IN the Oval Office on St Patrick’s Day, Taoiseach Micheál Martin defended Keir Starmer following Donald Trump’s disparaging of the British prime minister as being no Winston Churchill.

The taoiseach described Starmer as “an earnest, sound person” and while “Churchill was a great war-time leader”, he noted that “in Ireland it was kind of a different perspective in terms of our own War of Independence and so on – he created his own bit of difficulties for us”.

Opponents of Martin were quick to jump on the assertion that “Churchill was a great war-time leader”, with many social media commentators citing Churchill’s warmongering and ignoring the taoiseach’s explanation of his complex relationship with Ireland.

However, the taoiseach was correct on both counts.

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It is hard to argue otherwise than that Churchill was a great war-time leader for Britain during the Second World War.

In his dignified response to Churchill’s hot-headed, highly personalised outburst against him immediately after the war in Europe ended, Éamon de Valera acknowledged as much by commending Britain’s “stand alone” and said Churchill should be “justly proud of his nation’s perseverance against heavy odds”.

While it is correct to continuously scrutinise Churchill’s actions during the war, he undoubtedly played a formidable role in defeating Nazism, an evil that needed to be vanquished.

The taoiseach was also correct to add the caveat about Churchill and Ireland.

Although Churchill may be lauded by most British people, opinions of him in Ireland tend to be far more critical.

Churchill had a long and complex relationship with the island, a place he knew well and commented on frequently.

He was accused of treachery by Ulster unionists in his very public support for home rule as a Liberal cabinet minister in the 1910s. His father Randolph had after all been at the vanguard of unionist resistance to home rule at the time of William Gladstone’s first bill in 1886, famously coining the slogan “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right”.

On a visit to Belfast in February 1912, Winston Churchill’s planned speech in Ulster Hall in support of home rule had to be changed to Celtic Park, ground of the nationalist-leaning Belfast Celtic football club.

He was booed and hissed at by unionists, with missiles thrown and his car nearly overturned at one stage by an angry mob.

Although he supported home rule, he was an early advocate of some form of exclusion for Ulster.

With home rule shelved and a more advanced form of nationalism in the ascendancy in Ireland by the end of the First World War, Churchill supported a hawkish policy of dealing with the militant struggle as it escalated throughout 1919 and 1920.

Winston Churchill conceived of the idea of the Auxiliary Division. In May 1920, he suggested that a special force of ex-soldiers be raised at once to reinforce the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

Even though most of the worst atrocities committed by British security forces have since been attributed to the Black and Tans, many of them were committed by the Auxiliaries, who developed an even more loathsome reputation in many parts of Ireland.

Despite being considered one of the most hard-line on policy in Ireland, Churchill wavered in April 1921 and spoke of the “great public importance” of getting “a respite in Ireland”. He worried that “we are getting an odious reputation” and “poisoning our relations with the United States”.

He supported the Truce that was brokered months later and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, of which he was a British signatory.

Following the Treaty and as colonial secretary, Winston Churchill was the British Cabinet minister with most responsibility for Irish affairs.

He had to spend much of 1922 dealing with the fractious relationship between the two governments in post-Treaty Ireland.

A lot of his energy was focused on dealing with the fallout from the Treaty and the potential ramifications of the Irish Boundary Commission clause which looked to alter the border.

He went from admitting in early 1922 that the commission “may conceivably affect” the northern government “prejudicially” to later dismissing the “absurd supposition” that Northern Ireland would be reduced “to its preponderatingly Orange areas”.

At this juncture, he was also wrestling with his own political future, moving away from the Liberals and looking to reconcile with the Conservatives, where many members still harboured a deep distrust of him for leaving the party in 1904.

As violence threatened to engulf the north at the start of 1922, Churchill facilitated meetings between James Craig and Michael Collins, helping to broker pacts in January and March.

While he insisted on “fair play” between both Irish governments, he himself did not live up to this mantra, telling Craig: “Though we are impartial, we cannot be indifferent. Naturally, our hearts warm towards those in the north who are helping, and have helped so long, to keep the old flag flying.”

As Chancellor of the Exchequer in late 1925, Churchill played a decisive role in bringing about the London Agreement between the British, Irish Free State and Northern Irish governments following the collapse of the Boundary Commission.

It was his decision to waive Article 5 which had committed the Free State to a potential debt totalling £150 million. During those tense negotiations in London, he stated that his preference was for eventual Irish unity, something he had declared previously.

And yet, he bears a large portion of responsibility for Northern Ireland not being financially responsible for its own upkeep, which contributed to the cementing of partition. Also, while he may have expressed support for Irish unity, it was always through his imperial lens.

Despite Churchill often being contradictory and ambiguous in his views towards Ireland, it was a British Empire perspective that informed most of his political actions, as well as his own ambitions.

While this has not harmed the generally positive views within Britain of his role as a war-time leader, his advocacy of the empire in Ireland and in other British colonies has left his reputation elsewhere decidedly more tainted.

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