French becomes Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

The British chronology of the war records under 5 May 1918 that Field Marshal Viscount John French was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that is, the representative of the Crown and formal head of the Dublin Castle administration. The changes in the government of Ireland were announced in the first days of May. The letters patent appointing French were dated, according to some sources, 9 May, and he took up office on 11 May, when he was sworn in at Dublin Castle. He replaced Ivor Guest, Lord Wimborne, who had been Lord Lieutenant since 1915, including during the Easter Rising. At the same time the Conservative Henry Duke was replaced as Chief Secretary for Ireland, that is, the minister responsible for governing the island, by the Liberal Edward Shortt.

The change came at the height of the conscription crisis. In April Parliament had passed a new Military Service Act, which allowed the government to extend conscription to Ireland by order in council. The response was a common front of all strands of Irish nationalism, the opposition of the Catholic bishops, an anti-conscription pledge taken outside churches and a general strike. As late as 5 May, at a rally in County Roscommon, attended according to reports by about 15,000 people, John Dillon of the Irish Parliamentary Party and Éamon de Valera of Sinn Féin spoke from the same platform. In April the Irish Convention had also ended its proceedings, after nearly a year spent vainly seeking agreement between nationalists and unionists on self-government (home rule).

Since December 1915, when he gave up command of the forces in France, French had commanded the forces in Great Britain and home defence. He came from a family with Irish roots, descended from Frenchpark in County Roscommon, and his elder sister, the suffragette Charlotte Despard, sympathised with Sinn Féin. Prime Minister David Lloyd George initially wanted to replace the Lord Lieutenant with a three-man body of Lords Justices, in which two Irish unionist politicians would sit alongside French. At a meeting on 30 April, however, all three demanded the immediate introduction of conscription and martial law, and after the Prime Minister refused, the plan was dropped. French agreed to take the office alone, on condition that he would be a “military viceroy at the head of a quasi-military government”. He also secured the separation of the command of the forces in Ireland from the home defence structure of Great Britain, and the replacement of the existing commander, General Bryan Mahon, by French’s own chief of staff at Home Forces, Frederick Shaw.

The new Lord Lieutenant believed that the Sinn Féin leaders did not have the support of the majority of the Irish, and that conscription could be carried out without bloodshed. He regarded the restoration of order as a condition for introducing self-government. On 11 May he landed at Dún Laoghaire (then Kingstown) and drove to Dublin without much ceremony. At the Castle, after the letters patent had been read, he took the oath and received the Sword of State, and after him Shortt was sworn in.

The first weeks showed what the “military” course was to mean. On the night of 17/18 May, on the orders of the new authorities, most of the Sinn Féin leaders were arrested on charges of a conspiracy with Germany. French remained Lord Lieutenant until April 1921, through most of the Irish War of Independence.