He was instrumental in recruiting large numbers of ex-British Army servicemen into the new Free State Army. It was he who obtained and commanded the British field guns that shelled the Four Courts.

Unlike many others who accepted it grudgingly, Dalton always denied that it had been signed under duress, insisting that it was a negotiating victory for the Irish side.ĭalton was a key figure in the Free State military leadership. Throughout his life, Dalton remained a staunch defender of the Treaty. It wasn’t until he was lifted in a raid on his parents' home in lieu of his absent brother that he appears to have adopted a more critical attitude towards the British Army and the political status quo.Įmmet Dalton’s entry into the IRA was facilitated by Charlie’s activism, enabling him to overcome distrust of his British Army background and immediately assume the role of Assistant Director of Training in IRA GHQ Staff and rise to become Director within months.ĭalton appears to have become something of a favourite with Michael Collins who inducted him into the Irish Republican Brotherhood and brought him to London as part of the Treaty delegation. Whilst his brother, Charlie, was becoming immersed in IRA activities, Emmet appeared content to bask as a returned war hero. Never, at any time, does Emmet Dalton appear to express any misgivings about his time in the British Army. Transferred to the Western Front, he won a Military Cross during the prolonged Battle of the Somme and which was awarded in person by King George V at Buckingham Palace. His first active role as a lieutenant appears to have been guarding strategic British positions in Wexford, and rounding up 'Sinn Fein sympathisers' for internment in the wake of the Easter Rising. His family was staunchly nationalist but in the Redmondite tradition, which explains the young Emmet’s decision to seek a commission in the British Army in late 1915. Emmet Dalton is, without doubt, a most interesting character but the flaws he exhibited in his lifetime are either exonerated or airbrushed out of existence.īorn in Boston in the United States to fairly prosperous Irish-American parents, the family moved to Ireland when Emmet was an infant. One imagines that the latter position would have left him with a considerable amount of free time in which to research this book.Ī reasonable degree of research is evident but it is the relentlessly uncritical tone of adulation in this biography that is such an irritant. He was also Political Correspondent with the Sunday World. SEÁN BOYNE was a journalist with The Irish Press. Emmet Dalton: Somme Soldier, Irish General, Film Pioneerīy Seán Boyne. Merrion Press. Price €25.99

Emmet Dalton by Sean Boyne