By the end of the Great War . . . events in the United States as well as in Ireland, Egypt, India, and Haiti had put the question of empire at the center of American internationalism, eventually making Manhattan, and not London, the center of metropolitan anticolonialism.’ Matthew Pratt Guterl, The Color of Race in America 1900–1940 (Cambridge, MA, 2001), p. 69. 70. On the formation of the Lusk Committee, see Todd J. Pfannestiel, Rethinking the Red Scare: The Lusk Committee and New York’s Crusade against Radicalism, 1919– 1923 (New York and London, 2003), pp. 19–35. 71. Dudley Field Malone, ‘India and Freedom,’ in his ‘Unaccustomed as I am—’ Miscellaneous Speeches by Dudley Field Malone (New York, 1929), p. 178. 72. Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda,’ p. 82. 73. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland,’ pp. 453–54. 74. Unless otherwise stated, information in the following paragraphs is taken from the History Sheet of Sailendranath Ghose, IPI, L/P&J/12/197, OIOC. 75. Barry Carr, ‘Marxism and Anarchism in the Formation of the Mexican Communist Party, 1910–19,’ The Hispanic American Historical Review 63: 2 (1983), pp. 291–92. 76. Jan MacKinnon and Steve MacKinnon, eds, ‘Agnes Smedley’s “Cell Mates”,’ Signs 3: 2 (1977), pp. 531–32. 77. T.A. Shone, British Embassy, Washington, D.C., to Wilbur J. Carr, State Dept., 19 December 1932, IPI, L/P&J/12/437, OIOC. 78. Ronald Spector, ‘The Vermont Education of Taraknath Das: An Episode in British-American-Indian Relations,’ Vermont History 48: 2 (1980), pp. 89–95. 79. For Bengali ambivalence toward Gandhi, see David M. Laushey, ‘The Terrorist and Marxist Challenges to Gandhian Leadership of the Indian Nationalist Movement in Bengal,’ Journal of Third World Studies 3: 2 (1986), pp. 32–41; and

Notes

80. 81. 82.

83.

84.

85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

90.

91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96.

223

Leonard A. Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement 1876–1940 (New York, 1973). In 1922, Ghose’s Bengali associate Basanta Kumar Roy predicted that following Gandhi’s arrest and the end of the non-cooperation campaign, revolutionary forces would take control of the INC and India would win independence by arms. San Antonio Evening News, 23 March 1922. New York Times, 29 June 1925. Gerald Campbell, Consul General, New York, to Sir Roinald Lindsay, British Embassy, Washington, D.C., 28 December 1932, IPI, L/P&J/12/437, OIOC. Undated notes on activities of Tarak Nath Das, April 1921–February 1923, IPI, L/P&J/12/166, OIOC. Das’ biographer comments that ‘The British feared Taraknath’s pen more than his attempt to smuggle arms into India,’ although both activities appear in intelligence reports. Tapan K. Mukherjee, Taraknath Das: Life and Letters of a Revolutionary in Exile (Calcutta, 1998), p. 103. T.N. Das, ‘The De Facto Irish Republic and the Republic of the United States of India,’ typescript, 29 July 1920, Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 9, NYPL. An article by Das in the Irish Press on 20 August 1921 made a similar argument, predicting ‘the downfall of British imperialism and mentioning resolutions calling upon the Indian Congress to declare the independence of India formally as the martyrs of Easter week did in Ireland.’ For Walsh’s career, see Harold Charles Bradley, ‘Frank P. Walsh and Postwar America,’ PhD diss. (St. Louis University, 1966); Joseph McCartin, ‘Frank P. Walsh,’ in Anne Cipriano Venzon, ed., The United States in the First World War (New York, 1995), p. 772; and Julie E. Manning, Frank P. Walsh and the Irish Question: An American Proposal (Washington, D.C., 1989). Undated legal memo by Walsh, Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 109, NYPL. Walsh to William Marion Reedy, 24 July 1919 and 29 July 1919, Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 8, NYPL. David Fitzpatrick, Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution, 1887–1922 (Cork, 2003), pp. 133–34. Fitzpatrick, Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution, pp. 138–39. Garvey had patterned the International Convention of the Negro Peoples of the World, which took place at the time of the strikes, on Irish Race Conventions of 1916, 1918 and 1919. Joe Doyle, ‘Striking for Ireland on the New York Docks,’ in Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds, The New York Irish (Baltimore, 1996), pp. 366–67; Matthew Pratt Guterl, ‘The New Race Consciousness: Race, Nation, and Empire in American Culture, 1910–1925,’ Journal of World History 10: 2 (1999), pp. 325–27; and ‘Report by Special Agent P-138,’ 20 September 1920, in Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers (Berkeley and London, 1984) 3: 12–13. Irish Times, 3 August 1921. On African–American contacts with Indian nationalism in this era, see Gerald Horne, The End of Empires: African Americans and India (Philadelphia, 2008), pp. 47–92. Hill, ed., Marcus Garvey 3: 13–14. Similar committees were organized for India and China. Arthur Upham Pope to Frank P. Walsh, 13 December 1919, Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 8, NYPL. Fitzpatrick, Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution, pp. 178–79. Ibid., p. 200. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland,’ p. 457. C. Desmond Greaves, Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution (London, 1971), p. 205.

224

Notes

97. In both cases, the results of the alleged arms smuggling are inconclusive. Extract from Despatch from British Consulate General, 22 December 1921; and Telegram from Viceroy to Sec. of State for India, 23 July 1921, IPI, L/P&J/12/88, OIOC. 98. Note on Tarak Nath Das (‘in continuation of note in M.I.5 B.L. Volume XXI’), 8 March 1923, IPI, L/P&J/12/166, OIOC. 99. The Friends of Freedom for India, ‘Our First Year of Work,’ Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 109, NYPL. 100. Ed Gammons, The Tragedy of India (San Francisco, 1919). Several branches of the FOIF, as well as the Ancient Order of Hibernians of South Bend, Indiana, also passed resolutions in protest of the deportations. Agnes Smedley, Sec., FOFI, to ‘Dear Comrades,’ 24 August 1919, FOFI Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. 101. New York Times, 29 August 1921. 102. Young India 2: 10 (October 1919), p. 221; and ‘Remember Limerick’: 1965 Diamond Jubilee Dinner Journal of the Limerick Men’s Benevolent and Social Association, Inc., Irish Organizations Collection, Box 1, Folder 18, AIHS. On Indian support for the dock strike, see Doyle, ‘Striking for Ireland,’ p. 663, fn 47. 103. For Golden’s life, see Jim Herlihy, Peter Golden: The Voice of Ireland (Ballincollig, Cork, 1994). 104. Herlihy, Peter Golden, p. 40. 105. Ibid., pp. 50–52 (quotation on p. 51). 106. J. Driscoll, Special Agent, to R.W. Finch, Chief Investigator, 4 July 1919. Box One, Folder 12, L0039, Investigation Subject Files, 1919–1920 (Lusk Committee), NY State Archives (microfilm). The Rowlatt Act, aimed primarily at the suppression of terrorism in Bengal, extended wartime legislation which allowed for detention without trial. The act in turn became the focus of Gandhi’s first major all-India campaign in 1919. 107. Irish Press, 15, 22, 29 October 1921. 108. Advertisements appeared in the Irish Press on 26 November and 3 December. 109. Friends of Freedom for India leaflet [nd], CO 904/161/1, NA UK. 110. Basanta Koomar Roy, The Labor Revolt in India (New York, 1920), p. 22; and Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda,’ pp. 79–80. 111. Newsletter of the FOIF, 48: (29 May 1920), p. 4. FOIF Collection, Box 4, Folder 8, AIHS. 112. Irish Press, 25 March 1922. While the India Office explored the possibility of recruiting former members of the Royal Irish Constabulary for police work in India, British officials explicitly rejected the idea of recruiting ‘Black and Tans’ or Auxiliaries. P&J No. 2092 of 1922, L/Public & Judicial [P&J]/6/1800, OIOC. 113. Ed Gammons, ‘Gadar Party Honors President De Valera,’ in India in Revolt (1919), FOIF Collection, Box 20, Folder 16, AIHS. The Gadar Party also reported on a ‘thrilling speech’ which De Valera gave in Chicago in March 1920, in which he spoke of the slaughter of Irish troops at Gallipoli. The story was titled ‘An Irish Amritsar.’ Ed Gammons, Invincible India (San Francisco, [1920]). 114. Agnes Smedley to ‘Dear Friends,’ 1 March 1920, FOFI Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. 115. Eamon De Valera, India and Ireland (New York, 1920). The Punjabi-language version, entitled ‘Hindustan Atte Airlaind,’ is in the South Asians in North American collection of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. 116. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland,’ p. 460.

Notes

225

117. Agnes Smedley characterized De Valera’s donation as ‘a legacy to the cause of Indian independence’ which ‘will form the most formidable link between Ireland and India in their work for the independence of their countries from the yoke of British imperialism.’ Smedley to De Valera, 9 March 1920, P 150/1053, De Valera Papers, University College Dublin Archives. 118. Walsh to Agnes Smedley, Sec., FOFI, 21 November 1919, Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 8, NYPL. In spite of the extraordinarily generous salary of $75,000 that Walsh received for his role, he ‘offered little’ to the Bond Drive ‘but his name on the Commission’s letterhead.’ Fitzpatrick, Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution, p. 144. 119. For Walsh’s continuing support of Egyptian and Indian nationalism, see the report of his October 1921 speech at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. in the Irish Press, 22 October 1921. 120. National Executive Minutes, FOIF, 12 April 1920 and 31 August 1920, Box 6, Folder 3; and National Executive Minutes, FOIF, 4 January 1921, Box 6, Folder 4, FOIF Coll., AIHS. 121. National Executive Minutes, FOIF, 21 October 1921, FOIF Coll., Box 6, Folder 3, AIHS. 122. ‘Murderous British Rule in India,’ Gaelic American, 5 August 1905; and Gaelic American, February 1914, cited in Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda,’ p. 74. 123. ‘A Protest against the Immigration Law of 1924,’ FOIF Coll., Box 8, Folder 10, AIHS. 124. Michael G. Malouf, ‘With Dev in America: Sinn Féin and Recognition Politics, 1919–21,’ Interventions: International Journal in Postcolonial Studies 4: 1 (2002), p. 27. 125. My reading of the racial dimension of Irish–Indian relationships in the United States differs from that of Matthew Pratt Guterl, who argues that by placing the Irish ‘struggle in a global, anti-colonial context,’ nationalists reinforced the status of the Irish as a ‘white’ race. Guterl, ‘The New Race Consciousness,’ p. 324; and Guterl, The Color of Race in America, Chapter 2. 126. Indian seamen, who were predominantly Bengali Muslims, did seem to have influenced the policies of the FOFI on at least one occasion. In 1920, the organization launched appeals to improve the conditions of Indian seamen on British ships. See the correspondence between Frank P. Walsh, Agnes Smedley and Saliendranath Ghose on this issue in the Walsh Papers. A meeting was held in August 1920, which Ghose noted attracted the enthusiastic support of English and American seamen as well, Ghose to Walsh, 29 August 1920, Frank P. Walsh Papers, Box 9, NYPL. On the participation of Bengali Muslims in the FOFI, see Bald, ‘Overlapping Diasporas,’ pp. 11, 18. 127. Cited in Fitzpatrick, Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution, p. 138. 128. Bridgeport Telegram, 1 November 1920. 129. The United States of India 3: 10 (August 1926), p. 2. 130. United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (261 U.S. 204). For the issue of South Asian naturalization in the early twentieth century, see Jensen, Passage from India, pp. 246–69. 131. As Milton Israel observes, ‘Rather than a well-organized, centrally controlled publicity network, Indian nationalism was represented in Britain, Europe, and the United States by a range of individuals and organizations, often selfappointed, who worked for the cause according to their own views and desired for India’s future.’ Israel, Communications and Power, p. 255.

226

Notes

132. History Sheet of Sailendra Nath Ghosh, 28 November 1929, IPI, L/P&J/12/197, OIOC. In a 1927 letter to Lala Lajpat Rai, former FOFI member Agnes Smedley described Ghose as ‘a swindler to whom no money should be sent.’ Agnes Smedley to Lala Lajpat Rai, 24 August 1927; IPI, L/P&J/12/197, OIOC. 133. History Sheet of Sailendra Nath Ghosh, 28 November 1929, IPI, L/P&J/12/197, OIOC; and Mohandas Gandhi to the Rev. John Haynes Holmes (cable), March 1930, http://www.mkgandhi.org/letters/chrchmisn/holmes.htm Viewed 27April 2004. 134. For a concise account of the bitter dispute between De Valera and Cohalan and Devoy see Troy D. Davis, ‘Eamon De Valera’s Political Education: The American Tour of 1919–1920,’ New Hibernia Review 10: 1 (2006), pp. 65–78. 135. National Executive Minutes, FOIF, 21 October 1921, FOIF Coll., Box 6, Folder 3, AIHS. 136. Josephine Bennett, General Secretary, FOFI, to Walsh, 8 February 1921, Frank P. Walsh papers, Box 29, NYPL. 137. New York Times, 11 May 1923 and 13 May 1923. 138. New York Times, 12 May 1930. 139. Nonetheless, in California in particular, Irish–American nationalists retained close links with Eamon De Valera until the mid-1930s, and De Valera helped to establish an Irish Press newspaper in California as well. See Timothy J. Sarbaugh, ‘The AARIR of California and the De Valera Connection, 1923– 1936,’ Southern California Quarterly 69: 3 (1987), pp. 223–40; and ‘Eamon De Valera and the Irish Press in California, 1928–1931,’ Éire-Ireland 20: 4 (1985), pp. 15–22. 140. Two resolutions critical of British policies in Egypt, India and Mesopotamia were passed in 1923 and 1925. National Council Minutes, FOIF, 17 January 1923, and 23 January 1925, Box 8, Folders 9–10, FOIF Coll., AIHS. National Council Minutes, FOIF, 23 January 1925, Box 8, F. 10, AIHS. 141. Brian Hanley, The IRA, 1926–1936 (Dublin, 2002), p. 173. 142. Harry Gloster Armstrong, Consul General, NY to Ambassador, Washington, D.C., 14 June 1922, Dept. of Taoiseach, S 2068, NAI. 143. One leaflet read, ‘The Anti-Republicans claim that the Treaty entitles Ireland to admission in the League of Nations. India has a representative in the League of Nations. Is India Free?’ Another stated that the ‘Curse of Cromwell’ and ‘the Curse of the Famine’ ‘is the same Curse that is over India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine and South Africa To-day.’ Anti-Treaty Leaflets (c. 1923), ILB 300, Items 101 and 52, National Library of Ireland. 144. Gloster Armstrong, Consul General, NY, to Secretary of State, 23 November 1922, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 1976, NAI. 145. Undated notes on activities of Tarak Nath Das, April 1921–February 1923, IPI, L/P&J/12/166, OIOC. 146. History Sheet of Sailendra Nath Ghosh, 28 November 1929, IPI, L/P&J/12/197, OIOC; and An Phoblacht, 17 July 1925. I am grateful to Joseph Lennon for this reference. 147. Fraser, ‘Germany and the Indian Revolution,’ pp. 268–69. 148. The United States of India 2: 2 (August 1924). 149. Translated summary of the Hindustan Ghadr, 14 October and December 1930, IPI, L/P&J/12/755, OIOC. 150. ‘Ireland and India: The Day of Empires is Passing—Especially of British Empire,’ The United States of India 2: 2 (August 1924).

Notes

227

151. ‘Ireland and India,’ The United States of India 2: 2 (August 1924); and ‘The Irish Situation,’ The United States of India 1: 1 (July 1923). 152. ‘The Defeat of Mahatma Gandhi,’ The United States of India 2: 3 (September 1924). 153. In 1919, MI5 noted that ‘the Hindus in San Francisco presented DE VALERA with a sword. The presentation was made by representatives of the Ghadr Party.’ Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Long Fellow, Long Story: MI5 and de Valera,’ Irish Studies in International Affairs 14 (2003), pp. 187–88. 154. Israel, Communications and Power, pp. 303–5. 155. Consul General, NY, to Sir Ronald Lindsay, British Embassy, Washington, D.C., 29 October 1931, IPI, L/P&J/12/197, OIOC. 156. Inter-Departmental Committee on Eastern Unrest memorandum on ‘Russia and India,’ 28 April 1927, IPI, L/P&J/12/155, OIOC. 157. Note by Basanta Kumar Roy [September 1932], Frank P. Walsh Papers, NYPL. 158. New York Times, 4 October 1931. 159. Israel, Communications and Power, p. 307; and translated summaries of Hindustan Ghadr, 14 October 1930 and December 1930, IPI, L/P&J/12/755, OIOC.

2 ‘The Sinn Féin of India’: The Reception of Irish Revolutionary Nationalism in Bengal 1. R.E.A. Ray, ‘Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal During the Period from April to December 1930’ (1931) in TIB, I: 604, 607. 2. The Director of Criminal Intelligence of the Government of India in fact discounted any desire of the revolutionaries to tie their campaign that of Gandhi’s. ‘To the ordinary observer, the Chittagong outrage may appear to be very closely connected with Mr. Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience campaign. It is certain, however, that the Violence party have no belief in Mr. Gandhi, and no use for his policy or methods. They have all along, gone their own way, and pursued their own line of action.’ Extracts from Weekly Report of the Director, Intelligence Bureau [Dir., IB] of the Home Dept., GOI, 17 April 1930, L/P&J/12/389, OIOC. 3. Extracts from Weekly Report of Dir., IB of the Home Dept., GOI, 17 April 1930, L/P&J/12/389, OIOC. For a history of the Chittagong Armory Raid and its impact, see Manini Chatterjee, Do and Die: The Chittagong Rising, 1930–34 (New Delhi, 1999). 4. Ashis Nandy, The Illegimitimacy of Nationalism (New Delhi, 1994), p. 43. 5. Lindsay Clutterbuck, ‘The Progenitors of Terrorism: Russian Revolutionaries or Extreme Irish Republicans?’ Terrorism and Political Violence 16: 1 (2004), pp. 154–81. 6. Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (Oxford, 2003), p. 11. 7. Kevin Grant, ‘The Transcolonial World of Hunger Strikes and Political Fasts, c. 1909–1935,’ in Ghosh and Kennedy, eds, Decentring Empire, p. 260. 8. Young India, 1 September 1920, in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi, 1965), XVIII: 219. 9. Brasted, ‘Irish Models,’ p. 36. 10. Keith Jeffrey argues that ‘in India . . . the Irish model of guerilla warfare that developed in 1919–21 was not followed.’ ‘Introduction,’ in his An Irish Empire?, p. 9.

228

Notes

11. Hanley, The IRA; Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin, ‘ “Ireland a Warning to India”: Antiimperialist Solidarity in the Irish Free State,’ in Foley and O’Connor, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 268–78; Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin, ‘ “The Mosquito Press”: AntiImperialist Rhetoric in Republican Journalism, 1926–39,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 256–89; O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire. 12. ‘Good Luck India!’ Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 58464B, NAI. 13. Ní Bheacháin, ‘ “The Mosquito Press,” ’ p. 287. 14. Partha Chatterjee identifies three stages of the colonial nationalist encounter with the West. By the last of these stages, ‘the moment of arrival,’ he argues that nationalist thought has become a ‘discourse of order,’ and ‘the rational organization of power.’ Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (1986; Minneapolis, 1993), pp. 42, 50–1. For a critique of Chatterjee along these lines, see Sugata Bose, ‘Nation as Mother: Representations and Contestations of “India” in Bengali Literature and Culture,’ in Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, eds, Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India (Delhi, 1997), pp. 50–75. 15. John Gallagher, ‘Nationalisms and the Crisis of Empire, 1919–1922,’ Modern Asian Studies 15: 3 (1981), p. 355; and Priya Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford and New York, 2008), p. 221. 16. W.K. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs. Volume I: Problems of Nationality 1918–1936 (London, 1937), p. 92. D.W. Harkness argues that from Ireland’s first participation in the Imperial Conference of 1923, the Irish Free State acted as a spur to greater autonomy for the dominions within the British Empire. R.F. Holland, however, stresses the ‘passivity and concern with domestic matters’ of Irish governments prior to 1932. D.W. Harkness, The Restless Dominion: The Irish Free State and the British Commonwealth of Nations, 1921–31 (London, 1969); and R.F. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance 1918–1939 (London, 1981), p. 153. 17. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance, Chapter 9; and Deirdre McMahon, Republicans and Imperialists: Anglo-Irish Relations in the 1930s (New Haven and London, 1984). 18. McMahon adds that ‘The comparison between de Valera and Gandhi was a recurring one in British minds.’ McMahon, Republicans and Imperialists, p. 30. 19. Cited in Ibid., pp. 183–84. 20. Christy Campbell, The Maharajah’s Box: An Imperial Story of Conspiracy, Love and a Guru’s Prophecy (London, 2000), p. 272. See also Whelehan, ‘Skirmishing,’ pp. 180–200. 21. Thuggee and Dacoity Department. Special Branch, Abstract of Intelligence (1888), pp. I: 2, I: 24, D/1071/H/M/11/2, Dufferin Collection, PRONI. 22. Lennon, Irish Orientalism, pp. 333–42. 23. Telegram from Viceroy, Home Dept., GOI, 7 January1920, J&P 281/20, L/P&J/6/1661, OIOC. 24. Edmundo Murray, ‘Bulfin, Eamon (1892–1968),’ in Irish Migration Studies in Latin America November–December 2005 (www.irlandeses.org). Revised (November 2006). Accessed 25 September 2007. 25. Eamon Bulfin was born in Argentina, where his father William, an Irish nationalist and supporter of the Gaelic League, who worked as a journalist and editor of the Southern Cross newspaper of Buenos Aires. J&P Minute, 26 February 1920; and Note by Malcolm Seton, 27 February 1920. J&P 281/20, L/P&J/6/1661, OIOC.

Notes

229

26. ‘Notes made by Mr. Kidd in London regarding Indian agitation abroad,’ GOB Intelligence Branch No. 83, WBSA; and Arthur Mitchell, Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dáil Éireann, 1919–22 (Dublin, 1995), pp. 257–58. 27. ‘The Irish Communist Party and Comintern,’ and ‘United Committee of Action. Irish, Indians and Egyptians.’ HO 317/59, NA UK. I am grateful to Paul McMahon for bringing this reference to my attention. 28. Dan Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom (1924; Rev. ed. Dublin, 1964), p. 179. 29. There is a large, often uncritical, literature on Nivedita and her involvement with Indian nationalism. For an analysis of Nivedita’s cross-cultural and crossnationalist relationships, see Elleke Boehmer, ‘Friable Transnationalism: The Question of the South African Gandhi and the Irish Nivedita,’ in Foley and O’Connor, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 58–67; and her Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, 1890–1920: Resistance in Interaction (Oxford, 2002), especially pp. 34–124. 30. When she returned to London due to health problems, a prominent Bengali revolutionary named Girindra Nath Mukherjee, stayed at her flat there. C.A. Tegart, ‘A Note on the Ramkrishna Mission’ (1914) in TIB IV: 1350–52. 31. As Peter Heehs observes, the argument that this was due to Nivedita’s skill at avoiding police surveillance is not a convincing one. Heehs, in his wellresearched history of early revolutionary terrorism in Bengal, does not find any archival evidence of Nivedita’s involvement with revolutionary groups. Peter Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India 1900–1910 (Delhi, 1993), pp. 264–66. The one discussion of Nivedita in police intelligence archives that I have been able to discover, which is cited above, is from a report written three years after her death. 32. Boehmer, Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, p. 117. Elleke Boehmer cautions against an uncomplicated reading of Nivedita’s ‘Irishness’ as the catalyst for her Indian nationalist activities, observing ‘that her tendency to identify with India was chiefly attributable to her Irish “blood” or cultural disposition must remain questionable.’ Boehmer, Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, p. 72. 33. For the history of ‘Bengali terrorism,’ see Hiren Chakrabarti, Political Protest in Bengal: Boycott and Terrorism 1905–1918 (Calcutta, 1992); Durba Ghosh, ‘Terrorism in Bengal: Political Violence in the Interwar Years,’ in Ghosh and Kennedy, eds, Decentering Empire, pp. 270–92; Heehs, Bomb in Bengal; David M. Laushey, Bengal Terrorism and the Marxist Left (Calcutta, 1975); Rajat Kanta Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875–1927 (Delhi, 1984); and Michael Silvestri, ‘The Bomb, Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita, and Dan Breen: Terrorism in Bengal and Its Relation to the European Experience,’ Terrorism and Political Violence 21: 1 (2009), pp. 1–27. 34. For the blend of violent and non-violent resistance in the HSRA, see Neeti Nair, ‘Bhagat Singh as “Satyaghrahi”: The Limits to Non-violence in Late Colonial India,’ Modern Asian Studies 43: 3 (2008), pp. 1–33. For the popularity of Bhagat Singh in Bengal after his execution, see the reports in IPI, L/P&J/12/390, OIOC. 35. ‘Terrorism in India. A Summary of Activities up to March, 1933,’ p. 10. (11 May 1933) WO 106/5445, NA UK; and H.W. Hale, Terrorism in India, 1917–1936 (1937; New Delhi, 1974), p. 5. The label of ‘terrorism’ applied by the British, was, however, rejected emphatically by Bengali nationalists. For the applicability of the label ‘terrorist’ to the Bengali revolutionaries, see Silvestri, ‘Bomb, Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita,’ pp. 2–3.

230

Notes

36. Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester, 1995); and John Rosselli, ‘The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal,’ Past and Present 86 (1980), pp. 121–48. 37. Rajat Kanta Ray, Social Conflict, p. 141. For the influence of Russo-Japanese War on Indian nationalism, see Steven G. Marks, ‘ “Bravo, Brave Tiger of the East!” The Russo-Japanese War and the Rise of Nationalism in British Egypt and India,’ in John Steinberg et al., eds, The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective (Boston and Leiden, 2005), pp. 609–27. 38. According to the Rowlatt Committee (1918), 89 percent of the 186 persons killed or convicted of ‘revolutionary crimes’ in Bengal from 1907 to 1917 belonged to the three chief bhadralok castes of Brahmin, Kayastha or Baidya. The largest single occupation listed for the terrorists was ‘student,’ while a significant number were professionals such as teachers or in Government service. Heehs, Bomb in Bengal, pp. 268–71. 39. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, p. 5. 40. H.J. Twynham and R.E.A. Ray, Enquiry into Temporary Establishments of the Central and District Intelligence Branches of the Bengal Police (Alipore, 1936), pp. 9–10. 41. Rajat Kanta Ray writes, ‘In the grim battle between the police and the revolutionaries, the sympathy of large sections of Bengali society lay with the latter,’ Social Conflict, p. 182. 42. R.E.A. Ray, Brief Note on the Alliance of Congress with Terrorism in Bengal (1932), in TIB III: 933. 43. Leonard A. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of the Indian Nationalists Subhas and Sarat Chandra Bose (New York, 1989), p. 229. 44. Ray, Social Conflict, pp. 324–25. 45. Although Subhas Bose certainly did have connections to Bengali revolutionaries, many of the tales of his involvement with revolutionary organizations in Bengal were wildly exaggerated. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, p. 194. 46. Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest (London, 1910), p. 146. 47. Notes by H. LeMesurier, Inspector General of Police, Eastern Bengal and Assam, 5 July 1908, 15 June 1908, Home Dept. (Political) Confidential [Home (Pol) Conf.] No. 390/C of 1909, WBSA. 48. Although Peter Heehs argues that revolutionary terrorism in Bengal was purely a ‘natural and indigenous response to British imperial domination,’ his article provides numerous examples of the influence of European revolutionaries. Heehs, ‘Foreign Influences,’ pp. 533–56. 49. The deed was seen as surpassing the latter since the approver in Bengal ‘had been murdered before he could complete his “treachery”, whereas the murder of Carey had been only a tardy “retribution” which could not undo the past.’ Chirol, Indian Unrest, p. 146. 50. Heehs, ‘Foreign Influences,’ p. 536. Ghose’s comments also, however, seem to indicate the profound later influence of the Irish example on Bengali revolutionaries, which he projected back into an earlier period. 51. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (London, 1951), p. 224. 52. For Victorian constructions of the Irish as a racialized ‘Other’ see L.P. Curtis, Jr., Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Rev. ed. Washington, D.C., 1997). This issue of racial stereotyping of the Irish in the nineteenth century has

Notes

53.

54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

70.

231

generated a vigorous debate, which is discussed by Curtis in the revised edition of Apes and Angels. According to Richard P. Davis, ‘Common Aryan origin was one argument used to encourage Indo-Hibernian solidarity’ by Sinn Féin publicists. Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda,’ p. 66. Amrita Bazar Patrika, 17 July 1902, BRNP [Report on the Native Papers in Bengal], Week Ending 26 July 1902, p. 296. In the previous year, the Amrita Bazar Patrika, in reporting on an Irish nationalist meeting in Chicago attended by Maude Gonne, commented that ‘there is humour in the open way the Irish preach sedition and the English tolerate it.’ Amrita Bazar Patrika, 4 April 1901, BRNP, Week Ending 6 April 1901, p. 223. Hindi Bangavasi, 5 August 1907 and Amrita Bazar Patrika, 27 July 1907, in Reports of Native Newpapers in Bengal [BRNN] (1907), p. 322. Bangali, 8 February 1920, in BRNP (1920), p. 96. WBSA. Ronaldshay to Montagu, 9 June 1920, Montagu Collection, MSS Eur. D 523/31, OIOC. Ronaldshay to Montagu, 5 September 1921, Montagu Collection, MSS Eur. D 523/32, OIOC. Daily Mail, 12 February 1926, clipping in Tegart Papers, Centre of South Asian Studies Archive, Cambridge University. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch! India 1921–1952 (London, 1987), pp. 292, 298. Memo by J.H. Colson, 28 June 1934, IPI, L/P&J/12/399, OIOC. Bose later wrote, ‘In my part of India—Bengal—there is hardly an educated family where books about the Irish heroes are not read and if I may say so, devoured.’ Subhas Bose to Mrs. Woods, 7 December 1933 and 21 December 1935, Subhas Chandra Bose Papers, Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta. On Bose’s visit to Ireland, see O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire, pp. 95–110, and also Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, pp. 303–6; and the IPI report on ‘Subhas Chandra Bose,’ 13 February 1936, IPI, L/P&J/12/299, OIOC. James Nolan, Detective, Garda, Kingstown, to Special Branch, Dublin Castle, 31 January 1936, Department of Justice, JUS 8/443, NAI; and O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire, p. 106. As O’Malley observes, the neutral report which the Garda Síochána sent to the British Special Branch stating that Bose’s visit was ‘uneventful’ glossed over the extensive press coverage he received in Ireland and the official receptions which the Irish government held for him. IPI report on ‘Subhas Chandra Bose,’ 13 February 1936, IPI, L/P&J/12/299, OIOC. Ray, Social Conflict, pp. 185, 376. Tanika Sarkar, ‘Bengali Middle-Class Nationalism and Literature: A Study of Saratchandra’s “Pather Dabi” and Rabindranath’s “Char Adhyay,” ’ in D.N. Panigrahi, ed., Economy, Society and Politics in Modern India (New Delhi, 1985), p. 451. Charles Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars: Counter-insurgency in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986), p. 146. The register listing the file, but not the file itself, is available in the National Archives of India, New Delhi. GOI Home (Pol) No. 228 of 1926, NA India. Student, 8 January 1920, in BRNP (1920), p. 72; and Soltan, 30 November 1923, in BRNP (1923), p. 1098.

232

Notes

71. Serialized accounts of de Valera’s life appeared in Sankha, September–October 1923; Barisal September 1923; Ananda Bazar Patrika, March, 1925; and Swadeshi Bazaar, September–December 1928. Citations may be found in BRNP (1923), pp. 836, 876, 935, 958, 985; BRNP (1925), pp. 213, 265; BRNP (1928), pp. 526, 559, 567, 609, 622; and BRNP (1929), pp. 28, 44. For Bengali interest in the 1932 Irish elections, see the Fortnightly Reports on the Political Situation in Bengal, First Half of March and First Half of April, 1932, L/P&J/12/36, OIOC. 72. The Calcutta nationalist newspaper Forward carried a weekly column on Irish affairs during the 1920s. See Gordon, Bengal, p. 338. 73. John Mitchel O Biplabi Ireland [John Mitchel and Revolutionary Ireland], p. 3. Proscribed Literature Collection, IOR MIC 11599/9, OIOC. This interpretation of Irish history was consistent with that of the contemporary Irish Free State, where a stress on ‘the supposed message of Irish history’ was used to assert a separate Irish identity after 1922. As R.F. Foster writes, this involved ‘a necessary degree of deliberate amnesia,’ in which ‘the record of parliamentary nationalism [was] more or less dismissed.’ R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600 to 1972 (New York, 1988), p. 535. 74. I owe this point to Partha Chatterjee. 75. Surendra Mohan Ghose, Oral History Transcript, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi [NMML]. One revolutionary deported to the Andaman Islands before the First World War, Hrishikesh Kunji Lal, was known among the prison staff as ‘All for Ireland’ for his attempts to enlist an Irish jailor’s sympathy ‘as another oppressed subject of the British Crown, saying “We fought for the Irish also, we are all for Ireland.” ’ C.A. Tegart, Notes on the Andaman Enquiries (August 1913), pp. 27–8, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 293 of 1913, WBSA. 76. Irish Press, 12 February 1936, cited in Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, p. 693. 77. ‘The Youths of Bengal’ [1929], cited in Hale, Terrorism in India, p. 214. 78. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch!, p. 314; An Phoblacht, 29 September 1929, GOI Home (Pol) No. 28/6 of 1929, NA India; and Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, pp. 417–18. 79. My Fight for Irish Freedom was originally published in Dublin by the Talbot Press in 1924. Breen, a native of County Tipperary and member of the Tipperary Volunteers, was involved in an attack at Soloheadbeg, near Tipperary, in January, 1919, in which two Royal Irish Constabulary officers were killed. He later opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and was elected to the Dáil. To many republicans, he epitomized the Irish ‘gunman’ who took arms against the British. 80. Sir John Anderson, Governor of Bengal, to H.D. Craik, Home Dept., GOI, 28 October 1935, GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/6 of 1935, NA India. 81. Dan Breen, Irish Freedom, pp. 75, 83. 82. There were at least two translations of Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom into Hindi and one each into Punjabi and Tamil, all of which were proscribed. For details, see Graham Shaw and Mary Lloyd, eds, Publications Proscribed by the Government of India (London, 1985). A copy of one Hindi edition of Breen, Ireland Ka Svatantraya Yudh (Kanpur, 1928) is in the collection of Indian Proscribed Tracts, 1907–1947 (microfilm), NMML. My Fight for Irish Freedom was also translated into Burmese by the All Burma Youth League. Ian F.W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-insurgencies: Guerillas and their Opponents Since 1750 (London and New York, 2001), p. 17.

Notes

233

83. Cited in Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, p. 103. 84. R.E.A. Ray, Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal (1930), in TIB, I: 603. 85. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, p. 103; and Kalpana Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences (Rev. ed. Delhi, 1979), p. 13. 86. For Breen’s influence among the Chittagong revolutionaries, see I. Mallikarjuna Sharma, Easter Rebellion in India: The Chittagong Uprising (Hyderabad, 1993), pp. 82, 111, 128, 132. 87. Surya Sen was executed in Chittagong Jail on 15 January 1934. 88. R.E.A. Ray, Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal (1931) in TIB I: 608. 89. C.E.S. Fairweather, ‘Report on the Work of the Central and District Intelligence Branches for the Three Years 1930, 1931 and 1932,’ IPI, L/P&J/12/466, OIOC. 90. Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders, p. 13. 91. Bhupati Mazumdar, Oral History Transcript, NMML; and R.C. Majumdar, History of Modern Bengal. Part Two (1905–1947): Freedom Movement (Calcutta, 1981), p. 263. 92. J.R. Johnson, Sptd. of Police, Chittagong, to F.J. Lowman, Inspector General, Bengal Police, 24 April 1930, GOI Home (Pol) No. 335 of 1930, NA India. 93. H.R. Wilkinson, District Magistrate, Chittagong, to H. Tufnell-Barrett, Pol. Dept., GOB, 10 October 1930, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 749 of 1930, WBSA. 94. Ray, Report on the Activities of Terrorists in Bengal (1931), in TIB I: 608–9. 95. Cited in Sharma, Easter Rebellion in India, p. 159. 96. Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders, p. ix. 97. Sharma, Easter Rebellion in India, p. 17; and Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders, p. ix. 98. Bengal Police Intelligence Branch, ‘Existence of a Revolutionary Conspiracy,’ Indian Police Collection, MSS Eur. F 161/36, OIOC. 99. R.E.A. Ray, Terrorist Conspiracy in Bengal from 1st January to 30th June 1926 (1926), Indian Police Collection, MSS Eur. F 161/36, OIOC. 100. See the Web Site for the Daniel J. Leab Collection, Brown University Library, Providence, RI. http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/libs/hay/ collections/orwell/leab.html. 101. I.G.H. Holman memoirs, pp. 272–73, Holman Papers, MSS Eur. D 884, OIOC. 102. J.A. Goldie to Chief Sec. to GOB, September 1921; and G.W. Dixon to Chief Sec. to GOB, 6 January 1922, GOI Home (Police) No. 409 of 1922, NA India. 103. Hale, Terrorism in India, p. 23; and J.C. Farmer, Bengal Police Intelligence Branch, to T.J.A. Craig, Inspector General, Bengal Police, 5 May 1931, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 296 of 1931, WBSA. 104. The vast majority of works banned by the Government of India were those seen as seditious or revolutionary, although some were banned on the grounds of inflaming communal sentiments. For lists and details of proscribed works and the machinery of proscription, see Shaw and Lloyd, Publications Proscribed by the Government of India; and N.G. Barrier, Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India (Columbus, MO, 1971). A Bengali language compilation with a summary in English of books banned in Bengal is Hiranmay Bhattacharya, Nirbasita Sahitya [‘Proscribed Bengali Books’] Vols I and II (Calcutta, 1981 and 1987). 105. See Chapter 1. 106. Note by H.A. Stuart, 18 July 1907, GOI Home (Pol) A, August 1907, 243–50. 107. C.A. Tegart, Note on the Chandernagore Gang, 20 July 1913, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 342 of 1913, WBSA.

234

Notes

108. Davis, ‘Irish Revolution,’ p. 55; and Note by H.W. Vincent, 1 May 1918, GOI Home (Pol) Deposit, May 1918, No. 39, NA India. 109. Publications, Etc., Proscribed Under Section 12 (I) of the Indian Press Act, 1910 and Since Its Repeal, Under Section 99-A, of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1920 TO 1924 (October) (1924), in TIB IV: 57–8; and ‘Prohibition under the Sea Customs Act of the Importation in British India of Copies of Publications Issued by Revolutionary Societies in Foreign Countries,’ GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 317 of 1920, WBSA. 110. The District Magistrate of Chittagong, who was unaware of the proscription order, wrote to the Government of Bengal in October 1930 requesting that My Fight for Irish Freedom be banned, for reasons of its ‘injurious influence’ on ‘impressionable minds’ as well the application of its ideas by revolutionaries in the Chittagong Armory Raid. H.R. Wilkinson, District Magistrate, Chittagong, to H. Tufnell-Barrett, Second Additional Sec. to GOB, 10 October 1930, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 749 of 1930, WBSA. 111. An Phoblacht, 28 September 1929, GOI Home (Pol) No. 28/VI of 1929, NA India. 112. An Phoblacht, 29 September 1929, GOI Home (Pol) No. 28/VI of 1929, NA India. 113. A Hindi language biography of de Valera published in Calcutta was also proscribed by the Government of India. See Shaw and Lloyd, Publications Proscribed. 114. Note on Vidrohi Ireland, GOI Home (Pol) No. 27/I of 1929 (IOL microfilm IOR POS 32153, OIOC). 115. Johnston, Calcutta Special Branch, to Director, Intelligence Bureau, GOI, 10 September 1935, GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/6 of 1935, NA India. 116. Note by H. Williamson, 17 September 1935, GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/6 of 1935, NAI. 117. Note by H.D. Craik, 25 October 1935; and Anderson to Craik, 28 October 1935, GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/6 of 1935, NA India. 118. Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Historical Revisit: Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (1937),’ Irish Historical Studies 31: 123 (1999), pp. 389–94. 119. Note by W.F.A. Hamilton, 13 April 1937, GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/7 of 1937, NA India. One copy was also seized in the United Provinces. The Government of India’s attention was apparently drawn to the book after its appearance in Victor Gollancz’s Spring 1937 list, which included extracts of a preface by de Valera. 120. R. Peel, IO, to G.W. McElhinny, Home Dept. GOI, 6 April 1937; Note by W.F.A. Hamilton, 18 December 1936; and Note by H.S. Stephenson, 2 May 1937. GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/7 of 1937, NA India. 121. W.F.A. Hamilton noted that there was ‘a most objectionable chapter in which the need for assassination of police officers is stressed,’ but added ‘that the assassination of the Royal Irish Constabulary was a feature of the Sinn Féin trouble is ancient history, and is as well known to Indian revolutionaries as to the Irish themselves.’ Note by W.F.A. Hamilton, 13 April 1937, GOI Home (Pol) No. 41/7 of 1937, NA India. 122. Cook, Imperial Affinities. 123. Two examples were the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 and the Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908. Cook, Imperial Affinities, pp. 32–6. 124. In addition to the Irish influence on policing in India, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and until 1932 the Royal Ulster Constabulary, provided training for colonial police officers. Georgina Sinclair concludes that ‘The history and the

Notes

125.

126. 127.

128. 129.

130.

131. 132.

133.

134.

135. 136.

137.

235

traditions of the Palestine Police stemmed directly from the Royal Irish Constabulary.’ Georgina Sinclair, ‘ “Get into a Crack Force and Earn £20 a Month and all found . . .”: The Influence of the Palestine Police upon Colonial Policing 1922–1948,’ European Review of History 13: 1 (2006), pp. 49–65 (quotation on p. 50). Kent Fedorowich, ‘The Problems of Disbandment: The Royal Irish Constabulary and Imperial Migration, 1919–29,’ Irish Historical Studies 30: 117 (1996), pp. 88–110. Seton to W.H. Vincent, Home Dept., GOI, 13 April 1922, GOI Home (Police) No. 627 of 1922, NA India. Churchill commented that ‘The Palestine gendarmerie are said to be a magnificent body of men.’ Winston Churchill to Robert Peel, 20 April 1922. P&J No. 2092 of 1922, L/P&J/6/1800, OIOC. Lionel Curtis, Colonial Office, to Sir William Duke, India Office, 25 August 1922, P&J No. 2092 of 1922, L/P&J/6/1800, OIOC. J. Lazell to Sec to Irish Office, 26 October 1922, P&J No. 2092 of 1922, L/P&J/6/1800, OIOC. Malcolm Seton wrote of the ‘desirability that this special recruitment should not be criticised in India as a drafting of “Black and Tans” to inaugurate new methods of repression.’ Sir Malcolm Seton to Sir W. Duke, 19 May 1922, P&J No. 2092 of 1922, L/P&J/6/1800, OIOC. According to Thomas Mockaitis, the Anglo-Irish War was ‘part of a long series of internal-security operations that collectively gave rise to a traditional wisdom on how to combat irregulars.’ Thomas Mockaitis, British Counter-insurgency, 1919– 1960 (London, 1990), p. 12. These began with the Public Safety [Emergency Powers] Act of 1 August 1923, and extended to the Offenses against the State Act of 1939. GOI Home (Pol) No. 4/66 of 1932, NA India. The 1927 Public Safety Act, passed after the assassination of Minister for Justice and External Affairs Kevin O’Higgins by an IRA gunman, provided for the establishment of ‘Special Courts’ consisting of three or more members. The courts were established to try a range of offenses including murder, attempted murder or conspiracy to murder the Governor-General of Ireland or any member of the Irish legislature or judges. There was no appeal from the tribunals’ decisions. Suspects had to be brought before tribunals within one month and three days of arrest. The India Office noted that ‘the powers of detention are not so great’ as those in India, although ‘the reasons justifying detention without trial in India do not however exist in Ireland in virtue of the power of the Tribunal to order its procedure.’ Note by W. Johnston, 26 October 1931, L/P&J/7/235, OIOC. British legislation to combat terrorism in India was based largely on the Defense of India Act of 1915, which allowed for detention without trial and the trial of terrorist suspects by tribunal rather than by jury. Minute by Malcolm Seton, 27 October 1931, L/P&J/7/235, OIOC. At the same time, the Government of Bengal also examined the Irish Free State Fire Arms Act of 1925 and the Treasonable Offenses Act of 1925. See GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 825 of 1931, WBSA. The Government of the Punjab also requested to see copies of the 1931 act. GOI Home (Pol) No. 295 of 1931, NA India. Note by H. Twynham, 14 December 1931; and Note by R.E.A. Ray, 29 October 1931, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. of 825 of 1931, WBSA.

236

Notes

138. As Charles Townshend observes, the result was not achieved. Charles Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland, 1919–1921 (Oxford, 1975), p. 73. 139. John W. Wheeler-Bennett, John Anderson: Viscount Waverly (London, 1962), pp. 67–8. For a more critical assessment of Anderson’s role, see Townshend, British Campaign, p. 80. 140. Anderson to Samuel Hoare, Sec. of State for India, 13 January 1933, Templewood Collection, MSS Eur. E 240/9, OIOC. 141. Lionel Curtis to Anderson, 27 February 1932, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/5, OIOC. 142. Lothian to Anderson, 12 March 1932; and Macready to Anderson, 24 November 1931, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/3 and F 207/1, OIOC. 143. R.N. Reid recalled that Anderson ‘could expound with equal facility the methods used to repress terrorism in Ireland or the niceties of Parliamentary procedure.’ Robert Reid, Years of Change in Bengal and Assam (London, 1966), p. 70. 144. Anderson to Findlater Stewart, 17 November 1932; and Anderson to Samuel Hoare, 29 July 1933, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/5, OIOC. 145. In response to King George V’s query ‘What is wrong with Bengal?,’ Anderson replied in June, 1932 that ‘the most conspicuous and the most urgent of our problems is without question the suppression of terrorism.’ Wheeler-Bennett, John Anderson, p. 126; and John Anderson, ‘The Situation in Bengal,’ June 1932, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/14, OIOC. 146. In 1932, the Government of Bengal requested copies of ‘Orders for Internment Camps in Ireland,’ although the exact content is not clear, since the relevant file has not been transferred to the archives. GOI Home (Pol) No. 59 of 1932, NA India. 147. Note by R.N. Reid, 29 June 1932, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. 685 of 1932, WBSA. 148. Note by H.G. Haig, 25 October 1932, GOI Home (Pol) No. 4/66 of 1932, NA India. 149. H.G. Haig to Anderson, 19 November 1932; and Anderson to Haig, 22 November 1932, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/3, OIOC. 150. A conference of officials from the Government of Bengal and the Government of India in November, 1931 noted a ‘very real danger of the European population taking the law into their own hands, if outrages continue.’ H.W. Emerson, ‘Note on Discussion with the Bengal Government,’ 5 November 1931, L/P&J/7/242, OIOC. 151. Note by R.E.A. Ray, 29 October 1931, GOB Home (Pol) Conf. No. of 825 of 1931, WBSA; and Note by R.N. Reid, 24 March 1932, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/12, OIOC. For the origins of reprisals during the Anglo-Irish War, see Townshend, British Campaign, pp. 95–7. 152. Reid, Years of Change, p. 70. In his memoirs, Reid does not, however, mention his own advocacy of reprisals against terrorists. 153. R.N. Reid, ‘Bomb and Pistol in a Bengal District,’ Reid Collection, MSS Eur. E 278/2, OIOC. 154. John Hunt, Life is Meeting (London, 1978), pp. 21–2. 155. Hoare to Anderson, 14 October 1932, Templewood Collection, MSS Eur. E 240/9, OIOC; and translations of Ananda Bazar Patrika, 23 November 1937 and Advance, 22 November 1937, Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207/22, OIOC. 156. For Tegart’s career, see Michael Silvestri, ‘ “An Irishman is Specially Suited to be a Policeman”: Sir Charles Tegart and the Policing of Revolutionary Terrorism in Bengal,’ History Ireland 8: 4 (2000), pp. 40–44.

Notes

237

157. David Arnold, Police Power and Colonial Rule: Madras 1859–1947 (Delhi, 1986), pp. 74–5. 158. P&J Proceedings, No. 696 of 1895, L/P&J/6/395, OIOC and P&J Proceedings, No. 1275 of 1895, L/P&J/6/401, OIOC. 159. Kate O’Malley, ‘Indian Political Intelligence (IPI): The Monitoring of Real and Possible Danger?’ in Eunan O’Halpin, Robert Armstrong and Jane Ohlmeyer, eds, Intelligence, Statecraft and International Power (Dublin, 2006), pp. 175–85. 160. Before the mission began, Tegart wrote, ‘The situation in Ireland is, I imagine, infinitely more difficult to tackle than anything we were up against in India and unfortunately I am entirely ignorant of details.’ Tegart to Sir Malcolm Seton, 1 July 1920, HO 317/59, NA UK. I am grateful for Paul McMahon for this reference. Tegart’s abilities to conduct any useful intelligence assessment in Ireland in 1920 and during a later intelligence mission in 1940 were severely hampered by the fact that his ‘Irish’ contacts extended no further than the Anglo–Irish community. Paul McMahon, British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland, 1916–1945 (London, 2008), pp. 1–2. 161. J.W. Dulanty to the Sec., Dept. of External Affairs, Dublin, 20 August 1940, DFA A 6, NAI. 162. The cartoon of Tegart is in the Tegart papers in the Centre of South Asian Studies Archive, Cambridge University. For Tegart’s interrogation techniques, see the Indian Police Collection, MSS Eur. F 161/247, OIOC. 163. Leonard A. Gordon concludes his biography of Subhas and Sarat Chandra Bose by observing that ‘of all the foreign nationalists, both the Boses had a special feeling for the Irish. Both visited Ireland, both talked of the lessons which India had to learn from the bravery of Irish patriots and the determination with which the Irish worked for complete independence from the British Empire.’ Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj, p. 618. 164. Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom, p. 179; Robert Briscoe with Alden Hatch, For the Life of Me (Boston and Toronto, 1958), p. 141; and George Gilmore, The Irish Republican Congress (Rev. ed. Cork, 1978), p. 30. 165. Charles Townshend, ‘The IRA and the Development of Guerilla Warfare, 1916– 1921,’ English Historical Review XCIV: 371 (1979), p. 344. 166. Pamela Clayton, ‘Two Kinds of Colony,’ pp. 235–46.

3 ‘Lord and Master Nikkal Seyn’: The Construction of John Nicholson as a British Imperial Hero 1. Flora Annie Steel, On the Face of the Waters (1896; London, 1903), pp. 339, 400, 425, 432. 2. Max Jones, ‘What Should Historians Do With Heroes? Reflections on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Britain,’ History Compass 5 (2007), pp. 439–54. 3. Alvin Jackson, ‘Irish Unionists and the Empire, 1880–1920: Classes and Masses,’ in Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire?, p. 131. 4. As Nicholas Rogers observes in his insightful study of General James Wolfe, there is often ‘nothing intrinsically heroic’ about the actions of imperial heroes; instead, their heroism ‘is constructed by others out of the filaments of their lives and refashioned into different narratives over the course of time.’ Nicholas

238

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Notes Rogers, ‘ “Brave Wolfe”: The Making of A Hero in Mid-eighteenth Century Britain and America,’ in Kathleen Wilson, ed., A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire 1660–1840 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 239–59 (quotation on p. 239). For an analysis of the changing reputation of a prominent imperial hero, see Glyn Williams, The Death of Captain Cook: A Hero Made and Unmade (London, 2008). There are two book-length biographies of Nicholson: Lionel Trotter, The Life of John Nicholson, Soldier and Administrator (London, Edinburgh and Dublin, 1897) and Hesketh Pearson, The Hero of Delhi: A Life of John Nicholson, Saviour of India, and a History of his Wars (London, 1939). Other extended biographical treatments include Achmed Abdullah and T. Compton Pakenham, Dreamers of Empire (1928; New York, 1929); Charles Allen, Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North-West Frontier (London, 2000); and John William Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers, Illustrative of the History of the Civil and Military Service of India, Vol. 3 (London, 1869), pp. 296–399. Evelyn Werge authored an unpublished biography of Nicholson, and collected many primary sources relating to his life and posthumous reputation, which are in the Werge collection, MSS Eur. F 171, OIOC. Pearson, Hero of Delhi, p. 15. Unpublished biography of Nicholson by Evelyn Werge (p. 18), MSS Eur. F 171/97/1, OIOC. Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers, p. 297. Ibid., p. 419. William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 (Delhi, 2006), pp. 58–63. Pearson, Hero of Delhi, p. 18. Allen, Soldier Sahibs, pp. 53–54; and Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 46. For the careers of John and Henry Lawrence, see Harold Lee, Brothers in the Raj: The Lives of John and Henry Lawrence (Delhi, 2002). Raymond Callahan, ‘The Great Sepoy Mutiny,’ in Daniel P. Marston and Chandar S. Sundaram, eds, A Military History of India and South Asia: From the East India Company to the Nuclear Era (Westport, CT, 2007), pp. 19–20. The best account of Nicholson’s career on the Northwest frontier is Charles Allen, Soldier Sahibs. Following the practice of Elizabeth Buettner, I am using the term ‘British–Indian’ rather than ‘Anglo-Indian’ to refer to the British community in India. Although the term was not commonly used during the British raj, it is a more accurate label than ‘Anglo-Indian’ given the large numbers of Scots and Irish involved with Britain’s empire in India. Elizabeth Buettner, Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (Oxford, 2004), p. 13. Allen, Soldier Sahibs, p. 244. Cited in Ibid., p. 243. Pearson, Hero of Delhi, p. 223. Cited in Lewis D. Wurgaft, The Imperial Imagination: Magic and Myth in Kipling’s India (Middletown, CT, 1983), pp. 93–4. R.H. Haigh and P.W. Turner, John Nicholson, the Battle of Najafgarh and the Siege of Delhi (Sheffield, 1983). For the British recapture of Delhi, see Saul David, The Indian Mutiny (London, 2002), pp. 283–308. For an overview of the experience of Irish soldiers in India, see Bartlett, ‘The Irish Soldier,’ in Holmes and Holmes, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 12–28.

Notes

239

24. As Thomas Barlett observes, the main Irish military presence in mid-eighteenth century India was to found in the French forces. At the battle of Wandiwash, fought between French and Company forces in 1760, both commanders, Count Lally-Tollendal of Galway and Sir Eyre Coote of Limerick, respectively, were Irish, and Irish soldiers fought on both sides. Bartlett, ‘The Irish Soldier,’ p. 13. 25. Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture and Conquest in the East 1750– 1850 (New York, 2005), pp. 50–51. See also Arthur N. Gilbert, ‘Recruitment and Reform in the East India Company Army, 1760–1800,’ Journal of British Studies 15: 1 (1975), pp. 89–111. Factoring in the totals of Irishmen in England who enlisted, Gilbert estimates that almost half of recruits during this period were of ‘Irish extraction.’ 26. Peter Bailey, ‘Irishmen in the East India Company Army,’ Irish Family History 17 (2001), pp. 84–92; Kevin Kenny, ‘The Irish in the Empire,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 104–5; and Keith Jeffery, ‘The Irish Military Tradition and the British Empire,’ in Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire?, pp. 94–95. Peter Stanley cautions that the East India Company’s armies were never predominantly Irish, however. ‘Rather than constituting a predominantly Irish force throughout the period, Irish recruits comprised between a third and three-quarters of particular drafts, and predominated only in the late 1830s and the late 1840s.’ Peter Stanley, White Mutiny: British Military Culture in India (New York, 1998), p. 17. 27. Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (London, 2002), p. 310. 28. See P.R. Innes, The History of the Bengal European Regiment, Now the Munster Fusiliers, and How It Helped to Win India (London, 1885), especially pp. 449–527. 29. Innes, Bengal European Regiment, p. 482; and Doherty and Truesdale, Victoria Cross, pp. 48, 219 and 230. 30. Stanley, White Mutiny, p. 13. 31. T.G. Fraser, ‘The Graham Family, John Nicholson, and the Ulster-Indian Connection,’ in A.T. Harrison, ed., The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers (Belfast, 1980), p. ix. 32. Alexander, a lieutenant in the East India Company, was killed during the Afghan Wars in 1841. A second son, William, had died in an accident while a member of the 27th regiment at Sukkur in 1849, while Charles John Nicholson was wounded during the British recapture of Delhi, and died in December 1862 from the effects of his wound. A memorial tablet to Charles Nicholson and his wife Lizzie, who died five months afterward, stands just above that of John Nicholson in Lisburn Cathedral. 33. Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj: The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: 4 (Cambridge, 1994), especially pp. 43–59. For contrasting analyses of Victorian reactions to the ‘Mutiny,’ see Gautam Chakravarty, The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination (Cambridge, 2005); and Christopher Herbert, War of No Pity: The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma (Princeton, 2008). 34. Nancy L. Paxton, ‘Mobilizing Chivalry: Rape in British Novels about the Indian Uprising of 1857,’ Victorian Studies (Fall, 1992), pp. 5–30. 35. Heather Streets, Martial Races: The Military, Race and the Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857–1914 (Manchester, 2005), p. 41. As Patrick Brantlinger observes, ‘By the turn of the century Nana Sahib, Satanic locus of all oriental treachery, lust, and murder, was one of the most familiar villains in novels and melodramas, and by far the most familiar Indian character.’ Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914 (Ithaca and London, 1988), p. 204.

240

Notes

36. David, Indian Mutiny, p. 318. 37. Streets, Martial Races, p. 37. 38. John M. MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire,’ in John MacKenzie, ed., Popular Imperialism and the Military 1850–1950 (Manchester, 1992), p. 117. For the importance of concepts of chivalry in the nineteenth century, see Mark Girouard, The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven and London, 1981). 39. Cited in Girouard, Return to Camelot, p. 220. 40. Eric Stokes, The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857 (Oxford, 1986), p. 1. 41. Streets, Martial Races, pp. 53–57. 42. Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London, 1994), p. 83. 43. For Havelock’s fame, see MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire,’ and Dawson, Soldier Heroes. 44. Conference on Missions Held in 1860 at Liverpool (London, 1860), p. 347. 45. Nicholson’s obscurity in England illustrated by the fact that during the first decade of his imperial service, his only mention in the Times was the inclusion of his name in a list of prisoners released from Kabul on 21 September 1842. Times, 5 December 1842. 46. Times, 15 June 1850. 47. Innes, Bengal European Regiment, p. 475. 48. Cited in Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires 1803–1921: Society, Government and Urban Growth (Delhi, 1981), p. 21. For the assault on Delhi and the slaughter and destruction which followed it, see Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, pp. 346–445. 49. Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, pp. 21–32. 50. Nayanjot Lahiri, ‘Commemorating and Remembering 1857: The Revolt in Delhi and Its Afterlife,’ World Archaeology 35: 1 (2003), pp. 35–60. Similar memorial landscapes were created at Cawnpore and Lucknow. For Cawnpore, see Stephen Heathorn, ‘Angel of Empire: The Cawnpore Memorial Well as a British Site of Imperial Remembrance,’ Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 8: 3 (2007) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_colonialism_and_colonial_ history/v008/8.3heathorn.html. For Lucknow, see Kevin Hannam, ‘Contested Representations of War and Heritage at the Residency, Lucknow, India,’ International Journal of Tourism Research 8 (2006), pp. 199–212. 51. George William De Rhé-Philipe and Miles Irving, Soldiers of the Raj (1910, 1912; London, 1989), pp. 24–27. 52. De Rhé-Philipe and Irving, Soldiers of the Raj, p. 28. 53. Ibid., pp. 17–19. 54. John Edward Whorton Rotton, Chaplain’s Narrative of the Siege of Delhi from the Outbreak at Meerut to the Capture of Delhi (London, 1858), pp. 320–21. 55. John Murray, A Handbook for Travellers in India and Ceylon (London, 1891), p. 140; Allen, Soldier Sahibs, p. 328; and Lahiri, ‘1857,’ p. 44. 56. John W. Cell, Hailey: A Study in British Imperialism 1872–1969 (Cambridge, 2002), p. 4. On the ‘Punjab style’ of governance, see also Wurgaft, The Imperial Imagination, pp. 32–41. 57. Douglas M. Peers, ‘ “Those Noble Exemplars of the True Military Tradition”: Constructions of the Indian Army in the Mid-Victorian Press,’ Modern Asian Studies 31: 1 (1997), pp. 132–40 (quotation on p. 140). 58. De Rhé-Philipe and Irving, Soldiers of the Raj, p. 173; and Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 362.

Notes

241

59. Letter from Herbert B. Edwardes ‘To the Friends, Public and Private, of the late Brigadier General John Nicholson, C.B,’ 9 August 1858, Edwardes Collection, MSS Eur. E 211/14, OIOC. 60. Trotter, John Nicholson, pp. 89–91 61. Letter from Herbert B. Edwardes ‘To the Friends, Public and Private, of the late Brigadier General John Nicholson, C.B,’ 9 August 1858, Edwardes Collection, MSS Eur. E 211/14, OIOC. 62. A. Cameron Taylor, General Sir Alex Taylor G.C.B.: His Times, His Friends, and His Work (London, 1913), II: 167, I: 189. 63. Handbook for Travellers in India, p. 210. 64. ‘Delhi,’ in Charles Arthur Kelly, Delhi and Other Poems (London and Calcutta, 1864), pp. 32–33. 65. H., ‘The Indian Services,’ The Chameleon, New Series No. III (April 1873), pp. 17, 20. 66. Heathorn, ‘Angel of Empire.’ 67. Mary E. Leslie, Sorrows, Aspirations, and Legends (London, 1858), p. 33. 68. David, Indian Mutiny, pp. 236, 258–59. 69. The residents of his birthplace of Ayr raised over £1250 to construct an equestrian statue of him, which was unveiled amid scenes of public celebration in 1859. Glasgow Herald, 12 October 1859. In the following year, a copy of the statue was erected in Madras by public subscription. 70. Herbert, War of No Pity, pp. 44, 52. 71. Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers, pp. 293–94. 72. Review of Reginald G. Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny. Being the Personal Reminiscences of Reginald G. Wilberforce, Late 52nd Light Infantry. (2nd ed. London, 1894). Undated press clipping, Werge Collection, MSS Eur. F 171/137/1, OIOC. 73. Olive Anderson, ‘The Growth of Christian Militarism in Mid-Victorian Britain,’ English Historical Review 86: 338 (1971), pp. 46–72. For Gordon, see Cynthia F. Behrman, ‘The After-Life of General Gordon,’ Albion 3: 2 (1971), pp. 47–61; Douglas H. Johnson, ‘The Death of Gordon: A Victorian Myth,’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 10 (1982), pp. 285–310; and MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire.’ For the prominence of militarism in late nineteenth-century British culture, see Robert H. MacDonald, The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism, 1880–1918 (Manchester, 1994); Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 (London, 2000); and Streets, Martial Races, pp. 116–50. 74. On this, see Catherine Hall, Civilizing Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (Chicago and London, 2002); and Sinha, Colonial Masculinity. 75. Chakravarty, Indian Mutiny, p. 3. 76. For these novels, see Chakravarty, Indian Mutiny; and Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness, pp. 199–224. Steel’s reading of the Mutiny is complex and at times questions, rather than consistently upholds, the moral superiority of the British. Her portrait of John Nicholson is, however, undoubtedly a heroic one. See AnnBarbara Graff, ‘Gender, History, and the Art of Mutiny: Flora Annie Steel’s On the Face of the Waters,’ in Lynette Felber, ed., Clio’s Daughters: British Women Making History, 1790–1899 (Newark, DE, 2007), pp. 43–68. For Nicholson’s similarity to Philip Lennox, the protagonist of R.E. Forrest’s Eight Days, see H.C. Gregg, ‘John Nicholson of Delhi,’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 163 (February 1898),

242

77.

78. 79.

80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85.

86. 87.

88. 89. 90. 91.

92. 93.

Notes p. 207. Other examples of protagonists with marked similarities to Nicholson include Ralph Cunningham of Rung Ho! and James Purefoy of A Man of Honour. See Chakravarty, Indian Mutiny, pp. 148–55. As Ian Beckett observes, Henry Havelock, the embodiment of the ideal of mid-Victorian ‘Christian militarism,’ ‘increasingly became lauded for his secular military qualities’ in the late nineteenth century. This formulation of heroism was applied to other public heroes such as Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener as well. Ian Beckett, The Victorians at War (London, 2003), p. 16. For the widespread glorification of war, sacrifice and martial virtues in elementary education, see Stephen Heathorn, ‘Representations of War and Martial Heroes in English Elementary School Reading and Rituals, 1885–1914,’ in James Marten, ed., Children and War: An Interdisciplinary Anthology (New York, 2002), pp. 103–25. MacDonald, Language of Empire, pp. 89–90. For the genesis and impact of ‘martial race’ theory, and the parallels drawn between Scottish Highland, Gurkha and Sikh soldiers, see Streets, Martial Races. For the Irish, see also Denman, ‘Ethnic Soldiers.’ Douglas M. Peers, ‘The Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Era,’ in Marston and Sundaram, eds, A Military History of India, pp. 34–52. Charles Raikes, Notes on the Revolt in the North-western Provinces of India (London, 1858), p.135. John William Younghusband to Herbert Benjamin Edwardes, 19 April 1866, Edwardes Collection, MSS Eur. B 252, OIOC. Cited in Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 318. John Lawrence regarded the translation as ‘admirable and most creditable,’ and promised to send a copy to Nicholson’s mother. Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 319. ‘Supplement to the Indian Public Opinion,’ Lahore, 19 April 1867, Werge Collection, MSS Eur. F 171/137/1, OIOC. The poem is reproduced in Trotter, John Nicholson, pp. 367–71, as ‘Death of Nicholson.’ The ‘Towanna Horse’ was a body of irregular cavalry from the Punjab. David Ross, The Land of the Five Rivers and Sidh: Sketches Historical and Descriptive (London, 1883), pp. 174–76. Richard G. Fox, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making (Berkeley, 1985). As Douglas M. Peers observes, ‘The resilience of martial race theory ultimately depended on the willingness of groups so identified to respond to the opportunities afforded to them, and in a manner consistent with the theory.’ Peers, ‘The Martial Races,’ p. 37. Fox, Lions of the Punjab, p. 4. For an analysis of the Irish dimensions of Kim and Kipling’s other writings, see Kaori Nagai, Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India and Ireland (Cork, 2006). Rudyard Kipling, Kim, ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan (New York and London, 2002), pp. 42, 47, 51. As Elleke Boehmer observes, the international growth of Scouting—including throughout the British Empire—led to the removal of the Nicholson playlet from subsequent editions of Scouting for Boys. Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys: The Original 1908 Edition, Elleke Boehmer, ed. (Oxford, 2004), pp. xxiii, 279–80. ‘The Ballad of John Nicholson,’ in Henry Newbolt, Admirals All and Other Verses (1897; 5th ed. London, 1898). Newbolt, ‘The Ballad of John Nicholson,’ pp. 24–25.

Notes

243

94. Katherine Tidrick credits Nicholson as having ‘the distinction of being an original of all those stories, so popular later in the nineteenth century, of the white man who was worshipped as a god.’ Katherine Tidrick, Empire and the English Character (London, 1990), p. 19. 95. Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, p. 199. 96. For example, Alexander Taylor reported, ‘One day . . . while I was sitting in my small bungalow at Hassan Abdal, half way between Rawalpindi and Attock, some twenty helmeted men, very quaintly dressed, filed in, one after another, and after a courteous salute, but without speaking a word, squatted down in a row, opposite me. I was much taken aback at this strange apparition. I looked at them, and they at me, till at last one of them gave utterance to their thoughts and objects. “We are Nikkul Seyn’s Fakirs,” he said, “you are a white Sahib, and we are come to pay our respects to you as one of Nikkul Seyn’s race.” ’ Taylor, General Sir Alex Taylor, I: 144–45. 97. Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers, II: 447–48. 98. Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, or Examples of the Religious, Philosophical, and Ethical Doctrines of the Hindus (3rd ed. London, 1876), p. 321. 99. ‘The Punjab in 1857,’ Blackwood’s Magazine LXXXIX: No. DXLVI (April 1861), p. 513. 100. Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, pp. 28–31. 101. Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 154. 102. Ibid., p. 155. 103. Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, pp. 30–31. 104. Heather Streets, ‘Military Influence in the Late Victorian and Edwardian Popular Media: The Case of Frederick Roberts,’ Journal of Victorian Culture 8: 2 (2003), pp. 231–56. 105. Streets, Martial Races, p. 121. 106. Streets, ‘Military Influence,’ pp. 234–40. 107. Streets, Martial Races, pp. 132–42. 108. G.W. Forrest, Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts (London, 1901), pp. 330–31. 109. Typescript of Lord Robert’s address at the Commemoration of the Indian Mutiny Jubilee, The Albert Hall, London, 23 December 1907, MSS Eur. D 905, OIOC. 110. Streets, ‘Military Influence,’ p. 244. 111. Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Forty-One Years in India (London, 1897), I: vii–viii, 227–28. 112. Ibid., 1: 59–60. 113. MacDonald, Language of Empire, p. 91. Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic expedition was compared to a litany of male heroes, mostly military figures, who had died at their post. Max Jones, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice (Oxford and New York, 2003), p. 220. 114. David Gilmour, Curzon (London, 1994), pp. 212–13. In his quest for scrupulous accuracy, Curzon discovered that a memorial tablet to Henry Lawrence had been placed in the wrong room at the Residency in Lucknow, and had it moved to the place where he had died. 115. Thomas R. Metcalf, ‘Monuments and Memorials: Lord Curzon’s Creation of a Past for the Raj,’ in his Forging the Raj: Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire (New Delhi, 2005), pp. 152–68. 116. Ethel M. Hogg, Quinton Hogg: A Biography (1904; London, 1906), p. 120. 117. Hugh Tinker, The Ordeal of Love: C.F. Andrews and India (Delhi, 1979), p. 25.

244

Notes

118. Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India,’ in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), p. 179. 119. Manu Goswami, ‘ “Englishness” on the Imperial Circuit: Mutiny Tours in Colonial South Asia,’ Journal of Historical Sociology 9: 1 (1996), pp. 54–84. Murray’s Handbook devoted ten pages to Lucknow, including the memorial there to Henry Lawrence and the cemetery where ‘two thousand heroic men and women’ lie, and four pages to Cawmpore. Handbook for Travellers in India, pp. 231–40, 252–55. 120. Heathorn, ‘Angel of Cawnpore.’ 121. Goswami, ‘ “Englishness,” ’ pp. 72–73. 122. Murray’s Handbook, for example, devoted two pages to ‘Delhi under the Hindu Kings,’ ‘The Mahommedan Conquest,’ and ‘Modern Delhi’ (to 1857), and over four pages to the siege of Delhi in 1857. See pp. 130–36. 123. The guidebook also gave detailed instructions on how to reach ‘the splendid monument to Nicholson’ near Rawalpindi in the Punjab. Handbook for Travellers, pp. 136, 140, 210. 124. Times, 7 August 1902. The appeal was reproduced in other newspapers as well; see, for example, Daily Graphic, 7 August 1902. 125. Roberts, Forty-One Years, I: ix. 126. Roberts to W.R. Lawrence, 14 February 1902, reproduced in Daily Graphic, 7 August 1902. 127. Times, 8 April 1907. 128. Irish Times, 2 September 1905. Foley’s memorial to Nicholson will be discussed in the following chapter. 129. Times, 7 August 1902; and undated clipping from the Statesman [1906], Werge Collection, MSS Eur. F 171/137/1, OIOC. 130. Times, 9 April 1906. See also Brock’s obituary in the Times, 23 August 1922. 131. Times, 9 April 1906; and Minto to John Morley, 9 April 1906, Morley Collection, MSS Eur. D 573/8, OIOC. 132. Minto to Morley, 2 May 1906; and ‘Viceroy’s Address at the Nicholson Unveiling Ceremony, Delhi,’ enclosure to Minto to Morley, 9 April 1906, Morley Collection, MSS Eur. D 573/8, OIOC. 133. See, e.g., Norah Rowan Hamilton, Through Wonderful India and Beyond (London, 1915), pp. 137–47. 134. Album of Delhi Guide (Delhi, nd). 135. John M. MacKenzie, ‘The Persistence of Empire in Metropolitan Culture,’ in Stuart Ward, ed., British Culture and the End of Empire (Manchester, 2001), pp. 21–36. 136. John Lendrum, ‘Nicholson the Hero,’ The Nineteenth Century and After XCIII: 551 (January 1923), pp. 107–13 (quotation on p. 107). 137. John O’ London’s Weekly, 9 September 1933. 138. George Macmunn, Leadership Through the Ages (1935; reprint Freeport, NY, 1968), p. 191. 139. Kelly Boyd, ‘ “Half-Caste Bob” or Race and Caste in the Late-Victorian Boys’ Story Paper,’ in Douglas M. Peers and David Finkelstein, eds, Negotiating India in the Nineteenth-century Media (London, 2000), pp. 63–83, 66–67. 140. J. Claverdon Wood, When Nicholson Kept the Border (London, 1920) and Ernest Gray, Nikkal Seyn: A Tale of John Nicholson, Hero of Delhi, Saviour of India (London and Glasgow, 1947). 141. Gray, Nikkal Seyn, p. 156; and Wood, When Nicholson Kept the Border, p. 132. In the interwar period, the story of the cult of ‘Nikkal Seyn’ also appeared not only

Notes

142. 143. 144.

145. 146. 147.

148. 149. 150. 151.

152. 153. 154.

155. 156.

157. 158. 159. 160. 161.

162.

245

in boys’ adventure stories and newspapers such as the Times and the Irish Times, but as part of syndicated features which appeared in North American newspapers. A Ripley’s Believe It or Not cartoon from 1938 labeled him ‘The White God of the Hindus,’ and stated that ‘John Nicholson—born in Dublin—was worshipped as Nikkul-Seyn in India.’ Lima [Ohio] News, 28 June 1938. Pamela Hinkson, Indian Harvest (London, 1941), pp. 117–18. ‘Notes on Records in Delhi,’ 18 March 1940, Werge Collection, MSS Eur. F 171/105, OIOC. Mary Lago, ‘India’s Prisoner’: A Biography of Edward John Thompson, 1886– 1946 (Columbia, MO, and London, 2001); and Hugh Tinker, The Ordeal of Love. Tribune (Lahore), 27 November 1920, Punjab Press Abstracts, 4 December 1920, p. 492 L/R/5/202, OIOC. Edward Thompson, The Other Side of the Medal (1926; reprint Westport, CT, 1974), p. 131. ‘Nicholson’ was published in Andrews’ The Motherland, and Other Poems (Allahabad, 1915). See Tinker, The Ordeal of Love, p. 118. Tinker observes that the poem ‘only seems to have the loosest connection with hard, grim Nicholson of historical reality (as well as being terrible poetry).’ Tribune (Lahore), 27 November 1920. Thompson, Other Side of the Medal, pp. 98, 100. Metcalf, ‘Monuments and Memorials,’ p. 166. Rastgo (Allahabad), April 1907, in Selections from the Native Newspapers Published in the United Provinces Received up to 18 May 1907, p. 600, L/R/5, OIOC. Times, 12 November 1921 and 6 July 1923; and Israel, Communications and Power, pp. 26–29. Times, 9 September 1927. Young India, 13 October 1927, in M.K. Gandhi, Non-Violent Resistance (New York, 1961), pp. 74–75. As David Arnold observes, many of those involved in the Neill satyagraha were nationalists who had become disillusioned with the Congress leadership in Madras after the end of non-cooperation and were inspired by a ‘a zest for physical and verbal violence’ and a ‘contempt for Europeans.’ David Arnold, The Congress in Tamilnad: Nationalist Politics in South India, 1919–1937 (London and Dublin, 1977), p. 143. Tribune (Lahore), 27 November 1920. Tribune (Lahore), 11 April 1906, Selections from the Native Newspapers Published in the Punjab, Received up to 14 April 1906, pp. 93–94, L/R/5, OIOC. Jan Morris, Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress (1973; London, 1998), p.188. Fraser, Flashman in the Great Game, pp. 66–67. Kenneth Griffith, The Discovery of Nehru: An Experience of India (London, 1989), pp. 52–70. Dalrymple, The Last Mughal, p. xxiii. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ‘ “Satan Let Lose Upon the Earth’: The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857,’ Past & Present 128 (1990), p. 93. See also Gavin Rand, ‘ “Martial Races” and “Imperial Subjects”: Violence and Governance in Colonial India, 1857–1914,’ European Review of History 13: 1 (2006), pp. 1–20. Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester, 1990), pp. 29–30.

246

Notes

163. 164. 165. 166.

MacDonald, Language of Empire, p. 36. R.E. Cholmeley, John Nicholson: ‘The Lion of the Panjaub’ (London, 1908), p. 52. Michael Edwardes, Bound to Exile: The Victorians in India (London, 1969), p. 100. Christopher Hibbert, The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (New York, 1978), pp. 292, 293. 167. Frank M. Richardson, Mars Without Venus: A Study of Some Homosexual Generals (Edinburgh, 1981), pp. 131, 151. A.N. Wilson also refers to Nicholson as a ‘tormented homosexual soldier’ in The Victorians (New York, 2004), p. 210. 168. Aldrich writes, Lack of interest in women, close association with other men or an inclination to ‘feminine’ pursuits do not prove homosexuality. On the other hand, neither an engagement (or even marriage) to a woman, nor strongly held and publicly expressed religious beliefs preclude homosexual interests. Military officers do, of necessity, associate closely with fit young men, but that in itself does not guarantee either homosexual or heterosexual tastes. Evidence can be read either way.

169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174.

175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192.

Robert Aldrich, Colonialism and Homosexuality (London and New York, 2003), p. 71. Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter, p. 217. Cited in Lahiri, ‘1857,’ p. 44. Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Cemeteries, Public Memory and Raj Nostalgia in Postcolonial Britain and India,’ History & Memory 18: 1 (2006), pp. 12–13. Buettner, ‘Cemeteries,’ pp. 20–23, 26–27. Ibid., p. 17. ‘Support of Christian Cemeteries in Delhi,’ 8 July 1949, R/4/55, OIOC; and ‘List of Government Maintained Cemeteries in India Transferred to the High Commissioner for United Kingdom W.E. From 1 April 1948,’ 17 November 1950, R/4/57, OIOC. Hindustan Times, 25 October 2006. Times, 3 June 1995. Daily Telegraph, 6 November 2004. R.V. Smith, The Delhi That No-one Knows (Delhi, 2005), pp. xvii–xviii. The Telegraph (Calcutta), 25 October 2006. Financial Times, 28 October 2006. Times of India, 30 April 2007. The Hindu, 28 October 2006; and Hindustan Times, 25 October 2006. Financial Times, 28 October 2006; and Times, 6 November 2006. Times, 6 November 2006. The Telegraph (Calcutta), 25 October 2006. Financial Times, 28 October 2006. Times, 6 November 2006. Financial Times, 28 October 2006. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ‘More than Grave—Remembering 1857 Should be Free of Revenge,’ The Telegraph (Calcutta), 5 November 2006. The Hindu, 8 October 2007. http://www.sandhurstfoundation.org/bookreviews.asp. Accessed 19 March 2008. Irish Times, 29 December 2006.

Notes

247

193. Irish Times, 29 December 2006; Financial Times, 28 October 2006; and Times, 6 November 2006.

4 An ‘Irish Paladin’: John Nicholson as an Ulster and Irish Imperial Hero 1. Belfast Telegraph, 13 April 1960. 2. Brian Mackey, Lisburn: The Town and Its People 1873–1973 (Belfast, 2000), p. 15. 3. Rev. Stanley W. Thompson, Chairman, Royal School Dungannon Board of Governors, to Prime Minister, Stormont, 28 October 1958, DO 35/9041, NA UK. 4. Thompson, Empire Strikes Back, pp.198–99. 5. Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (New ed. Belfast, 2005). Bardon gives this title to the chapter covering Ulster’s history from 1850 to 1890. 6. Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford, 2000), p. 201. 7. Ian McBride, The Siege of Derry in Ulster Protestant Mythology (Dublin, 1997). 8. Mark McGovern, ‘ “A Besieged Outpost”: The Imagination of Empire and the Siege Myth, 1860–1900,’ in D. George Boyce and Roger Swift, eds, Problems and Perspective in Irish History since 1800: Essays in Honour of Patrick Buckland (Dublin, 2004), pp. 32–53 (quotations on pp. 49, 50). McGovern also notes that this imperial interpretation of the Siege, with a focus on loyalty to crown and Empire, could also legitimize a rejection of the authority of Parliament. 9. A Concise History of Lisburn and Neighbourhood: Comprising the Social, Industrial, Religious, and Education Life of the People (Belfast, 1906), p. 31. 10. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Fulton family members resided in various parts of the British Empire, including England, India, New Zealand and Australia. A family history observed that ‘no representative of it is now known to exist in the north of Ireland.’ Theodore C. Hope, Memoirs of the Fultons of Lisburn (privately printed, 1903), p. 11, 59–61. I am grateful to Brian Mackey for bringing this reference to my attention. 11. Both the Fultons and the Grahams had migrated from Scotland to Ireland in the seventeenth century. Along with Dr. James Graham, his three sons also entered the service of the East India Company. All three were born in India but were probably educated, like Nicholson, at the Dungannon School. Both Dr. Graham and his namesake son also perished in the mutiny. T.G. Fraser, ‘The Graham Family,’ pp. ix–x, xv. 12. The memorial records that Dobbs’s body ‘rests in that element/On which Great Britain has long rode triumphant/By the exertions of men like him.’ 13. Hope, Fultons of Lisburn, p. 59. 14. In addition to the memorials to Fulton and Dobbs, there is also one to John Nicholson’s brother Charles, who died in 1862 on the way to join his station ‘from the effects of a wound received in Delhi,’ and to Colonel James Graham, a member of the Bengal Staff Corps. The bronze memorial tablet notes that he ‘served in the Indian Mutiny Campaign including the siege and capture of Lucknow, 1857–1858.’ Two more memorials honor members of the Mercer family who died on imperial service in the 1860s, one in India and the second in battle in New Zealand. Along the south wall of the nave is a memorial to an officer killed in the Boer War. 15. Belfast News-letter, 28 May 1850. All of the descriptions of this event are taken from this article.

248

Notes

16. As T.G. Fraser observes, ‘Many Ulster families . . . felt personally involved in Indian affairs, and they must have read the mutiny battle reports and casualty lists in the Ulster newspapers with concern.’ T.G. Fraser, ‘The Graham Family,’ p. ix. 17. See Bender, ‘Mutiny or Freedom Fight?’; Regan, ‘Representations of India,’ pp. 61–77; and ‘Ulster Attitudes to the Indian Mutiny,’ in Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 142–50. 18. The Ulsterman, 1 July 1857 and Report of the proceedings of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland at the half yearly meeting held at Newry, 26–27 May 1858, cited in Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 144–46. 19. Northern Whig, 15 February 1858, cited in Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 149–50. 20. William S. Graham, Delhi, to Daniel Cullimore, 27 September 1857, in Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 80–81. 21. James Graham, Landour, to his sister Anne, Co. Antrim, 1 October 1857, in Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, p. 84. For the political outlook of the various Ulster papers, see the Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 142–50 (quotation on p. 142). 22. See the Belfast News-letter, Belfast Daily Mercury and the Northern Whig of 14 November 1857. 23. Belfast Daily Mercury, 14 November 1857. For the newspaper’s criticism of recruiting to the East India Company, see the Belfast Daily Mercury, 30 June 1857, cited in Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. 142–3. 24. Belfast News-letter, 16 November and 9 November 1857. 25. Belfast News-letter, 26 November 1857. The writer was identified only as ‘T.’ 26. Trotter, John Nicholson, pp. 361, 362; and Letter from Herbert B. Edwardes ‘To the Friends, Public and Private, of the late Brigadier General John Nicholson, C.B.’ 9 August 1858. Edwardes Collection, MSS Eur. E 211/14, OIOC. Not long after the conquest of Delhi, General Neville Chamberlain wrote to Herbert Edwardes of the need for a memorial in ‘the parish church attended by the family,’ which was ‘the place where the record will be most valued and be longest remembered.’ Neville Chamberlain to Herbert Edwardes, 20 November 1857, in Memorials of the Life of Major-General Herbert B. Edwardes (London, 1886), II: 66. 27. For a survey of Foley’s career, see Benedict Read, ‘John Henry Foley,’ The Connoisseur 186: 750 (1974), pp. 262–71. 28. Benedict Read writes that in his statues Foley ‘achieved a distinction in handling unsurpassed by any of his contemporaries.’ Read, ‘John Henry Foley,’ p. 267. 29. S.A., Arts and Industries in Ireland: I. John Henry Foley, R.A.: A Sketch of the Life and Works of the Sculptor of the O’Connell Monument (Dublin, 1882), p. 36. Gough was created 1st Viscount Gough for his services during the Second Anglo-Sikh War, although he was also replaced as commander-in-chief by Sir Charles Napier. For Gough’s career during the Anglo-Sikh Wars, see Saul David, Victoria’s Wars: The Rise of Empire (London, 2007), pp. 75–140. 30. W. Cosmo Monkhouse, The Works of John Henry Foley, R.A., Sculptor, With Critical and Illustrative Notes (London, 1875), p. 51; and T.G. Fraser, ‘The Graham Family,’ p. xv. 31. During his 1903 visit to Lisburn, Lord Roberts assumed that the figure depicted was Nicholson, and commented that the memorial is somewhat at fault. General Nicholson had got a considerable distance inside the city when he fell. It was going towards the Lahore gate

Notes

249

that he was shot in the side. Some of his troops got there, and were beaten back, and General Nicholson, who could not brook the idea of his men being repulsed, rushed to the front and was shot. He got them over the Cashmir bastion, and was two or three hours inside the city when he was mortally wounded. Lisburn Standard, 12 September 1903. 32. Monkhouse, John Henry Foley, p. 51. 33. Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 362; and W.P. Carmody, Lisburn Cathedral and Its Past Rectors (Belfast, 1926), p. 142. 34. Downpatrick Recorder, 9 July 1864. 35. ‘Scheme Framed under the Educational Endowments (Ireland) Act, 1885, for the future government and management of . . . the Nicholson Memorial School,’ 8 February 1888 and ‘Objections to the Amended Scheme, signed August 8, 1888, petition and memorial in favor thereof, and observations of the Commissioner thereon.’ Werge Collection, MSS Eur. F 171/15, OIOC. 36. Concise History of Lisburn, p. 57. 37. Illustrated London News, 10 May 1862. 38. Monkhouse, John Henry Foley, p. 50. 39. According to Jennifer Ridden, British imperial identity within the empire was not fostered by a centralized state and unified elite in any straightforward manner, and then transmitted outwards into the empire and downwards to the popular level. Instead, it was contested, it was highly politicized, and it was adapted in response to changing circumstances and pragmatic political strategies. Ridden, ‘Britishness,’ p. 104. 40. As a boy, John Lawrence was nicknamed ‘Paddy’ when he was a student at College Green in Bristol, and ‘English John’ when he later attended Foyle College in County Derry. Lee, Brothers in the Raj, p. 27. 41. Peter Gray, ‘Introduction: Victoria’s Ireland? Irishness and Britishness, 1837– 1901,’ in Gray, ed., Victoria’s Ireland?, p. 13. Keith Jeffery observes that many Anglo-Irish imperial servants ‘could regard themselves as Irish, British and even “English” simultaneously. Born in Ireland, frequently educated in England, and serving the British Empire, these men carried a bewildering range of cultural national baggage with them throughout their careers.’ Jeffery, ‘The Irish Military Tradition and the British Empire,’ p. 107. For an example of an imperial servant who epitomized this blend of multiple identities, see Keith Jeffery, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier (Oxford, 2006). 42. Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 20. 43. Irish Times, 7 March 1922. 44. Irish Times, 6 March 1909. 45. Flynn reported that stories of Nicholson’s power over the ‘natives’ resonated with these soldiers as well. Repeating the story of Nicholson’s encounter with Punjabi chieftain Mehtab Singh, Flynn added, ‘especially when we heard how he had made a Rajah take off his shoes when speaking to him, telling him he would have to obey him even if he were only a corporal.’ Belfast Telegraph, 18 January 1922. 46. Trotter, John Nicholson, p. 72.

250

Notes

47. ‘John Nicholson,’ The Spectator 80 (2 April 1898), p. 482. 48. The article was reprinted in the New York Times, 10 September 1876. 49. H.C. Gregg, ‘John Nicholson of Delhi,’ Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 163 (1898), p. 208. 50. Times, 17 March 1913. 51. McEwan Lawson, Faces (London, 1924), p. 15; Wood, When Nicholson Kept the Border, p. 265. 52. Abdullah and Pakenham, Dreamers of Empire, pp. 168–69. 53. Cleary, ‘Amongst Empires,’ pp. 19–20. 54. Great Irishmen: Short Lives Written for Young Children (London, 1900). 55. Great Irishmen, pp. 149, 150. 56. Fitzpatrick, ‘Ireland and the Empire,’ p. 511. 57. Irish Times, 8 August 1902. 58. Ian McBride, ‘Ulster and the British Problem,’ in Richard English and Graham Walker, eds, Unionism in Modern Ireland: New Perspectives on Politics and Culture (London, 1996), pp. 1, 7–10. 59. Graham Walker, ‘Empire, Religion and Nationality in Scotland and Ulster Before the First World War,’ in Ian S. Wood, ed., Scotland and Ulster (Edinburgh, 1994), pp. 97–115. 60. Jackson, ‘Irish Unionists and the Empire,’ pp. 131–36. 61. Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back?, pp. 198–99, 200. 62. According to Jennifer Todd, the various and diverse strands of unionist political thought encompassed a ‘settler emphasis on threat, covenant, and public banding,’ ‘Reformation tendencies’ such as an emphasis on religious liberty, Protestant identity and individual consciousness, and diverse economic and social class interests. Jennifer Todd, ‘Unionist Political Thought, 1920–72,’ in D. George Boyce, Robert Eccleshall, and Vincent Geoghegan, eds, Political Thought in Ireland Since the Seventeenth Century (London and New York, 1993), pp. 190–211. 63. Todd, ‘Unionist Political Thought,’ pp. 191–93. 64. Ibid., pp. 193–4. 65. Gillian V. McIntosh, The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth Century Ireland (Cork, 1999), pp. 8–9. 66. James Loughlin, Ulster Unionism and British National Identity since 1885 (London and New York, 1995), p. 101. 67. David H. Hume, ‘Empire Day in Ireland 1896–1932,’ in Jeffery, ed., ‘An Irish Empire?,’ pp. 149–68; and Jackson, ‘Irish Unionists and the Empire,’ pp. 138, 142. 68. Jackson, ‘Ireland, the Union, and the Empire,’ pp. 145–46. 69. Neil Jarman observes that the phrase ‘The secret of England’s greatness,’ is reproduced on a number of banners that depict a painting of Queen Victoria handing a Bible to a kneeling Indian prince. The authority of the monarch comes from a Protestant faith; but it is a monarch’s duty to defend and spread that faith wherever possible, to proselytize the heathen; spreading the faith in turn provides the basis for consolidating secular authority. Neil Jarman, Material Conflicts: Parades and Visual Displays in Northern Ireland (Oxford and New York, 1997), p. 180. The image is based on the 1863 allegorical painting by Thomas Jones Barker in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Notes

251

70. Lisburn Herald, 7 April 1923. 71. Fitzpatrick writes, ‘For Unionists, nationalists and republicans alike, soldiery was an ideal to be extolled rather than a menace to be confronted . . . . Militarism was one of the few Irish stereotypes which evoked almost universal approbation in a bellicose era.’ David Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922,’ in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery, eds, A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), p. 379. 72. Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery, ‘An Irish Military Tradition?’ in Bartlett and Jeffery, eds, Military History, p. 8. 73. David Officer, ‘Raising the Ulsterman: Blood and Battlefields in the Creation of an Ethno-Religious Subject,’ PhD diss. Queen’s University, Belfast, 1997. 74. Catherine Switzer, Unionists and Great War Commemoration in the North of Ireland 1914–1918 (Dublin, 2007), pp. 151–54. 75. Mackey, Lisburn, pp. 15–16. 76. Cited in Ibid., p. 17. Swanzy’s murder, which sparked the violence, was in retaliation for the death of Thomas MacCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork and IRA commander. MacCurtain’s murder was likely carried out by Royal Irish Constabulary forces in response for an earlier shooting of an unarmed police constable in Cork, although Swanzy’s involvement is not clear. See Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 78–79. 77. Belfast Telegraph, 19 January 1922. 78. See Chapter 3. 79. The following is based on the lengthy account of Roberts’ visit in the Lisburn Standard, 12 September1903. Virtually identical coverage was featured in the Lisburn Herald, 12 September 1903. 80. Lisburn Standard, 12 September 1903. 81. Lisburn Herald, 7 January 1922; and Lisburn Standard, 20 January 1922. 82. In December 1920, a deputation from the Council went to London to persuade South Antrim M.P. C.C. Craig to lobby the government to take up £130,000 worth of the Council’s loans. To The Members of the Lisburn Urban Council, from Deputation, 6 December 1920, Lisburn Urban District Council, Minutes of Monthly Meetings, LA48/2CA/4, PRONI. 83. Lisburn Urban District Council, Minutes of Monthly Meetings, LA48/2CA/4; and Lisburn Urban District Council, Minutes of Committees and Special Meetings, LA48/4AA/9, August 1921 to February 1922, PRONI. 84. Lisburn Standard, 20 January 1922. 85. Wilson was mistaken in identifying Henry Pottinger as one of the Ulster heroes of 1857. Although Pottinger was an East India Company officer from Ulster who had a distinguished career of imperial service, including holding the first governorship of Hong Kong, he died in 1856. 86. Lisburn Herald, 21 January 1922. 87. Belfast Telegraph, 18 January 1922. 88. Lisburn Herald, 21 January 1922; and Lisburn Standard, 20 January 1922. The comparison of Nicholson to Wolfe was also made frequently in the nineteenth century. One appreciation of Nicholson argued that there was good reason for calling John Nicholson the Nineteenth-century Wolfe—the comparison is inevitable. Wolfe inspired our Empire in North America and Nicholson our Empire in India. Nicholson fell in the moment of victory at

252

Notes Delhi a century – ninety-eight years almost to a day — after Wolfe had fallen in the moment of victory at Quebec.

89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94.

95. 96.

97.

98. 99.

100.

101. 102.

103. 104.

Douglas Sladen, ‘The Hero of the Indian Mutiny. Part I,’ The Idler XI (1897), p. 243. Lisburn Herald, 21 January 1922. Lisburn Herald, 21 January 1922. The Lisburn Standard, however, identified Wilson as a ‘County Antrim man.’ For the circumstance of Wilson’s murder, see Peter Hart, ‘Michael Collins and the Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson,’ in his The I.R.A. at War 1916–1923 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 194–220. Lisburn Standard, 15 December 1922. Lisburn Herald, 14 April 1923. R.L.M., [Rev. R.L. Marshall] ‘Thirteen Years Ago,’ R.S.D. Being the School Magazine of the Royal School Dungannon 1: 1 (December 1917), pp. 6–7. Marshall, of Maghera, Co. Derry, later served as treasurer of the school’s War Memorial Committee. J.H. Strahan, ‘A Famous Old Boy of R.S.D,’ R.S.D. Being the School Magazine of the Royal School Dungannon 1: 1 (December 1917), pp. 15–16. Marshall expressed these ideas not only in his prose and poetical writings, but in a series of talks for the BBC entitled ‘Ulster Speaks.’ W.F. Marshall, Livin’ in Drumlister: The Collected Ballads and Verses of W. F. Marshall (Belfast, 1983), pp. ix–xii. R. S. D. Being the School Magazine of the Royal School Dungannon, 1: 2 (1918), p. 8. A slightly different version of the poem appears in Livin’ in Drumlister, in which the author urges Dungannon students to ‘sing with all your might and main:/ Lift it now, boys, lift it till he hears it—Niculsayn/Who learned the holy Latin in Dungannon.’ Marshall, Livin’ in Drumlister, pp. 58–9. ‘School History.’ http://www.rsdfpa.org.uk/school_history.htm. Accessed 7 February 2009. ‘Goordaspoore: A Ballad of General John Nicholson,’ in Marshall, Livin’ in Drumlister, pp. 11–12. During the Great War, a speaker at the prize presentation ceremonies at Foyle College, under the impression that Nicholson too had attended the school, spoke of Nicholson, ‘whom years after his death Indian troops were found to be worshipping as a god,’ and the Lawrence brothers as examples of ‘how Foyle College, in the stress of the Indian Mutiny, saved India to England.’ Irish Times, 19 December. 1914. James Logan, ‘The Ulster Folk,’ in his Verses: Grave and Gladsome (London, 1924), pp. 78–9. It is true, as Alvin Jackson notes, that only two of the approximately fifty poems in Logan’s collection concern the British Empire. Empire is however clearly incorporated into the above-referenced poem which seeks to define an Ulster identity. Jackson, ‘Irish Unionists and Empire,’ p. 144. Lisburn Standard, 26 March 1937, http://www.lisburn.com/history/history_ lisburn/radio_provincial_journey.htm. Viewed 12 August 2005. McIntosh, Force of Culture, pp. 69–102; and Heather Clark, ‘Regional Roots: The BBC and Poetry in Northern Ireland, 1945–55,’ Éire-Ireland 38: 1/2 (2003), pp. 87–105. Cited in Clark, ‘Regional Roots,’ p. 93. Radio Times, 106: 1369 (6 January 1950), p. 11; and Pass board for ‘ “Nikal Seyn”: A Story of the Indian Mutiny. The Hero of Delhi.’ BBC Written Archives Centre,

Notes

105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

111. 112. 113.

114.

115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122. 123. 124.

253

Caversham, Reading, England. Neither the BBC Written Archives Centre nor the BBC Northern Ireland Archive holds a copy of the script. New York Times, 11 May 1957. Malcolm MacDonald, High Commissioner, to Harold Macmillan, 1 October 1957, DO 35/9042, NA UK. Ibid. New York Times, 11 May 1957. Times, 16 July 1957. Report of the State Committee Appointed to Examine the Question of the Retention in Public Places of Statues of the British Period and Other Relics (Bombay, 1961). The committee, which met beginning in 1958, found that no statues in Bombay were ‘offensive to Indian sentiment,’ but recommended their replacement by patriotic monuments and their removal to ‘some suitable open-air museum which Government should establish.’ ‘Removal of Statues in India and Pakistan,’ June 1963, I.C.S. (Retired) Association Collection, MSS Eur. F 173/171, OIOC. W.A.W. Clark, Deputy High Commissioner, to J.P. Gibson, Commonwealth Relations Office [CRO], 21 May 1957, DO 35/9041, NA UK. Both men were associated with not only with the Mutiny but with the siege of Delhi. Taylor, an engineer, had carried out reconnaissance missions to determine where charges should be laid under sepoy lines and had been instrumental in the British victory. Taylor’s statue had in fact already been removed from its site at the time that the telegram was sent. Telegram, W.A.W. Clark, Deputy High Commissioner, New Delhi, to J.P. Gibson, CRO, 7 June 1957, DO 35/9041, NA UK. For Taylor’s career, see A. Cameron Taylor, General Sir Alex Taylor. In July 1960, the statue was re-installed at Shoreditch Training College, Cooper’s Hill, Surrey (formerly the Indian Engineering College), where Taylor had served as president for sixteen years. ‘Removal of Statues in India and Pakistan,’ June 1963, I.C.S. (Retired) Association Collection, MSS Eur. F 173/171, OIOC. Telegram, High Commissioner, New Delhi, to CRO, 19 June 1957, DO 35/9041, NA UK. See the correspondence in MSS Eur. F. 173/171, OIOC. A. de G. Gaudin, headmaster, The Royal School, Dungannon, to Minister of Education, Northern Ireland, 4 February 1957, DO 35/9041, NA UK. Belfast Newsletter, 4 June 1959. Belfast Telegraph, 7 October 1958. Dr. J. Kincade, headmaster of the Dungannon School, to E.W. Trotman, Sec., ICS (Retired) Assoc., 27 October 1961, MSS Eur. F 173/173, OIOC. ‘Since the announcement was made that the statue of John Nicholson had actually reached Dungannon, interest has been raised again.’ W.S. Ferguson, Foyle College Old Boys Association, 18 October 1958, to J.P. Gibson, CRO, 18 October 1958, DO 35/9043, NA UK. T. Jones, CRO, to W.S. Ferguson, Foyle College Old Boys Association, 23 May 1960, DO 35/9043, NA UK. Dungannon Observer, 16 April 1960. Crookshank wrote, It is really impossible to define who is Irish. No attempt was made to form a committee as it seemed wholly impossible to get unanimity on such a

254

Notes nebulous point as nationality. It is reassuring that no owner has disputed our view as to the Irishness of the subject whose portrait we wished to borrow.

Great Irishmen: An Exhibition of Portraits of Great Irish Men and Women (Belfast, 1965), p. 5. 125. Great Irishmen, p. 59. Pamela Hinkson, a devotee of Nicholson’s heroic nature, wrote that He had that rare experience of being a hero in his own time to men who were his peers. One understands that and everything else about him when one looks at the picture of the man. This is how I saw John Nicholson for the first time, when he was just a name to me out of Indian history. Hinkson, Indian Harvest, pp. 123–24. 126. Louis Coxe, Nikal Seyn. Decoration Day. A Poem and a Play (Nashville, TN, 1966). Coxe also composed a shorter poem, ‘General John Nicholson,’ Hudson Review 8: 2 (1955), pp. 231–32. 127. Anthony Manousos, ‘Louis (Osborne) Coxe,’ in Donald J. Greiner, ed., American Poets Since World War II: Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 5 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1980). Literature Resource Center. Gale. Clemson University. Accessed 1 August 2008, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=clemson_itweb. 128. Coxe, Nikal Seyn, p. 5. 129. Ibid., p. 4. 130. Ibid., pp. 4, 27. 131. Ibid., p. 7. 132. Ibid., pp. 4, 7, 8, 10, 13. 133. Ibid., p. 7. 134. Ibid., p. 16.

5 ‘The Remains of Ireland’s Loneliest Martyr’: The Commemoration of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny 1. Telegrams, Viceroy, Army Dept., to Sec. of State, 2 July 1920, L/MIL/7/13314, OIOC. 2. H.F.N. Jourdain and Edward Fraser, The Connaught Rangers (London, 1924), I: 571. 3. On the mutiny, see Anthony Babington, The Devil to Pay: The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers, India, July 1920 (London, 1991); Thomas Bartlett, ‘The Connaught Rangers Mutiny. India, July 1920,’ History Ireland 6: 1 (1998), pp. 5–7; Brian Hanley, ‘The Strange Story of Stephen Lally: Connaught Rangers Mutineer,’ Irish Sword XXII: 89 (2001), pp. 337–41; Jourdain and Fraser, The Connaught Rangers; T.P. Kilfeather, The Connaught Rangers (Tralee, 1969); Patrick McCarthy, ‘The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers – The Literature,’ Irish Sword XXII: 89 (2001), pp. 342–43; and Sam Pollock, Mutiny for the Cause (London, 1969). 4. Notably Kilfeather, Connaught Rangers, and Pollock, Mutiny for the Cause. 5. For a criticism of Babington’s interpretation of the mutiny, see Brian Hanley, ‘Stephen Lally.’

Notes

255

6. Hart, I.R.A. and Its Enemies, pp. 81–83. The Black and Tans were, in reality, by and large not, as republicans alleged, men with criminal backgrounds but fairly typical British working-class men whose violence was in large part a product of their experiences in Ireland. David Leeson, ‘The “Scum of London’s Underworld”? British Recruits for the Royal Irish Constabulary, 1920–21,’ Contemporary British History 17: 1 (2003), pp. 1–38. 7. ‘Mutiny at Solon,’ broadcast on RTÉ radio on 1 November 1970, and an episode about Joseph Hawes in the documentary series ‘Black Sheep,’ broadcast on 23 April 2006 on RTÉ 1. 8. Sunday Independent, 27 November 1955. 9. Minutes of meeting with deputation of the Connaught Rangers, 4 June 1925, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 10. Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 79–81. 11. See the records of the Courts Martial Proceedings at Solon and Jullundur, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 12. See, for example, the Bureau of Military History Witness Statement by John Flannery, p. 1, WS 287, NAI. 13. See David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution, 1913–1921 (Dublin, 1977); and Hart, I.R.A. and its Enemies, especially pp. 273–315. 14. Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India (New York, 1997), p. 477. 15. Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 86–89. 16. William Gould to Dallas Gill, 13 October 1965, Jesse Short Collection, Misc 220, Item 3152, IWM. 17. Solon. Summary of Evidence, p. 35 DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 18. Private M.M. McCormack received a note addressed to ‘Maccormic Trator’ [sic] from ‘True Irishmen in the name of the Irish Republic,’ warning him that ‘Death is near.’ Corporal M. Murphy later saw one of the mutineers force a sergeant to take shelter in the Sergeants’ Mess, shouting ‘In you bastard or you will die.’ Solon. Summary of Evidence, pp. 27–28, 38, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 19. Solon. Summary of Evidence, p. 35. DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 20. Telegram, Viceroy to Sec. of State, 9 July 1920, Chelmsford Papers, MSS Eur. E 264/13, OIOIC. 21. Times, 5 July 1920. 22. Telegram from Viceroy, Army Dept., 21 July 1920, L/MIL/7/13314, OIOC. 23. Irish Independent, 15 February 1925. 24. Solon. Summary of Evidence, pp. 30, 37, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 25. Solon. Summary of Evidence, pp. 4, 15, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI; and ‘Connaught Rangers’ Case,’ 9 December 1920, L/MIL/7/13314, OIOC. 26. Telegram, Viceroy, Army Dept., to Sec. of State, 4 July 1920, L/MIL/7/13314, OIOC. 27. Telegram, Viceroy, Army Dept., 15 July 1920; and Director of Military Intelligence, WO, to Undersecretary of State, Military Dept., IO, 9 July 1920, L/MIL/7/13314, OIOC. 28. Jourdain and Fraser, Connaught Rangers, I: 570–71. 29. Solon. Summary of Evidence, p. 4, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 30. Father B. Baker, ‘Connaught Rangers’ Mutiny of 1920,’ [nd] DFA 98/2/15, NAI. Baker’s memoir is undated but was written sometime after 1928, since he refers to himself as ‘Chaplain of Solan from ’12 to ’28.’

256

Notes

31. William Gould to Douglas Gill, 13 October 1965, Jesse Short Collection, 2/8, IWM. 32. Ian McBride, ‘Memory and National Identity in Modern Ireland,’ in McBride, ed., History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 4–6. Other important recent studies of commemoration and historical memory in modern Ireland include Eberhard Bort, ed., Commemorating Ireland: History, Politics, Culture (Dublin, 2004); Mary E. Daly and Margaret O’Callaghan, eds, 1916 in 1966: Commemorating the Easter Rising (Dublin, 2007); Anne Dolan, ‘An Army of Our Fenian Dead: Republicanism, Monuments and Commemoration,’ in Fearghal McGarry, ed., Republicanism in Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp. 132–44; Anne Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000 (Cambridge, 2003); Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge, 2000); Mark McCarthy, ed., Ireland’s Heritages: Critical Perspectives on Memory and Identity (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2005); and Brian Walker, Dancing to History’s Tune: History, Myth and Politics in Ireland (Belfast, 1996). 33. Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 40–41. Two exceptions were The Freeman’s Journal and the Cork Examiner. 34. The Freeman’s Journal, 5 July 1920. 35. The Freeman’s Journal, 6 July 1920. 36. The Freeman’s Journal, 6 July 1920. See also the issues of 7, 12 and 14 July. 37. Irish Press, 31 July 1920. 38. ‘Mutiny at Solon,’ RTÉ radio programme, broadcast 1 November 1970; and Westmeath Examiner, 29 October 1921. 39. Emphasis in original. Winston Churchill to David Lloyd George, 30 January 1922, F/10/2/40, David Lloyd George Papers, Parliamentary Archive, London. 40. W.T. Cosgrave to Andrew Bonar Law, 16 December 1922, 114/1/10, Andrew Bonar Law Papers, Parliamentary Archive, London. Concerns about the impact of the Connaughts’ sentencing and release on the Indian Army will be discussed in Chapter 6. 41. Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 127–131 (quotation on p. 131). 42. Irish Independent, 8 January 1923, clipping in Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 5374A, NAI. For the ‘splendid reception’ given to three Connaught Rangers in Claremorris, Co. Mayo, see Mayo News, 20 January 1923. 43. Patrick Shea, Voices and the Sound of Drums: An Irish Autobiography (Belfast, 1981), p. 75. 44. Terence Denman observes that following the Anglo-Boer War, ‘The antirecruitment campaign now had a permanent place on the nationalist agenda.’ Terence Denman, ‘ “The Red Livery of Shame”: The Campaign against Army Recruitment in Ireland, 1899–1914,’ Irish Historical Studies 29: 114 (1994), pp. 208–33 (quotation on p. 219). 45. Jeffery, ‘The Irish Military Tradition,’ p. 113. 46. Westmeath Examiner, 31 July 1920. 47. As Adrian Gregory and Senia Paˇseta write of Irish Great War veterans, ‘At best they were frequently discriminated against, at worst they could be murdered.’ Adrian Gregory and Senia Paˇseta, ‘Introduction,’ in their Ireland and the Great War: ‘A War to Unite Us All’ (Manchester, 2002), p. 5. For IRA suspicions regarding Barry, see Hart, The I.R.A. and its Enemies, pp. 30–32. 48. Jane Leonard, ‘Getting Them at Last: The I.R.A. and Ex-Servicemen,’ in David Fitzpatrick, ed., Revolution? Ireland 1917–1923 (Dublin, 1990), pp. 118, 120–21, 127–28. As Joanna Burke observes, ex-servicemen in the Irish Free State not only

Notes

257

faced ‘considerable institutional hurdles,’ they were also in ‘a more vulnerable psychological position.’ Joanna Burke, ‘Shell-shock, Psychiatry and the Irish Soldier during the First World War,’ in Gregory and Paˇseta, eds, Ireland and the Great War, p. 166. 49. Even the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean, who enjoyed great local popularity in Annascaul, Co. Kerry, as ‘Tom the Pole,’ said little about his days in Antarctica. His biographer, Michael Smith, concludes, it was not the appropriate time for Crean to be publicizing his exploits on three major British-led Polar expeditions, even if there was no political links between the two . . . . There seems little doubt the political tensions of the era prompted him to maintain a discreet silence about his remarkable feats. In that sense, Crean, too, was a victim of Ireland’s Troubles.

50. 51. 52. 53.

54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

68. 69.

Michael Smith, An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean – Antarctic Survivor (Doughcloyne and Cork, 2000), p. 312. ‘Mutiny in 1st Battalion Connaught Rangers, 1920,’ WO 141/84, NA UK. Stephen Gwynn to Prime Minister, 31 October 1922, WO 141/92, NA UK. Roscommon Herald, 18 March 1922. ‘A schedule in some of the men’s own handwriting.’ Enclosure to letter from John Flannery to W.T. Cosgrave, 22 July 1924, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 5374A, NAI. See the report of the Deportation Hearing, New York, 29 August 1940 and related correspondence in DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 26 September 1922, Note from D.P.S. to A.G. The one exception was Patrick Manion, who asked to be released because his wife was destitute. WO 141/90, NA UK. ‘Mutiny in 1st Battalion Connaught Rangers, 1920,’ WO 141/84, NA UK. Petitions of Thomas Devine, 29 August 1922; Joseph Hawes, 30 August 1922; and Michael Kearney, 28 July 1922. WO 141/90, NA UK. Patrick McCarthy, ‘The Twilight Years: The Irish Regiments, 1919–1922,’ Irish Sword XXI: 85 (1999), p. 334. John McGowan served in both. ‘Ex-Connaught Rangers 1920 Mutiny at India,’ [1925], DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland 1900–2000 (London, 2004), pp. 312–24. Irish Times, 10 January 1924. Memo to W.T. Cosgrave from P.L. Banim, 23 November 1928, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 7670, NAI. ‘Ex-Connaught Rangers 1920 Mutiny at India,’ [1925], DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. ‘Mutiny in 1st Battalion Connaught Rangers, 1920,’ WO 141/84, NA UK; and Irish Times, 29 October 1925. ‘List of Names and Addresses’ [1933], DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. Emphasis in original. Maude Gonne MacBride to Mr. Grogan, 18 May 1939, Maude Gonne Collection, MSS 771, Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. For more detail on the campaign for pensions, see Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 134–65. Irish Times, 19 March 1928.

258

Notes

70. David Fitzpatrick, ‘Commemoration in the Irish Free State: A Chronicle of Embarrassment,’ in McBride, ed., History and Memory, p. 186. 71. Dolan, Irish Civil War, pp. 1–56. 72. Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, pp. 123–24. 73. Memo of 21 October 1924, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 4374A, NAI. 74. ‘Mutiny in 1st Battalion Connaught Rangers, 1920,’ WO 141/84, NA UK. 75. Irish Independent, 15 February, 22 February, 1 March, 14 March, 22 March, 29 March, 5 April and 12 April 1925. For the identity of Flannery as ‘One Who Knows,’ see Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 144. 76. Copy of resolution passed at meeting, Foster Place, 3 July 1924, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 5374A, NAI. 77. Letter from John Flannery, 6 February 1925, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 7670, NAI. 78. Irish Times, 15 February 1928. 79. Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 156. 80. Delaney was not shy about self-promotion, so it is likely that he played a role in publicizing his role in the mutiny. Upon his return to Ireland, Delaney had provided newspaper reporters in his home county of Mayo with accounts of the mutiny that inflated his status as one of the leaders and the suffering of the mutineers. See Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 131. 81. New York Times, 15 March 1937. 82. Irish Press, 20 January 1949, cited in Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 166–67. 83. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 92, 23 February 1944. 84. See the website of the NGA: http://www.nga.ie/. Accessed 5 March 2009. As Anne Dolan observes, ‘The National Graves Association may have had masses said regularly for “all who died for Irish freedom,” but on “such solemn occasions continued fealty to the same cause for which our dead patriots had endured martyrdom” was strictly affirmed.’ Dolan, Irish Civil War, pp. 137–38. 85. The NGA observed that ‘It has always been a source of regret and frustration that, without the rights’ to the Republican Plot,

it had no control over which persons were entitled to be buried alongside Ireland’s Republican heroes. It was the unwritten policy of succeeding N.G.A. Committees that no memorials be erected on this plot until the country was united but in latter years this policy was frustrated simply because they have never had the final say in those matters.

The Last Post (2nd ed., Dublin, 1976), pp. 13–17 (quotation on p. 16). 86. Stuart Barr, ‘Charles Kerrigan and the Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers at Solon, 1920,’ Cathair na Mart: Journal of the Westport Historical Society 10: 1 (1990), pp. 84–93. For the radicalizing impact of the 1918 Taranto Mutiny on the West Indian soldiers involved, see Richard Smith, Jamaican Volunteers in the First World War: Race, Masculinity and the Development of National Consciousness (Manchester, 2004), pp. 122–51. 87. Sam Pollock, Script for ‘In Search of a Mutiny’ (1963), p. 4, 6312–219, NAM. The information about Hawes’ brother being a member of the IRA was edited from the program broadcast on the BBC in 1963. 88. Irish Press (Philadelphia), 26 November 1921.

Notes

259

89. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 36 10 December 1930. Davis’ escape was also noted in a 1925 government report, ‘Ex Connaught Rangers 1920 Mutiny at India,’ DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 90. Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 4; and Witness Statement of Joseph Hawes (1949), pp. 1–2, WS 262, NAI. 91. ‘Mutiny in 1st Battalion Connaught Rangers, 1920,’ WO 141/84, NA UK. 92. Petition of Stephen Lally, 29 August 1922, WO 141/90, NA UK. 93. Margaret Lally to Eamon De Valera, 3 May 1940, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 11829, NAI. 94. Hanley, ‘Stephen Lally,’ p. 338. 95. Margaret Lally to Eamon De Valera, 3 May 1940; and Stephen Lally, to Commandant, Detention Barracks, Curragh, 1 May 1940, Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 11829, NAI. 96. Hanley, ‘Stephen Lally,’ p. 341; and Ambassador, London, to Sec., Dept. of External Affairs, 14 January 1953, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 97. Brendan Behan, Confessions of an Irish Rebel (London, 1965), p. 104. 98. These were: Michael Kearns, Patrick J. Kelly, James Oliver, John Lynott, William Shallow, Francis Owen Davis and Joseph Walshe. Irish Press, 27 June 1949. While some Connaught Rangers later contended that John Miranda died because of ‘hardship’ or ‘bad conditions’ at Dagshai Jail, as Babington notes, his death seems to have been an isolated incident of typhoid. Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 69. 99. Irish Press, 27 June 1949. 100. Irish Independent, 27 June 1949. 101. Irish Press, 27 June 1949. 102. Irish Press, 27 June 1949 and Irish Independent, 27 June 1949. For the prominence of the Last Post and the firing of volleys of shots as elements adopted from British military traditions, see Dolan, Irish Civil War, pp. 154–55. 103. Pauric Travers, ‘ “Our Fenian Dead”: Glasnevin Cemetery and the Genesis of the Republican Funeral,’ in James Kelly and Uaitear MacGearailt, eds, Dublin and Dubliners: Essays in the History and Literature of Dublin City (Dublin, 1990), pp. 52– 72 and Gary Owens, ‘Constructing the Martyrs: the Manchester Executions and the Nationalist Imagination,’ in Lawrence W. McBride, ed., Images, Icons and the Irish Nationalist Imagination (Dublin, 1999), pp. 18–36. 104. Owen, ‘Constructing the Martyrs,’ p. 25. 105. Sean Farrell Moran, ‘Patrick Pearse and Patriotic Soteriology: The Irish Republican Tradition and the Sanctification of Political Self-immolation,’ in Yonah Alexander and Alan O’Day, eds, The Irish Terrorism Experience (Brookfield, VT and Aldershot, 1991), pp. 9–10, 18–19. 106. Walker, Dancing to History’s Tune, pp. 87–89. 107. John S. Ellis, ‘The Degenerate and the Martyr: Nationalist Propaganda and the Contestation of Irishness, 1914–1918,’ Éire-Ireland 35: 3–4 (2000–1), pp. 7–33; John Newsinger, ‘ “I Bring Not Peace but a Sword”: The Religious Motif in the Irish War of Independence,’ Journal of Contemporary History 13: 3 (1978), pp. 609– 28; Daniel J. O’Neill, ‘The Cult of Self-Sacrifice: The Irish Experience,’ Éire-Ireland 24: 4 (1989), pp. 89–105; and George Sweeney, ‘Irish Hunger Strikes and the Cult of Self-Sacrifice,’ Journal of Contemporary History 28 (1993), pp. 421–37. 108. Dolan, Irish Civil War, p. 151. For the public funerals given to prominent supporters of the Irish Free State, see Dermot Keogh and Gabriel Doherty, ‘ “Sorrow

260

109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115.

116. 117.

118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125.

126.

127. 128.

129.

130.

Notes but no Despair – the Road is Marked”: The Politics of Funerals in Post-1916 Ireland,’ in Gabriel Doherty and Dermot Keogh, eds, Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish Free State (Dublin, 1998), pp. 186–201. For the ‘funerary culture’ of Ireland, see Nina Witoszek, ‘Ireland: A Funerary Culture?’ Studies 17: 1 (1987), pp. 206–15. ‘A Tribute to the Connaught Rangers,’ Roscommon Herald, 20 January 1923. New York Times, 15 March 1937. Dominic Behan, Ireland Sings: An Anthology of Irish Songs and Ballads (London, 1973), p. 36. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 221, 24 February 1966. Kilfeather, Connaught Rangers, pp. 2–3. The image is reproduced in Pollock, between pp. 48, 49. For Daly’s service in the Great War, see Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 95. Daly’s older brother William also served in the Connaught Rangers, and had been one of the leaders of the protest at Jullundur, but withdrew. According to his sister, he became ‘convinced that the course of action they proposed would be useless,’ but afterward refused to discuss the mutiny. Malcolm Hay, ‘The Indian Mutiny That Made an Irish Martyr,’ Observer Magazine, 2 December 1979, pp. 103–4. Pollock, ‘In Search of a Mutiny,’ pp. 17–18, 6312–219, NAM. Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 20. The only prior disciplinary incident recorded for Daly was one instance of not complying with an order. See ‘Statement as to Character and Particulars of Service of Accused,’ WO 71/1030, NA UK. Solon. Summary of Evidence, p. 4, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. WO 71/1030, NA UK. Solon. Summary of Evidence, p. 9, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. Westmeath Examiner, 11 December 1920, p. 5. Westmeath Examiner, 19 February 1921, p. 8. Westmeath Examiner, 11 December 1920, p. 5. For example, Kilfeather, Connaught Rangers, pp. 3–4; and Pollock, Mutiny for the Cause, p. 85. For republicans, Barry embodied ‘the noble ideal of heroism and self-sacrifice’; British authorities also attempted to utilize Barry’s execution for propaganda purposes. M.A. Doherty, ‘Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War,’ Irish Historical Studies 32: 126 (2000), pp. 217–31. Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1995), p. 51. Keith Jeffery has noted that in spite of historians’ focus on the ‘public and political dimension of Great War commemoration’ in Ireland ‘many people – who knows, perhaps most’ attended memorial ceremonies there ‘for private reasons.’ Jeffery, Great War, pp. 126–27. Hay, ‘Indian Mutiny,’ pp. 103–4. The ‘sack of Balbriggan’ took place on 20 September 1920, so Daly could conceivably have learned about the events there prior to his execution, but not before the Connaught Rangers’ mutiny. A letter from mutineer Joseph Walsh, printed in the News Letter of the Friends of Irish Freedom on 30 July 1921 also stated that ‘Revenge for Balbriggan’ was Daly’s favorite expression. Fitzpatrick, who placed his date of arrival in India as January 1921, claimed to have received his information from the priest present at Daly’s execution. Westmeath Examiner, 29 October 1921. J.C. Keane, ‘The Martyr of Jallandor,’ Westmeath Examiner, 29 October 1921.

Notes

261

131. See the correspondence in Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 7670, NAI. The government was, however, far from generous in its dealing with Mrs. Daly. When Daly received a check for £10 in August 1926, she also received a note stating that ‘the small fund at the President’s disposal is now exhausted and it is therefore regretted that this is the last payment that can be made to you.’ 132. Westmeath Examiner, 11 April 1925, clipping in Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 7670, NAI. 133. Cited in Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 162. 134. Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic (1st American ed.; New York, 1965), p. 364. As Anne Dolan observes, ‘Failure was an integral part of Irish martyrdom – the more inevitable the failure, the more precious the martyr.’ Dolan, Irish Civil War, p. 152. 135. Although the refusal of the Connaught Rangers to perform military duties had begun on the morning of 28 June 1920, Joseph Hawes observed in his memoir that the mutiny ‘actually . . . all began the night previous’ when Hawes and four other soldiers met in the canteen at Jullundur barracks to discuss Hawes’ news of British Army brutalities in Ireland. Witness Statement of Joseph Hawes (1949), p. 1, WS 262, NAI. 136. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 92, 23 February 1944. 137. Irish Press, 11 November 1955, clipping in DFA 2000/14/442. 138. Irish Press, 7 November 1960. 139. Irish Independent, 6 November 1961. 140. Travers, ‘ “Our Fenian Dead,” ’ pp. 57–60. 141. Kevin Grant, ‘Bones of Contention: The Repatriation of the Remains of Roger Casement,’ Journal of British Studies 41 (2002), pp. 337–38. 142. Irish Press, 17 October 1954, clipping in DFA 2000/14/442, NAI. 143. The Last Post, pp. 13–17. 144. Ibid., pp. 23–24, 96. 145. Irish Independent, 23 October 1924, cited in Babington, Devil to Pay, pp. 142–43. 146. Stephen Lally to High Commissioner for Ireland, 27 December 1952, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 147. Irish Press, 11 November and 28 November 1955, clippings in DFA 2000/ 14/442, NAI. 148. Irish Press, 22 November 1955, clipping in DFA 2000/14/442, NAI. 149. Offaly Independent, 19 June 1954, clipping in DFA 2000/14/442, NAI. 150. Secretary, Offaly County Council, to Sec., DEA, 15 September 1954, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 151. Offaly Independent, 21 August 1954. 152. Secretary, Offaly County Council, to Sec., DEA, 15 September 1954; County Sec., Limerick Co. Council, to Sec., DEA, 16 October 1954; and K.J. Brangan, Wicklow Co. Sec., to Sec., Executive Council, Dublin, 25 October 1954,. DFA 2001/14/ 442, NAI. 153. Edward Walshe, Town Clerk, Birr Urban District Council, to Sec., DEA, 25 September 1954 DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 154. Sean McGuinness to Minister of External Affairs, 17 May 1955, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 155. Note by S.K., 27 May 1955, DFA 2001/14/443, NAI. 156. Note by MacDonagh, 8 February 1956, DFA 2001/12/443, NAI. 157. J.W. Dulanty, High Commissioner, London, to Sec., DEA, 5 June 1937, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI.

262

Notes

158. G. Kimble, British Embassy, Dublin, to G.W. St. John Chadwick, CRO, 3 November 1959, DO 35/8035, NA UK. 159. Note by J.A.B., 16 February 1956, DFA 2001/14/443, NAI. 160. Note by S.O’R., 8 February 1961, DFA 2001/14/443, NAI. 161. Casement’s remains were reinterred in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery on 27 February 1965, following a state funeral. The remains of Dunne and O’Sullivan were reinterred in the Republican Plot in Deansgrange Cemetery, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, on 5 July 1967. 162. See Grant, ‘Bones of Contention,’ pp. 329–53; and Deidre McMahon, ‘Roger Casement: An Account from the Archives of His Reinterment in Ireland,’ Irish Archives 3 (1996), pp. 3–12. 163. Grant, ‘Bones of Contention,’ p. 353. 164. Róisín Nic Aongus to E. Sweeney, 7 February 1966, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 165. Note by Brennan, 4 January 1966, DFA 2001/14/443, NAI. 166. Teresa Maher, to Eugene Sweeney, Hon. Sec., Federation of IRA. 1916–1921, 15 November 1965, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 167. Teresa Maher to Brendan Crinion, TD, 29 June 1967, DFA 2001/14/442, NAI. 168. Major E. Solomon to Mrs. H. Phillips, UK High Commissioner’s Office, 30 July 1956; Extract from the Minutes of the Meeting of the North India Cemeteries Board, 14 and 21 August 1956; and Solomon to Philips, 27 February 1957, R/4/408, OIOC. 169. Note of 12 January 1967, DFA 2001/14/443, NAI. 170. Valentin Iremonger, Ambassador, New Delhi, to Secretary, DEA, 24 January 1969, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 171. Kilfeather, Connaught Rangers. The quotation appears on the inside back cover of the paperback edition. 172. Note by S.G. Ronan, 18 February 1969, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 173. Note by S.G. Ronan, 1 April 1969, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 174. ‘Minutes of Meeting with representatives of the National Graves Association on repatriation of the remains of Pvt. James Joseph Daly,’ 26 February 1970, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 175. ‘Repatriation of Remains of Connaught Rangers,’ 3 July 1970, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 176. Note by Drury, Secretary, Irish Embassy, New Delhi, 8 October 1968, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 177. Charge d’Affaires, Irish Embassy, New Delhi, to Secretary, DEA, 25 August 1970, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. At a meeting in July 1970, the NGA made a last attempt to have the remains of Miranda transferred to Ireland and buried at state expense, but the DEA representatives remained ‘quite adamant that this was out of the question.’ ‘Minutes of Meeting with representatives of the National Graves Association on the repatriation of the remains of Privates Daly, Smyth and Sears,’ 7 July 1970, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 178. ‘Minutes of Meeting with representatives of the National Graves Association on repatriation of the remains of Pvt. James Joseph Daly,’ 26 February 1970, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 179. This stance was in contrast to other prominent cases of the repatriation of the remains of prominent nationalists over the previous hundred years. For example, the wishes of Roger Casement for a burial site in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland, were disregarded as politically impolitic. See Grant, ‘Bones of Contention.’ 180. Westmeath Examiner, 5 September 1970.

Notes

263

181. Peter Harbison, ‘Unmistakably Imogen: A Personal Tribute to Imogen Stuart’s Work,’ in Brian Fallon, Imogen Stuart: Sculptor (Dublin, 2002), p. 64. As Harbison notes, children form a recurring subject in Stuart’s work. 182. Westmeath-Offaly Independent, 4 September 1970. 183. Westmeath Examiner, 7 November 1970. 184. Westmeath-Offaly Independent, 6 November 1970. 185. Ibid. 186. Westmeath Examiner, 7 November 1970. 187. Irish Times, 2 November 1970. 188. Irish Press, 27 June 1949. 189. The Last Post, p. 69. 190. ‘Repatriation of remains of Connaught Rangers,’ 11 June 1970, DFA 98/2/ 15, NAI. 191. Westmeath-Offaly Independent, 6 November 1970. 192. Irish Times, 9 August 1971. A photo of the memorial appears in Kathleen Hegarty Thorne, They Put the Flag a-Flyin’: The Roscommon Volunteers 1916–1923 (Eugene, OR, 2005), p. 39. 193. Irish Independent, 8 February 1971 and Irish Times, 7 May 1971. 194. Grave of Charles Kerrigan (text transcribed by E. Hewitt May 2000), BASCA Collection, MSS Eur. F 370/483, OIOC. 195. The Observer, 11 November 1979. 196. http://www.glynjones.net/plays.aspx?id=18. Accessed 14 May 2008; and Financial Times, 9 November 1979. 197. Tourist Guide to Tyrrellspass (Tyrrellspass, nd). 198. Stephen Lally stated that the mutineers had erected a memorial stone at Daly’s gravesite, but this could not be located. Photographs show a simple gravestone erected by the British Army which reads, ‘Pte Daly/1st Connaught Rangers/Died 2-11-20/Age 22 Years.’ Irish Independent, 5 March 1970, clipping in DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 199. A transcription and translation is in the BASCA collection: MSS Eur. F 370/483, OIOC. 200. Irish Times, 5 November 1973. 201. An Phoblacht/Republican News, 16 November 1995. http://www.fh-trier.de/∼ hammm/wbp/16brie.html. Viewed 2 February 2005. 202. Saoirse/Irish Freedom, November 2007, p. 8.

6 ‘Enemies of the Empire’? The Imperial Context of the Connaught Rangers Mutiny 1. Brian Padraic O’Shasnain, ‘Shane O’Neill Discovers India,’ Independent Hindustan 1: 3 (November 1920), pp. 55–58, 70. 2. See Chapter 1. 3. Derek Sayer, ‘British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre 1919–1920,’ Past and Present 131 (1991), pp. 130–64 (quotation on p. 153). 4. ‘Irish Revolt in India,’ Independent Hindustan 1: 1 (September 1920), p. 1. 5. See E.M. Spiers, ‘Army Organization and Society in the Nineteenth Century,’ in Bartlett and Jeffery, eds, A Military History of Ireland, pp. 335–57; and Peter Karsten, ‘Irish Soldiers in the British Army, 1792–1922: Suborned or Subordinate,’ Journal of Social History 17: 1 (1983), pp. 31–64.

264

Notes

6. Denman, ‘Ethnic Soldiers,’ p. 254. David Murphy also observes that ‘the Connaught Rangers was perhaps one of the best-known of the Irish regiments in the British Army.’ David Murphy, The Irish Brigades, 1685–2006: A Gazetteer of Irish Military Service, Past and Present (Dublin, 2007), p. 184. 7. Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 1. For a synopsis of the regiment’s history, see Murphy, The Irish Brigades, pp. 184–91. 8. Murphy, The Irish Brigades, p. 188. 9. Cited in Stephen Gwynn, ‘The Irish Regiments,’ in Felix Lavery, comp., Great Irishmen in War and Politics (London, 1920), p. 162. 10. Cited in Jourdain and Fraser, Connaught Rangers, I: 43. 11. Ibid., III: 561–62. 12. Cited in Ibid., I: 423. 13. ‘Rise Up Noble Britons,’ L.C.Fol.178.A.2 (109), National Library of Scotland. http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/14873/transcript/1. Viewed 6 July 2008. 14. Spiers, ‘Army Organization and Society,’ in Bartlett and Jeffery, eds, A Military History of Ireland, pp. 339. Under the Cardwell reforms, the Connaught Rangers regiment was re-designated as the 1st Battalion, Connaught Rangers, while the 94th Regiment of Foot, which historically had been a predominantly Scottish regiment, became the 2nd Battalion of the Connaught Rangers. 15. The regimental history adds that ‘This went on for many years, but one Commanding Officer, who did not hail from the Emerald Isle, gave orders that this was not to be allowed. However, the custom was revived after he left, and was carried on until the disbandment.’ Jourdain and Fraser, Connaught Rangers, III: 563, 564. 16. Jourdain and Fraser, Connaught Rangers, III: 564. 17. Kilfeather, Connaught Rangers, p. 139. 18. The 94th regiment of foot, which became the 2nd battalion of the Connaught Rangers in 1881, fought in the campaign against Tipu Sultan, and thus ‘Seringapatam’ was one of the regiment’s battle honors. 19. Jourdain and Fraser, Connaught Rangers, I: 201. 20. The Connaught Rangers were stationed in India from 1857 to 1870, from 1880 to 1891 and from 1908 until the outbreak of the First World War. When the 1st battalion arrived at Jullundur in November 1919, it was the third time that the regiment had been stationed there. Ibid., I: 234, 569. 21. Denman adds, ‘Increasingly, the real racial divisions now became those between the white troops of the metropolitan army, the native troops that assisted them, and the subject population they held down.’ Denman, ‘Ethnic Soldiers,’ pp. 263, 264. 22. Martin J. Wiener, An Empire on Trial: Race, Murder, and Justice under British Rule, 1870–1935 (Cambridge, 2009), p. 139. For the strategies by which the colonial state managed inter-racial violence, see Jordanna Bailkin, ‘The Boot and the Spleen: When Was Murder Possible in British India?’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 48: 2 (2006), pp. 462–93. For the conflicts such violence engendered, and how the legal framework of the Raj dealt with inter-racial violence, see Wiener, An Empire on Trial, pp. 128–192. 23. I owe this point to Professor Harish Trivedi. 24. Cited in Horne, End of Empires, p. 69.

Notes

265

25. Frank Richards, Old Soldier Sahib (1936; 2nd ed. London, 1965), pp. 142–43. 26. Fred Williams to his sister, Louisa, 26 December 1912, F. Williams Collection, 80/23/1, IWM. 27. William Crutchlow, Tale of an Old Soldier (London, 1937), pp. 61–69, 81. 28. The Wolfe Tones, ‘Connaught Rangers,’ Belt of the Celts [sound recording] (Shanachie Entertainment, 1993). The song’s chorus does refer to the ‘Dagshai heat,’ which a listener familiar with the story of the mutiny would know was the place in India where Daly was executed. 29. Gallagher, ‘Crisis of Empire,’ p. 355. 30. Over 20,000 Irishmen enlisted in the reorganized British Army from 1919 to 1921, and the Irish proportion of the army at the end of that period was almost as large as it had been in 1913. David Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900– 1922,’ p. 399. 31. The Freeman’s Journal, 7 July 1920. 32. See Chapter 3. 33. Tan Tai Yong, The Garrison State: The Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1849–1947 (New Delhi, Thousands Oaks, CA, and London, 2005), p. 188. 34. Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885–1947 (Delhi, 1983), p. 189. For case studies of the Rowlatt satyagraha in different parts of India, see Ravinder Kumar, ed., Essays on Gandhian Politics: The Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919 (Oxford, 1971). 35. Sarkar, Modern India, p. 190. 36. Ibid., p. 196. 37. Source Material for a History of the Freedom Movement in India. Vol. III. Mahatma Gandhi. Part I: 1915–1922 (Bombay, 1965), pp. 298–99 (Quotation on p. 299). 38. J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (Rev. ed., Cambridge, 1990), pp. 157–80. 39. Cited in Nigel Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer (London, 2005), p. 292. 40. Tan Tai Yong, Garrison State, p. 189. 41. Jourdain and Fraser, Connaught Rangers, I: 570. 42. Ibid. 43. David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940 (London, 1994), pp. 113–52. 44. Amitav Ghosh, ‘Mutinies: India, Ireland and Imperialism,’ p. 122. 45. Telegram from Commander-in-Chief, India to War Office, 29 October 1920, L/MIL/7/13314; and Chelmsford to Montagu, 19 October 1920, Chelmsford Collection, MSS Eur. E 264/6, OIOC. 46. Telegram, Sec.of State to Viceroy, 28 October 1920, Chelmsford Collection, MSS Eur. E 264/13, OIOC. 47. Viceroy to Sec. of State, 31 October 1920, Chelmsford Collection, MSS Eur. E 264/13, OIOC. 48. Thomas Bartlett writes, ‘Why was James Daly shot? The short answer to this is that, in the eyes of the authorities, Daly had to die, not for Ireland, but for India.’ Bartlett, ‘The Connaught Rangers Mutiny,’ p. 6. 49. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for War, ‘Sentences on Men of the Connaught Rangers Convicted of Mutiny,’ 4 February 1922, 114/1/2, Andrew Bonar Law Papers, Parliamentary Archive, London. 50. Memo by John Anderson (to Mister Loughnane), 27 December 1922, HO 144/3724, NA UK. 51. Enclosure to Stephen Gwynn to Prime Minister, 20 December 1922, Andrew Bonar Law Papers, 114/1/13, Parliamentary Archive, London.

266 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

62. 63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

69. 70. 71. 72.

Notes Cited in Campbell, Maharajah’s Box, p. 235. H.L. Salkeld, Anushilan Samiti Dacca. Part II (1909), in TIB II: 115 English translation of Ghadr, 26 July 1916, MSS Eur. E 288/3, OIOC. Anthony Babington notes that two Indian papers published accounts of the mutiny, but does not analyze Indian nationalist reactions or place this in the context of contemporary Indian–Irish nationalist relationships. Babington, Devil to Pay, p. 86. See Chapter 5. Irish Independent, 14 March 1925. Viceroy (Army Dept.) to Sec. of State, 4 July 1920, L/MIL/7/13314, OIOC. Tribune (Lahore), 4 July and 15 July 1920. Fateh, 8 July 1920, in Special Bureau of Information, Weekly Report No. 23 for the Week Ending the 24 July 1920, L/P&S/10/887, OIOC. Fateh, 8 July 1920, in Special Bureau of Information, Weekly Report No. 23 for the Week Ending the 24 July 1920, L/P&S/10/887, OIOC. A similar argument was made in the Prakash newspaper of 7 July 1920. See Report on Newspapers Published in the Bombay Presidency [Bombay Newspapers], Week Ending 17 July 1920, L/R/5/178, OIOC. Kesari, 6 July 1920, in Bombay Newspapers, Week Ending 10 July 1920, L/R/5/178, OIOC. Andrapatrika, 3 July 1920, in Report on English Papers Examined by the Criminal Investigation Department, Madras, and on Vernacular Papers Examined by the Translators to the Government of Madras [Madras Newspapers], Week Ending 10 July 1920, L/R/5/128, OIOC. Source Material for a History of the Freedom Movement in India. Vol. III. Part I, p. 320. Desabhaktan, 29 July 1920, in Madras Newspapers, Week Ending 7 August 1920, L/R/5/128, OIOC. Bangavasi, 10 July 1920, in Reports of the Native Press in Bengal, Week Ending 17 July 1920, p. 437; WBSA. Qaumi Report, 4 July 1920, in Madras Newspapers, Week Ending 17 July 1920, L/R/5/128, OIOC. The Tribune, for example, reported on the sentencing of the mutineers and the execution of ‘one private,’ but did not comment beyond reporting the sentences from the Government of India. Tribune, 24 November 1920. There are no references to the Connaught Rangers in any of the provincial press abstracts for November 1920. Davis, ‘The Influence of the Irish Revolution,’ p. 58. Tribune, 24 December 1920, in Punjab Press Abstract, 25 December 1920, L/R/5/202, OIOC. Grant, ‘Hunger Strikes and Political Fasts,’ p. 255. ‘Ever since all the 68 Sinn Feiners, elected to the British Parliament . . . Ireland has been a hotbed of dacoities, murders, incindiarism and anarchism and many vowed to est. democracy. Mr. MacSweney [sic] was one of such persons and he had given up his life in this cause. It is no exaggeration to say that there are several ready to follow him. How are the British Ministers going to get out of such a situation?’ Swadesamitran, 27 October 1920 in Madras Newspapers, Week Ending 6 November 1920, L/R/5/128, OIOC. For the influence of MacSwiney’s hunger strike on Indian revolutionaries in the 1920s, see Grant, ‘Hunger Strikes and Poltical Fasts,’ pp. 256–57.

Notes

267

73. Al Bureed (Cawnpore), 1 November 1920 and Aj (Benares), 4 November 1920 in Selections from Newspapers Published in the United Provinces, Week Ending 6 November 1920, L/R/5/95, OIOC. 74. ‘Irish Revolt in India,’ Independent Hindustan, 1: 1 (September 1920), p. 1. 75. Independent Hindustan, 1: 6 (February 1921), p. 136; and Irish Press (Philadephia), 5 February 1921, p. 8. 76. Independent Hindustan, 1: 6 (February 1921), pp. 136, 142; and Irish Press (Philadelphia), 5 February 1921. 77. See Chapters 1 and 2. 78. K.F. Nariman, What Next? (Bombay, 1934), pp. 186–88. Nariman also contended that the mutiny demonstrated that resignations in Ireland from police and government positions were not due to intimidation and threats, but rather patriotism, ‘because such threats could not have reached the Connaught Rangers in the distant Punjab where they were quite secure and safe in Indian barracks.’ 79. Charge d’Affaires, Embassy of Ireland, New Delhi, to Sec., Dept. of External Affairs, 25 August 1970, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 80. Extract from Mr. Sykes’ Tour Note of the 15 July 1954, R/4/408, OIOC. Sykes expressed skepticism about the claim that Daly’s grave was a pilgrimage site, however. 81. Indian Express, 14 September 2003. 82. Buettner, ‘Cemeteries,’ pp. 21–23. 83. J.C. Morgan, A Time to Remember: A History of the Redemptorists in India and Sri Lanka, 1938–1972 (Bangalore, 1992), p. 71. 84. The day after the Irish vice-provincial from Delhi, Father Matt Hickey, arrived in Dagshai on a visit in August 1950, he and another Redemptorist father made a pilgrimage to Daly’s grave. Morgan, A Time to Remember, pp. 74–75. 85. ‘Report on Visit to Dagsahi & Kasauli,’ 8 November 1966, DFA 2000/14/442, NAI. 86. Secretary of the Embassy to Ambassador, New Delhi, 8 October 1968, DFA 98/2/15, NAI. 87. Indian Express, 14 September 2003. 88. General Staff Communiqué, 8 July 1920, GOI Home (Pol) No. 294, July 1920, NA India. 89. Anthony Babington concludes that he was ‘among the most culpable of all the Jullundur mutineers.’ ‘Mutiny in 1st Battalion Connaught Rangers, 1920,’ WO 141/84, NA; and Babington, The Devil to Pay, p. 52. 90. Sam Pollock, Script for ‘In Search of a Mutiny,’ p. 20, 6312-219, NAM. Geraghty’s remarks, and the discussion of soldiers’ memories of 1857, were included in the script but deleted from the broadcast program. 91. Sunday Independent, 22 February 1925. 92. Sunday Independent, 22 March 1925. See also Kilfeather, Connaught Rangers, p. 175. 93. Album of Drawings by Connaught Rangers, 1920–21, MS 19089, National Library of Ireland. 94. John Flannery Witness Statement, WS 287, pp. 23–24. NAI. 95. John Flannery Witness Statement, WS 287, pp. 15–16, 17–18. NAI. 96. John Flannery Witness Statement, WS 287, p. 18. NAI.

268

Notes

97. See the account of the meeting in the undated document in DFA 2000/14/ 442, NAI. 98. Sunday Independent, 27 November 1955. 99. Solon. Summary of Evidence, p. 26, DFA 2000/6/11, NAI. 100. Joseph Hawes Witness Statement, pp. 17, 20–23, WS 262, NAI; and ‘In Search of A Mutiny Script,’ p. 31. Hawes’ remarks regarding this episode were included in the script but not included in the broadcast. 101. Joseph Hawes Witness Statement, p. 25, WS 262, NAI. 102. Joseph Hawes Witness Statement, p. 28A, WS 262, NAI. 103. ‘Mutiny at Solon.’ Produced and presented by Donncha O’Dulaing, 1 November 1970. RTÉ. 104. Westmeath-Offaly Independent, 6 November 1970. Hawes expressed similar sentiments in the RTÉ radio programme ‘Mutiny at Solon.’ 105. Hanley, ‘Stephen Lally,’ p. 338. There is no such telegram, nor any reference to the Connaught Rangers mutiny, in the volume of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi covering the period from July to November 1920. 106. Dáil Debates, Vol. 36, 3 December 1930. In the same debate, another TD also argued for the increased importance of the mutiny, given that it took place in India. ‘These men, who served in the British Army, who knew that on the slightest sign of mutiny they were doomed in India to death or imprisonment, were prepared to die and do.’ 107. Dáil Debates, Vol. 36, 3 December 1930. 108. ‘Bose’s Message to Irish Republicans,’ 12 February 1943, DO 35/2059, NA UK. 109. O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire, p. 112. 110. Irish Press, 27 June 1949. 111. Cited in Davis, ‘The Influence of the Irish Revolution,’ p. 61. 112. Vincent Corrigan, 1916: The Creation of the First Nation State in the 20th Century (New York, 2001), pp. 241, 242, 244. 113. Lennon, Irish Orientalism. 114. ‘Reflections on Partition,’ in the booklet accompanying the Second Run DVD edition of Partition (2007). 115. Michael O’Leary, of Co. Cork, was one of the most famous Irish soldiers of the First World War, who won the Victoria Cross while a lance corporal in the Irish Guards in 1915. O’Leary was given a commission in the 1st Connaught Rangers, and became a Captain prior to the end of the First World War. Jean and Desmond Bowen, Heroic Option: The Irish in the British Army (Barnsley, England, 2005), p. 224. 116. Prompt copy of The 88, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, London. 117. Jones’ play makes reference to a number of events discussed by Hawes in his statement to the Bureau of Military History. 118. Prompt copy of The 88; and Sunday Telegraph, 11 November 1979, Clipping in Materials Relating to The 88, Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, London. 119. John Kavanagh, No Comet Seen, Irish Playography Web site, http://www. irishplayography.com/index.html. 120. John Morrissey, ‘A Lost Heritage: The Connaught Rangers and Multivocal Irishness,’ in McCarthy, ed., Ireland’s Heritages, p. 71. 121. Jane Leonard, ‘Facing “the Finger of Scorn”: Veterans’ Memories of Ireland after the Great War,’ in Martin Evans and Keith Lunn, eds, War and Memory in the Twentieth Century (Oxford and New York, 1997), p. 65.

Notes

269

122. The cemetery was established after the Second World War to receive Commonwealth war dead. See the information on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Website: http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty= 1498907. Viewed 6 July 2008. 123. Gordon Cox, ‘Songs and Ballads of the Wet Canteen: Recollections of a British Soldier in India,’ Lore and Language 3: 7 (1982), pp. 53–67; and Roy Palmer, ‘What a Lovely War’ British Soldiers’ Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day (London, 1990), pp. 63–66. Both authors identify songs of mutiny and punishment as popular genres for soldiers’ singing sessions in ‘wet canteens’ (canteens where beer was sold) at army cantonments in India during this period. 124. Harper recalled that ‘The incident, I was told, took place in India, some time during the 1880’s. McCaffery was a gunner, and according to my informant, the ballad was written by the condemned man himself, just before his execution.’ S.H. Harper, ‘ “McCaffery”: A Ballad,’ Notes and Queries 190: 10 (18 May 1946), pp. 217–18. 125. Brendan Behan, Confessions of an Irish Rebel, pp. 103–104; and Dominic Behan, Ireland Sings, p. 36. 126. Conor Reilly, ‘Conor Francis O’Brien, Connaught Ranger (1895–1969),’ Irish Sword 22: 89 (2001), p. 334. 127. Irish Times, 29 May 1939. 128. Irish Times, 5 August 1927. 129. Irish Times, 8 June 1931. 130. Reilly, ‘Conor Francis O’Brien,’ p. 335. 131. Irish Times, 12 November 1927. 132. Irish Times, 15 February and 16 February 1934; and Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 50. 21 February 1934. 133. Michael Browne, Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and Saint Nicholas, Galway: A History and Description (Galway, 1967), p. 9. 134. The remaining funds were to be used for ‘the relief of distress among old Rangers and their families in Ireland.’ ‘The Ranger Memorial Window,’ The Ranger (July 1967), p. 29. 135. Browne, Cathedral, p. 35; The Ranger (July 1965), p. 3; and ‘Galway’s New Cathedral,’ The Ranger (July 1966), p. 25. 136. Sunday Independent, 18 October 1964. In response, William P. Greene of Dublin commented that Mac Aonghusa’s ‘hostile comments’ were ‘in very bad taste,’ noting that the Connaught Rangers, ‘remembered for their bravery in battle, and their practical Christianity in times of peace,’ built and endowed chapels both at Renmore Barracks in Galway, and in India. Sunday Independent, 1 November 1964. Clippings in DFA 2000/14/442, NAI. 137. Plans for the creation of a larger window also dedicated to the Connaughts within the cathedral did not materialize. The Ranger (July 1966), p. 3; and The Ranger (July 1967), p. 3. 138. ‘Galway Cathedral,’ The Ranger (July, 1968), p. 36; and Reilly, ‘Conor Francis O’Brien,’ p. 336. 139. Galway Cathedral: A Visitor’s Guide (Galway, 2002). 140. The CRA newsletter (April 1972), P. 635/12, British Library.

Conclusion 1. Coughlan earned the VC as part of the 75th Regiment, and subsequently served in the Connaught Rangers. The Mayo News reported that he was ‘a good

270

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

Notes Catholic . . . of a kind and affable disposition,’ who ‘won the respect and esteem of the people of the town.’ Donal Buckley, ‘Sergeant-Major Coughlan VC: Obituary from the Mayo News,’ Cathair na Mart: Journal of the Westport Historical Society 23 (2003), pp. 60–63. Irish Times, 9 August 2004. Irish Independent, 9 August 2004. Sunday Independent, 15 August 2004; Sunday Business Post, 29 August 2004; and Sunday Business Post, 29 August 2004. Mayo News, 4 May 2006. Kenny, ‘The Irish in the Empire,’ p. 93. See Chapter Two and O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire, pp. 90–117, 156–78. See the correspondence in the De Valera Papers, P 150/1053, University College Dublin Archives. Telegram of 17 September 1964, DFA 2002/19/84, NAI. For Radhakrishnan’s visit, see Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 17563/95, NAI. See Dept. of the Taoiseach 99/1/569, NAI. Deirdre McMahon observes that ‘Ireland loomed large in the minds of British officials.’ Deidre McMahon, ‘A Larger and Noisier Southern Ireland: Ireland and the Evolution of Dominion Status in India, Burma and the Commonwealth, 1942–9,’ in Michael Kennedy and Joseph Morrison Skelly, eds, Irish Foreign Policy, 1919–66 (Dublin, 2000), pp. 155–91 (quotation on p. 169). Bose had studied the writings of Patrick Pearse while a political prisoner in Burma in the 1920s, but at the time had been unconvinced by Pearse’s emphasis on martyrdom and self-sacrifice. David A. Campion, ‘War, Patriotism, and the Romanticism of Patrick Pearse and Subhas Chandra Bose,’ unpublished paper. I am grateful to David Campion for sharing his unpublished work on Pearse and Bose with me. Irish Times, 24 March 2007. See Stephen Heathorn, ‘ “The Long Retreat of the Stone Generals”: Imperial Memory, Decolonization and the Repatriation of Monuments from Sudan, 1956–60,’ Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 4 (2005), pp. 43–61; and Bill Schwarz, ‘Reveries of Race: The Closing of the Imperial Moment,’ in Becky Conekin, Frank Mort and Chris Waters, eds, Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain 1945–1964 (London and New York, 1999), pp. 189–207. Alvin Jackson, ‘Irish Unionists and the Empire,’ p. 145; and ‘Ireland, the Union and the Empire, 1800–1960,’ p. 149. Hiram Morgan, ‘An Unwelcome Heritage: Ireland’s Role in British EmpireBuilding,’ History of European Ideas 19: 4–6 (1994), pp. 619–25 (quotation on p. 623). The description of Nicholson’s statue as an ‘Orange totem’ is in Allen, Soldier Sahibs, pp. 20–21. No one in a recent class of 200 students at the National University Galway could identify the Connaught Rangers as a former British Army regiment; most thought that they were a sports team of some type. Morrissey, ‘A Lost Heritage,’ p. 71. The barracks were originally the town home of the Kings, one of the most powerful Irish Ascendancy families. From 1795, when the British Army purchased the residence, until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, King House served as a barracks for the Connaught Rangers. Jack Fallon, ‘Boyle Military Barracks – Formerly the King House,’ in Boyle: The Origins, the Buildings, the Times (Boyle, 1988), pp. 47–56.

Notes

271

21. Irish Times, 15 July 1995. 22. ‘The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers,’ The New Ranger 3: 1 (2006), p. 19. The journal is available online at http://www.connaughtrangersassoc.com/ 23. Morgan, ‘An Unwelcome Heritage,’ p. 622. 24. Dept. of the Taoiseach, S 16307 B/95, NAI. For the damage to and the sale of the Gough statue, see also Whelan, Reinventing Modern Dublin, pp. 207–12. 25. Ronan Sheehan, Foley’s Asia (Dublin, 1999); and ‘John Henry Foley: Ghost of the Empire,’ dir. Sé Merry Doyle (2008). Sheehan refers to Foley’s imperial sculptures as embodying ‘the double vision of the colonized artist . . . a mode of duality rather than a contradiction in terms.’ Foley’s Asia, pp. 4–5. 26. Stephanie Barczewski, Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton and the Changing Face of Heroism (London, 2007), pp. 296–300. For recent biographies, see Smith, An Unsung Hero, and Jonathan Shackleton and John MacKenna, Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica (Dublin, 2002).

Bibliography

Archival sources, United Kingdom BBC Written Archives Center, Caversham, Reading Pass board for ‘ “Nikal Seyn”: A Story of the Indian Mutiny. The Hero of Delhi.’ Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library, London Political and Secret Department Records Indian Political Intelligence Collection Public & Judicial Papers India Office Records Military Records Translations of Ghadr, MSS Eur. E 288 Montagu Collection, MSS Eur. 523 Proscribed Literature Collection, IOR MIC 11599 Holman Papers, MSS Eur. D 884 Indian Police Collection, MSS Eur. F 161 Anderson Collection, MSS Eur. F 207 Reid Collection, MSS Eur. E 278 Templewood Collection, MSS Eur. E 240 Werge Collection, MSS Eur. F 171 Edwardes Collection, MSS Eur. B 252 and E 211 Chelmsford Papers, MSS Eur. E 264/13 I.C.S. (Retired) Association Collection, MSS Eur. F 173 BASCA Collection, MSS Eur. F 370/483 Typescript address of Frederick Sleigh Roberts, MSS Eur. D 905 Morley Collection, MSS Eur. D 573 Imperial War Museum, London Jesse Short Collection F. Williams Collection National Archives, Kew, London Colonial Office Dominions Office Home Office War Office Centre of South Asian Studies Archive, Cambridge University Tegart Papers Public Record Office of Northern Ireland Dufferin Collection Lisburn Urban District Council Minutes Parliamentary Archive, London David Lloyd George Papers Andrew Bonar Law Papers National Army Museum, London Sam Pollock, Script for ‘In Search of a Mutiny’ (1963), 6312–219 272

Bibliography

273

Theatre Museum, Covent Garden, London Prompt Copy and Materials Relating to The 88 British Library Connaught Rangers Association Newsletters

Republic of Ireland National Archives of Ireland, Dublin Department of Foreign Affairs Department of the Taoiseach Department of Justice Bureau of Military History Witness Statements (Joseph Hawes and John Flannery) University College Dublin Archives De Valera Papers, P 150 National Library of Ireland Album of Drawings by Connaught Rangers, 1920–21, MS 19,089 Anti-Treaty Leaflets, ILB 300 Irish Playography http://www.irishplayography.com/index.html John Kavanagh, No Comet Seen

India National Archives of India, New Delhi Home (Public) files Home (Political) files Home (Police) files West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta Intelligence Branch files Home (Political) Confidential files Netaji Research Bureau, Calcutta Subhas Chandra Bose Papers Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi Surendra Mohan Ghose, Oral History Transcript Bhupati Mazumdar, Oral History Transcript

United States New York Public Library Frank P. Walsh Papers Lala Lajpat Rai, ‘Recollections of his life and work for an independent India while living in the United States and Japan 1914–1917’ (1919) (microfilm) Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley Friends of Freedom for India Collection (microfilm) American Irish Historical Society, New York Irish Organizations Collection Friends of Irish Freedom Collection New York State Archives, Albany Lusk Committee, Investigation Subject Files, 1919–1920 (microfilm) Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia Maude Gonne Collection, MSS 771

274

Bibliography

Newspapers An Phoblacht Belfast News-letter Belfast Telegraph Ballymena Observer Downpatrick Recorder Dungannon Observer Financial Times Freeman’s Journal Gaelic American The Hindu Hindustan Times Illustrated London News Indian Express Irish Press (Dublin) Irish Press (Philadelphia) Irish World and Industrial Liberator Irish Times Lisburn Herald Lisburn Standard Mayo News Mid-Ulster Observer New York Times Northern Whig The Observer Offaly Independent Roscommon Herald Sunday Independent Telegraph (Calcutta) The Times The Tribune (Lahore) Westmeath Examiner Westmeath-Offaly Independent

Selected journals Independent Hindustan The New Ranger The Ranger United States of India

Parliamentary and official publications Dáil Éireann Debates

Printed primary sources Achmed Abdullah and T. Compton Pakenham, Dreamers of Empire (1928; New York, 1929).

Bibliography

275

Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys: The Original 1908 Edition, Elleke Boehmer, ed. (Oxford, 2004). S.O. Beeton, Our Soldiers and the Victoria Cross (London, 1867). Brendan Behan, Confessions of an Irish Rebel (London, 1965). Dominic Behan, Ireland Sings: An Anthology of Irish Songs and Ballads (London, 1973). Dan Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom (1924; Rev. ed. Dublin, 1964). Robert Briscoe with Alden Hatch, For the Life of Me (Boston and Toronto, 1958). John Buchan, The Three Hostages (Boston, 1924). Nirad C. Chaudhuri, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (London, 1951), Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Thy Hand Great Anarch! India 1921–1952 (London, 1987). Valentine Chirol, Indian Unrest (London, 1910). R.E. Cholmeley, John Nicholson: ‘The Lion of the Panjaub’ (London, 1908). The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi, 1965), XVIII: 219. Conference on Missions Held in 1860 at Liverpool (London, 1860). A Concise History of Lisburn and Neighbourhood: Comprising the Social, Industrial, Religious, and Education Life of the People (Belfast, 1906). Louis Coxe, Nikal Seyn. Decoration Day: A Poem and a Play (Nashville, TN, 1966). William Crutchlow, Tale of an Old Soldier (London, 1937). George William De Rhé-Philipe and Miles Irving, Soldiers of the Raj (1910, 1912; London, 1989). Eamon De Valera, India and Ireland (New York, 1920). Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Green Flag,’ in The Green Flag and Other Stories (New York, 1900). Kalpana Dutt, Chittagong Armoury Raiders: Reminiscences (Rev. ed. Delhi, 1979). Herbert B. Edwardes, Memorials of the Life of Major-General Sir Herbert B. Edwardes (London, 1886). W.H. Fitchett, The Tale of the Great Mutiny (London, 1901). Patrick Ford, The Criminal History of the British Empire (New York, 1915). G.W. Forrest, Sepoy Generals: Wellington to Roberts (London, 1901). George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman in the Great Game (1975; London, 2006). Ed Gammons, The Tragedy of India (San Francisco, 1919). V.V. Giri, My Life and Times (Delhi, 1976). Ernest Gray, Nikkal Seyn: A Tale of John Nicholson, Hero of Delhi, Saviour of India (London and Glasgow, 1947). Great Irishmen: An Exhibition of Portraits of Great Irish Men and Women (Belfast, 1965). Great Irishmen: Short Lives Written for Young Children (London, 1900). Kenneth Griffith, The Discovery of Nehru: An Experience of India (London, 1989). Stephen Gwynn, ‘The Irish Regiments,’ in Felix Lavery, comp., Great Irishmen in War and Politics (London, 1920). H.W. Hale, Terrorism in India, 1917–1936 (1937; New Delhi, 1974). S.H. Harper, ‘ “McCaffery”: A Ballad,’ Notes and Queries 190: 10 (18 May 1946), pp. 217–18. A.L. Haydon, The Book of the V.C. (London, 1906). Robert A. Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Volume III (Berkeley and London, 1984). Pamela Hinkson, Indian Harvest (London: Collins, 1941). Ethel M. Hogg, Quinton Hogg: A Biography (1904; London, 1906). Theodore C. Hope, Memoirs of the Fultons of Lisburn (privately printed, 1903). John Hunt, Life is Meeting (London, 1978).

276

Bibliography

P.R. Innes, The History of the Bengal European Regiment, Now the Munster Fusiliers, and How It Helped to Win India (London, 1885). John Murray, A Handbook for Travellers in India and Ceylon (London, 1891). H.F.N. Jourdain and Edward Fraser, The Connaught Rangers (3 vols. London, 1924–28). Thomas Henry Kavanagh, Guilty or Not Guilty of Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman (Lucknow, 1876). Thomas Henry Kavanagh, How I Won the Victoria Cross (London, 1860). John William Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers, Illustrative of the History of the Civil and Military Service of India (London, 1869). Charles Arthur Kelly, Delhi and Other Poems (London and Calcutta, 1864). Rudyard Kipling, Kim, ed. Zohreh T. Sullivan (New York and London, 2002). Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Mutiny of the Mavericks,’ in Life’s Handicap (1891; Oxford and New York, 1987), pp. 159–77. McEwan Lawson, Faces (London, 1924). Marie-Louise Legg, ed., Alfred Webb: The Autobiography of a Quaker Nationalist (Cork, 1999). John Lendrum, ‘Nicholson the Hero,’ The Nineteenth Century and After XCIII: 551 (1923), pp. 107–13. Mary E. Leslie, Sorrows, Aspirations, and Legends (London, 1858). James Logan, Verses: Grave and Gladsome (London, 1924). Dudley Field Malone, ‘Unaccustomed as I am—’ Miscellaneous Speeches by Dudley Field Malone (New York, 1929). W.F. Marshall, Livin’ in Drumlister: The Collected Ballads and Verses of W. F. Marshall (Belfast, 1983). John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal (London, 1951). Aubrey Menen, Dead Man in the Silver Market (New York, 1953). W. Cosmo Monkhouse, The Works of John Henry Foley, R.A., Sculptor, With Critical and Illustrative Notes (London, 1875). K.F. Nariman, What Next? (Bombay, 1934). Henry Newbolt, Admirals All and Other Verses (1897; 5th ed. London, 1898). Sean T. O’Ceallaigh, India and Ireland (New York, 1925). Hesketh Pearson, The Hero of Delhi: A Life of John Nicholson, Saviour of India, and a History of his Wars (London, 1939). Charles Raikes, Notes on the Revolt in the North-western Provinces of India (London, 1858). Robert Reid, Years of Change in Bengal and Assam (London, 1966). Report of the State Committee Appointed to Examine the Question of the Retention in Public Places of Statues of the British Period and Other Relics (Government of Bombay, 1961). Frank Richards, Old Soldier Sahib (1936; 2nd ed. London, 1965). Frederick Sleigh Roberts, Forty-One Years in India (London, 1897). David Ross, The Land of the Five Rivers and Sidh: Sketches Historical and Descriptive (London, 1883). John Edward Whorton Rotton, Chaplain’s Narrative of the Siege of Delhi from the Outbreak at Meerut to the Capture of Delhi (London, 1858). S.A., Arts and Industries in Ireland: I. John Henry Foley, R.A.: A Sketch of the Life and Works of the Sculptor of the O’Connell Monument (Dublin, 1882). A.K. Samanta, ed., Terrorism in Bengal: A Collection of Documents (6 vols. Calcutta, 1995). Douglas Sladen, ‘The Hero of the Indian Mutiny. Part I,’ The Idler XI (1897), pp. 243–49.

Bibliography

277

Source Material for a History of the Freedom Movement in India. Vol. III. Mahatma Gandhi. Part I: 1915–1922 (Bombay, 1965). Flora Annie Steel, On the Face of the Waters (1896; London, 1903). A. Cameron Taylor, General Sir Alex Taylor G.C.B.: His Times, His Friends, and His Work (London, 1913). Edward Thompson, The Other Side of the Medal (1926; Reprint Westport, CT, 1974). Tourist Guide to Tyrrellspass (Tyrrellspass, Ireland, nd). Lionel Trotter, The Life of John Nicholson, Soldier and Administrator (London, Edinburgh and Dublin, 1897). H.J. Twynham and R.E.A. Ray, Enquiry into Temporary Establishments of the Central and District Intelligence Branches of the Bengal Police (Alipore, 1936). Reginald G. Wilberforce, An Unrecorded Chapter of the Indian Mutiny: Being the Personal Reminiscences of Reginald G. Wilberforce, Late 52nd Light Infantry (2nd ed. London, 1894). Philip A. Wilkins, The History of the Victoria Cross (London, 1904). Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, or Examples of the Religious, Philosophical, and Ethical Doctrines of the Hindus (3rd ed. London, 1876). J. Claverdon Wood, When Nicholson Kept the Border (London, 1920).

Selected secondary sources Robert Aldrich, Colonialism and Homosexuality (London and New York, 2003). Charles Allen, Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North-West Frontier (London, 2000). Olive Anderson, ‘The Growth of Christian Militarism in Mid-Victorian Britain,’ English Historical Review 86: 338 (1971), pp. 46–72. Anthony Babington, The Devil to Pay: The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers, India, July 1920 (London, 1991). Peter Bailey, ‘Irishmen in the East India Company Army,’ Irish Family History 17 (2001), pp. 84–92. Jordanna Bailkin, ‘The Boot and the Spleen: When Was Murder Possible in British India?’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 48: 2 (2006), pp. 462–93. Vivek Bald, ‘Overlapping Diasporas, Multiracial Lives: South Asian Muslims in U.S. Communities of Color, 1880–1950,’ Souls 8: 4 (2006), pp. 3–18. Tony Ballantyne, ‘The Sinews of Empire: Ireland, India and the Construction of British Colonial Knowledge,’ in Terence McDonough, ed., Was Ireland a Colony? Economics, Politics and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin, 2005), pp. 145–61. Stephanie Barczewski, Antarctic Destinies: Scott, Shackleton and the Changing Face of Heroism (London, 2007). Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (New ed. Belfast, 2005). Stuart Barr, ‘Charles Kerrigan and the Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers at Solon, 1920,’ Cathair na Mart: Journal of the Westport Historical Society 10: 1 (1990), pp. 84–93. Thomas Bartlett, ‘The Irish Soldier in India, 1750–1947,’ in Holmes and Holmes, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 12–28. Thomas Bartlett, ‘The Connaught Rangers Mutiny. India, July 1920,’ History Ireland 6: 1 (1998), pp. 5–7 Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery, eds, A Military History pf Ireland (Cambridge, 1996). C.A. Bayly, ‘Ireland, India and the Empire: 1780–1914,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10 (2001), pp. 377–97.

278

Bibliography

Ian Beckett, The Victorians at War (London, 2003). Cynthia F. Behrman, ‘The After-Life of General Gordon,’ Albion 3: 2 (1971), pp. 47–61. Guy Beiner, ‘Between Trauma and Triumphalism: The Easter Rising, the Somme, and the Crux of Deep Memory in Modern Ireland,’ Journal of British Studies 46 (2007), pp. 366–89. Jill C. Bender, ‘The Imperial Politics of Famine: The 1873–74 Bengal Famine and Irish Parliamentary Nationalism,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 132–56. Jill C. Bender, ‘Mutiny or Freedom Fight? The 1857 Indian Mutiny and the Irish Press,’ in Simon J. Potter, ed., Newspapers and Empire in Ireland and Britain: Reporting the British Empire, c. 1857–1921 (Dublin, 2004), pp. 92–108. Elleke Boehmer, Empire, the National and the Postcolonial, 1890–1920: Resistance in Interaction (Oxford and New York, 2002). Eberhard Bort, ed., Commemorating Ireland: History, Politics, Culture (Dublin, 2004). Sarmila Bose and Elilis Ward, ‘ “India’s Cause is Ireland’s Cause”: Elite Links and Nationalist Politics,’ in Holmes and Holmes, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 52–73. Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2006). Jean and Desmond Bowen, Heroic Option: The Irish in the British Army (Barnsley, England, 2005). Kelly Boyd, ‘ “Half-Caste Bob” or Race and Caste in the Late-Victorian Boys’ Story Paper,’ in Douglas M. Peers and David Finkelstein, eds, Negotiating India in the Nineteenth-century Media (London, 2000), pp. 63–83. Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914 (Ithaca and London, 1988). Howard Brasted, ‘Indian Nationalist Development and the Influence of Irish Home Rule, 1870–1886,’ Modern Asian Studies 14: 1 (1980), pp. 37–63. H.V. Brasted, ‘Irish Models and the Indian National Congress, 1870–1922,’ South Asia New Ser. 8: 1–2 (1985), pp. 24–45. H.V. Brasted, ‘Irish Nationalism and the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century,’ in Oliver MacDonagh, W.F. Mandle and Pauric Travers, eds, Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750–1950 (London, 1986), pp. 83–103. Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781–1997 (New York, 2008). Emily C. Brown, ‘Revolution in India: Made in America,’ in S. Chandrasekhar, ed., From India to America (La Jolla, CA, 1982), pp. 41–47. Judith M. Brown, Global South Asians: Introducing the Modern Diaspora (Cambridge, 2006). Donal Buckley, ‘Sergeant-Major Coughlan VC: Obituary from the Mayo News,’ Cathair na Mart: Journal of the Westport Historical Society 23 (2003), pp. 60–63. Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Haggis in the Raj: Private and Public Celebrations of Scottishness in Late Imperial India,’ Scottish Historical Review LXXXI: 2 (2002), pp. 212–39. Elizabeth Buettner, ‘Cemeteries, Public Memory and Raj Nostalgia in Postcolonial Britain and India,’ History & Memory 18: 1 (2006), pp. 5–42. Raymond Callahan, ‘The Great Sepoy Mutiny,’ in Daniel P. Marston and Chandar S. Sundaram, eds, A Military History of India and South Asia: From the East India Company to the Nuclear Era (Westport, CT, 2007), pp. 16–33. Christy Campbell, The Maharajah’s Box: An Imperial Story of Conspiracy, Love and a Guru’s Prophecy (London, 2000). Malcolm Campbell, Ireland’s New Worlds: Immigrants, Politics and Society in the United States and Australia, 1815–1922 (Madison, 2008).

Bibliography

279

Gautam Chakravarty, The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination (Cambridge, 2005). S. Chandrasekhar, ed., From India to America (La Jolla, CA, 1982). Manini Chatterjee, Do and Die: The Chittagong Rising, 1930–34 (New Delhi, 1999). Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (1986; Minneapolis, 1993). Heather Clark, ‘Regional Roots: The BBC and Poetry in Northern Ireland, 1945–55,’ Éire-Ireland 38: 1/2 (2003), pp. 87–105. Pamela Clayton, ‘Two Kinds of Colony: “Rebel Ireland” and the “Imperial Province”,’ in McDonough, ed., Was Ireland a Colony? Economics, Politics and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin, 2005), pp. 235–46. Joe Cleary, ‘Amongst Empires: A Short History of Ireland and Empire Studies in International Context,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 11–57. Joe Cleary, ‘Postcolonial Ireland,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 251–88. Lindsay Clutterbuck, ‘The Progenitors of Terrorism: Russian Revolutionaries or Extreme Irish Republicans?’ Terrorism and Political Violence 16: 1 (2004), pp. 154–81. Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India,’ in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 165–210. Nigel Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer (London, 2005). Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–1850 (London, 2002). S.B. Cook, Imperial Affinities: Nineteenth Century Analogies and Exchanges between India and Ireland (New Delhi, Newbury Park, CA and London, 1993). Scott B. Cook, ‘The Irish Raj: Social Origins and Careers of Irishmen in the Indian Civil Service, 1855–1914,’ Journal of Social History 20: 3 (1987), pp. 507–29. Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair, The Wearing of the Green: A History of St. Patrick’s Day (London and New York, 2002). William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857 (Delhi, 2006). Mary E. Daly and Margaret O’Callaghan, eds, 1916 in 1966: Commemorating the Easter Rising (Dublin, 2007). Saul David, The Indian Mutiny (London, 2002). Richard P. Davis, ‘India in Irish Revolutionary Propaganda, 1905–1922,’ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 22: 1 (1977), pp. 66–89. Richard P. Davis, ‘The Influence of the Irish Revolution on Indian Nationalism: The Evidence of the Indian Press, 1916–1922,’ South Asia New Ser. 9: 2 (1986), pp. 55–68. Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London, 1994). Michael De Nie, The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882 (Madison, 2004). Terence Denman, ‘Ethnic Soldiers Pure and Simple? The Irish in the Late Victorian Army,’ War in History 3 (1996), pp. 253–73. Terence Denman, ‘ “The Red Livery of Shame”: The Campaign against Army Recruitment in Ireland, 1899–1914,’ Irish Historical Studies 29: 114 (1994), pp. 208–33. M.A. Doherty, ‘Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War,’ Irish Historical Studies 32: 126 (2000), pp. 217–31. Richard Doherty and David Truesdale, Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross (Dublin, 2000). Anne Dolan, ‘An Army of Our Fenian Dead: Republicanism, Monuments and Commemoration,’ in Fearghal McGarry, ed., Republicanism in Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2003), pp. 132–44. Anne Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000 (Cambridge, 2003).

280

Bibliography

Joe Doyle, ‘Striking for Ireland on the New York Docks,’ in Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds, The New York Irish (Baltimore, 1996), pp. 357–73. Michael Edwardes, A Season in Hell: The Defense of the Lucknow Residency (New York, 1973). John S. Ellis, ‘The Degenerate and the Martyr: Nationalist Propaganda and the Contestation of Irishness, 1914–1918,’ Éire-Ireland 35: 3–4 (2000–1), pp. 7–33. Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (Oxford, 2003). Jack Fallon, ‘Boyle Military Barracks – Formerly the King House,’ in Boyle: The Origins, the Buildings, the Times (Boyle, 1988), pp. 47–56. David Fitzpatrick, ‘Commemoration in the Irish Free State: A Chronicle of Embarrassment,’ in McBride, ed., History and Memory, pp. 184–203. David Fitzpatrick, Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution, 1887–1922 (Cork, 2003). David Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922,’ in Bartlett and Jeffery, eds, A Military History of Ireland, pp. 379–406. David Fitzpatrick, ‘Ireland and Empire,’ in Andrew Porter, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999), pp. 494–521. Eóin Flannery and Angus Mitchell, eds, Enemies of Empire: New Perspectives on Imperialism, Literature and Historiography (Dublin, 2007). Tadhg Foley and Maureen O’Connor, eds, Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture and Empire (Dublin, 2006). R.F. Foster, ‘Marginal Men and Micks on the Make: The Uses of Irish Exile, c. 1840– 1922,’ in his Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History (London, 1993), pp. 281–305. Richard G. Fox, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making (Berkeley, 1985). T.G. Fraser, ‘The Graham Family, John Nicholson, and the Ulster-Indian Connection,’ in Harrison, ed., The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers, pp. ix–xviii. T.G. Fraser, ‘Ireland and India,’ in Keith Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire?, pp. 77–93. T.G. Fraser, ‘The Sikh Problem in Canada and its Political Consequences,’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 7: 1 (1978), pp. 35–55. Thomas G. Fraser, ‘Germany and the Indian Revolution,’ Journal of Contemporary History 12: 2 (1977), pp. 255–72. John Gallagher, ‘Nationalisms and the Crisis of Empire, 1919–1922,’ Modern Asian Studies 15: 3 (1981), pp. 355–68. Amitav Ghosh, ‘Mutinies: India, Ireland and Imperialism,’ in Clare Carroll and Patricia King, eds, Ireland and Postcolonial Theory (South Bend, IN, 2003), pp. 122–28. Durba Ghosh, ‘Terrorism in Bengal: Political Violence in the Interwar Years,’ in Ghosh and Kennedy, eds, Decentering Empire, pp. 270–92. Durba Ghosh and Dane Kennedy, eds, Decentring Empire: Britain, India and the Transcolonial World (Delhi, 2006). David Gilmour, Curzon (London, 1994). Mark Girouard, The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven and London, 1981). Leonard A. Gordon, Bengal: The Nationalist Movement 1876–1940 (New York, 1973). Leonard A. Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of the Indian Nationalists Subhas and Sarat Chandra Bose (New York, 1989). Manu Goswami, ‘ “Englishness” on the Imperial Circuit: Mutiny Tours in Colonial South Asia,’ Journal of Historical Sociology 9: 1 (1996), pp. 54–84. Kevin Grant, ‘The Transcolonial World of Hunger Strikes and Political Fasts, c. 1909–1935,’ in Ghosh and Kennedy, eds, Decentring Empire, pp. 243–69.

Bibliography

281

Kevin Grant, ‘Bones of Contention: The Repatriation of the Remains of Roger Casement,’ Journal of British Studies 41 (2002), pp. 337–38. Kevin Grant, Philippa Levine and Frank Trentmann, eds, Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Transnationalism, c. 1880–1950 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2007). Peter Gray, ed., Victoria’s Ireland? Irishness and Britishness, 1837–1901 (Dublin, 2004). Adrian Gregory and Senia Pa˘seta, eds, Ireland and the Great War: ‘A War to Unite Us All’ (Manchester, 2002). J.S. Grewal, The Sikhs of the Punjab (Rev. ed., Cambridge, 1990). Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires 1803–1921: Society, Government and Urban Growth (Delhi, 1981). Matthew Pratt Guterl, The Color of Race in America 1900–1940 (Cambridge, MA, 2001). Catherine Hall, Civilizing Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (Chicago and London, 2002). Brian Hanley, The IRA, 1926–1936 (Dublin, 2002). Brian Hanley, ‘The Strange Story of Stephen Lally: Connaught Rangers Mutineer,’ Irish Sword XXII: 89 (2001), pp. 337–41. Kevin Hannam, ‘Contested Representations of War and Heritage at the Residency, Lucknow, India,’ International Journal of Tourism Research 8 (2006), pp. 199–212. David Harkness, ‘Ireland,’ in Robin W. Winks, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume V: Historiography (Oxford, 1999), pp. 114–33. A.T. Harrison, ed., The Graham Indian Mutiny Papers (Belfast, 1980). Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998). Peter Hart, ‘Michael Collins and the Assassination of Sir Henry Wilson,’ in his The I.R.A. at War 1916–1923 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 194–220. Stephen Heathorn, ‘Angel of Empire: The Cawnpore Memorial Well as a British Site of Imperial Remembrance,’ Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 8: 3 (2008). Stephen Heathorn, ‘Representations of War and Martial Heroes in English Elementary School Reading and Rituals, 1885–1914,’ in James Marten, ed., Children and War: An Interdisciplinary Anthology (New York, 2002), pp. 103–25. Peter Heehs, The Bomb in Bengal: The Rise of Revolutionary Terrorism in India 1900–1910 (Delhi, 1993). Peter Heehs, ‘Foreign Influences on Bengali Revolutionary Terrorism 1902–1908,’ Modern Asian Studies 28: 3 (1994), pp. 537–51. Christopher Herbert, War of No Pity: The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma (Princeton, 2008). Jim Herlihy, Peter Golden: The Voice of Ireland (Ballincollig, Cork, 1994). Eileen Hewitt, The Forgotten Irish: Memorials of the Raj (Wem, England, 2004). Christopher Hibbert, The Great Mutiny: India 1857 (New York, 1978). Joany Hichberger, ‘Democraticising Glory? The Victoria Cross Paintings of Louis Desanges,’ Oxford Art Journal 7: 2 (1984), pp. 42–51. Michael Holmes and Denis Holmes, eds, Ireland and India: Connections, Comparisons, Contrasts (Dublin, 1997). Gerald Horne, The End of Empires: African Americans and India (Philadelphia, 2008). Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford, 2000). David H. Hume, ‘Empire Day in Ireland 1896–1932,’ in Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire?, pp. 149–68. Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester, 1990).

282

Bibliography

Milton Israel, Communications and Power: Propaganda and the Press in the Indian Nationalist Struggle, 1920–1947 (Cambridge, 1994). Alvin Jackson, ‘Ireland, the Union, and the Empire, 1800–1960,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 123–53. Alvin Jackson, ‘Irish Unionists and the Empire, 1880–1920: Classes and Masses,’ in Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire?, pp. 123–48. Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India (New York, 1997). Neil Jarman, Material Conflicts: Parades and Visual Displays in Northern Ireland (Oxford and New York, 1997). Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture and Conquest in the East 1750–1850 (New York, 2005). Keith Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire? Aspects of Ireland and the British Empire (Manchester, 1996). Keith Jeffery, Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier (Oxford, 2006). Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge, 2000). Keith Jeffery, ‘The Irish Military Tradition and the British Empire,’ in Jeffery, ed., An Irish Empire?, pp. 94–122. Joan M. Jensen, Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America (New Haven and London, 1988). Douglas H. Johnson, ‘The Death of Gordon: A Victorian Myth,’ Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 10 (1982), pp. 285–310. Max Jones, ‘What Should Historians Do With Heroes? Reflections on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Britain,’ History Compass 5 (2007), pp. 439–54. Max Jones, The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice (Oxford and New York, 2003). Mark Juergensmeyer, ‘The Gadar Syndrome: Ethnic Anger and Nationalist Pride,’ in S. Chandrasekhar, ed., From India to America (La Jolla, CA, 1982), pp. 48–58. Peter Karsten, ‘Irish Soldiers in the British Army, 1792–1922: Suborned or Subordinate,’ Journal of Social History 17: 1 (1983), pp. 31–64. Kevin Kenny, ‘Ireland and the British Empire: An Introduction,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 1–25. Kevin Kenny, ‘The Irish in the Empire,’ in Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire, pp. 90–122. Kevin Kenny, ‘Diaspora and Comparison: The Global Irish as a Case Study,’ Journal of American History 90: 1 (2003), pp. 134–62. Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (New York, 2000). Kevin Kenny, ed., Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford, 2004). Dermot Keogh and Gabriel Doherty, ‘ “Sorrow but no Despair – the Road is Marked”: The Politics of Funerals in Post-1916 Ireland,’ in Gabriel Doherty and Dermot Keogh, eds, Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish Free State (Dublin, 1998), pp. 186–201. T.P. Kilfeather, The Connaught Rangers (Tralee, 1969). Carla King, ‘Michael Davitt, Irish Nationalism and the British Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century,’ in Gray, ed., Victoria’s Ireland?, pp. 116–30. Mary Lago, ‘India’s Prisoner’: A Biography of Edward John Thompson, 1886–1946 (Columbia, MO and London, 2001). Nayanjot Lahiri, ‘Commemorating and Remembering 1857: The Revolt in Delhi and Its Afterlife,’ World Archaeology 35: 1 (2003), pp. 35–60. David M. Laushey, Bengal Terrorism and the Marxist Left (Calcutta, 1975). Harold Lee, Brothers in the Raj: The Lives of John and Henry Lawrence (Delhi, 2002).

Bibliography

283

David Leeson, ‘The “Scum of London’s Underworld”? British Recruits for the Royal Irish Constabulary, 1920–21,’ Contemporary British History 17: 1 (2003), pp. 1–38. Joseph Lennon, Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History (Syracuse, NY, 2004). Jane Leonard, ‘Facing “the Finger of Scorn”: Veterans’ Memories of Ireland after the Great War,’ in Martin Evans and Keith Lunn, eds, War and Memory in the Twentieth Century (Oxford and New York, 1997), pp. 59–72. Jane Leonard, ‘Getting Them at Last: The I.R.A. and Ex-Servicemen,’ in David Fitzpatrick, ed., Revolution? Ireland 1917–1923 (Dublin, 1990), pp. 118–29. James Loughlin, Ulster Unionism and British National Identity since 1885 (London and New York, 1995). Niamh Lynch, ‘Defining Irish Nationalist Anti-imperialism: Thomas Davis and John Mitchel,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 82–107. Ian McBride, ‘Memory and National Identity in Modern Ireland,’ in McBride, ed., History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 1–42. Ian McBride, The Siege of Derry in Ulster Protestant Mythology (Dublin, 1997). Ian McBride, ‘Ulster and the British Problem,’ in Richard English and Graham Walker, eds, Unionism in Modern Ireland: New Perspectives on Politics and Culture (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 1–18. Mark McCarthy, ed., Ireland’s Heritages: Critical Perspectives on Memory and Identity (Aldershot and Burlington, VT, 2005). Patrick McCarthy, ‘The Twilight Years: The Irish Regiments, 1919–1922,’ Irish Sword XXI: 85 (1999), pp. 314–35. Patrick McCarthy, ‘The Mutiny of the Connaught Rangers – The Literature,’ Irish Sword, XXII: 89 (2001), pp. 342–43. Robert H. MacDonald, The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism, 1880–1918 (Manchester, 1994). Mark McGovern, ‘ “A Besieged Outpost’: The Imagination of Empire and the Siege Myth, 1860–1900,’ in D. George Boyce and Roger Swift, eds, Problems and Perspective in Irish History since 1800: Essays in Honour of Patrick Buckland (Dublin, 2004), pp. 32–53. Gillian V. McIntosh, The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth Century Ireland (Cork, 1999). John M. MacKenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire,’ in John M. MacKenzie, ed., Popular Imperialism and the Military 1850–1950 (Manchester, 1992), pp. 109–38. John M. MacKenzie, ‘The Persistence of Empire in Metropolitan Culture,’ in Stuart Ward, ed., British Culture and the End of Empire (Manchester, 2001), pp. 21–36. Brian Mackey, Lisburn: The Town and Its People 1873–1973 (Belfast, 2000). Deirdre McMahon, Republicans and Imperialists: Anglo-Irish Relations in the 1930s (New Haven and London, 1984). Deidre McMahon, ‘Roger Casement: An Account from the Archives of His Reinterment in Ireland,’ Irish Archives 3 (1996), pp. 3–12. Deidre McMahon, ‘A Larger and Noisier Southern Ireland: Ireland and the Evolution of Dominion Status in India, Burma and the Commonwealth, 1942–9,’ in Michael Kennedy and Joseph Morrison Skelly, eds, Irish Foreign Policy, 1919–66 (Dublin, 2000), pp. 155–91. Paul McMahon, British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland, 1916–1945 (London, 2008). Salahuddin Malik, 1857: War of Independence or Clash of Civilizations? (Delhi, 2008). Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford and New York, 2007).

284

Bibliography

Steven G. Marks, ‘ “Bravo, Brave Tiger of the East!” The Russo-Japanese War and the Rise of Nationalism in British Egypt and India,’ in John Steinberg et al., ed., The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective (Boston and Leiden, 2005), pp. 609–27. Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj: The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: 4 (Cambridge, 1994). Thomas R. Metcalf, ‘Monuments and Memorials: Lord Curzon’s Creation of a Past for the Raj,’ in his Forging the Raj: Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire (New Delhi, 2005), pp. 152–68. Arthur Mitchell, Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dáil Eireann, 1919–22 (Dublin, 1995). Hiram Morgan, ‘An Unwelcome Heritage: Ireland’s Role in British Empire-Building,’ History of European Ideas 19: 4–6 (1994), pp. 619–25. John Morrissey, ‘A Lost Heritage: The Connaught Rangers and Multivocal Irishness,’ in McCarthy, ed., Ireland’s Heritages, pp. 71–88. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, ‘ “Satan Let Lose Upon the Earth”: The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857,’ Past & Present 128 (1990), pp. 92–116. Tapan K. Mukherjee, Taraknath Das: Life and Letters of a Revolutionary in Exile (Calcutta, 1998). David Murphy, The Irish Brigades, 1685–2006: A Gazetteer of Irish Military Service, Past and Present (Dublin, 2007). Kaori Nagai, Empire of Analogies: Kipling, India and Ireland (Cork, 2006). Neeti Nair, ‘Bhagat Singh as “Satyaghrahi”: The Limits to Non-violence in Late Colonial India,’ Modern Asian Studies (2008), pp. 1–33. National Graves Association, The Last Post (2nd ed., Dublin, 1976). Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin, ‘ “Ireland a Warning to India”: Anti-imperialist Solidarity in the Irish Free State,’ in Foley and O’Connor, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 268–78. Caoilfhionn Ní Bheacháin, ‘ “The Mosquito Press”: Anti-Imperialist Rhetoric in Republican Journalism, 1926–39,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1 and 2 (2007), pp. 256–89. Una Ni Bhroimeil, ‘The South African War, Empire and the Irish World, 1899–1902,’ in Potter, ed., Newspapers and Empire, pp. 195–216. Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Long Fellow, Long Story: MI5 and de Valera,’ Irish Studies in International Affairs 14 (2003), pp. 185–203. Kate O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire: Indo-Irish Radical Connections, 1919–1964 (Manchester, 2008). David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–1940 (London, 1994). Daniel J. O’Neill, ‘The Cult of Self-Sacrifice: The Irish Experience,’ Éire-Ireland 24: 4 (1989), pp. 89–105. Nicholas J. Owen, The British Left and India: Metropolitan Anti-Imperialism, 1885–1947 (Oxford, 2007). Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture, 1850–2000 (London, 2000). Nancy L. Paxton, ‘Mobilizing Chivalry: Rape in British Novels about the Indian Uprising of 1857,’ Victorian Studies 36: 1 (1992), pp. 5–30. Douglas M. Peers, ‘ “Those Noble Exemplars of the True Military Tradition”: Constructions of the Indian Army in the Mid-Victorian Press,’ Modern Asian Studies 31: 1 (1997), pp. 109–42. Douglas M. Peers, ‘The Martial Races and the Indian Army in the Victorian Era,’ in Marston and Sundaram, eds, A Military History of India, pp. 34–52.

Bibliography

285

Matthew Erin Plowman, ‘Irish Republicans and the Indo-German Conspiracy of World War I,’ New Hibernia Review 7: 3 (2003), pp. 81–105. Sam Pollock, Mutiny for the Cause (London, 1969). Richard J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire 1904–1924 (London, 1995). Simon J. Potter, ‘Empire, Culture and Identities in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Britain,’ History Compass 5: 1 (2007), pp. 51–71. Rajat Kanta Ray, Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875–1927 (Delhi, 1984). Benedict Read, ‘John Henry Foley,’ The Connoisseur 186: 750 (1974), pp. 262–71. Jennifer M. Regan, ‘ “We Could Be of Service to Other Suffering People”: Representations of India in the Irish Nationalist Press, c. 1857–1887,’ Victorian Periodicals Review 41: 1 (2008), pp. 61–77. Conor Reilly, ‘Conor Francis O’Brien, Connaught Ranger (1895–1969),’ Irish Sword 22: 89 (2001), pp. 313–36. Jennifer Ridden, ‘Britishness as an Imperial and Diasporic Identity: Irish Elite Perspectives, c. 1820–70s,’ in Gray, ed., Victoria’s Ireland?, pp. 88–105. Nini Rodgers, Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery: 1612–1865 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2007). Nicholas Rogers, ‘ “Brave Wolfe”: The Making of A Hero in Mid-eighteenth Century Britain and America,’ in Kathleen Wilson, ed., A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire 1660–1840 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 239–59. John Rosselli, ‘The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal,’ Past and Present 86 (1980), pp. 121–48. Seán Ryder, ‘Ireland, India and Popular Nationalism in the Early Nineteenth Century,’ in Foley and O’Connor, eds, Ireland and India, pp. 12–25. Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885–1947 (Delhi, 1983). Priya Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford and New York, 2008). Derek Sayer, ‘British Reaction to the Amritsar Massacre 1919–1920,’ Past and Present 131 (1991), pp. 130–64. Jonathan Schneer, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (New Haven and London, 1999). Bill Schwarz, ‘Reveries of Race: The Closing of the Imperial Moment,’ in Becky Conekin, Frank Mort and Chris Waters, eds, Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain 1945–1964 (London and New York, 1999), pp. 189–207. Lavina Dhingra Shankar and Pallassana R. Balgopal, ‘South Asian Immigrants Before 1950: The Formation of Ethnic, Symbolic, and Group Identity,’ Amerasia Journal 27: 1 (2001), pp. 55–84. Graham Shaw and Mary Lloyd, eds, Publications Proscribed by the Government of India (London, 1985). Michael Silvestri, ‘The Bomb, Bhadralok, Bhagavad Gita, and Dan Breen: Terrorism in Bengal and Its Relation to the European Experience,’ Terrorism and Political Violence 21: 1 (2009), pp. 1–27. Michael Silvestri, ‘ “An Irishman is Specially Suited to be a Policeman”: Sir Charles Tegart and the Policing of Revolutionary Terrorism in Bengal,’ History Ireland 8: 4 (2000), pp. 40–44. Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester, 1995).

286

Bibliography

Michael Smith, An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean – Antarctic Survivor (Doughcloyne, Cork, 2000). Richard Smith, Jamaican Volunteers in the First World War: Race, Masculinity and the Development of National Consciousness (Manchester, 2004). E.M. Spiers, ‘Army Organization and Society in the Nineteenth Century,’ in Bartlett and Jeffery, eds, A Military History of Ireland, pp. 335–57. Peter Stanley, White Mutiny: British Military Culture in India (New York, 1998). Eric Stokes, The Peasant Armed: The Indian Revolt of 1857 (Oxford, 1986). Heather Streets, Martial Races: The Military, Race and the Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857–1914 (Manchester, 2005). Heather Streets, ‘Military Influence in the Late Victorian and Edwardian Popular Media: The Case of Frederick Roberts,’ Journal of Victorian Culture 8: 2 (2003), pp. 231–56. George Sweeney, ‘Irish Hunger Strikes and the Cult of Self-Sacrifice,’ Journal of Contemporary History 28 (1993), pp. 421–37. Catherine Switzer, Unionists and Great War Commemoration in the North of Ireland 1914–1918 (Dublin, 2007). Tan Tai Yong, The Garrison State: The Military, Government and Society in Colonial Punjab, 1849–1947 (New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, CA and London, 2005). Andrew Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back? The Impact of Imperialism on Britain from the Mid-Nineteenth Century (London, 2005). Katherine Tidrick, Empire and the English Character (London, 1990). Hugh Tinker, The Ordeal of Love: C.F. Andrews and India (Delhi, 1979). Jennifer Todd, ‘Unionist Political Thought, 1920–72,’ in D. George Boyce, Robert Eccleshall and Vincent Geoghegan, eds, Political Thought in Ireland Since the Seventeenth Century (London and New York, 1993), pp. 190–211. Paul A. Townend, ‘Between Two Worlds: Irish Nationalists and Imperial Crisis 1878–1880,’ Past and Present 194 (2007), pp. 139–74. Charles Townshend, Britain’s Civil Wars: Counter-insurgency in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986). Charles Townshend, ‘The IRA and the Development of Guerilla Warfare, 1916–1921,’ English Historical Review XCIV: 371 (1979), pp. 318–45. Pauric Travers, ‘ “Our Fenian Dead”: Glasnevin Cemetery and the Genesis of the Republican Funeral,’ in James Kelly and Uaitear MacGearailt, eds, Dublin and Dubliners: Essays in the History and Literature of Dublin City (Dublin, 1990), pp. 52–72. Brian Walker, Dancing to History’s Tune: History, Myth and Politics in Ireland (Belfast, 1996). Graham Walker, ‘Empire, Religion and Nationality in Scotland and Ulster Before the First World War,’ in Ian S. Wood, ed., Scotland and Ulster (Edinburgh, 1994), pp. 97–115. John W. Wheeler-Bennett, John Anderson: Viscount Waverly (London, 1962). Yvonne Whelan, Reinventing Modern Dublin: Streetscape, Iconography and the Politics of Identity (Dublin, 2003). Niall Whelehan, ‘Skirmishing, The Irish World, and Empire, 1876–86,’ Éire-Ireland 42: 1–2 (2007), pp. 180–200. Martin J. Wiener, An Empire on Trial: Race, Murder, and Justice under British Rule, 1870–1935 (Cambridge, 2009). Glyn Williams, The Death of Captain Cook: A Hero Made and Unmade (London, 2008). Jay Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge, 1995).

Bibliography

287

Nina Witoszek, ‘Ireland: A Funerary Culture?’ Studies 17: 1 (1987), pp. 206–15. Lewis D. Wurgaft, The Imperial Imagination: Magic and Myth in Kipling’s India (Middletown, CT, 1983).

Unpublished University theses Harold Charles Bradley, ‘Frank P. Walsh and Postwar America,’ (St. Louis University, 1966). Scott B. Cook, ‘The Example of Ireland: Political and Administrative Aspects of the Imperial Relationship with British India, 1855–1922’ (Rutgers University, 1987). David Officer, ‘Raising the Ulsterman: Blood and Battlefields in the Creation of an Ethno-Religious Subject’ (Queen’s University, Belfast, 1997). Naeem Gul Rathore, ‘Indian Nationalist Agitation in the United States: A Study of Lala Lajpat Rai and the India Home Rule League of America, 1914–1920’ (Columbia University, 1965).

Index Abdullah, Achmed, 123 Aberdeen, Earl of, 127 Akali movement, 183 Albert memorial, London, 118 Aldrich, Robert, 108 Alexander, W.N.S., 159, 201 Ali, Tariq, 199, 200 American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic, 35, 36, 40, 41, 42 American Commission on Irish Independence, 30, 38 American Federation of Labor, 23 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 24, 57 Amritsar Massacre, 35–6, 48, 57, 145, 170, 177, 182, 188–9, 190, 195, 200, 201 see also Dyer, Reginald; Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF); Hunter Commission Ananda Bazar Patrika, 73 anarchism, 18, 22, 53, 56 Anderson, Sir John, 61, 67, 68, 70–3, 74–5, 186 Andrews, C.F., 99 opinion of John Nicholson, 104–5, 106 Anglo-Boer War, 19, 20, 125, 126, 127, 147 Anglo-Sikh Wars, 78, 84, 87, 94, 119 Anglo-Zulu War, 17, 20 An Phoblacht, 42, 49, 65 Anushilan Samiti, 29, 54, 55 Armagh, County Museum of, 137, 212 Armstrong, Harry Gloster, 33, 42 Asian Exclusion League, 23 Australia, 5, 8, 16, 32, 126 Auxiliary Division, 68–9, 70, 147 Babington, Anthony, 140, 178 Baden-Powell, Lord Robert, 93 Baker, Benjamin Thomas Edward, 143–4, 202 Bal, Lokenath, 63

Bangavasi, 189 Baraktullah, Maulvia Mohammed, 24, 25 Barbour, H.A.M., 133 Bardon, Jonathan, 114 Barrow, G. de C., 140 Barry, Kevin, 161, 175, 203 Barry, Tom, 147 Bartlett, Thomas, 80 Bayly, C.A., 18 BBC, 193 BBC Northern Ireland, 133 Beeton, S.O., 2 Behan, Brendan, 156, 203 Behan, Dominic, 158 Beiner, Guy, 10 Belfast, 57, 129, 136, 174 Belfast Daily Mercury, 117 Belfast News-letter, 115, 116, 117–18 Belfast Telegraph, 130, 136 Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act (1930), 62, 71 Bengal Fusiliers, 76, 122–3 Bengal, Government of, 60, 61 Ireland as model for colonial policies, 68–70, 71–2 proscription of ‘seditious’ Irish materials, 60, 66 see also Anderson, Sir John Bennett, Josephine, 40 Besant, Annie, 51 bhadralok, 54, 55, 59 Birr Urban District Council, 166 ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’, 98, 105 Black and Tans, 36, 70, 72, 73 Connaught Rangers Mutiny and, 140–2, 144, 152, 162, 163, 166, 170, 173, 174, 181, 189, 213 recruitment to India, 69 Body, John, 133 Boer War, see Anglo-Boer War Boland, Harry, 31, 32, 39 Bolsheviks, see Russia Bombay, 8, 17, 30, 33, 51, 73, 134, 179, 191 288

Index Bose, Noni, 36 Bose, Subhas Chandra, 30, 50, 55, 58, 61, 74, 198, 210 experience in Ireland, 58–9, 60–1 inspired by Easter Rising, 211 Boyd, John, 133 Breen, Dan, 11, 52–3, 60, 74 My Fight For Irish Freedom as model for Bengali revolutionaries, 61–2, 63, 64–5, 66–7 British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia, 109 British High Commission, New Delhi, 109, 110, 134, 135, 167, 168–9, 192 Brock, Sir Thomas, 101 Bryce, James, 25 Buchan, John, 6 Buettner, Elizabeth, 108, 109 Bulfin, Eamon, 52 Bulfin, Maria, 52 Byrne, John, 214 Calcutta, 8, 28, 53, 54, 58, 61, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 78, 176, 177, 179 Cama, Vikaj Rustomji, 24 Campbell, Sir Colin, 1, 82, 89, 97, 179 Canning, Lord, 118 Carey, James, 56 Carney, Jack, 43 Casement, Roger, 45, 157 return of body to Ireland, 165, 167–8, 169 Casey, James, 149–50 Cawnpore massacre, 1, 3, 7, 81–2, 89, 193–4 Cawnpore Memorial Gardens, 99 Cell, John, 86 Chakravarti, Narayan, 66 Chakravarty, Gautam, 90 Chandra, Ram, 25, 26 Chattopadhyay, Viren (‘Chatto’), 26 Chaudhuri, Nirad C., 58, 61 Chelmsford, Lord, 184, 185 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 23 Chirol, Valentine, 56 Chittagong Armory Raid, 11, 45, 46–7, 55, 62–3, 64–5, 210 Churchill, Winston, 68, 146, 182 civil disobedience campaign, 44, 46, 48, 55, 62

289

Civil War, Irish, 41, 50, 69, 144, 147, 149, 151, 157, 171 Clan na Gael, 13, 19, 24, 25, 27, 41, 44 Clarke, James, 154 Clark, W.A.W., 135 Clayton, Pamela, 7 Cleary, Joe, 8, 124 Clive, Robert, 98, 105 Cohalan, Daniel F., 13, 14, 33, 40 collaboration with Indian nationalists, 41, 42, 43, 44 see also Friends of Freedom for India (FOFI); Ghose, Sailendranath Colley, Linda, 80 Collins, Jerome C., 19 Collins, Michael, 47, 52, 58, 60, 148–9 Colson, J.H., 58 Colum, Padraic, 32 Coman, William, 146 Commonwealth Relations Office, 135 Connaught Rangers history of, 178–80 Imperial service of, 179–81 Irish traditions of, 179 relations with Indians, 180–1 Connaught Rangers Association, 203–7, 212–13 regimental memorial in Galway Cathedral, 205–6 Connaught Rangers Museum, see King House, Boyle, Ireland Connaught Rangers mutiny, 11–12, 139–40 causes, 140–4 cenotaph in Glasnevin Cemetery, 153, 156–7, 164, 167, 170, 173, 199 commemoration of, 153, 156–9, 163–4, 173–4 Connaught Rangers Memorial Committee, 164 Connaught Rangers Mutineers’ Association, 153 Indian reactions to, 176–7, 186–9, 190–2 Irish reactions to, 144–7, 209 literary depictions, 174, 176–7, 199–202 mutineers’ attitudes towards Indians, 193–8 pensions awarded to mutineers, 150–3

290

Index

Connaught Rangers mutiny – continued republican beliefs of mutineers, 154–6 see also Black and Tans; Daly, James Joseph; Easter Rising; Gadar Party; Irish Free State; Irish Republican Army (IRA); Sinn Féin Connolly, James, 51, 172 Constitutional Society of India, 17 Correigh, A.M., 160 Corrigan, Vincent, 199 Cosgrave, William T., 146, 148, 150, 151, 152 Coughlan, Cornelius, 208–9 Cousins, James, 51, 52, 199 Cousins, Margaret, 52 Coxe, Louis, 137–8 Craig, Sir James, 129, 130, 131 Crean, Tom, 214 Crinion, Brendan, 168 Cromwell, Oliver, 43 Crookshank, Anne, 137 Crutchlow, William, 181 Cumann na mBan, 28, 156 Cumann na nGaedheal, 152, 163 Curtis, Lionel, 70 Curzon, Lord, 98, 105, 106, 108 Daghsai Cemetery, 161, 168–9, 170, 174, 192–3 Dagshai Prison, 139, 144, 156, 161, 170, 194 Daily Mail, 58 Daily Telegraph, 109 Dalrymple, William, 107, 111 Daly, James Joseph, 12, 155, 156, 159, 213 ballads about, 162, 172, 202–3 commemoration, of, 160–2, 163, 164, 165, 167, 171, 173, 174–5, 198, 202 enlistment in British Army, 159 execution of, 12, 139, 205, 209 gravesites of, 168–9, 174, 191–2, 193 impact of execution in India, 184–5, 189, 197 literary depictions of, 199, 201–2 and Northern Ireland conflict, 174–5 repatriation of body of, 158–9, 163–72

as republican hero, 161–2, 172, 174–5, 209 role in Connaught Rangers mutiny, 143, 153, 159–60, 194, 196 see also Sinn Féin Das, C.R., 55 Das, Hemchandra, 22 Das, Jatindranath, 61, 65–6 Das, Taraknath, 24, 28, 29, 30, 33, 42 Davis, James, 154 Davis, Thomas, 16 Davitt, Michael, 16, 17 Dawson, Graham, 82 Dayal, Har, 23 de Lacey, Larry, 27 Delaney, Valentine, 153, 158 Delhi, 11, 49, 76, 77, 79, 84–5, 91, 92, 107, 211 British commemoration of ‘Mutiny’ in, 85–6, 98–102, 103–4, 209 centenary celebrations of Indian Rebellion in, 133–4 opposition to statue of John Nicholson, 106 removal of British statues from, 134–5 siege of, 79–80, 83, 84–5, 88, 89, 92 see also Nicholson, John; Nicholson Cemetery, Delhi Delhi Cemeteries Committee, 110 Denman, Terence, 7, 178, 180 Derby, Lord, 131 Derry, siege of, 114 de Valera, Eamon, 6, 9, 13, 14, 31, 32, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 67, 74, 149, 151, 152, 157, 200 Gadar Party and, 36, 177, 210 popularity in Bengal, 50, 59, 60 speech on ‘Ireland and India’, 36–7, 65, 211 see also Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF); Gadar Party Devers, James J., 141, 150, 165, 195–6 Devine, Thomas, 149 Devoy, John, 13, 19, 24, 27, 33, 40 Dhingra, Madan Lal, 22 Dicksee, J.R., 137 Dillon, Luke, 66 Dobbs, William, 115 Dolan, Anne, 151, 157 Donnelly, James, 24

Index Donoghue, Patrick, 173 Douglas, H.W., 100, 101 Downpatrick Recorder, 120–1 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 6 Dublin, 10, 30, 47, 52, 58, 77, 80, 113, 118, 119, 123, 140, 146, 150, 151, 152, 153, 164, 165, 167, 171, 186, 201, 204, 205, 209, 213, 214 Dublin Castle, 35, 58, 70 Dublin Museum, 2 DuBois, Louis, 66–7 Dufferin Memorial, Belfast, 129 Dulanty, J.W., 8, 9, 167 Dungannon, see Royal School Dungannon Dunne, Reginald, 165, 167, 168, 170 Dutt, Kalpana, 62, 63–4 Dyer, Reginald, 36, 48, 57, 177, 183, 188–9 Easter Rising, 9, 28, 34, 48, 126, 151, 210, 211 Connaught Rangers mutineers and, 143, 157, 158 Government of India’s concerns regarding, 51, 65 Indian nationalist commentary on, 27, 35, 186–7 inspiration for Chittagong Armory Raid, 11, 45, 46–7, 62–4 East India Company, 1, 3, 8, 11, 76, 78, 81, 86, 91, 116, 117 Irish military service in, 80–1, 115, 117, 122–3, 137–8 Edwardes, Herbert, 78, 79, 83, 86, 87, 91, 94, 107, 119–20, 188 Edwardes, Michael, 108 Egan, Eugene, 173 Egypt, 22, 31, 32, 35, 37, 39, 49–50, 51–2, 57, 60, 182, 190 The 88, 174, 200–1 Emmet, Robert, 27, 164, 175 Empire Day, 125 Ex-Connaught Rangers Committee, 151, 163 see also Flannery, John Fahey, Frank, 211 Fahy, Frank, 197

291

Fenians, 6, 48, 157, 164, 176 anti-imperialism of, 20, 51 British perceptions of, 19, 21 influence in India, 18, 56, 63, 66 Fianna Fáil, 44, 49, 50, 59, 60, 74, 151, 152, 157 Fitchett, W.H., 7 Fitzpatrick, David, 32, 124, 126, 151 Fitzpatrick, John, 161–2 Flannery, John, 141, 150, 154 distrusted as an informer by mutineers, 151 leads Ex-Connaught Rangers Committee, 151–2, 163 memoir of Connaught Rangers mutiny, 142, 187, 194–5 Flynn, John, 123 Foley, John Henry, 118–19 memorial to John Nicholson, Lisburn Cathedral, 119–20, 121–2, 127, 128 statue of Lord Gough, Dublin, 101, 138, 213–14 Ford, Patrick, 19, 20, 37 Forward, 60 Foster, R.F., 4 Fox, Richard G., 92 Francis, Philip, 28 Fraser, George MacDonald, 4, 107 Fraser, T.G., 5, 81 Free Hindustan, 24, 25, 29 Freeman, George, 24, 29 Freeman’s Journal, 17, 19, 145, 182 Friends of Freedom for India (FOFI), 5, 28, 29, 39, 40, 42, 211 collaboration with Irish nationalists, 13–14, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36–7, 38, 39, 40, 42 criticism of Gandhi, 29–30, 40 public meetings in support of Gandhi, 41, 44 see also Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF) Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF), 13, 34, 38–9, 40, 41, 65 commentary on Amritsar massacre, 36 support for Indian nationalism, 32, 33, 35, 38, 42 tensions with Friends of Freedom for India, 38, 40–1 Froude, J.A., 82

292

Index

Fulton, George William Wright, 115 Fulton, Robert Bell, 115 Gadar Party, 23, 25–7, 29, 42–3, 44, 182, 200 collaboration with Irish nationalists, 10–11, 15, 24–5, 26–7, 28, 37, 43 commentary on Ireland, 43, 177, 186–7 criticism by Lala Lajpat Rai, 27–8 meeting with Eamon De Valera, 36, 210 support for Connaught Rangers mutineers, 190–1 Gaelic American, 23, 24, 25, 27, 34, 38, 43, 65 ‘Gaelic Club’, 51 Gallagher, John, 182 Galway Cathedral, see Connaught Rangers Association Gammons, Ed, 36 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 9, 46, 48, 49, 53, 55, 105–6, 182–3, 187, 196, 200, 209 celebration in Ireland of birth centenary, 210–11 comparisons with Eamon De Valera, 50, 60 see also Friends of Freedom for India (FOFI) Gannon, Thomas, 28 Garvey, Marcus, 32 Geraghty, Frank, 159, 193–4 Ghadr, 23, 25, 27, 186–7 Ghadr Party, see Gadar Party Ghose, Aurobindo, 18 Ghose, Barindra Kumar, 56 Ghose, Sailendranath collaboration with Irish nationalists, 29–30, 33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44 formation of Friends of Freedom for India, 29 opposition to non-violence of Indian National Congress, 29–30, 40 revolutionary activity in Bengal, 28–9 see also Cohalan, Daniel F., Friends of Freedom for India (FOFI) Ghose, Surendra Mohan, 55, 60 Ghosh, Amitav, 10, 184 Ghosh, Ganesh, 63 Gibbons, S.A., 196

Giri, V.V., 9, 210 Gladstone, William, 20 Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, 140, 154, 156, 157, 164, 167, 168, 170, 173, 198 Gogarty, Patrick, 154, 156 Golden, Peter, 34–5 Goldman, Emma, 22 Gordon, General Charles George, 90, 98 Gorman, James, 173 Gough, Lord Hugh, 118–19, 138, 213–14 Government of India, 15, 33, 35, 44, 46, 51, 58, 64, 69, 70, 71, 168 celebration of Indian Rebellion centenary, 133–4, 135 concerns regarding Irish influence in India, 51–2 Connaught Rangers mutiny and, 139, 142, 143, 165, 166, 185, 187, 189 Intelligence Bureau of, 46–7, 51 Irish Free State legislation examined by, 69 proscription of ‘seditious’ Irish materials by, 25, 37, 49, 61, 65–7 renovation of Nicholson Cemetery, 109, 110 Government of India Act (1935), 55 Graham, James, 117 Graham, William S., 117 Grant, Kevin, 189 Green Front, The, 198 Griffith, Arthur, 148 Group 4 Securicor, 109, 110 Gupta, Narayani, 110 Gwynn, Stephen, 147–8, 186 Hackett, Francis, 32 Hancock, W.K., 50 Hardiker, N.S., 34 Hardinge, Lord, 118, 181 Harper, S.H., 203 Hart, Peter, 141 Havelock, Henry, 76, 82–3, 89, 97 Hawes, Joseph, 149, 156, 164, 165, 172, 173 literary depiction of, 200–1 sympathy for Indian nationalism, 196–7 Herbert, Christopher, 89 Hibbert, Christopher, 108

Index Hindi Bangavasi, 57 Hindu Association of the Pacific Coast, see Gadar Party ‘Hindu Conspiracy Case’, 26 Hindustan Ghadr, 39, 43, 45 Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, 54, 59 see also Singh, Bhagat Hinkson, Pamela, 103, 137 Hirschfeld, David, 41 Hoare, Sir Samuel, 72 Hogan, Myles, 122–3 Hogan, Patrick, 198 Hogg, James Weir, 78, 117 Hogg, Quinton, 99 Howe, Stephen, 114 Hunter Commission, 177 Illustrated London News, 121 Independent Hindustan, 177, 190 India House, 22, 24 Indian emigration to North America, 20–1, 22–3 Indian-Irish Independence League, 30, 49, 58, 59, 74, 195 Indian Mutiny, see Indian Rebellion Indian National Army, 198, 211 Indian National Congress, 11, 15, 17, 18, 27, 29, 30, 40, 44, 46, 48, 49, 53, 183 in Bengal, 55 British Committee of, 21 in the United States, 29–30, 40, 44 Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, 109, 110 Indian Political Intelligence (IPI), 51, 59, 73 Indian Rebellion, 68, 81–2, 89 centenary commemoration in India, 133–4 Irish views of, 7–8, 16–17, 116–18, 120, 208–9 ‘Mutiny’ heroes, 82–3, 89 ‘Mutiny’ tourism, 99–100 renovation of ‘Mutiny’ sites in Delhi, 109–10 Victorian novels and, 76, 90 see also Cawnpore massacre; Delhi; Nicholson, John Indian Sociologist, 22

293

India Office, 10, 21, 33, 67, 77, 139, 145, 187 and recruitment of Royal Irish Constabulary for India, 68–9 and Sinn Féin influence in India, 51–2 Intelligence Bureau, see Government of India Irish Democrat, 156 Irish Embassy, New Delhi, 169, 191, 192, 193 Irish Free State, 6, 8, 39, 41, 43, 50, 59, 149, 154, 185 commemoration in, 151, 157 Connaught Rangers mutiny and, 141, 145–6, 148–50, 151–2, 153, 154, 155, 212 Public Safety Legislation of, 68, 69–70 Irish Independent, 142, 151, 165, 187, 194 Irish National War Memorial, Dublin, 151, 204 Irish Parliamentary Party, 17, 48 Irish Press (Dublin), 61, 153, 165 Irish Press (Philadelphia), 30, 35, 145, 191 Irish Progressive League, 34–5 Irish Race Convention, 28, 30 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 9, 41, 49, 52, 68, 74, 131, 138, 147, 154, 157, 174 and Connaught Rangers mutiny, 144, 152, 154, 155–6, 164, 165–6, 168, 171, 172, 199, 206 influence in Bengal, 60, 61, 63, 66 Irish Republican Brotherhood, see Fenians Irish Self-Determination League, 146 Irish Times, 8, 112, 122, 124, 150, 204 Irish World, 13, 14, 19 see also Ford, Patrick Jackson, Alvin, 10 Jeffery, Keith, 151 Jensen, Joan M., 22 Jones, Glyn, 174, 200 see also The 88 Jones, Max, 77 Jordain, H.F.N., 203, 206 see also Connaught Rangers Association

294

Index

Joshi, Samuel Lucas, 24 Jugantar, 29, 55, 62, 63, 186 Kanpur, see Cawnpore massacre Kavanagh, John, 201 see also No Comet Seen Kavanagh, Thomas Henry, 1–4, 7 Kaye, John William, 77, 89, 94, 103 Keane, J.C., 162, 172 Kearney, Denis, 23 Kearney, Michael Francis, 149, 156, 157, 198–9 Keenan, William, see Geraghty, Frank Kelly, Charles Arthur, 88 Kelly, Gertrude, 28, 40, 42 Kelly, Sir Patrick, 8, 73–4 Kenny, Kevin, 19, 23, 209 Kenny, Michael, 202 Kerrigan, Charles, 154, 173–4, 202 Khan, Chaudery Lall, 30 Khilafat movement, 183, 188 Kilfeather, T.P., 140, 169, 171, 179 King House, Boyle, Ireland, 212–13 Kipling, Rudyard, 4, 6, 93 Kirkee 1914–1918 Memorial, 202 Kitchener, Lord, 101, 108 Krishnavarma, Shyamji, 21, 24 Labor Swaraj Party, 64 Lajpat Rai, Lala, 15, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33–4, 180 Lal, Kunoujee, 1–2 Lally, Margaret (née Daly), 155 Lally, Stephen, 154–6, 164, 202 campaign for repatriation of James Daly, 165–6, 170 IRA membership, 155 sympathy for Indian nationalism, 196, 197 see also Hawes, Joseph Lalor, James Fintan, 63 Land War, 6, 18 Larkin, James Jr, 43 Law, Andrew Bonar, 148, 186 Lawrence, George, 78 Lawrence, Henry, 10, 82, 83, 89, 97, 107, 115, 117, 122, 123, 124, 130, 137

Lawrence, John, 10, 79, 82, 86, 91, 117, 123, 124, 130, 132 controversy surrounding statue of, 105–6, 136 Lawrence, T.E., 108 League Against Imperialism, 49 League of Oppressed Peoples, 32 Lemass, Sean, 59, 157, 158 Leonard, Jane, 147 Leslie, Mary E., 89 Limerick Men’s Benevolent and Social Association, 34 Lisburn, 11, 113, 137 Imperial service of local families, 115, 133 John Nicholson and, 115–16, 117, 118, 122 memorial to John Nicholson in Lisburn Cathedral, 86, 118, 119–20, 121–2 Nicholson Memorial School, 120–1 Orange Order in, 126 sectarian riots in, 127 statue of John Nicholson in, 129–31, 133, 138, 211, 212 support for Unionism in, 126–7 Urban District Council of, 129, 130, 131 visit of Lord Roberts to, 127–8 Lisburn Cathedral, see Lisburn Lisburn Herald, 126, 129, 130 Lisburn Standard, 127, 128, 129, 130 Lloyd George, David, 146, 182 Logan, James, 133 Lothian, Marquis of, 70 Lucknow, siege of, 1–2, 81–3 Lusk Committee, 28, 35 Lynch, John, 210 MacAonghusa, Proinsias, 205 Macardle, Dorothy, 67–8, 164 McBride, Ian, 124, 144 MacBride, Maude Gonne, 59, 150, 195, 197 McCartan, Patrick, 32 MacDermott, John M., 51 MacDonald, Malcolm, 134 MacDonald, Robert H., 90 MacEntee, Sean, 205 McGarrity, Joseph, 30, 32, 145, 191

Index McGowan, John, 147–8, 149 McGuinness, Sean, 166 MacKenzie, John M., 82 McMahon, Deidre, 50 MacManus, Terence Bellew, 157, 164–5 Macmillan, Harold, 134 Macmullen, Ken, 199–200 see also Partition Macmullen, Sir Norman, 72 Macmunn, George, 103 Macready, Nevil, 70 MacSwiney, Mary, 59 MacSwiney, Terence, 32, 34, 39, 175 impact of hunger strike in India, 48, 61, 189–90 Madras, 17, 52, 60, 89, 106, 179 Madras Fusiliers, 89, 106 Magennis, Peter E., 34 Maher, Teresa, 168, 174 Malik, Salahuddin, 16 Malone, Dudley Field, 28 Malone, Thomas, 171, 172 ‘Manchester Martyrs’, 157 ‘manliness’, see masculinity Manto, Hasan Sadaat, 199 Margalla Pass, 87 Markievicz, Countess, 66 Marshall, William Forbes, 132 see also Royal School Dungannon ‘martial races’, 86, 90–1, 92–3, 96, 182 see also Nicholson, John; Sikhs masculinity, 54, 66, 82, 90–1 Masih, James, 191–2 Masters, John, 6 Mazumdar, Bhupati, 63 Mellows, Liam, 31, 32, 35 Menen, Aubrey, 9 MI5, 44 Michael, Sir Arthur, 110 Minto, Lord, 101–2, 106 Miranda, John, 139, 156, 164, 170, 191, 192, 193, 197 Mitchel, John, 16, 66 Monkhouse, W. Cosmo, 119, 122 Montagu, Edwin, 57, 184–5 Monteith, Robert, 45, 157 Moran, Tommy, 146–7 Morgan, Hiram, 211–12, 213 Morris, Jan, 107 Morrissey, John, 202

295

Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 113, 136, 174 Mukherjee, Rudrangshu, 107, 111 Mulcahy, Richard, 149 Musgrave, Henry, 129 My Fight for Irish Freedom, see Breen, Dan Naidu, Sarojini, 34 Nandy, Ashis, 48 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 17 Nariman, K.F., 191 The Nation, 16, 17 National Graves Association (NGA), 153–4, 156, 166, 202 role in repatriation of Connaught Rangers mutineers, 165, 170, 172, 173 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 29, 40, 48, 107, 134, 135, 167, 210, 211 Neill, James George, 89, 97, 106 Newbolt, Henry, 93–4 New Delhi, see Delhi New India, 51 New York Times, 13, 41, 134 Ní Bheacháin, Caoilfhionn, 49 Nic Aongus, Roísín, 168 Nicholson, Alexander, 78, 120, 122 Nicholson Cemetery, Delhi, 85, 108–22 Nicholson, Charles, 86, 117–18, 120 Nicholson, Clara, 77, 78, 118, 119, 121 Nicholson, John, 77–80 brutality towards Indians, 79, 89, 107–8 burial and commemoration in India, 84–8, 103–4 ‘conversion’ to Sikhism of, 183 heroic reputation contested, 104–8 Irish identity of, 122–4 Lisburn Cathedral memorial to, 119–20, 121–2, 127, 128 literary depictions, 88, 93–4, 103, 104–5, 123–4, 137–8 ‘martial races’ and, 91–2, 93–4 as ‘Mutiny’ hero, 77, 89–96 Punjab and, 79, 86, 87, 91–2, 93, 94, 97, 101, 102, 108, 114, 120, 131 renovation of grave in Delhi, 108–22 sexual orientation, 107–8 statue in Delhi of, 100–2, 133–6 as Ulster hero, 114–18, 129–33

296

Index

Nicholson, John – continued worship of ‘Nikkal Seyn’, 94–6, 98, 103, 119 see also Foley, John Henry; Lisburn; Nicholson Cemetery, Delhi; Lisburn; Royal School Dungannon; Ulster Nicholson Memorial School, see Lisburn Nicholson, Mike, 111 Nicholson, William, 120, 122 ‘Nikkal Seyn’, see Nicholson, John Nivedita, Sister, 53 Noble, Margaret, see Nivedita, Sister No Comet Seen, 201–2 non-cooperation movement, 48, 55, 65, 183, 193 Northern Ireland, 137, 156, 168, 171, 174, 206 attitudes toward empire in, 10, 11, 12, 113, 125–6, 129–30, 133, 136, 211–12 see also BBC Northern Ireland; Ulster Northern Whig, 116, 117, 125 Ó’Brádaigh, Ruari, 174, 175 O’Brien, Art, 52 O’Brien, F.W., 167 O’Ceallaigh, Sean T., 5, 52 O’Cearnaigh, M.P., 150 O’Connell, Daniel, 60, 118, 123, 124, 164 O’Donnell, Frank Hugh, 17, 18 O’Dwyer, Michael, 57, 182 Offaly County Council, 166 Offaly-Westmeath Old IRA Memorial Committee, 166 Ó Gadhra, Nollaig, 209 O’Kelly, Sean T., see O’Ceallaigh, Sean T O’Leary, Michael, 158 O’Malley, Kate, 59 Orange Order, 116, 126, 212 O’Reilly, John Boyle, 43 The Oriental Press, 44 Orwell, George, 64 O’Shasnain, Brian Padraic, 177 O’Sullivan, Alfred E., 73 O’Sullivan, Joseph, 165, 167, 168 O’Sullivan, Patrick, 172 Outram, James, 2, 76, 82, 83, 97, 118

Pakenham, T. Compton, 123 Pan-Aryan Association, 24 Parnell, Charles Stewart, 17, 18, 30, 60, 164 Partition, 199–200 Pasha, Zaghul, 60 Patel, Vitalbhai, 30, 74 Pearse, Margaret, 157 Pearse, Patrick, 45, 51, 60, 61, 74, 137, 157, 172, 211 Pearson, Hesketh, 103 Peel, Robert, 67 Peers, Douglas M., 86 Plowman, Matthew Erin, 27 Pollock, Sam, 140, 193 Pomeroy, F.W., 129 Pottinger, Henry, 130 proscription, see Bengal, Government of; Government of India Punjab, 87, 100, 106, 139, 145, 180, 182, 184 anti-colonial movements in, 182–3, 191 Duleep Singh and, 51, 186 Gadar Party and, 25–6, 182 Indian Army recruitment and, 91, 92–3, 182, 183 Indian Rebellion and, 79 Khilafat movement and, 183 migration to North America from, 20 see also Amritsar Massacre; Nicholson, John ‘Punjab School’, 86 race and Irish and Indian nationalists, 31, 37, 56–7 racism among Irish emigrants, 23, 38–9 racism in colonial India, 54, 104, 180 racism in the United States, 22–3, 39–40 see also ‘martial races’ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, 9, 210 Raikes, Charles, 94 Ray, Rajat Kanta, 59 Ray, R.E.A., 69, 71 Regan, Jennifer M., 17 Reid, R.N., 71–2 Repeal Movement, 123

Index Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (1920), 70, 71 Richardson, Frank M., 108 Rivaz, Sir Charles, 100 Roberts, Lord Frederick Sleigh, 91, 96–8, 100–1, 127–8 Rodgers, Peter, 174–5 Ronaldshay, Lord, see Zetland, Lord Roney, Frank, 23 Rorke, George Gordon, 33 Roscommon Herald, 148, 158 Rossa, Jeremiah O’Donovan, 20 Rowlatt Act, 35, 182 Rowlatta satyagraha, 182 Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 51, 145, 161 Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), 68, 70, 127, 141, 147, 162 recruitment for service in India, 68–9 Royal Irish Fusiliers, 213 Royal Irish Rifles, 127 Royal Munster Fusiliers, 80, 122–3, 159 Royal School Dungannon, 113, 131–2 statue of John Nicholson installed at, 129, 131–2, 135–6 Roy, Basanta Kumar, 39, 44 Roy, M.N., 29 Russia, 29 influence in India, 18, 22, 51, 52, 53, 56 Irish republican relationships with, 31, 52 Russo-Japanese War, 54 St. George, George, 130 St. James’ Church, Delhi, 85, 111, 119 St. Patrick’s Day, 8, 13–14, 16, 29, 45, 145, 153, 158, 161, 179, 210 Safranski, Nicolas, 22 Said, Edward, 4 Sayer, Derek, 177 Schneer, Jonathan, 22 Sears, Peter, 156, 164, 170, 171, 173, 192 Sehanabis, Chinmohan, 62 Sen Gupta, J.M., 66 Sen Gupta, Niranjan, 62 Sen, Surya, 55, 62, 63, 72 Sepoy Mutiny, see Indian Rebellion Seton, Sir Malcolm, 52, 68, 69 Shackleton, Sir Ernest, 137, 214 Sharar, Abdul Majid, 188

297

Shaw, P.W., 163 Sheehy Skeffington, Hannah, 42, 59 Shukla, Sandhya, 16 Sikhs, 3 Akali movement, 183 Gadar Party and, 25, 182 as a ‘martial race’, 86, 90–1, 92, 96, 182 migration to North America, 20, 39 support for Irish nationalism by, 191 ‘worship’ of John Nicholson by, 94–5, 183 see also Anglo-Sikh Wars Singh, Bhagat, 49, 54, 65 Singh, Bhagwan, 25 Singh, Duleep, 51, 186 Singh, Golab, 179 Singh, Gopal, 36 Singh, Jagat, 36 Sinha, Pernandu N., 34 Sinn Féin, 13, 22, 39, 42, 52, 210 attitude of Mohandas Gandhi toward, 48 commemoration of execution of James Daly, 174–5 Connaught Rangers mutiny and, 142–3, 150, 151, 154, 177, 188, 193, 213 India Office concerns regarding, 51–2 influence in India of, 28, 30, 46, 58, 60, 64–5, 66, 189 Smedley, Agnes, 29, 32, 36 Smith, R.V., 109 Smythe, Patrick, 156, 170, 171, 173, 192 Somme, Battle of the, 125 Sons of Irish Freedom, 33 Statesman, 101 Steel, Flora Annie, 76, 90 Stephens, James, 199 Stephenson, H.S., 67–8 Stokes, Eric, 82 Strahan, J.H., 131 Stuart, Imogen, 171 Swadeshi movement, 24, 55 Swanzy, Oswald Ross, 127 Swaraj Party, 55 Tagore, Rabindranath, 44 Tan, Tai Yong, 183

298

Index

Taylor, Sir Alexander, 87–8 statue in Delhi of, 135 Tegart, Sir Charles, 8, 73–4, 75 Telegraph (Calcutta), 110 Thind, Bhagat Singh, 39–40 Thomas, Norman, 35 Thompson, Andrew, 114 Thompson, Edward John, 104, 105 Thuggee and Dacoity Department, 51 Tiernan, Charles, 41 Tilak, Bal Ganghadar, 21, 188 The Times, 2, 56, 101, 106, 109, 110, 123, 134, 142 Todd, Jennifer, 125 Townend, Paul A., 10, 17 Townshend, Charles, 74 Tribune (Lahore), 105, 106, 187, 189 Trotter, Lionel, 95, 105, 123 Ulster attitudes towards empire in, 7, 11, 114–16, 123, 124–6, 129–30, 132–3, 136, 211–12 commemoration of John Nicholson in, 113–22, 127–33, 135–6 East India Company and, 80, 81 ‘Great Irishmen’ exhibit at Ulster Museum, 136–7 Indian Rebellion and, 116–18, 129–30 Ulster Protestant identity, 116, 124, 126, 129, 132–3 Ulster Unionist support for General Dyer, 177 see also Lisburn; Northern Ireland United Socialist Republican Party, 58 United States of India, 39, 43

Vermont, University of, 29 Vickery, Sir Philip, 59, 73 Victoria Cross, 2–3, 80, 96, 208 Vivekananda, Swami, 53 Walsh, Domenic, 153 Walsh, Frank P., 30–1, 35, 38, 40, 44 Walsh, J.C., 42 Walsh, Joseph, 154, 165 Walsh, Manus, 205 Washington, University of, 29 Webb, Alfred, 17 Wellington, Duke of, 137, 178 Westmeath Examiner, 160, 161–2, 172 Westmeath-Offaly Independent, 171 Whelehan, Niall, 20 Wiener, Martin J., 180 Wilberforce, Reginald, 90, 95 Williams, D.P., 108 Williams, Fred, 181 Wilson, Sir Henry, 129, 130–1, 170, 172 Wilson, T.M., 128 Winter, Jay, 161 Wolfe Tones, The, 181 Women’s Prisoners Defense League, 195 Wyllie, William Curzon, 22 Yeats, William Butler, 176, 199 Younghusband, John William, 91 Young India, 48, 106 Young India (New York), 28, 34 Young Ireland, 16, 66, 176 Zetland, Lord, 50, 57–8 Zulu War, see Anglo-Zulu War