Stack’s life sentence was a farce
EXACTLY100YRSAFTERAUSTINSTACKWASSENTENCED TO LIFE IN JAIL FOR HIS PART IN THE 1916 RISING HISTORIAN T. RYLE DWYER EXAMINES THE TRIAL
W HEN Austin Stack was arrested at the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in Tralee on Good Friday, 1916, he was carrying a large bundle of letters on his person. These were later introduced in evidence against him at his court martial, which began at Richmond Barracks, Dublin one hundred years ago this week, on Thursday, June 15, 1916.
The prosecution highlighted a letter from James Connolly to Austin Stack on December 6, 1915. “It is not our purpose to disrupt, but rather to enforce and strengthen the true National movement,” Connolly wrote, “and in a town the size of Tralee, there is no necessity for any other military body than the Volunteer Corps which has stood out so splendidly by the true Irish ideal—the corps that you command.”
In outlining his case for the court, the prosecutor Major Edmund G. Kimber, an English officer, mentioned a sensational printed article matter that was enclosed with Connolly’s letter. This material ridiculed the idea that war could be humanized,
“You might as well talk of humanising hell!” the writer argued. It was absurd to think that war could be civilized, the article claimed. “The essence of war is violence; moderation in war is imbecility; hit first, hit hard, and hit everywhere.”
“Hit your enemy in the belly and kick him when he is down, and boil your prisoners in oil,” the extract continued, “and torture his women and children; then people will keep clear of you.”
It was blood thirsty stuff that provided a gripping introduction to the case against Austin Stack and Con Collins, who had been arrested in Tralee on the evening of April 21, 1916. They were charged with conspiring with others to bring about a rebellion in Ireland and spread disaffection among the civil population with the intent of helping the enemy.
They were also charged with harbouring and trying assist Robert Monteith and Julian Bailey to import arms illegally for use in the Easter Rebellion. They had arrived on the submarine with Roger Casement.
The prosecution contended that in relation to both charges that Stack and Collins were trying to help the enemy, Germany. Both were aware that the Germans were supposed to land arms at Fenit on Easter Sunday. In fact, Collins had come from Dublin to help organise the distribution of those arms.
The Aud, the ship with the arms, actually arrived in Tralee Bay three days early. After waiting overnight to be contacted, the ship abandoned its mission shortly before noon on Good Friday morning. Thus, it had already fled Tralee Bay before Stack or Collins even learned of its arrival. As a result they made no contribution whatever to the Aud’s efforts to deliver the guns.
After landing in the Banna area from the submarine, Casement went into hiding at Currahane, while his colleagues Monteith and Bailey went to Tralee for help. By the time that Stack and Collins arrived at Banna with Bailey, the area was crawling with police. At that point they abandoned their rescue mission.
That evening, shortly after returning to Tralee, Collins was arrested. He sent word for Stack to visit him at the RIC barracks in Tralee, where Stack was then arrested. Just one day short of eight weeks later they were brought before a military court in Richmond Barracks, Dublin.
King’s Counsel Edward J. McElligott, a native of Listowel, represented Stack and Collins in court. The first two days of the case were taken up largely with procedural arguments, as McElligott challenged the jurisdiction of the military court. Stack and Collins had been taken into custody by the civil powers on Good Friday, over two days before the rebellion began. Consequently, McElligott argued, the military court had no jurisdiction in their case.
He actually cited the case of Wolfe Tone in 1798 as a precedent. Tone had been arrested by the military, but he was handed over and tried by the civil authority. McElligott insisted that Stack and Collins should therefore be tried before a jury in a civil court.
Major- General Lord Cheylesmore, who presided at the court martial, suspended the hearing over night before ruling that the case should go ahead.
Con Collins had been arrested with an English- German dictionary in his possession. Stack had given him the dictionary, and Collins requested a colleague to have Stack call on him at the RIC barracks.
Paddy Cahill, Stack’s adjutant, urged Stack not to go to the barracks. “I told him he would not be allowed out if he went there,” Cahill noted.
Stack handed Cahill his revolver with ammunition and examined papers in his possession. “He looked through his papers and said he had nothing of importance on him,” according to Cahill.
Stack later wrote to his brother, Nicholas, that he was carrying “a large number of letters, i.e. fully 20 or 30 letters I imagine.” These included letters from Patrick Pearse, Eoin MacNeill, James Connolly, and Bulmer Hobson.
During the court martial Head Constable John A. Kearney testified about arresting both Collins and Stack. In addition, to the letters found on Stack, more documents were discovered when the RIC searched his residence.
In cross-examining Kearney about Stack’s correspondence, McElligott referred to printed material enclosed in the Connolly letter that was quoted by the prosecutor. “You will agree that the newspaper cutting which Major Kimber read in his opening statement is a very brutal document?”
“I should say so,” the Head Constable replied.
“Did the prisoner tell you that it was an extract from The Review of Reviews of February 1910?’ McElligott asked. “No.” said Kearney “Or that the article in the Review professed to give the very words as the sentiments of Admiral Lord Fisher?”
“Yes; he said they were the words of Lord Fisher.”
A copy of the magazine was handed to Kearney, who, at McElligott’s request, read out the extract that Major Kimber had actually quoted in his opening statement. Thus, the bloodthirsty article had not been written by Connolly but the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty Admiral Fisher.
The RIC County Inspector Hugh Hill had ordered Kearney to question Collins and to arrest him when his answers were “very unsatisfactory. At that point Hill also directed the Head Constable to arrest Stack.
“But before this was done Stack came to the Barracks to see Collins,” according to Hill.
With the arrest of Casement, things were obviously going radically wrong. Stack had been told that Casement believed the Rising would be a disaster and he wished to have the Rising called off. The question must be asked why did Stack walk into the RIC barracks carrying those sensitive letters? Was it to ensure his arrest?
Of course, he would have been arrested anyway, as the RIC County Inspector had already ordered his arrest. Stack and Collins were duly sentenced to life in prison by the military court the following week. What for? One might ask.
They had played no part whatever in the Aud fiasco, and had abandoned efforts to rescue Casement while he was still in hiding, and Stack blocked any effort to rescue him in Tralee.
The sentence was a farce, but then what happened to Casement was an even greater perversion of true justice.
WHAT HAPPENED TO ROGER CASEMENT WAS AN EVEN GREATER PERVERSION OF TRUE JUSTICE