Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Note on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 Intimidating the Crown
- 2 Collecting the Rates: Dáil Éireann Local Government and the IRA
- 3 Civilians and Communities I: Non-cooperation and Defiance
- 4 Civilians and Communities II: Coercion and Punishment
- 5 Defying the IRA in Belfast
- 6 Old Enemies? July 1921–June 1922
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Note on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 Intimidating the Crown
- 2 Collecting the Rates: Dáil Éireann Local Government and the IRA
- 3 Civilians and Communities I: Non-cooperation and Defiance
- 4 Civilians and Communities II: Coercion and Punishment
- 5 Defying the IRA in Belfast
- 6 Old Enemies? July 1921–June 1922
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1934, in an attempt to have a claim for compensation reviewed under the 1933 Damage to Property (Amendment) Act, James McCabe, an egg-dealer from Arva, County Cavan, set forth his family's republican credentials:
I had 3 sons one a Captain in the Volunteers who has since died and the other is now seeking a Pension and I know of no man in this or surrounding counties who gave the same support or treated as harshly as I was. Any of the then existing officers or men of the 3 surrounding counties can corroborate me as it was the means of putting me on the road.
Following up on his ‘genuine claim’ two months later, McCabe insisted that the family ‘gave all & got nothing in the Anglo-Irish War’ and if the department of finance were to ‘make enquiry into our activities & hospitality during Anglo-Irish War’, they would find ‘our record is very good’. In 1924, James McCabe had claimed £350 compensation for the loss of a motor car taken by ‘Black and Tans’ after one of his sons had refused to drive them. Awarded the ‘inadequate’ sum of £45, he blamed the ‘small amount’ on the ‘active part’ he and his sons had taken in the war. Complaints of insufficient recompense for losses suffered during the independence struggle were not uncommon, but McCabe's case was different from most. In between his unsatisfactory attempts to secure compensation from the Irish Free State was an application to the British Treasury-funded Irish Grants Committee (IGC). Unlike the Damage to Property scheme, which was open to anyone who could prove they had suffered loss at the hands of any ‘unlawful or seditious’ (but usually republican) organisation, the IGC insisted that applicants’ losses were the direct result of their ‘support of His Majesty's Government’. In his (unsuccessful) IGC claim, McCabe described how his business had been ruined by an IRA boycott:
Being myself a police pensioner [I] bore allegiance to the British Government & that by supplying British forces during the trouble I was as a matter of fact looked upon as a spy. My son, also being an ex-British soldier of the great war had sworn allegiance to the British government.
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- Defying the IRA?Intimidation, Coercion, and Communities during the Irish Revolution, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2016