The Irish Citizen Army - General Éirethread for the 23th of November 2021

The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) was a paramilitary group of trained trade union volunteers from the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU), founded on this day in 1913. The ICA was founded by James Larkin, James Connolly, and Jack White in Dublin, Ireland, and established for the defense of workers’ demonstrations from the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

The Citizen Army arose out of the great strike of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) in 1913, known as the Lockout of 1913. The dispute was over the recognition of that labour union, founded by James Larkin. It began when William Martin Murphy, an industrialist, locked out some trade unionists on 19 August 1913. On 25 August, in response, Larkin called an all-out tramway strike on Murphy’s Dublin United Tramway Company. However, Larkin was arrested by strikebreakers in October; James Connolly, his deputy, took control for the duration of the lockout, announcing a call to arms of four battalions of trained men with corporals and sergeants.

This strike caused most of Dublin to come to an economic standstill; it was marked by vicious rioting between the strikers and the Dublin Metropolitan Police, particularly at a rally on O’Connell Street on 31 August, in which two men were beaten to death and about 500 more injured. The violence at union rallies during the strike prompted Larkin to call for a workers’ militia to be formed to protect themselves against the police. The Citizen Army for the duration of the lock-out was armed with hurleys (sticks used in hurling, a traditional Irish sport) and bats to protect workers’ demonstrations from the police.

Jack White, a former Captain in the British Army, volunteered to train this army and offered £50 towards the cost of shoes to workers so that they could train. In addition to its role as a self-defence organisation, the Army, which was drilled in Croydon Park in Fairview by White, provided a diversion for workers unemployed and idle during the dispute. After a six-month standoff, the workers returned to work hungry and defeated in January 1914. The original purpose of the ICA was over, but it would soon be totally transformed.

In 1916, it took part in the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection aimed at ending British rule in Ireland. Despite the relatively small size of the army, it was more organized than the larger Irish Volunteers, with its members receiving superior training and being less affected by factional and ideological division. James Connolly was made commander of the rebel forces in Dublin during the Rising and issued orders to surrender after a week. He and Mallin were executed by British Army firing squad some weeks later. The surviving ICA members were interned, in English prisons or at Frongoch internment camp in Wales, for between nine and 12 months.

Following the Easter Rising, the ICA had lost most of their most dynamic and militant leaders. The ICA was largely left in the hands of James O’Neill. By the time of the Irish War of Independence, there were never more than 250 people actively involved in the ICA, and these were mostly concentrated in Dublin City. By this stage, the ICA could not nor would not engage directly British forces in Ireland; Instead the organisation chose to operate as a support organisation to the IRA, provide weapons, medical aid and other material support. While at first the ICA was content to allow members to both in the IRA and ICA, in July 1919 they declared members could only be in one or the other. This caused much resentment with the ICA’s own membership and resulted in a number of people choosing the IRA over the ICA.

Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the ICA adopted a stance of “neutrality” between the pro and anti-treaty sides of now emerging Irish Civil War. In a view of a majority of the ICA, neither side was working towards a “Workers’ Republic”, which was the ICA’s aim. Their views matched that of the mainstream labour movement such as the Labour Party, who campaigned for peace between both sides in the face of the civil war. However, what direction the ICA should move towards lead to ideological in-fighting, with different factions arguing in favour of following Jim Larkin, others supporting Roddy Connolly and his newly formed Communist Party of Ireland (a renamed version of his father’s Socialist Party of Ireland), while others wanted to keep the ICA in line with the mainstream Labour Party.

In the end, a majority choose to stand by the Labour Party and to campaign for peace between the Pro and Anti Treaty sides. This led to many defections from the ICA, with a majority joining the Anti-Treaty IRA while a minority joined the newly formed National Army of the Free State.