As we approach the centenary of Liam Lynch’s death on April 10th, historian Gerard Shannon examines the life of the man in charge of the anti-treaty IRA forces during the Irish Civil War.
Lynch had a pretty uneventful childhood and was described as a quiet, bookish and almost priestly young man. Like many of his generation, however, Lynch was radicalised by the events of Easter 1916 and their aftermath – the key moment that turned this mild-mannered shop clerk into a soldier was the arrest of the Kent brothers, who were paraded through the streets of Mitchelstown by armed guard, two of them barefoot. Previously a moderate supporter of Home Rule, Lynch subsequently dedicated his life to “striking some telling blows at the age-long enemy”.
During the War of Independence, Lynch “honed his organisational skills in service to the republican cause”, proving himself a shrewd military leader as he oversaw celebrated attacks on British forces as leader of Cork’s No 2 Brigade and subsequently of the First Southern Division.
The book delves deep into the minutiae of the back and forth in the months following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. Close friends with many well-known figures on the pro-treaty side, including Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, Lynch was initially a moderate opponent of the treaty, convinced that these former comrades-in-arms could be reconciled without recourse to violence.
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Once the shells landed on the Four Courts on April 14th, 1922, however, Lynch had no regrets in becoming IRA chief of staff and indeed many of his contemporaries believe it was Lynch’s subsequent intransigence that prolonged the conflict into its bloodiest days. Interestingly, however, Lynch confessed to his family that he didn’t foresee a military victory for the anti-treaty side, lamenting “the disaster of this war”, while expressing the opposite viewpoint in his official military dispatches.
Gerard Shannon delivers a nuanced portrait of Lynch, respects his subject without being in awe of him. Shannon succeeds in painting a picture of a soldier with a distaste for politics and politicians, “consistently naive and lacking in political acumen, while bereft of the self-awareness to diagnose this”.
While there is no doubting his bravery or commitment to an Irish Republic, Shannon concludes that Lynch was ultimately “ill-suited to the role of commander of the republican forces during 1922-23″.
