In September 1920, a meeting convened at the picturesque Irish Club in Johannesburg. Representatives from the city’s Irish community were joined on the evening by leading Irish figures from across the Union of South Africa to discuss the formation of a nationwide Irish organisation — the first of its kind in the country. For the Irish in South Africa, this was a significant turn of events. Since the outbreak of the Great War six years earlier, the modest Irish population in South Africa had fallen mostly silent on Irish affairs. Reports of outright rebellion in Dublin during Easter 1916 had encouraged a smattering of Irish South Africans to raise funds for the families of Irish Volunteers who had been killed or imprisoned during the rising.Footnote 1 The majority, however, likely concurred with the ‘abhorrence’ expressed by Irish associations in Johannesburg and Pretoria at such an event transpiring during the fight to ‘vindicate civilisation’.Footnote 2 By late 1919, however, the Irish question was back on the agenda.
This was not the first time that the Irish in South Africa had taken up Ireland’s cause: an Irish Home Rule movement had found footing throughout the self-governing South African colonies before the war.Footnote 3 What set the immediate postwar period apart was that this usually demure Irish population was now being drawn towards advanced Irish nationalism across the board.Footnote 4 While there is much that remains unknown about the meeting that took place in the Irish Club, we know that the attendees agreed unanimously to form a new nationwide Irish association that night and that it was to be styled the ‘Irish Republican Association of South Africa’ (IRASA) — a clear sign of the newfound radicalism that had seeped into Irish South Africa.
Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in globalising the Irish Revolution. The seeds of this were sown in the early 2010s, when transnationalism had already gained popularity across the United States and continental Europe and was beginning to catch the attention of Irish historians. Niall Whelehan’s edited volume, Transnational perspectives on modern Irish history, was one of the first examples of this ‘transnational turn’ in Irish history.Footnote 5 Fearghal McGarry’s contribution to the volume focuses upon the 1916 Easter Rising and the many global influences to which its progenitors were exposed.Footnote 6 In his concluding notes, McGarry ponders what might be uncovered by applying a transnational methodology to the Irish Revolution. While acknowledging that transnationalism cannot — and should not — replace national histories, he suggests that such an endeavour could ‘more effectively root understanding of political change’ within much broader currents that were also taking place.Footnote 7 Of course, the advent of transnationalism was not universally embraced. The late David Fitzpatrick was the staunchest critic in this respect, sharply undercutting the notion that Irish history ‘need[ed] to be rescued from its lingering “insularity” by the application of a “transnational perspective”’.Footnote 8 In making this case, Fitzpatrick was not suggesting that historians should look upon their work with tunnel vision; rather, he argued that historians of Ireland — particularly those interested in the diaspora — had already been carrying out transnational history without the name since at least the 1960s.Footnote 9 Today, however, there are few historians who would concur that transnationalism is merely a fashionable buzzword or — as the growing list of relevant works demonstrates — that it cannot yield significant results.Footnote 10 Indeed, a recently completed project which sought to present a global history of the Irish Revolution has shown what can still be uncovered by looking at the revolutionary period in Ireland through a broader scope.Footnote 11 For all that has been done, as McGarry and Patrick Mannion note, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of how the Irish Revolution influenced — and was affected by — events taking place outside of the island.Footnote 12
South Africa is a prime example in this respect. While our knowledge of the Irish population in South Africa has increased in leaps and bounds since the mid 1990s, it is often still the ‘odd man out’ within broader discussions of the Irish diaspora.Footnote 13 This is largely attributable to the fact that the country (and its antecedents) attracted relatively few Irish migrants and contains effectively no surviving Irish cultural legacy.Footnote 14 Yet, the country’s absence from the recent push to globalise the Irish Revolution is still somewhat surprising, as scholars have long been aware of the close ties that once existed between Ireland and South Africa.Footnote 15 The imprints of the ‘Boer mania’ that permeated Ireland in the lead up to the Second Anglo-Boer War had not evaporated by the revolutionary period. That some of the men occupying various buildings around Dublin during Easter 1916 were equipped with Boer rifles, donned ‘De Wet caps’ and, in some cases, had even served with the Boers was indicative of this.Footnote 16
South Africa, therefore, represents a fascinating (and unusual) context in which to consider the Irish Revolution. As the country’s Irish population was small, largely middle-class and predominantly Protestant, it had a respectability that was often not extended to Irish populations in other parts of the world.Footnote 17 It might, therefore, be expected that Irish South Africans would not have been stirred by events in Ireland, similarly to how the Irish population in Argentina was not.Footnote 18 In this respect, South Africa’s distinct position within the British imperial context must be emphasised. Having been the site of the great imperial crisis of the late Victorian period — and only unified since May 1910 — South Africa was in many respects an outlier. For one, its white population was quite small — less than half that of Australia or Canada — and individuals of British and Irish descent were outnumbered on the one hand by Black Africans and on the other by Afrikaners. The presence of a highly potent nationalist movement within the latter group — which had, at its core, an antipathy for the British Empire and a longing for the resuscitation of republicanism in the country — ensured that events in Ireland had obvious ramifications for South Africa. What resulted was a brief, but intense, interest in Irish affairs from white South African audiences, during which the IRASA experienced a remarkable rise and precipitous fall.
To this point, the IRASA has attracted sporadic attention from scholars, primarily as a secondary — or tertiary — character within broader studies. It features throughout much of Ciarán Reilly’s work on Patrick Little and Maurice Moore’s diplomatic missions to South Africa during the Irish War of Independence. Particularly for Little, who embarked on an extended speaking tour of South Africa, the IRASA was instrumental in drumming up interest for his talks and assisted him at every stop he made along the way.Footnote 19 The organisation is also mentioned in passing within scholarship relating to the 1922 Irish Race Conference, as the idea for that iteration of such an event germinated within the South African association.Footnote 20 As for studies which place the IRASA at the centre of their analysis, we have a modest list to choose from. The current author has looked into the association’s cultural agenda, which sought to promote a heavily curated, nationalist notion of Irish identity in South Africa.Footnote 21 T. K. Daniel offered the earliest examination of the group, which was then built upon by Donal McCracken during the 1990s.Footnote 22 McCracken’s work remains the most detailed account of the organisation and has set the foundation for much of our understanding to this day.Footnote 23
However, there is much that we still do not know about the IRASA and as new source material has been uncovered since McCracken and Daniel’s seminal accounts, the time is ripe for a reappraisal of South Africa’s most significant Irish organisation. This article assesses the IRASA from its beginning in September 1920 through to its disintegration midway through 1922 and will present the most in-depth examination of the group so far attempted. It argues that despite its rather ostentatious name, and apparent steadfast commitment to Irish republicanism, the IRASA was quite complex — encompassing an extremely diverse membership with differing, often competing, allegiances across the board. It will also show that, from the outset, the group was set upon an unstable foundation; although existing cracks were paved over in the interim, with time they reemerged and tore the association asunder. By casting new light upon South Africa’s largest-ever Irish association, this article develops our understanding of not only the Irish experience in South Africa, but also of the global imprints that were left behind by the Irish Revolution.
I
The formation of the IRASA in September 1920 was not the first sign of a resurgent Irish nationalism in South Africa. In late 1919, a group of Irish in Johannesburg had founded the Irish National Association (INA) to lobby for Irish self-determination.Footnote 24 The tendrils of this movement soon spread throughout the Transvaal and similar associations were formed in Pretoria, Krugersdorp and Benoni. Regarding Pretoria, the push to create a new society had supposedly come from the more ‘virile and active’ members of an older association that had existed in the city for decades, who had grown unhappy with the fact that its only purpose was to oversee ‘a concert, dance or social function on St Patrick’s Day’.Footnote 25 It was not long before each of these groups agreed to form a single, Transvaal-wide organisation: the Transvaal Irish National Association.Footnote 26
R. I. C. Scott-Hayward, a senior member of the IRASA and leading Irish nationalist in South Africa throughout much of the twentieth century, was in Johannesburg during the early stages of the INA on a visit from Cape Town. He later recounted how he was approached by various INA members who encouraged him to form a branch in the Cape.Footnote 27 Following his return to the ‘Mother City’, Scott-Hayward took a leading position within the developing movement there. He was joined by other notable Irish in the city, such as the MLA, Dr Robert Forsyth, and the Catholic priest, Rev. Dr John Colgan. According to Scott-Hayward, there was some trepidation among the Irish in the city regarding the shape and tone of a new organisation. He was an uncompromising republican and undoubtedly sought for this current to be reflected within the movement, but this was a step too far for many Irish in the city, who immediately shied away. In his letters, he noted sardonically how this ‘pleased [him] immensely’ as he would rather have ‘twenty genuine republicans […] than a thousand two faced self-determinators’.Footnote 28
The final run-up to the creation of the IRASA in September 1920 is shrouded by contradictory testimonies from those involved. A March 1921 report from the Johannesburg branch of the IRASA maintained that a meeting had been called in July 1920, which incorporated Cape Town and Kimberley into the INA.Footnote 29 This is validated by an account in the Rand Daily Mail which outlined how the group had changed its name (dropping the Transvaal element) to accommodate new branches in the Cape, Natal and Orange Free State.Footnote 30 Scott-Hayward, however, presented quite a different story. He shot down any suggestion that an amalgamation had taken place between Cape Town and Johannesburg prior to the September meeting in the Irish Club.Footnote 31 This was backed up by a detective from the Criminal Investigation Department who had attended an Irish meeting in Cape Town in September 1920, just days before the larger gathering in Johannesburg. He described how Scott-Hayward, who presided, announced that the main purpose of the event was to decide on whether they would amalgamate with other branches in South Africa.Footnote 32
One area in which both accounts agreed was that the ultimate decision to adopt the more provocative moniker, ‘Irish Republican Association of South Africa’, was made at the Irish Club meeting. The genesis of this name — and the reason behind its adoption — is not as clear. If we are to believe Scott-Hayward, he was solely responsible for the association taking a more radical stance regarding Ireland. He recounted how he arrived in Johannesburg with a mandate from Cape Town to insist upon a republican doctrine if a nationwide association was created.Footnote 33 Such an assertion is not substantiated by any other source, but it was also not unrealistic as his was one of the most committed republican voices within the organisation. McCracken adds an additional layer in this respect by noting that the Irish Club gathering took place just six days after the town of Balbriggan had been burned by the Black and Tans, which amplified emotions and led to the adoption of a more aggressive name.Footnote 34 While individuals like Scott-Hayward would not have needed such an event to push them towards republicanism, others certainly did, and similar reports helped to convince the more moderate elements of the need to lobby specifically for an Irish republic.
The establishment of the IRASA drew existing Irish societies to its ranks. The Durban and District Irish Self-Determination League re-formed itself as the Durban branch of the IRASA and around the same time a Sinn Féin Club in the small eastern Cape town of Cradock dropped its official link to the party, ceased publishing its own newsletter, The Dawn, and joined the newfound Irish South African association. Given the small number of Irish in the country, the proliferation of IRASA branches in the months following its establishment was remarkable. In total, twenty-four distinct chapters were set up throughout South Africa (another was also set up in Bulawayo) and at its height, one could find an active IRASA branch in every major South African urban centre. A central council (later renamed the central executive) was constituted to act on behalf of these branches. The council was supposed to be representative of the entire organisation, but its members were almost exclusively taken from the larger branches. For example, of the ten individuals who served on the first two IRASA central councils, five were from Johannesburg, two were from Pretoria and Cape Town respectively, and the final representative hailed from Kimberley. The council met throughout the year and individuals from the various branches were permitted to attend. From the small number of council minutes that have survived, it can be deduced that these meetings were set up on a bi-monthly basis.Footnote 35 Local branches consisted of similar offices, with a president (or chairman) being elected by the membership, along with a vice-president (or vice-chair), treasurer and secretary. It was these individuals that often wrote to the editor of the organisation’s journal with updates of individual branch activities and events.
From the outset, women played an important role in the organisation at every level. Some of the larger branches had ladies’ committees, which seem to have overseen the various social occasions held under the IRASA banner. For example, in December 1920, the Cape Town ladies’ committee held an open-air party at Rondebosch to raise money for the north of Ireland.Footnote 36 The event was led by the influential Ella Mary Esther Nicholson, who was also the chairwoman of the committee.Footnote 37 In some cases, women also occupied positions on branch committees, usually either as secretary or treasurer. Bloemfontein was a particular standout in that its two most senior members were women. Although Lillian de Scally led the branch from December 1920, her influence was second to Elizabeth Bell-Robinson, a Cork-born schoolteacher from the town of Kopjes, and both women represented the city at central council meetings and at IRASA general conferences.Footnote 38
On the surface, the IRASA was ‘overtly Irish republican, bitter and unashamedly Sinn Féin in allegiance’ and its leaders were quick to announce its primary goal of ‘labour[ing] for the international recognition of the Irish Republic’.Footnote 39 However, upon closer inspection, the actual ideological makeup of the IRASA’s membership appears far more complex. First, its precursor, the INA, never took up the republican cause and instead remained fastened to a more moderate — and admittedly vague — commitment to Irish self-determination. For example, in June 1920 at the meeting which formed the Pretoria branch of the INA, there were many questions about what this new organisation actually stood for: an Irish republic or dominion home rule? Responding, the chairman of the meeting, J. H. E. McLoughlin, stated that the group sought ‘self-determination for Ireland’ and that ‘[t]hey were not there to dictate a policy for Ireland, but to support any policy adopted by the majority of the people of Ireland […] The chairman’s views, or the views of any particular individual, did not matter.’Footnote 40 Indeed, such sentiments bore a striking resemblance to those advocated by the various iterations of the Self-Determination for Ireland League throughout the empire.Footnote 41
Nor was the IRASA made up solely — or even mostly — of avid republicans. George Angus Mulligan, a king’s counsel from Johannesburg, was the long-time president of the Johannesburg branch and had been a founding member of the INA. In the early 1910s, Mulligan had also been a leading proponent of Irish home rule in South Africa and had emphasised his preference for non-violent and non-republican parliamentary methods.Footnote 42 Another of the IRASA’s most senior members, the well-known journalist Alfred Ernest O’Flaherty, had been a member of the Young Unionist group (a subdivision of the South African Unionist Party) during the same period. Ironically led by another Irishman, Sir Thomas Smartt, the Unionist Party was intensely pro-empire and any notions of republicanism (be they applied to South Africa or Ireland) would not have been tolerated.Footnote 43 Thus, O’Flaherty and Mulligan’s commitment to republicanism was hardly well-established by the 1920s.Footnote 44 That each of these men — and many other men and women — were able to play active roles in the IRASA was not an indication that they had entirely shirked moderate methods; it was simply fortunate that — for a time — the majority of Irish nationalists in Ireland sought a republic, meaning that ‘Irish republicanism’ could be used as a synonym for ‘Irish self-determination’.
However, by adopting such a controversial title, and by outlining the organisation’s commitment to Irish republicanism, the Irish in South Africa had taken quite a significant step. In other imperial settings, Irish nationalists had always been careful to ground their support for Ireland in imperial language, lest they draw the ire of broader society. Irish Home Rule, for example, had been put forth as something that would strengthen the fraternal bonds of the empire and the rhetoric employed from 1919 mirrored this.Footnote 45 Nor did the IRASA lend itself to comparison with the small number of advanced Irish nationalist organisations that developed within the empire during this time. For one, very few, if any, of these groups’ members had come out of the Home Rule tradition and others, such as Albert Dryer’s Irish National Association, were both militant and predominantly working-class.Footnote 46 Therefore, the IRASA represented something of a halfway house between a moderate and radical Irish nationalist organisation: paradoxically incorporating a largely conservative, middle-class membership under a republican banner.
While the IRASA was an association formed with Irish affairs in mind, it was founded by a mix of Irish-born individuals and South Africans of Irish descent. Indeed, the majority of its members were established residents of South Africa, and this was emphasised within the early editions of its journal, The Republic. Referring to themselves as ‘Irish Afrikanders’, the leadership laid out that they were South African citizens first and that their full loyalties should be to their country of residence rather than their country of origin.Footnote 47 In taking this stance, they considered the ‘ruin of Ireland’ to be that those who controlled the wealth of the country ‘owed their first allegiance to a foreign state’ and they did not wish to import into South Africa ‘the spirit which [had] been the ruin of their motherland’.Footnote 48 Thus, like Irish populations in other imperial contexts, the IRASA’s leaders did not take their stance as members of the global Irish community; rather they sought to use their positions as citizens of South Africa — and by extension subjects of the British Empire — to lobby for an Irish republic.Footnote 49
II
Aside from its overall size and spread, the IRASA was significant in that it was effectively the only Irish South African organisation to have its own organ: The Republic. Published on a fortnightly basis, the journal offers invaluable insights into the organisation and its membership. Benjamin Farrington, a Cork-born academic who occupied a chair in Greek and Classics at the University of Cape Town, took on the role of editor. He arrived in South Africa in March 1920 already imbued with strong republican sentiment and it was not long before he began publishing articles in the Cape Town newspaper, De Burger, criticising Britain’s conduct in Ireland.Footnote 50 Farrington’s commentary soon caught the eye of the South African Police, which considered him ‘a positive danger’ in the country and warned that if he was to continue spreading Sinn Féin literature he would eventually gain a following within the Union.Footnote 51 While Farrington’s role in the creation of the IRASA is unclear, he was solely responsible for editing The Republic from its first issue in November 1920 until its last in June 1922. Although his name is rarely found within its pages, Farrington left an indelible mark upon the journal: excerpts from his idols Pádraig Pearse and Thomas Davis are found throughout, as is a full retelling of the epic — often referred to as the Irish Iliad — Táin Bó Cúailnge.Footnote 52
The Republic was fundamentally propagandistic, and large portions of its editorials were devoted to topics either condemning British rule in Ireland, presenting news of reported atrocities committed by the British Army or criticising the supposed anti-Irish rhetoric being perpetuated by English-speaking South African newspapers (especially the Cape Times and Cape Argus). The IRASA did not try to conceal the journal’s nature, which turned most news vendors away and led to it being banned by bookstalls in South African railway stations.Footnote 53 One member of the group even recommended that it instead be sold on the streets of South African towns and cities to balance the loss of income following its ban by South African Railways.Footnote 54 Its devotion to propaganda was also the reason that Farrington insisted that no advertisements be included in its pages.Footnote 55 This view was not shared by all within the organisation — who saw this as an excellent way to bolster the journal’s income without compromising its republican position — but as Farrington was the only member with the will (and possibly skill) to edit the journal, his demands were begrudgingly acquiesced to.Footnote 56
Farrington’s resolute stance on advertisements was somewhat surprising, as he was acutely aware that the journal was falling well short of the requirements to ensure its long-term survival. The bulk of its funds were generated through subscriptions (from IRASA members and other interested parties), but these numbers were never large enough to allow the journal to operate comfortably. In the early stages of the IRASA, a target of 3,000 subscriptions was set, so that The Republic would not have to depend upon supplementary donations to survive. Exactly how many subscriptions the journal had at its peak is not known, but it never came close to this original target. In June 1921, Farrington claimed that each issue had a circulation of 2,000, but this figure — assuming it is correct — was not indicative of overall subscription numbers.Footnote 57 More accurate financial figures can be traced through a report given by the IRASA’s treasurer to the central council in July 1921. According to him, at that point the journal had 1,215 annual subscribers and a further 406 half-yearly subscribers, giving it a total subscriber count of 1,621.Footnote 58 It is possible that subscription numbers increased in the months that followed this meeting, but they certainly started to decline rapidly once the IRASA ran into difficulty in early 1922.
While we should not understate the success of The Republic in reaching a subscriber count of over 1,500 (given that the IRASA’s total membership was likely far less than this), the journal was on shaky financial footing. Within the same report to the central council, the treasurer warned that the paper had only £334 in hand and required roughly £900 to fund the remaining issues within its first volume. There were other sources of income, such as guarantees or donations from private individuals, but even when including these, the figures fell short of the overall price of print.Footnote 59 The organisation had implemented a membership levy of one shilling per member, which would have bridged the gap between income and expenses, but the central council was unsure of how many IRASA members there actually were, so there was a significant degree of guesswork involved in this. Ultimately, the journal did pay for its first year of print, and a further six months after that, but that it had such financial difficulties during a period of growth for the IRASA indicates that these troubles were only amplified when the downturn eventually came.
III
As the IRASA was set up strictly as an Irish South African association, rather than an Irish organisation that happened to be in South Africa, the question of where it stood within South African politics unsurprisingly arose. As McCracken has shown, a strong bond had existed between advanced Irish and Afrikaner nationalism since the late nineteenth century and, upon the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence, the movements shared two key characteristics: a commitment to republicanism and an antipathy to the British Empire.Footnote 60 This made the National Party (NP) — which generally represented Afrikaner nationalist interests — the obvious choice should the IRASA seek the support of a South African political party. Upon his arrival in the country, Patrick Little became acutely aware of the common ground that existed between the two: ‘[t]he more I see of the nationalist here the more I realise they are our real friends. They stand for national principles whereas Smuts’ party [the South African Party (SAP)] stands for […] compromise with imperialists.’Footnote 61
In the face of such questions, the IRASA decided quite soon on that it was to remain entirely neutral within a South African context. Its reasons for this were twofold: first, the central council was aware and wary of the fact that it was responsible for a politically plural membership. As there was such a small pool of Irish to draw from in South Africa, maintaining unity within the association was vital and any direct affiliation with one political party (especially one as controversial as the NP) would have severely jeopardised this cohesion. Secondly, the IRASA’s leaders were unconvinced that an alliance with a South African party was in the best interest of Ireland or South Africa. They noted that one’s political allegiance should be determined solely by one consideration: ‘the good of the country.’ Therefore, anyone who followed a South African party solely because it supported an Irish republic would — they believed — be doing South Africa a disservice and overlooking their ‘duties as a citizen of this country’.Footnote 62
On paper, the IRASA remained committed to this neutral position throughout its existence. In practise, the situation was more complex, and many members engaged heavily with the NP and became increasingly wary of Smuts and his followers. While a portion of the SAP was hostile to the IRASA — seeing it as a threat to the empire — this did not mean that the party, or even Smuts himself, was fundamentally against Irish self-determination. However, as prime minister of the Union, there was simply no scenario in which Smuts could square the circle of supporting an Irish republic while working against a South African one. Both Moore and Little were aware of this, the former noting that ‘Smuts and his party having just fought a hard election against a republic in South Africa cannot logically go so far as Ireland’.Footnote 63 The NP had no issues in this regard and was able to showcase its full support for Sinn Féin and the IRASA. Moore and Little consistently met with, and were assisted by, leading Afrikaner nationalists during their time in South Africa and several IRASA events were supported by NP members.Footnote 64 For example, when Little visited the Germiston branch on 18 July 1921, the meeting was chaired by one of the NP’s organising secretaries in the Transvaal, Henry Harris Moll, who also acted as interpreter for the Afrikaners in attendance.Footnote 65 Tellingly, this meeting came to a conclusion with a rendition of not only ‘The Soldier’s Song’, but also the former anthem of the Transvaal Republic.Footnote 66 In another instance, the aforementioned O’Flaherty went as far as publicly thanking the nationalists for their sympathy at a tempestuous meeting in Johannesburg just after Bloody Sunday, which attracted the attention of local media.Footnote 67 The content of this meeting, along with the presence of a number of NP members, even drove one IRASA member to depart the group publicly.
Charles Hewitt, an accountant from Enniskerry, County Wicklow, was far from a radical republican but — like many others — he nevertheless decided to join the IRASA. Of the meeting, Hewitt stated:
In view of the impression unfortunately created regarding Wednesday’s meeting, that it was anti-English in character, that it expressed or implied approval of the recent crimes which have injured Ireland’s fight for freedom, and that it was in league or in sympathy with local republican aspirations, I have decided to refrain from propaganda work and have severed my connection with the association which promoted the meeting. I do not for one moment admit that the meeting carried any of the significances mentioned, but I cannot deny that certain utterances justified that interpretation by people who do not allow for the extravagant fervour of Irishmen discussing Ireland’s wrongs. It is unfortunate, too, that the presence of a number of Nationalists at the meeting lent colour to the assumption of an alliance.Footnote 68
This developing relationship between the Johannesburg IRASA and the National Party was also remarked upon by Scott-Hayward, who contended that the former had contravened its own organisation’s principles by seeking out an alliance between the two.Footnote 69
The connection that bound Irish and Afrikaner nationalists was one borne out of a common sympathy to each other’s cause, and we should not overlook how important the latter were in providing space and support for Irish republican sentiment in the country. Indeed, it was not a coincidence that Little decided against holding a public meeting in the city of Kimberley as ‘the Irish and Dutch [were] so weak there that the local people would not risk a public meeting’.Footnote 70 At the same time though, we should not exaggerate Afrikaner nationalist concerns regarding the future of Ireland. Ultimately, their interest did not emanate from any real connection with the island; it was only because there were clear comparisons to be drawn with South Africa — and political points to be won — that Afrikaner nationalists were quick to engage with their Irish counterparts.Footnote 71 Little encapsulated the dynamic quite well, noting how ‘[t]he Nationalists would like to use the Irish as a stick to beat Smuts with; but there is also a lot of quite genuine sympathy for Ireland’.Footnote 72
IV
The IRASA was formed amidst a swirl of emotion following a succession of troubling reports emanating from Ireland. McCracken aptly describes how the two months following the Irish Club meeting in September 1920 were ‘some of the darkest days in modern Irish history’.Footnote 73 The outrage that these — and similar — reports generated enabled the IRASA leaders to paint over the true diversity of its membership. Indeed, the early success of the organisation — especially within a South African context — was remarkable: what was equally as remarkable was its demise. To this point, historians have correctly identified how the Anglo-Irish Treaty left a demonstrably negative imprint upon the IRASA and, like in Ireland, split Irish nationalism in South Africa almost down the middle.Footnote 74 However, the IRASA’s downfall was a multifaceted process, with elements that long predated the negotiations in London. The remainder of this article will focus upon this and provide a more definitive explanation of how South Africa’s largest Irish organisation ran aground in 1922.
As outlined previously, the IRASA had been quick to emphasise its commitment to South Africa which — on the surface at least — was received well by its members. Of course, that many of its leading figures, such as the Pretoria-based civil servants Eugene Scallan and J. H. E. McLoughlin, were born in the country cemented this allegiance to South Africa as well as Ireland. Moreover, most of its Irish-born members had also planted firm roots in Africa and either married South Africans or had children who were South African by birth. For example, at a well-attended Johannesburg meeting in September 1921, a member of the audience caused uproar after questioning why the speaker, Frank Foley, did not return to Ireland to fight (suggesting that he was scared to do so). After calming the bellicose crowd, Foley cited his responsibility to his nine children in South Africa adding that ‘[w]hen the war broke out for the freedom of small nations I had a wife and seven children, and I went and fought for the British’.Footnote 75
Thus, being an Irish South African organisation was hardly an issue for the vast majority of the IRASA, but it did attract some resentment from a vocal minority within. Unsurprisingly, this was most evident among those who intended to return to Ireland. Immediately after the organisation’s pledge to use its position within the British Empire to help the Irish cause, one such member made their feelings known. In a letter sent to The Republic, Úna Martin from Grahamstown condemned any who sought to classify her as South African. Her hostility in this respect did not stem from any issue with the country itself, but rather the link that being South African had with also being an imperial subject — which she viewed as a ‘hateful implication’.Footnote 76 In her view, the Irish at home and abroad should have pledged their full allegiance to Dáil Éireann, so as to illustrate its power to speak for the millions of Irish globally.Footnote 77 Martin’s letter points to an important characteristic, and ultimate weakness, of the IRASA: as the organisation was only open to individuals of Irish birth or heritage, there invariably were members who were merely sojourning in South Africa.Footnote 78 Although this certainly boosted the organisation’s membership numbers in the interim, it also raised difficult questions regarding allegiance and identity. In response to this, Farrington undercut the notion that the IRASA should owe sole allegiance to Dáil Éireann, noting that it was a ‘permanent South African institution, and could never survive with a membership made up of visitors’.Footnote 79
Yet, it was not only temporary residents like Martin who grew uncomfortable with the labels that were associated with IRASA membership. Scott-Hayward was born in Cheshire to an English family, but after moving to Larne at a young age he became committed to — and protective of — his Irish identity. By the 1920s, he had been in South Africa for a decade and had made the country his permanent home: he was married to a South African-born woman of Irish descent and had two young South African-born children.Footnote 80 Despite this, he echoed Martin’s sentiments in many ways. In October 1921 — before the Treaty negotiations were underway in London — he informed Dublin that he had taken it upon himself to form a new, secret society within the IRASA. In a statement that could have easily described the Irish nationalist movement in the United States, he observed that although the IRASA had been doing good work for Irish republicanism, the majority of its members were ‘South Africa First’ and while he did not have a fundamental issue with this, he felt it was more important to have individuals who acted ‘in strict obedience’ to the revolutionary government.Footnote 81 While this underlying tension within the IRASA existed long before the Irish plenipotentiaries arrived at Downing Street, it unquestionably intensified in late 1921 and became largely infused with the broader Treaty debates that were ongoing. Scott-Hayward would later describe how the IRASA had become divided into two groups: one which accepted British citizenship and another that included members ‘who consider[ed] themselves citizens of the Irish Republic’.Footnote 82
Once news of the Anglo-Irish Treaty started to spread in early 1922, the IRASA leadership did its best to remain neutral and support ‘the great majority’ in Ireland in whatever form of government they decided to adopt — a position that was strikingly similar to what the INA had been advocating eighteen months earlier.Footnote 83 This decision reflected the Central Executive’s awareness that significant cracks had already begun forming among the membership. Writing in May 1922, the organisation’s general secretary noted that the executive ‘felt that such an attitude was incumbent upon itself as representative of a membership holding widely divergent views upon a vital issue’.Footnote 84 For as much as the IRASA had initially bound significant numbers of Irish together into one — generally united — group, it could not overcome the fact that the Irish in South Africa fell into widely different camps when it came to perceptions of the empire and Ireland. As noted already, much of the IRASA’s initial success stemmed from the fact that the formerly demure Irish South African population had been so aggravated by reports from Ireland that Irish republicanism became palatable even to more moderate individuals. However, the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which offered Ireland the same status within the empire as South Africa, shattered this illusory unity. For most Irish South Africans, the treaty was the realisation of Irish self-determination and if they in South Africa could operate independently as a dominion, why could Ireland not do so too? In his seminal work on the Irish in Australia, Patrick O’Farrell uncovered a similar phenomenon: ‘Irish Australia fastened on what the treaty did provide […] It created the Irish Free State. Surely this was Irish freedom’.Footnote 85
Little had also recognised that the Irish in South Africa were not obsessed with an Irish republic long before the existence of the treaty. In a report to Dublin, he outlined how some of the ‘steadiest characters [in South Africa] are not the most ardent workers and […] are sometimes more compromising in spirit’.Footnote 86 The most striking example of this came at an extraordinary Johannesburg branch meeting in September 1921. Scott-Hayward, who at the time was the IRASA’s chairman, and Scallan, who was its secretary, were only sent invitations to the proceedings at the last moment, which led them to believe that it was some form of ‘deliberate slight to the Executive’.Footnote 87 At the meeting, the aforementioned Mulligan put forth a resolution as the branch’s leader that re-affirmed the attendees’ commitment to the principle of self-determination and its application to Ireland.Footnote 88 Crucially, no reference was made to an Irish republic, or to any desire for an Irish republic to be recognised, which went against the overarching principles of the IRASA and outraged Scott-Hayward and Scallan. Despite demanding to be allowed to speak and putting forth an amendment which included reference to an Irish republic, neither man was permitted to address the meeting and the resolution passed through unopposed. The situation grew more volatile when a report of the event emerged in The Star, which spurred Scott-Hayward and Scallan to contact the newspaper outlining the amendment which they had sought to propose.Footnote 89 The matter resulted in Scott-Hayward being called before an inquiry by the Johannesburg branch and the issue was discussed extensively at the first meeting of the new central executive a week later.Footnote 90 The Johannesburg leaders’ attempt to impeach Scott-Hayward because of his conduct was unsuccessful, but he was ultimately expelled from the branch.Footnote 91
Although this incident was dealt with, the problems for the IRASA were only beginning. In the brief stretch between the Johannesburg meeting and IRASA’s general conference in November 1921, the developing schism continued to worsen. The conference was held in Bloemfontein and was identified as an opportunity to resolve some of the issues that existed within the group. In the end, however, the exact opposite took place. The official report of the conference was unremarkable, but Scott-Hayward’s personal correspondence outlined how a ‘coup’ had taken place, which resulted in the ‘moderate and extremists being driven into different camps’, with him being the leader of the latter against the ‘Dominion Home Rulers’ and ‘Peace at any pricers’.Footnote 92 While Scott-Hayward’s account must be read with suspicion — given his clear bias — we do know that the incumbent central executive was prematurely disbanded at the conference, Benjamin Farrington was appointed as the sole IRASA representative for the upcoming Irish Race Conference and a new IRASA constitution was enacted.Footnote 93 Scott-Hayward viewed the conference as ‘a farce’ and stated it went a long way towards ‘smashing up [the] association’.Footnote 94 Three branches supposedly rejected the outcome of the conference; the Cradock branch even pulled support for the association, reverted back to its former moniker of the Sinn Féin Club and re-established its own newsletter (under the new name Poblacht na hÉireann).Footnote 95 The IRASA’s neutral position was clearly doing very little to quell dissenting voices within the organisation and the conflict soon spread from organisational meetings to the pages of The Republic. In a December 1921 issue of the journal, Michael Cassidy, a former IRA captain living in the Cape, expressed his displeasure with the Anglo-Irish Treaty and considered any person within the IRASA who supported dominion status to be a traitor to the organisation’s overall goal.Footnote 96 On the other end of the spectrum, an April 1922 letter questioned why the IRASA’s official journal had not changed its name from The Republic, given that the Treaty had at that point passed through Dáil Éireann.Footnote 97
Farrington’s appointment as the IRASA representative to the Irish Race Conference was also significant. That he was the editor of The Republic unquestionably made Farrington one of the most important IRASA members, but his role in destabilising the organisation should not be overlooked. As Darragh Gannon has shown, a number of Irish Race Conventions had convened between 1916 and 1921, but the largest — held in Paris in January 1922 — was first mooted by the IRASA.Footnote 98 When this idea for a meeting of the global Irish was conceived by the South African organisation, it was intended that the conference be held in a non-Irish city where delegates would act as citizens of their respective nations with a shared Irish heritage — not as Irish exiles answering the ‘call of the motherland’.Footnote 99 However, once the proposal had been taken over by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the direction immediately changed.Footnote 100 Dublin was suggested as the host city where the delegates would be invited guests of Dáil Éireann. Farrington was unsurprisingly angered by this, viewing it as a clear divergence from the intended purpose of the conference and he warned his readers that plans were in danger of ‘going astray’ if the initial ideals were not adhered to.Footnote 101
Of course, the conference was ultimately not held in Dublin, nor were the delegates invited on behalf of Dáil Éireann, but Farrington’s misgivings had only grown by the time the conference had come around. His support for the Treaty was resolute by January 1922 and that the proceedings in Paris were dominated by de Valera and his supporters left a sour taste in Farrington’s mouth. Taking place quite soon after the vote on the Treaty within the Dáil, the Paris conference was plagued by disagreement and political intrigue. However, it was not only the Treaty that caused division. Conflicting notions regarding national allegiances and ethnic identities also posed significant problems to the running of the conference.Footnote 102 In this, Farrington’s earlier warnings quite clearly came to pass as various representatives (himself included) maintained that they were citizens of their respective countries, while others sharply undercut any association of residence with nationality.Footnote 103 The situation continued to devolve over the course of the conference to the point that Farrington — along with representatives from Australia, New Zealand and Argentina — sent a letter to de Valera shortly after its conclusion detailing their secession from the organisation (Fine Gaedheal) that had been established during the proceedings.Footnote 104
When it came to informing his readership, Farrington was initially cagey about the events in Paris. His first account published in March 1922 focused almost exclusively upon an autograph book that he had brought with him and the time he spent with Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith in Dublin after he had left the conference.Footnote 105 With time, he began to pull back the curtain and outline how the delegates in Paris had voted against many of the fundamental elements that had initially been envisioned and that the executive of Fine Gaedheal was exclusively made up of individuals from Ireland, Britain and North America, which limited the role the Irish in the southern hemisphere could play.Footnote 106 He also described how the conference was entirely split by the Treaty, supposedly between those who sought to keep it separate from the proceedings and those who had a view for the newfound organisation to back the anti-Treaty side. According to Farrington, this was the reason that he and other delegates pulled their support for the initiative.Footnote 107 What he did not mention was that Fine Gaedheal was also firmly under the control of anti-Treatyites, which caused the only pro-Treaty committee member to resign and undoubtedly soured his view of the organisation further.Footnote 108
It was not long before news of Farrington’s conduct at the conference reached other IRASA members. In May, Art O’Brien furnished the IRASA secretary with a report of the proceedings, adding that ‘I have no doubt [it] will be of interest to you, and your Association’.Footnote 109 Farrington certainly knew that the details would soon filter down through the organisation, which probably influenced his decision to inform his readership of the IRASA’s secession from Fine Gaedheal. Upon hearing this, the chairman of the Pretoria branch wrote a scathing criticism of Farrington and the central executive:
You announce in the issue [8 April] that at the Congress in Paris a world organisation of the Irish race was formed under the name of Fine Gaedheal, that the first object of the organisation was agreed on unanimously on Wednesday, 25 January, that on Friday [27 January], a Central Executive was elected unanimously, and that on Monday, 30 January, our delegate notified to the President of that Executive that he had withdrawn allegiance from, and refused to co-operate with, that Executive. You announce also that the Central Council [sic.] of the [IRASA] has since confirmed our delegate’s action in this matter. A more deplorable state of affairs it is hard to conceive; deplorable whether the action taken on one side or the other was justified or the contrary.Footnote 110
In the following issue of The Republic, the honorary secretary of the Durban branch included a resolution passed at a general meeting held on 11 May:
That this branch of the IRASA […] records its unflinching loyalty to the objects and constitution of the IRASA, and in the interest of the same calls upon the Central Executive to remove the editor of the official organ from any further participation in the management of that paper, to ensure that the columns of the said official organ be used for their original and proper purpose. Further, this meeting emphatically protests against the actions of the association’s delegate to the World Congress in attempting to commit this association to secession from Fine Gaedheal.Footnote 111
Quite evidently, news of the organisation’s departure from Fine Gaedheal was not received well by many within the IRASA. In this, it should be emphasised that Farrington had been the most vocal advocate for a global Irish organisation in the IRASA, which made his decision all the more frustrating for other members.
Indeed, just as the messy details of the Paris conference were beginning to reach South Africa, the tenuous lines that bound the IRASA to a neutral position regarding the Treaty were resolutely cut by Farrington. His editorial within the 22 April issue of The Republic came with a stinging criticism of de Valera and his followers (whom he described as engaging in a form of ‘hero-worship’ regarding ‘the Chief’).Footnote 112 In doing so, Farrington had publicly gone against the organisation, and it was inevitable that letters from disillusioned members would soon follow. The central executive and Farrington were not unaware of this, so it is hardly surprising that the following issue included an attempt by the former to maintain some semblance of stability as well as the final editorial offered by the latter. Farrington accepted that he had not upheld the organisation’s commitment to neutrality but emphasised that he could no longer offer his commentaries, or return ‘to a seat on the fence’, given what was transpiring in Ireland.Footnote 113 The representatives from the central executive, for their part, re-stated the IRASA’s official stance on the Treaty but did open the door slightly by announcing a ‘special general conference’ where the opinion of the membership would be taken and a new direction considered.Footnote 114
The response from the membership following Farrington’s editorial was intense. In the absence of an editorial, it was decided that the bulk of The Republic be devoted to publishing letters received from the members regarding the Treaty. While this was done in the hope of finding ‘a common basis’, in reality it only highlighted how fractured the IRASA had become. While a careful balance was maintained between pro- and anti-Treaty letters — which limits our ability to gauge which side was more common within the organisation — there was an unmistakable edge within many of the more critical letters, and the bulk of this ire was directed at Farrington. Cassidy, for example, indicated that he had been (possibly unintentionally) misleading ‘those readers of your paper who are republicans’.Footnote 115 Another correspondent, using the penname Liam Saodha, also took umbrage with Farrington’s role as editor and argued that it would be impossible to maintain a neutral stance if he continued as sole editor.Footnote 116
Saodha need not have been concerned, as The Republic was already on its knees at that point. The next issue was its last and blazoned on the front page was a forlorn message from the organisation’s general secretary, Matthew Clancy. Regarding the journal, he stated:
[The financial position of the association] would not be alarming in itself were it not for the fact that the activity of many branches is now apparently suspended. Particularly is this so on the [Witwatersrand], where the majority of South African Irishmen are to be found. The recent upheaval there disorganised the branches, while the continuation of Martial Law has prevented their reorganisation. The capitation fee from the branches, which has been steadily dwindling, is an essential contribution towards the running expenses of the paper, and if it fails, the paper must cease.Footnote 117
V
Although he sought to instil a modicum of optimism for the organisation’s future, Clancy painted quite a bleak picture of the IRASA. That he mentioned unrest on the Witwatersrand (more commonly known as the Rand) was also important. While much of the IRASA’s downfall can be attributed to events that took place outside of South Africa, the onset of the 1922 Rand Revolt was equally as profound. The rebellion originated from a strike that had been called by white mineworkers in early January 1922 following months of conflict between them and the mine owners.Footnote 118 Although the situation did not immediately turn violent, a combination of key missteps by Smuts and the owners, and the growing presence of radical figures within the strike leadership, caused the situation to unravel.Footnote 119 A general strike was called in early March and outright rebellion soon followed as the strikers were ordered to seize police firearms and occupy the various towns across the Rand. Smuts’s response was decisive: martial law was imposed, and the Active Citizen Force mobilised. By 18 March, all rebels had surrendered, with 200 people having lost their lives and approximately 1,000 left injured.
The role of the Irish in the Rand Revolt is yet to be accounted for.Footnote 120 That some Irish were a part of the fighting is inarguable, but the scale of this is still unknown, as is the IRASA’s involvement. As McCracken has correctly surmised, it is certain that the organisation did not get involved in an official sense, but rumours nevertheless swirled that the Irish Club — where the Johannesburg IRASA branch was based — was participating in revolutionary activity.Footnote 121 These were unfounded and the newspaper that reported on this was forced to issue a retraction in the midst of the fighting.Footnote 122 While the IRASA was not directly associated with the rebels, the same cannot be said of all of its members. An interesting example in this respect was Michael ‘Mickey’ Dunne. A leading member of the South African Mine Workers’ Union, Dunne led groups of rebels in the town of Fordsburg on the East Rand (where an Irish Brigade was also formed).Footnote 123 Before the fighting had started, a report described him as the chief marshal at a large commando march from Germiston to Maraisburg, where he was supposedly armed with a ‘fine shillelagh’.Footnote 124 In the aftermath of the violence, Dunne was brought before a Johannesburg court and charged with high treason (although he seems to have been eventually released without conviction). One of the many accusations levelled at Dunne was that he was the leader of the Fordsburg Irish Brigade during the tumult and that he gave orders to the various commandoes active in the area.Footnote 125 Just as Dunne was heavily involved in the Rand Revolt, he was also a member of the Johannesburg IRASA. Although never occupying the most senior positions within the branch, Dunne was elected to its committee in September 1921.Footnote 126 Moreover, when Patrick Little arrived in Johannesburg on behalf of the revolutionary government, he expected trouble to spring up during his address but — as Reilly notes — he was ‘supported by a labour leader from the gold mines, named Dunne’, who helped keep the peace.Footnote 127
Dunne’s example demonstrates how an IRASA member could be involved in the fighting that took place on the Rand, but it should not be conflated with widespread participation from association members. Nevertheless, as Clancy outlined, the Rand Revolt was a major problem for the IRASA. As he noted, the Transvaal was the province with the largest Irish population and the bulk of this was found on the Rand.Footnote 128 One need only look at the number of IRASA branches that were active in the Transvaal to get a sense of its importance to the organisation. Of the twenty-five IRASA branches to have formed, eleven were set up in the Transvaal and many — such as Brakpan, Benoni and Germiston — were in the thick of the fighting. It is unsurprising then that these were effectively wiped away by the collapse of civil order and imposition of martial law. Indeed, in the months leading up to the rebellion, reports on such issues were included often in each branch’s update.Footnote 129 Although there was optimism in these accounts that the situation would soon return to normal, in many cases these were the final correspondences that were sent. For example, 28 January 1922 was the final issue of The Republic with an update from the branches at Brakpan, Bezuidenhout Valley and Krugersdorp.Footnote 130 The last updates from the main Johannesburg branch, its smaller sister Commissioner Street branch and Pretoria (which was not as affected by the unrest) were found in the issue prior.Footnote 131 The Germiston branch lasted longest and provided its final update in early March 1922.Footnote 132
VI
Despite its short lifespan and volatile ending, the Irish Republican Association of South Africa represented a climactic moment for the Irish in South Africa: never again would the country’s Irish population coalesce into a comparable nationwide organisation. This article has shown that — despite its clear objectives and controversial name — the IRASA was, from the outset, a catch-all association that encompassed a membership with widely diverging interpretations of what the organisation stood for. That such a grouping of Irish was brought together — and, for a time, made to flourish — can be attributed to the careful work of the association’s leaders, to the outrage that followed reports of atrocities in Ireland and, most importantly, to the distinct environment in which it operated.
D. H. Akenson once said that the real value of studying Irish migration to South Africa is that it ‘defines one end of the range of possible patterns that Irish emigration could take’.Footnote 133 Indeed, this extends to diasporic responses to the Irish Revolution. Although Irish South Africans were broadly similar to Irish populations in other dominions — regarding their overall views of empire and the Irish question — that this moderate and conservative population went so far as establishing a nationwide republican association encapsulated how the revolutionary period played out quite differently in South Africa. Why Irish South Africans were willing — and able — to adopt a more controversial position than their countrymen and women in other imperial settings was ultimately due to South Africa itself. For one, individuals of British and Irish descent were vastly outnumbered in South Africa. They constituted quite a small portion of the country’s overall population, but they were also a minority of its white population (behind Afrikaners). Added to this was the fact that many (though by no means all) Afrikaners wielded their own brand of intense ethno-linguistic nationalism that resonated with the message being put forth by Irish nationalists in the country. Within such an environment, republican and anti-British sentiment was controversial, to be sure, but hardly unusual and was even embraced by large portions of the white population. Moreover, anti-Irish feeling was much less pronounced in South Africa than it was in the other dominions, which naturally benefited the IRASA. That there were relatively few Irish in South Africa was not unimportant in this respect, but this predominantly Protestant and middle-class population was also well integrated into white South African society. The Orange Order was also quite weak in South Africa, which took away a key component of anti-Irish sentiment in other settings.Footnote 134 Put simply, although the IRASA was a controversial organisation — and it did receive criticism from pro-British elements in society — it did not attract the same kind of hysteria that was typical of Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Indeed, leaders of the various forms of the Self-Determination for Ireland League in these countries had to deal with persistent accusations that they were concealing their true republican nature behind the veil of self-determination. The case of the IRASA indicates that it was certainly possible for a similar population to lobby for Irish republicanism: all that was required was the ideal environment in which to operate.
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