A Labour TD, John Butler was arrested and farmers formed their own self-styled ‘White Guards’, who beat up union activists and burned their cottages. National Army Intelligence recorded that masked members of either the Special Infantry Corps or the CID had burned seven labourers’ cottages in reprisal for attacks on farmers’ property; ‘such actions are regrettable but are the only way to stop burnings by the labour crowd’ the Intelligence officer concluded. By the summer of 1923, National Army Intelligence was reporting that the Special Infantry Corps was ‘having a very bad effect on the civil population in most districts where it is stationed’. To conclude, the Special Infantry Corps to some degree represents simply the Free State’s enforcing of its monopoly on force within its territory. However it would probably a mistake to take this as the sum total of SIC activity. [31], National Army troops had already been used to forcibly break up pickets in a strike of the Postal Service in September 1922. News, email and search are just the beginning. In the Civil War in the Dublin Guard, he had seen action in Cork and Kerry before being made commander of the Special Infantry Corps 5th Battalion. Before the outbreak of Civil War, the IRA had been able to mediate such disputes to a degree. And in that case too you have Broy’s Harriers (Dev’s auxiliary armed police) meting out a fair bit of violence. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Christophe JOASSIN . Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These occupations were eventually ended after the Civil War started and Free State troops wrested these areas off the Republican guerrillas (who had tolerated the ‘Soviets’) and returned the plants to their owners. £4.00 postage. Required fields are marked *, Powered by Pinboard Theme by One Designs and WordPress. £11.95. The new Irish police force the Civic Guard was unable to face down armed anti-Treaty guerrillas and in many areas National Army authority did not extend beyond well-fortified towns in the countryside. This made it very unpopular in rural areas. In the military report, the section for ‘reason for arrest’, stated ‘nil’. There was a need, he argued, for a new Army corps to clear occupied land, enforce the rulings of the courts by collecting rents, annuities and taxes and to ‘stamp out poitín traffic’. The SIC’s reporting of its arrests was patchy until July 1923, thereafter it reported operations such as the following; In Carna, Connemara, five men were arrested for being ‘in illegal possession of lands belonging to Mr Morgan’. The ITGWU union condemned killing but their language was often radical. £38.09. They had also issued fines amounting to £5,591 (£1,764 in County Tipperary alone) and had seized 1,553 cattle and 5 motor cars.[26]. Hogan warned of ‘anarchy’ and a new Land War’ in late 1922 by people, ‘with a vested interest in chaos’. Where the anti-Treaty IRA controlled the countryside, they also tried to put a stop to such things. You could even see the Fianna Fail-Blueshirt clash over the collection of land annuities in the 1930s as the last violent agrarian conflict in Ireland. This proposal was made to the gendarmerie, but as you can imagine, it was not retained … However, this Peugeot 308 RC could discourage more than a reckless driver from driving above the speed limits. To the pro-Treaty side the Special Infantry Corps was an indispensable part of restoring social order in 1923. By that time most of the country was again peaceful enough for the newly established, unarmed Civic Guard (or Garda Siochana as they began to called from 1924) to be able to take over policing duties from the Army. For your information, the Peugeot 308 RC ByFactory does exist. Your email address will not be published. [29], Such ‘Soviets’ represented a radical tactic to resist wage cuts, more than a desire for socialist revolution, but they still scared farmers and other employers. The Corps does not seem to have suffered many casualties during its deployment but at least one officer, Captain Michael Keogh was killed in a bomb explosion in June 1923 in Mallow County Cork and another Lieutenant Arthur of Belfast was shot in the neck in County  Waterford in October 1923 during the strike there. He warned that ‘Farmers may have to fight labour’. The truth was that radical socialism was a fringe movement in Ireland, but strikes, in the atmosphere of the collapse of state power in 1922-23 often descended into violence. 6 p48-53, [35] National Army Dublin District Reports, UCd Mulcahy Papers MP/7/B/139, [36] Uinseann MacEoin, Survivors, Argenta 1980, p5, [37] Military Archives Summary of Special Infantry Corps Arrests, cw/P/02/02/02, [38] Irish Times, June 22, 1923 and October 17 1923, [39] Michael Lawless BMH, James Conroy Military Pension Claim, http://mspcsearch.militaryarchives.ie/detail.aspx?parentpriref. It’s time for the gendarme’s darling to retire and give way to a … Interesting to see a couple of ex-Squad members involved. Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (UK: / ˈ ɡ oʊ ɡ æ̃ /, US: / ɡ oʊ ˈ ɡ æ̃ /; French: [ø.ʒɛn ɑ̃.ʁi pɔl ɡo.ɡɛ̃]; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. 'PENSION ANNUITY SOCIETY'. These were by no means isolated incidents, even in this small region. Who are the landlords? [19], In some cases though the charges were more serious and those arrested were interned indefinitely. The Special Infantry along with other auxiliary Army units such as the Railway Protection Corps were among the first units to be demobilised. Peugeot 308 RC x Gendarmerie “Follow me if you can”. Click & Collect. The workers, whether IRA members or simply union men with access to guns, sniped at the convoys, who returned fire. The Special Infantry Corps’ most large scale and violent deployment came in a strike in Kilmacthomas County Waterford that lasted from May to November 1923, in which 1,500 agricultural workers were locked out for refusing to take pay cut and longer working hours. Copyright © 1995-2020 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. The ‘Irregular’ campaign, depended on the support of ‘people in possession of land and property not legally theirs, people who owe money or are engaged in illegal activities such as poitín [illegal liquor] making’. CORGI LLEDO VANGUARDS HILLMAN IMP SUPER AQUARIUS CAR MODEL VA02622 1:43. It was named the Special Infantry Corps.[1]. Street View. The SIC was disbanded in late 1923, as part of process of demobilising the hugely bloated National Army after the Civil War to stave off state bankruptcy. To others though, the SIC was just a manifestation of the Free State’s repressive reconstitution of Irish society around the pillars of the farming class, the Catholic Church and state institutions. Much of Ireland had been essentially un-policed since early 1920 when the IRA campaign against Crown Forces had begun in earnest and especially since the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922 which had disbanded the Royal Irish Constabulary and withdrawn the British Army to barracks. ... 'PENSION ANNUITY SOCIETY'. [6] Some days later, another armed band abducted farmer Peter Lennon at Ballybay, Monaghan and ordered him to forego a land claim in Lurgan (County Cavan). In this regard, he thought that his creation the Special Infantry Corps had done a splendid job. The Free State was concerned from its earliest days about left-wing subversion as well as ‘Irregular’ IRA military action. These cookies do not store any personal information. [22], A meeting of unpurchased tenants in Ballybay, Monaghan – 100 delegates, representing farmers on rent strike since early 1922 – heard that the CID had been used to collect landlords’ rent. £4.00 postage. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. An evicted tenants meeting Cavan Town Hall heard from Mr MacAbhareagh (McAvery) the Chairman, ‘We need to recover the land from which our fathers and grandfathers were thrown off without law or justice’.[9].