THE ANGLO-IRISH WAR TO JULY 1921
by Ernie O'Malley
OC of the 2nd Southern Division IRA
OUR area was improving daily, the people were becoming
more staunch in their allegiance to the Republic, and the
British as a government no longer functioned. They were as
they had been over a hundred and fifty years ago, a garrison;
a garrison which held the cities and towns and made their
influence felt in the countryside by force of arms only.
Years ago the country volunteer had been a butt for jokes.
Superficial minds could not penetrate beyond his bright-hued
cap perched on his head, the way in which he wore his
clothes, the peculiarities of his accent and his shyness when in
the company of city folk. He might hold himself ungainly, but
he had faced disdain and insults and, often enough, parental
displeasure; he had fronted public opinion with its major and
minor sources of irritation; his sincerity was obvious to all
who possessed any themselves. At any rate, his beliefs were
worth fighting for, in contrast to those of some who derided
him. His capacity for endurance was still unplumbed but he
had become more resolute; responsibility had given him a
certain air of independence which in some cases might have
become aggressive, but he was quiet, his life for the past four
or five years had led him to act rather than to talk.
Some areas were weak, that was true, and there the enemy
had attempted to cow the spirit by showing their strength and
might as brutally as they well knew how. In general, the local
IRA companies made or marred the morale of the people. If
the officers were keen and daring, if organization was good, if
the flying columns had been established, and if the people had
become accustomed to seeing our men bearing arms openly,
the resistance was stiffened. When the fighting took place, the
people entered into the spirit of the fight even if they were not
Republican; their emotions were stirred, and the little spark
of nationality which is borne by everyone who lives in Ireland
was fanned and given expression to in one of many ways.
The enemy controlled the cities and the larger towns but
English departments of government did not function as
before. Taxes were not collected, their courts were empty;
local administration was often managed by Republican
county councils which interpreted the orders and decrees
issued by Dail Eireann. Dail Eireann was the virtual dejure
and de facto government, and even where the English strength
was great, as in Dublin or Cork, they lived a garrison life.
Gone was the country of the soft brogue or blarney, the fox-
hunting days and the pleasant parties or tennis tournaments.
Instead was a hard, steady Ireland, cool, assertive. It had
pitted its strength against the Empire and the latter was
beginning to waver. The mentality of the island seemed to
have changed; the political type with his flow of eloquence
and his mouthings, his bland assurances, his ability to 'pull
wires', and his gymnastic feats of conscience, seemed to have
disappeared. There was no room for oratory. The nation was
at war and its intellect had been shriven of dross by suffering.
The familiar stage Irishman had disappeared. One met now a
young man who did not drink, who had developed a sense of
duty and of responsibility, and whose bearing showed it.
Simple country boys, simple in that they were not sophis-
ticated, had found they possessed organizing and adminis-
trative ability. They had made themselves respected by their
own people and, more difficult still, by those of their own
class. The enemies anglicization and snobbery, almost
synonymous terms, had given way before a national zeal and
the development of national consciousness. One was not now
judged by one's parents or by the status of one's relatives or of
one's position. One was simply judged by one's worth, by
one's ability and unselfishness, by grit, determination, and
capacity for suffering, and more than anything else by one's
courage and readiness for work.
The enemy, on the other hand, had suffered in morale dur-
ing the past two years, particularly in the past eight months.
Their very campaign of terrorism had defeated itself. It had
affected the discipline of their police force and of their army.
Co-operation between the forces of oppression was anything
but happy. The Auxiliaries did as they liked. The Black and
Tans followed suit. The old members of the Royal Irish
Constabulary resented the intruders and their tactics. The
British Army did not approve, from the point of view of disci-
pline, of unauthorized reprisals. There was dual command:
the army and the police force. The civil powers, such as they
were, resented the interference of the military and their ten-
dency to abrogate the powers of life and death. The Southern
Unionists stood aloof. They did not throw their lot in wholly
with the enemy; they could not side with us. They suffered
from either side, but they disliked the campaign of terrorism
initiated by Dublin Castle. Ireland was no longer a happy
hunting ground for fishing or shooting, it did not pay to
practice such gentlemanly virtues. Communications were
liable to temporary or complete rupture, whether telegraphic,
telephonic, postal, rail or motor. The roads were sometimes
unpassable and life was not very easy, or indeed very safe.
One evening in July 1921 a despatch rider asked to see me.
He was shown into the kitchen of Mrs. Quirke's in Donohill,
in south Co. Tipperary. The despatch was from General
Headquarters and stated that all hostilities would cease after
Forty-eight hours by twelve noon on 11 July. Immediately
Con Moloney, the Divisional Adjutant, typed orders to the
five brigades and arranged for their despatch. Then we sat
down to consider the situation. It was the first official intima-
tion we had received and we did not understand it.
Con, Mickey Fitzpatrick and I discussed possible angles
and reviewed areas in our own and in other commands, but
we failed to arrive at a satisfactory solution. Why had the
truce been ordered? We were gaining ground, each day
strengthened us and weakened our enemy; then why was it
necessary to put a stop to hostilities? We had not time to plan
an attack on any of the local posts as we would have wished,
and the day of the truce dawned leaving us in a state of
uncertainty.
CHAPTER ONE
JULY--OCTOBER 1921
WE thought the truce would last for about two or three
weeks, and we issued a series of orders and instructions to
cover the change of situation and worked as hard as we could
to make the most of the breathing space. Hostilities would
soon restart, and we wished to meet our officers and plan
operations now that we could move about freely. There was
a tendency to relax discipline, especially as the period of the
truce became prolonged. Suppressed feeling became
articulate, the tension was eased, and men who had been for a
long time names only returned to visit their families and
friends.
The Irish Republican Army was in danger of becoming
popular; recruits came in large numbers. Soon men appeared
in uniform who had never shown much anxiety to run special
risks when courage was needed. We had to give the officers
sufficient work to keep them busy and do our best to prevent
them from entering towns and cities where they would
become known to enemy intelligence agents.
After three weeks of truce we decided to change divisional
headquarters. We had remained in Mrs. Quirke's in Donohill
for nearly three months. She had never complained. The
numerous despatch riders and visiting officers had been fed
there, though occasionally we supplied the food ourselves. I
told her that we intended to leave.
'Sure what do you want to do that for?' she said. 'You're
always welcome. I'm rough and ready but the house is yours.
You're not a bit of bother in the world. I like to see the boys
around. '
'We will come back when the war begins,' I said, and she
hastened to prepare an egg-flip.
We moved to a small cottage where there was one occu-
pant, a man named Dinny Kelly. It was a red-bricked cottage
with a slate-roof. There were two rooms on the ground floor,
the kitchen and a small bedroom. A steep wooden stairs led to
the second storey which contained a room with a low ceiling
where Dinny slept. The house was not high and the sloping
roof restricted space. We worked in the kitchen at two tables
which were piled high with books and papers. Empty wooden
boxes, which had once contained explosives, held our files.
Maps, fastened by drawing pins, hung on the walls. A large
map of Ireland was on the back of the door, with the
divisional area outlined in red ink, and underneath it a 1"
map of the surrounding district. Above the table-where I
worked was a 1/2" map of the division. It had been pieced
together from four sheets. Brigade and battalion areas were
marked in red and green, companies with a red circle, enemy
posts in blue. Our belts, with guns in holsters, hung on pegs
on the wall, my uniform tunic near them. We cooked in turns
at the kitchen fire. The Assistant Quartermaster was the most
successful; we thankfully handed over the culinary arrange-
ment to him. The bedroom consisted of mattresses laid on the
floor, which were rolled up in the daytime. We slept in
blankets, three or four of us in the room.
Eoin O'Duffy, Deputy Chief of Staff, advised me to change
to a hotel in Tipperary. 'The place is too small, too uncom-
fortable, and you will not have proper food. I have advised
officers in other areas to go into the towns and cities. You
should have a proper headquarters,' he said.
'We have little money,' I said, 'and need it for office ex-
penses.' When I inquired how the bills would be met, he said
that I could have credit. 'You can run a bill in the town.' But
we remained in the little hut.
The spirit of the people was good in this part of the
country. They understood there would be further fighting and
were undaunted. We found less difficulty in getting the loan
of horses and carts or traps to carry supplies, or for our
despatch riders. People who were once indifferent had
become friendly, even gracious. 'You're quite welcome,' they
said to our demands. The truce had given us additional status
in their eyes and somehow they felt sorry that they had
remained aloof. The tradition of those who had helped had
spread. Some were anxious to join a movement that had now
become popular, others began to realize that they had not
contributed or had given grudgingly.
Liaison officers were appointed by both armies to see that
the truce was kept and to seek redress for such breaches as
occurred. In the main the terms of the truce were observed.
President de Valera, with members of his Cabinet, had gone
to London to meet Lloyd George. The British published
proposals for a settlement which de Valera in a reply refused
to accept, and in August, at the first meeting of the Second
Dail Eireann, his decision was confirmed. The British
Premier was acquainted with the decision of the represen-
tatives of our people. The English press, even the most liberal
elements of it, advocated the acceptance of Lloyd George's
proposals, proving that they also, like the British in general,
as an Irishman once said, had found Ireland a nation and had
left it a question, but the interchange of notes continued.
Our Quartermaster was busy buying military books,
getting equipment made, and trying to establish a munition
plant. Near Oola in east Limerick he was given outhouses for
the factory. Men came from the foundries in Limerick. They
had left good positions there, but there was no word of com-
plaint. They were willing to serve in any capacity. Soon piles
of scrap-iron were collected and melted down, moulds were
made and grenade cases manufactured. Weapons were
repaired by the staff at first, then a smith and a boy who had
worked in a jeweller's shop looked after the damaged
weapons. Empty revolver cases were forwarded, as we hoped
to refill them. We found it easier to purchase grenades, bodies
and necks, from our Quartermaster-General, but they were
expensive and in time we felt we would be able to turn out
complete hand-grenades ourselves. Rifle-grenades and im-
provised Stokes guns were discussed and tried. The Divisional
Engineer, Bob de Courcy, and some Limerick officers began
to work on a compressed-air gun which they had been
planning.
I learned to drive a motor-car. My lessons began at night,
the car was a Ford, and it had no lights. I ran into a gate in
the darkness, but succeeded in negotiating the winding road
near Donohill before I went to bed. I was able to inspect areas
over fifty miles away and time was saved. Travelling at night
was a little risky. Trenches and pot-holes on the roads had
not been filled in. We had trouble with the county council
who wished to repair the roads, but we were thinking in terms
of active service. One had to memorize long stretches; a
journey was an undulating spiral, changing from one road to
another, crossing fords, traversing fields. Often our cars had
faulty lights or none at all. That was exciting, driving in the
dark without lights on very bad roads. A journey of forty or
fifty miles became an adventure as exciting as a night advance
before the attack.
One evening after dusk, returning from Kilkenny city with
four officers in a big car, a German Daimler, I ran out of
petrol some miles from Clonmel. It was a commandeered car
and we had to be careful of it in garrison towns.
'We'll halt the next car that comes along,' I said. We
waited in the darkness; I heard the noise of a motor-car, a
high-powered one, I thought, by the sound. As the lights
approached I held up my hand and shouted 'Halt!' The
brakes were jammed on and the car stopped. I could not see it
on account of the headlights. I walked beyond the lights. It
was an open Crossley tender of the Royal Irish Con-
stabulary. They were seated on either side as I approached,
both sides pointing their rifles at me. I reached down, drew
my long-barrelled Parabellum automatic and held it, with
arm bent, in my right hand. The sergeant was seated beside
the driver.
'Can you give me some petrol, please?' I asked.
'What do you want it for?' he asked. He was a big, burly
man and spoke with an English accent, curtly.
'For my car,' I said, pointing to where it stood in the
shadow of the hedge. Two of my officers walked to one side
out of the glare of the headlights; the third had moved silently
some yards to the rear of the tender.
'Whose car is it?' he demanded.
'Mine,' I said. 'It belongs to the Irish Republican Army.'
'Who are you?'
'That does not matter. Can you give me some petrol to
bring us to Clonmel?'
The police talked amongst themselves. The sergeant
hesitated. He wanted to obtain the number of the car, I knew,
but could not make up his mind to order his men to get down.
'All right,' he said, 'I'll give you a tin.'
He handed me a tin and I paid and thanked him. They
drove off slowly.
'That was a close thing,' said the Quartermaster, who was
standing behind. 'I thought they'd blow into you.'
The truce continued. We did not receive any news from our
General Headquarters as to how long it would last. Bob de
Courcy had begun a training camp for the engineering
officers in the division, and I was looking for a suitable site for
a camp which I intended to run; I had no director of training
and had to undertake the work myself. Up on the slopes of the
Galtees was Galtee castle. It would be far enough from towns
to avoid detection; the ground varied in character from
wooded country to steep rises, and below in the plain,
enclosed territory. I obtained permission from the owner to
use the huts of the workmen. The castle was not a mile and a
half from the Mitchelstown road, up on the hillside, reached
by a winding road, open at first, then bordered by trees, and
towards the end a steep ravine running away to the left. The
castle was a new building with turrets of the French Renais-
sance type, strongly built and well furnished.
The huts stood together in a large sloping field; they were
in good repair, built of wood, with corrugated roofs. There
were fireplaces and stoves, a few tables and chairs. The local
commandant promised to obtain long tables, forms, chairs,
beds, and to equip the place for sixty officers. In the centre of
the group of buildings was a small hut which I intended to
use as headquarters. The commandant had to arrange for
food supplies and for cooking. 'The Cumann na mBan will
be only too glad to cook for the men,' he said, 'and they will
want to supply the food, too. One of the girls will be here
shortly, if you'll wait.' A girl arrived on a bicycle. He
introduced her as the captain of the Cumann na mBan
company, a straight-eyed girl with a smiling face. 'We'll be
only too pleased to help,' she said. 'The girls can cook in
turns, and bake cakes, too. If you're good, we'll wash for you
also. '
Each of the five brigades was instructed to send officers
from brigade and battalion staffs and to have them
thoroughly equipped with rifles, bayonets, small arms,
grenades and kit. On the appointed day all the officers
arrived, close on seventy, and some in uniform. A camp staff
was appointed; the officers were divided into sections and
squads and they inspected their quarters. The long rooms
overhead had been converted into dormitories and the girls
had decorated them with branches and flowers. People in the
area had supplied crockery and cooking utensils, the schools
had provided forms and blackboards. The commandant, who
now became assistant quartermaster, had done his work well.
In the centre of the sloping field a flagstaff had been set up,
from which floated the tricolour.
I had an American officer, Captain Prout, to help me. Of
late he had been attached to the intelligence squad of the
Dundrum battalion. We worked hard. The company was first
trained for two weeks as volunteers, to make them proficient
in the use and application of arms. Officers took squads and
sections in turns. By the end of the fortnight they were trained
in the elementary work of an infantry soldier. At six o'clock in
the mornings the bugle call summoned them on parade.
Breakfast, then, and a rest. Inspection of arms, a short route
march, and a run across country in full kit, followed. There
was a short interval after all classes and field work. At
lectures the officers were induced to take notes and copy the
blackboard diagrams; lectures were held in the open. Ex-
tended order across country, reconnaissance or patrol work.
After the midday meal, a rest. Another lecture; then bayonet
practice, revolver and grenade training, and musketry with
.22 ammunition. That was welcome. We had been so ac-
customed to save every round of ammunition that the men
looked forward to this part of the day's work as a treat. There
was great rivalry between the squads to see who would have
the highest number of marks and the best grouping on the
small targets. An interval of an hour and a half for rest or
recreation. The men had their camans and played hurling, or
handball, against the gable end of a hut. Tea was at six. A
parade in full kit at sunset, the company drawn up two deep
in squads, squad commanders in rear, section commanders
behind them again. The ceremony was a mixture of Irish,
American and English drill. 'The sundown parade,' Prout
called it. The men, with bayonets fixed, were called to atten-
tion by their officers, who then gave the order: 'Present arms.'
The rifles were brought to the 'slope', then to the 'present'.
The officers turned and saluted the green, white and orange
flag as it was lowered. Before they went to bed the men were
expected to study for an hour or more, write essays, or read
the books in the library, which was my own. The bugler
sounded 'lights out' at ten o'clock.
In the night-time I dealt with the administrative work of
the division, prepared lectures and helped to type training
notes for the company. The men were not permitted to leave
the camp grounds without a pass but each was given a certain
number of hours' leave a week. Discipline was strict, but
gradually all took a pride in their own efficiency. The rivalry
between the squads developed. All were on their honour not
to drink and to reduce cigarette smoking. All papers around
the camp, dead leaves and weeds had to be taken up; they
had to respect the mountain side as well as their huts. Soon
the surroundings were spotless. During rest intervals men
could be seen picking up odds and ends of paper, decayed
caves or cigarette butts. The Cumann na mBan girls in their
turns came to cook and wash. Fresh flowers in empty tin cans
would appear on tables; sweet pea, wild roses, bunches of
heather, and carnations. The girls came on foot, on bicycles,
in ponies and traps, some of them in uniform. Always they
brought presents: honey, homemade jam, freshly churned
butter, griddle or large white oven cakes, a flitch of bacon,
packages of cigarettes. Amongst them one day I recognized a
certain girl. She it was who had once stopped me, a year ago,
on the Ballyporeen road and warned me that police were
lying in ambush in the direction I was going. She belonged to
the Mitchelstown Cumann na mBan, outside of the divi-
sional area, but they also helped. The assistant quartermaster
supplied mutton from the mountain sheep, sweet and
wholesome. Butchers from battalion companies had killed
and dressed the meat.
On Sundays we marched to Mass at the chapel, six miles
away, swinging along in the dust of the country roads, singing
Irish marching songs. Places were reserved for us in the choir.
The people stood to watch us as we paraded after Mass, and
passed comments on our appearance. There were weekly
dances which the Cumann na mBan attended. The girls were
interested in the strange officers. Foreign cows, as we said,
have long horns. A local sports was organized and we carried
off some of the prizes. A few days later I heard that one of our
company was a champion weight-thrower, another a fine
long-distance runner; they had assumed different names for
the occasion.
Dermott MacManus, who had been an officer in the British
Army, and was now attached to the training staff at our
General Headquarters, came to inspect and remained a while
with us. There was a special inspection of arms that morning.
One rifle was dirty. I saw the company commander glance
down the barrel after we had passed on to another rank. I
heard his strong whisper. 'Christ, man, there's hair on it.'
We trained the men in administration, organization, scout-
ing, field-sketching, engineering; we rehearsed imaginary
barracks assaults, and ambushes, taught them the use of
explosives and land mines, and how to manoeuvre. One day
on manoeuvres a position up the hill was being attacked;
machine-gun fire was maintained by beating tin cans to make
attackers realize that they could not advance rashly. I was an
umpire, mounted on a horse that seemed to reach the
heavens, he was so high. I came upon one of the defenders in
the angle of a hedged field, sitting down, smoking. 'Why the
deuce don't you open fire?' I demanded.
The officer pointed to his large tin can. 'It's a new make of
machine,' he said, smiling, 'and I think it's jammed. I can't
strip it.'
My motor was used for ambush drill. It had no windscreen,
there was little breakable in it. Men were positioned on the
roadside, unknown to the driver, armed with hard balls of
clay which they threw as the car drove by. The hits of each
squad were registered. Mine operators sat on hillsides and
pressed a switch on a signal from a lookout, as the car
approached. The wire leads were connected with a bell
instead of explosive; an observer hidden close to the road
judged if the mine was properly timed. We practised night
manoeuvres and attempted to advance in the dark without
making unnecessary noise. The weather was fine and all
learned to love the mountains although it was hard work
climbing with full kit. In the evenings after the sunset parade
we sat outside and watched the mountains above us and the
plain spreading out below, the isolated trees receiving the last
rays of light silhouetted against small hill tops; the range of
the Knockmealdown mountains standing fourteen miles
away, blurring slowly; the sky, slowly seeping the colour of
the land to decorate itself. The long twilight always gave a
touch of fantasy to this country we thought we knew. Hills,
mountains, trees, hedges, took unexpected shapes.
After five weeks' training the officers were ready to leave for
their areas. Most of them were already weather-beaten; some
from the cities had acquired a healthy tan; all were in good
health, sorry to leave, yet anxious to return to their own units
to undertake the organization of further training camps.
Eoin O'Duffy, Deputy Chief of Staff, inspected the camp
and was pleased with the progress. He questioned each officer
about the detailed organization of his area, and put them
through what we called the third degree. Next day he held a
divisional council in the ruins of Tincurry House, in what was
once the dining room. The officers automatically picked up
all papers and decayed grass as they waited outside for the
Deputy Chief. We laughed; respect for ground had become
Instinctive. After a long discussion on administration,
organization, and intelligence, the special services were
examined one by one. O'Duffy finally suggested that we our-
selves should break the truce, when negotiations were
approaching a deadlock, by attacking the British posts with-
out giving the agreed seventy-two hours' warning. Some of
the officers were in favour of the project; they felt that the
British would probably break the truce in some such fashion.
The divisional staff repudiated the suggestion coming as it did
from a member of our GHQ. If it was going to be a fight to
the finish, let us begin the war honourably, no matter what
the enemy intended to do. The officers who had thought only
of a local advantage sided with us. After the meeting the
officers returned to their brigades.
I was called to Dublin to attend a meeting of senior officers,
but many areas were missing: Liam Lynch of the First
Southern, Tom Maguire of the Second Western, Billy
Pilkington of the Third, Michael Kilroy of the Fourth
Western, Frank Aiken of the Fourth Northern. I wondered
why they were absent. Independent brigades were repre-
sented, also other areas newly divisionalized. Michael
Collins, Director of Intelligence; Richard Mulcahy, Chief of
Staff; Eoin O'Duffy, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Emmet
Dalton, Director of Training, were present. Officers sub-
mitted a verbal report on the condition of their areas,
mentioned the amount of arms and ammunition they had,
and reported on training. The possibilities of their commands
with regard to active service were discussed. Some seemed
pessimistic, they had little ammunition and felt they could
not maintain themselves for long in case of a resumption of
hostilities. We were being questioned in turn.
I interrupted the third speaker. 'Lack of rifles and ammuni-
tion is due to the officers in each area,' I said. 'We get little
supplies from the Quartermaster-General. Our main source
of supply is the enemy. It is not a question of arms or
ammunition. I have never yet met a keen, good officer or
volunteer who did not by hook or by crook obtain arms and
stuff. It's a question, sir, I think,' I said, addressing the Chief
of Staff, 'of producing and training officers with sufficient
guts, not of moaning about lack of supplies.' I was angry so I
sat down.
The officer commanding the Third Southern stood up. I
had organized in his area years ago. 'I agree,' he said; 'what
arms we possess have been the result of carefully planned
operations. We have not been spoon-fed by our
Quartermaster-General. '
The discussion lapsed. Seniority amongst officers was
elaborated by Mulcahy. The Chief of Staff was to be a
general, the Deputy and the Assistant Chiefs, lieutenant-
generals, the remainder members of the Staff ranked as
commandant-generals. Divisional commandants had ranked
as commandant-generals, now they took precedence of other
GHQ officers, ranking below the ACS.
Food supplies for areas were discussed. The CS wanted a
food survey in order to arrange for an exchange of foodstuffs
between different parts as we would probably, he said, have
to destroy railroad communications, and we must see that the
civilian population were not starved as a result. Dumps of
food had to be provided for our flying columns, also, and
closer touch had to be maintained between adjoining divi-
sions. We were asked to express our opinions on the
advisability of fighting in uniform. The majority were in
favour of wearing uniforms and of carrying distinctive badges.
In the south during the fighting some of the men in our
columns had worn uniform and were distinguished from the
civilians by their special clothing. Then the discussion went
into a by-channel. The shape of the new uniform cap was
discussed in detail. A soft rim of the Kepi type to distinguish
it from the hard-fixed British rim.
Next day we met the President, Eamon de Valera, and
Cathal Brugha, Minister for Defence in Dail Eireann, in a
room in the Mansion House. They questioned us about the
morale of the people and the possible support in case of a
renewal of hostilities. Civil administration was touched on,
the collection of taxes, the repair of roads, the local and
district courts, and the enforcing of the Belfast boycott and of
Dail decrees. I was called to order by Cathal Brugha for
stating that we had never consulted the feelings of the people.
If so, we would never have fired a shot. If we gave them a
good strong lead, they would follow.
We returned to our areas that day and continued to train
and attempted to equip our commands. We had been led to
expect that the truce would give us a breathing space, would
provide an opportunity for the importation of arms from
abroad; whatever attempts were made to land arms, we knew
nothing of them for we did not receive any. We had received
in our area a few Thompson guns and some small arms. The
much-lauded Thompson was an American weapon, using a
box magazine of twenty rounds and a drum of fifty to one
hundred. We had tested the gun and I had trained a divi-
sional machine-gun officer in its use. It was portable, could be
concealed underneath an overcoat, and was useful for
close-quarters fighting, and for street fighting especially. I
submitted a critical report to the ACS who seemed very
much impressed with the new weapon.
In our little cottage headquarters food supplies were scant.
We did not wish to incur expenses and kept only a small
amount of provisions. We went without food or visited our
friends in the neighbourhood at meal times when we were
particularly hungry. We were always welcome, but we did
not like to abuse their hospitality when we were not on active
service. Each brigade was expected to contribute money from
its funds towards the support of our staff. The money was
used to maintain the munition factory and to purchase arms.
We owed rent which we were unable to pay so I was usually
selected to make the peace with the landlord who often called
in person.
Dinny Kelly, the tenant of the cottage which we called 'the
hut', was sturdily built, with a red weather-beaten face and a
rather thick moustache. He could be about forty years of age.
His command of English was extensive, he was meticulous in
choice of words. He never used a small one when he could
employ a large sonorous word and his selection was accurate.
Often as we sat at the table Con or Mickey Fitz kicked me
when Dinny began to speak. Often we sat listening to him
with tightened lips so that we would not smile. He borrowed
some of my books, Plutarch's Lives and the Decameron. He
read a few of the stories and winked. 'That's good reading,'
he said. 'There were strange personages in those ancient
times.' He discussed international politics with avidity. His
comments were shrewd and personal. The books he read were
examined round a fire in the night-time. A book when read in
the country was read slowly; it was dissected and the joint
experience of those around the open hearth tested its
accuracy to life and knowledge. Dinny was an authority on
birds, especially singing birds. He compared the rival merits
and demerits of local songsters. He was very proud of his own
male canary. He was a volunteer in the local company,
carried himself with martial air, and attended all parades
assiduously. He was put in charge of a section and bore his
new dignity in a becoming manner. He referred to me always
as 'the officer' and he consulted me on many subjects, but
particularly on points of training. Frequently I stopped from
work to explain extended order with matches, to strip an
automatic, or to draw diagrams of the working of a machine-
gun. Once I inspected the battalion to which his company
belonged. His company carried out drill; then the section
commanders exercised their men. Dinny strode up and down,
his face became redder with excitement and with difficulty he
refrained from running whenever his voice failed to carry.
That night he questioned Con as to what I thought of his
handling of the section. Con said he did not know. Next
morning I talked of the parade. I told him about his section,
which was well trained, I said. He was very pleased because
'the officer' had noticed his men particularly.
CHAPTER TWO
NOVEMBER--DECEMBER 1921
WE needed explosives for the land mines, for attacks on posts
and for the munition factory. Our Headquarters was unable
to supply us in sufficient quantity. If we were able to purchase
the main explosive base we could manufacture 'war flour' and
'Irish cheddar', the official Headquarters explosives and the
chemists attached to our staff could then experiment further.
Already there had been a few minor explosions in our little
laboratory but that was inevitable. No one had been hurt,
however.
I went to London with a Limerick officer, Johnny Raleigh,
intending to visit the British Disposal Board to purchase
material. Surplus war stock was being auctioned off, from
aeroplane parts to tin hats which were being sold as flower
pots entrenching tools as gardening trowels. We inspected
the huge sheds and piles of equipment. We bought prismatic
compasses, range-finders, prismatic glasses, wireless sets,
artillery knee-boots, Sam Browne belts and equipment. A tip
to the officials and no questions were asked. A few five pound
notes in a chemical factory gave us an entry to order three
tons of an explosive base. Beautifully groomed managers
accepted the money without blinking. That could not occur in
our country, we thought. One could bribe lower down, but
important officials would have too much pride to accept a tip.
We stored the explosives and equipment in warehouses in
London and arranged for cross-channel transport, giving
fancy names to our heavy crates. 'Glass, with care'. We lived
simply. I cut expenses to the minimum. Raleigh was of
medium height but powerfully built. Afterwards he told me
that he practically starved, for we took snatches of food at
lunch counters while we thought of ways and means for
buying arms and ammunition. We visited greasy shops in the
East End and met professional gun-runners. We represented
The Ulster Volunteers at times; again we negotiated for the
men in Belgium, for the Catalans in Spain. We slipped
money into receptive palms and received promises until our
money was exhausted. We had been a week in London and I
could not remain any longer. Nearly every day the five Irish
delegates, Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Bob Barton,
Gavan Duffy and Duggan, were meeting with the English
delegates led by Lloyd George, in Downing Street or in some
of the many offices. Crowds of London Irish lined the street
near the meeting place to see the men who were now
entrusted with the nation's honour. Old and young knelt in
the streets to recite the Rosary and to pray for a settlement of
the age-long feud.
I visited the Irish delegation in Hans Place and Desmond
Fitzgerald, Minister for Publicity, invited us to lunch. My
companion, Johnny Raleigh, ate and ate. I watched him in
astonishment. Champagne, wines and whiskey were un-
stinted, but neither of us drank. I thought of my staff in
Dinny Kelly's hut, running breakfast and lunch together to
economize.
Someone at the table began a story. One day in July, four
months ago, an old Irish woman wearing a shawl was
observed hovering near the entrance to Lloyd George's house .
in Downing Street. A towering policeman on duty eyed her
suspiciously, as she came there every day. She did not appear
to notice him but stood at times to watch the hall-door and to
scan the windows on the ground floor. The policeman in-
tended to make a report, but she did not act as if she was
afraid of being noticed. One day he had made up his mind to
report the incident to his sergeant but he was saved the
trouble. Lloyd George, who had himself noticed the old lady,
came to the door that day, opened it and called to her. She
climbed the steps. 'What do you want?' asked the Premier;
'can I do anything for you?' 'Yes,' she replied, 'I would like to
see the room where your meetings are held.' He led her inside
and showed her the conference room. 'Where do you sit?' she
asked. He put his hand on a chair and smiled. She moved
away. 'Where will President de Valera sit when he comes?'
He pointed out another chair. She crossed to it quickly and
caressed it with her hands. 'This very chair?' she asked. 'Yes,
that's the chair,' said Lloyd George. She searched in the
bosom of her dress and brought out a small corked bottle.
The Premier watched her curiously. She took out the cork,
sprinkled some of the contents with her fingers on the chair,
then on the floor beneath. Then she blessed herself. 'That's
Holy Water for the President,' she said. 'May God guide him
when he sits here to set old Ireland free.' She walked towards
the chair that Lloyd George had indicated was his own. She
sprinkled it liberally. The Premier looked surprised at first
before he smiled again. 'That's to keep the Devil away,' she
said, as she corked the bottle and returned it to her bosom.
The diners shouted with laughter. Afterwards I met Michael
Collins in one of the rooms.
'What the hell are you doing in London?' he asked.
'Having a break,' I replied.
'That's the way with you bloody fellows,' he said. 'I sup-
pose you think the truce is a holiday. When are you going
back?'
'Tonight,' I said.
'That's better. You can take the place of the special mes-
senger tonight and bring back the report to Dev. Mind that
some of our now good friends don't steal it from you.'
We talked about the negotiations. 'They will end shortly,'
he said. He looked worried, his brows had contracted.
As we walked down Bond Street I looked at Johnny. 'I
don't know how you're able to walk,' I said. 'I thought you
must have eaten enough for five.' He patted his waistcoat
middle buttons with a sigh of complete content. 'By Gosh, I
was starved. It's all right for you. I suppose you can live on
air, but I hadn't a decent meal since I left Limerick, thanks to
you.'
I delivered the bulky envelope to de Valera when I arrived
in Dublin. Johnny and I then left by train for Limerick
Junction.
Con Moloney, the Adjutant, met me in a car as I walked
over from the station. I sat beside him in front. 'There's hell
to pay,' he said. 'There's been a raid on the British hutments
in Tipperary; about seventy rifles and a machine-gun have
been stolen.'
'When did it happen?' I asked.
'About three days ago. The British are raging. Intelligence
officers from our General Headquarters are investigating the
matter in the town. Our lads are blamed for it.' He grinned.
'They don't seem to gather much information.' He levered
hard on the accelerator and the car moved swiftly on the
winding road.
A raid for arms was a breach of the truce. This was a big
raid and in the divisional area. I would be held responsible.
'Did you meet the Headquarters intelligence officers?' I
asked.
'Yes,' said Con; 'two of them came to the hut and inquired
for you, but you were in London. They did not say anything
but drove away in towards the town.'
Well, they had not consulted the Adjutant. They meant to
investigate the matter without informing the division. I did
not hold any inquiry. The Tipperary battalion officers, in
whose area our hut was, used to come to see us frequently.
They did not come near the hut now. I thought they must be
away at a training camp, but they were in the area, I found
out later. They wanted to keep out of my way. That told its
own story.
Three days after my return I received a despatch from
Cathal Brugha and another from Mulcahy.
The army was being reorganized, Brugha stated. He
wished to know if I would accept a commission in this re-
organized army as officer commanding the Second Southern
Division. The commission was enclosed, signed by himself,
the Minister for Defence. What did this mean, I thought?
Why a reorganization? I had heard nothing about it. Perhaps
it meant that Dail Eireann was going to regularize army
appointments, that it would accept full responsibility for our
actions as the army of the Republic. Strange, Mulcahy, the
Chief of Staff, had not mentioned it when last I met him. I
acknowledged the despatch, accepted the commission, and
asked for further particulars about the reorganization. Then I
sent a note to Liam Lynch to ask him if he had also received a
commission and what he thought about it.
The other despatch was brief. All officers of our division
and brigade staffs, with the Tipperary battalion officers, were
to proceed to Dublin at once and report at the Gresham
Hotel.
Con whistled as I read thc despatch aloud.
'The plot thickens,' he said. 'As sure as wc're here that
means an investigation over the rifles. The sleuth hounds from
Dublin have not discovered anything. I suppose we'll all get
an unmerciful lambasting when we arrive in Dublin. The
third degree and a reduction to the ranks.'
We drove to Limerick Junction where we met the boys
from Tipperary battalion and brigade officers from Co.
Limerick. 'I expect the rifles were paid for,' said Con, as I
studied the country from the carriage windows and compared
it with my maps. 'You know it's easy to bribe sentries.'
'How do you know?' I asked.
'I'm a bit of a prophet,' he replied.
The Tipperary officers laughed.
'I don't want to hear any prophecies,' I said; 'you can keep
them till you reach the Gresham. I suppose I'll have to resign
over it,' I said to Brian Shanahan, the Tipperary comman-
dant. 'I should have investigated the seizure of the rifles. It's a
serious breach of the truce and you devils know about it, but I
don't want to question you now. You might tell me the truth. '
They looked glum and worried.
We were shown into a large ante-room when we reached
the hotel. There I met our officers from Tipperary Two and
Kilkenny brigades. We sat down and talked. There were over
thirty officers present. Eoin O'Duffy called me outside the
door. 'The Chief of Staff wishes to see you,' he said, as he
opened the door of another room. Seated at a small table were
Mulcahy and Collins.
Collins said 'Hello' when I entered. Then: 'Come on over
here.' I sat opposite to them. Collins tapped on the table with
the blunt end of a pencil as he spoke. 'Had you anything to do
with the seizure of the rifles?'
'No,' I replied, 'I was not in Tipperary when it occurred.'
'Did you investigate the matter?'
'No, sir. I was informed that Headquarters intelligence
officers were making inquiries in Tipperary. I understood
then that the matter rested with General Headquarters.'
'But you did not hold an inquiry?'
Collins did all the questioning.
'No. I thought it unusual for officers to enter my area with-
out reporting to divisional headquarters. It seemed as if they
were acting without wishing to consult us.'
'They did call at your headquarters but there was evidently
nobody at home,' said Collins. 'All right, Earnan, that will
do. I am satisfied that you had nothing to do with the seizure.
It's very serious, you know.'
I left and joined the officers in the ante-room. Con was
called next and was away some time.
'This will last till Tibb's Eve,' said the Kilkenny Brigadier.
'I don't see what we have to do with it. My headquarters is
over sixty miles from Tipperary town.'
Con returned and Mickey Fitz, the Quartermaster, was
called outside. 'Well, Con, what penance did you get?' asked
Seamus Robinson. We looked like a group waiting for confes-
sion. Con's blue eyes twinkled. 'Collins is in a hell of a rage,'
he said. 'Watch my poker face.' His muscles tightened and he
looked non-committal. One by one the men left the room
while we talked, but there was an air of restraint. Some of the
men were nervous and ill at ease. The last man returned,
closing the door quietly behind him. Suddenly the door was
flung open and Michael Collins stalked into the room. We
rose as he entered.
He came over to where Brian Shanahan and his officers
stood. He planted his legs apart and thrust his head forward.
'Some of you bloody fellows know about this. The rifles did
not walk away. Negotiations in London will be held up over a
few rifles. The British will say we have broken faith.'
He tossed his hair back from his forehead with a shake of
his head. 'Come on, by Christ, and answer the questions I
ask.' His voice became threatening. 'We're not going to let
you get away with those lousy rifles.
"We won't be bullied,' said the commandant.
'I'm sorry,' I said interrupting, 'but the officers here are
accustomed to being spoken to politely.'
Collins put his hands deep in his trousers' pockets, lifted
himself a little on his feet, came back again on his heels, then
turned abruptly, walked out and banged the door.
There was silence for a moment. Then we laughed.
'I'm going,' said Brian Shanahan. 'No man is going to talk
to me as if I were a dog.' He walked out, followed by his men.
O'Duffy came in. He talked amicably. 'I'm sorry he lost his
temper,' he said, referring to Collins, 'but he is very worried
and we cannot blame him.' He sat down.
'What about the negotiations? Are they ever going to end?'
I asked.
'If they end suddenly, it will be due to the seizure of the
rifles. The oath of allegiance seems to be the crux of the
matter, but it looks as if our delegation will return shortly.
Negotiations will be completed one way or the other, war or
peace.'
The following day, in long boots, with two guns, I accom-
panied the Assistant Chief of Staff, Ginger O'Connell, when
he inspected an officers training corps in University College.
Large numbers of students appeared on parade outside the
main entrance; they were now eager, and evidently the uni-
versity did not view the inspection with disfavour. It was safe
to parade now. Many who had sneered at the country boys
who had served faithfully, unobtrusively, for the past four
years were now anxious to become officers.
In Dublin I noticed a certain amount of drinking. Head-
quarters staff officers could be found at the bar in Vaughan's
Hotel or drinking in the rooms of the Gresham. We could see
men now in relation to living again, after secrecy and with-
drawal. Mulcahy, however, never touched drink. I told him
about the commission that was forwarded to me by Cathal
Brugha. He laughed as if amused. 'That's the MD's own
idea,' he said, and did not throw any further light on the
subject.
Throughout the country recruiting had continued; the
companies had increased in strength, some had doubled their
numbers. In many places special companies of 'trucers', as
they were called, were organized. We remembered the con-
scription scare in 1918, when recruits had poured in. When
the threat had not been enforced the newcomers had fallen
away, and the over-worked officers found they had sweated
for men who only wished to save their own skins. We were
doubtful about the advisability of continuing to recruit. The
division now totalled over thirteen thousand men, but per-
haps they would all be needed when the war began again.
I toured the Mid-Limerick area inspecting the country for
suitable ambush, signalling and sniping positions, taking
notes and sketches of the police and military posts. When I
reached Limerick I placed the car in a garage to have the
lights fixed and walked up O'Connell Street. I saw Brian
Shanahan approaching. He halted.
'What are you doing here?' I asked. 'Have you permission
from your brigade adjutant?'
'No, I have not.'
'Don't you know,' I asked, 'that instructions have been
issued that no member of a battalion staff can leave his area
without the permission of the brigade adjutants?'
'Yes, we received the order.'
'Well, you'll have to return, Brian. You know that every
officer is needed in his own area. There is so much to be
done. '
'I have to remain here,' he said. He looked a little confused,
but determined. He lowered his voice. 'There's an Irish
Republican Brotherhood meeting here today and I have been
ordered to attend.'
'All right,' I said and walked on.
The Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-
bound society established in 1858, over sixty years ago, as the
Fenian Brotherhood: the Fenians, they were spoken of.
Always it had maintained a small nucleus and had been the
core of the physical force movement. Some like Cathal
Brugha and de Valera did not now approve of it, and the
opposition had led to friction. They thought that it had ended
its purpose with the Easter fighting; perhaps they feared its
political influence, for it sought to control all existing Irish
organizations.
As I walked along, thinking of the IRB, I met another of
my officers, the Adjutant of the East Limerick Brigade. 'Have
you permission from the Divisional Adjutant to visit
Limerick?'
'No,' he replied, 'but I must remain until this evening.'
'IRB?' I inquired. He nodded and walked on. I turned
back and went down to the centre of the city. On O'Connell
Street I would meet anybody I knew. It is the main street of
the city, the only street one would care to walk up and down,
a habit of the Limerick people in the evening time. I met an
officer from Mid-Clare. 'I suppose you're here for the
meeting,' he said. 'Where is it to be held?' I asked. He told
me the place and time; then I talked of his area and the men
there whom I had known.
A little later than the appointed time I walked in to the
meeting. There were a number of men present, about sixty,
and the proceedings were about to begin. Sean O'Muirthile
was seated behind a table. In front of him were sheets of
paper, typewritten. He was talking to some Clare officers
who stood near the table. My entry was unnoticed. The man
who opened the door knew me; he did not ask any questions.
The men were seated on chairs in rows facing the table and I
sat down amongst a group of East Limerick officers and men.
Sean O'Muirthile struck the table with the end of his foun-
tain pen. He was about to speak when he caught sight of me.
'Dia's Muire dhuit. What brought you here? You have not
been summoned, nor are you entitled to attend. I must ask
you to leave the room.'
I stood up. 'I am sorry,' I said, 'but this is my divisional
area. My officers are present. Even some who are not officers.
I am responsible for my area and for them to the Government
of the Republic.'
A Clare officer jumped up. 'We do not object to his
presence. We all know him, to our cost. I vote that he be
allowed to remain.' Other officers stood up and said: 'And I
also.'
'Very well,' said O'Muirthile, 'he can remain.'
He tapped the table with the fountain pen. The men stood
to attention. 'I call the meeting to order in the name of the
Irish Republic,' he said, standing to attention himself. The
officers sat down. An order was read about the re-
organization of the IRB in each area. The circles, as the
groups were called, were instructed to take in recruits.
O'Muirthile spoke again. 'This order must be put into effect
at once. Select the men carefully but increase the strength of
the organization. Are there any questions?'
'Yes,' I said, standing up. 'I think it inadvisable to recruit
amongst the trucers. They have not been tried. Many officers
and men who have been thoroughly tested during the war do
not belong to this organization. I see some present here whom
I never considered in any way energetic. All officers in our
division are fully occupied now. They have more work than
time.' I sat down.
'Any other suggestions or questions?' asked O'Muirthile.
Nobody spoke. 'All right,' he said. 'Circles will be strength-
ened.' Other matters were discussed also relating to
organization. O'Muirthile rose. The men sprang to attention.
'The meeting will close in the name of the Irish Republic,' he
said.
Afterwards as we walked out to the street I said to a group
of Tipperary men: 'Why didn't some of you speak? You think
the same as I do about the trucers.'
'We do,' said one, 'but we did not like to say anything.'
Our engineers had been working hard at a gun. I had seen it
From time to time at the munition factory. Its pattern changed
with time. Rory O'Connor, Director of Engineering, visited
our area and was very pleased with the results of the
engineering training camps. He saw the initial stages of the
gun and laughed. 'It's one up on the Headquarters
engineers.' He had no motor-car and wished to inspect other
areas. He had not been given a car by General HQ and
although the First Southern had many cars he could not
obtain the loan of one from them.
'Headquarters should give you a car,' I said. 'In Dublin
there is no lack of cars, some for joy-riding only.'
He shrugged. 'It's hard to get a grant for my department.
The Staff don't consider it important.'
I gave him my car. He could do more important work than
I could. He remained two days, read through our training
schemes and general orders, and was given an idea of the
administration of the division. He studied the operations
maps and we discussed plans. 'I wish I had known of this
before,' he said as he left, but we did not understand his
words.
'What do you think he means?' asked Con, after he had
gone. 'I don't know,' I said.
The Divisional Engineer, Bob de Courcy, sent us word by
despatch rider that the gun was ready. He wished to carry out
an official test in the presence of the Staff. We visited the
munition factory in Co. Limerick, which was now equipped
with oil motors. We watched the men casting grenade bodies.
We tested some hand-grenades in the rear of outhouses and
worked out by paper screens the distribution of the splinters.
Sometimes grenades burst all to one side instead of giving a
central distribution. The gun was in a large flat field, covered
with a piece of tarpaulin. Beside it were trays of shells of
different lengths, with and without explosives. There were
slits cut in the shells. The slits contained expanding vanes
which were fan-shaped, connected together by pieces of
elastic. When the shells left the muzzle the expansion of the
vanes helped to direct the flight. The gun was rapidly stripped
and we examined the parts. The barrel was long, about six
feet of cold drawn steel;joined to it was the container of large
calibre. Between the container and the barrel, which could be
unscrewed with a specially-shaped wrench, was a thin
diaphragm of mica. There were two steel oxygen cylinders
filled with compressed air. Underneath the container was a
trigger. When it was pressed a thin steel striker pierced the
diaphragm, the compressed air rushed into the vacuum of the
barrel and gave velocity to the shell. The gun was re-
assembled. It certainly looked like a piece of artillery. There
were sights on the barrel and the gun could be traversed in
any direction. A flexible steel tube connected cylinder with
container, a pressure gauge on top of the container showing
when the air had reached the required point.
'I've tested the mechanism,' said de Courcy; 'it's quite
safe.' He laughed, showing his isolated top teeth. 'The genus
barracks will rapidly become extinct in this area.' This was
what we wanted. A piece of light artillery, if not some trench
mortars. 'I will use a live shell and hit the target at two
hundred yards.'
A wooden door, backed by stones, had been placed at the
required distance.
'You had better move back a little,' I said.
'I would prefer to remain with the gun,' de Courcy said.
'I'll go down with it if necessary.'
I remembered an experiment we had carried out with a
cannon on the Kerry frontier, so I told the others to get back
fifty yards and we lay down. De Courcy stood upright to one
side of the gun; his assistant, Peadar Dunne, sat on a small
stick which ran out at an angle. De Courcy, I thought, is like
a sea captain. He has a gun instead of a ship. De Courcy
bent down. There was an explosion, a shout, and de Courcy
was seen hopping about on one leg. Peadar, the assistant, was
stretched on the ground, his face dabbed with blood. Smoke
blew around the gun. We ran towards it. The barrel had
burst, Peadar's jaw had been cut open, and de Courcy had
been struck by a flying splinter.
'Something went wrong,' he said. 'The pressure must have
been too great, or we used too much explosive. We'll try again
and fire it from a distance.'
The gun was improved, tested again and found to be
satisfactory.
When Con and I returned to our headquarters we found
two despatches, one from the Minister for Defence asking us
to bring the gun to Co. Clare for demonstration. He and de
Valera were then inspecting the First Western Division, but
he had already met the officers of the Tipperary battalion in
my own division. 'The rifles will have to be returned,' Cathal
Brugha had said; 'I'm sorry'. As the officers left he called
them back, looked at the crestfallen faces and said: 'If there
have to be raids, they should be quiet ones.' The officers
laughed. Capturing rifles was one thing, I felt; giving them
back was another. We had never been accustomed to return
rifles.
The other despatch was from the Adjutant-General in
Dublin. He gave us seventy-two hours' notice to prepare for
hostilities, move our peace headquarters to our active service
one, burn any important papers that we could not take with
us.
We worked all day and late into the night removing papers
and getting our new headquarters ready. The munition plant
was dismantled, supplies and explosive were distributed to
dumps. Orders were sent out to the brigades to stand-to;
columns were ordered to mobilize, and operation plans
revised. At last a decision had been arrived at. We sang and
whistled as we worked. The uncertainty was at an end. War
again, and a ruthless one. At the beginning of the truce the
people in our area were staunch; they had offered their
money and help for when hostilities would reopen in a few
weeks time, as we then thought. Then the daily papers,
always hostile to Irish independence, had prepared the way
for defection of thought. They hinted that a renewal of the
fighting would be impossible, that England would grant a
sufficient measure of freedom. There were long leaders and
articles on Dominion Home Rule and on Canadian status.
Slowly the strength of the national resistance was being
undermined.
Before dawn we were ready; the gun and its crew were
collected and we set off for Clare. We crossed the Shannon
and an hour later reached the Clare hills where we were met
by a scout. We were oily from the gun, our clothes were
smeared, and we were unshaven. We had come without
uniforms for we had not many and were saving them for
active service. After a time motor-cars with officers in uniform
drove up. The First Western had arrived. We looked a sorry
contrast to the gay escort. I apologised to the Minister for
Defence, but he smiled and said he understood. Bob de
Courcy explained the mechanism of the gun and the action
of the parts to de Valera, Cathal Brugha and the assembled
officers. A new name had been added, the 'Peadar stick', on
which Peadar had sat when the accident occurred at our
munition factory. They asked many questions. The gun was
assembled and stripped quickly; then set up ready for action.
A pile of stones was a target. The gun was fired from a safe
distance; first empty, then live shells were used. Cathal
Brugha's face beamed. He forgot his wounded leg and was as
excited as a schoolboy. He ran after the shells to measure the
distance covered. 'We will soon give you an order for a supply
of guns,' he said to de Courcy.
On the way home we met Mulcahy in Ennis. He invited me
to dine that night with the Bishop of Killaloe, but I asked per-
mission to return at once to our headquarters. He appeared
surprised when I told him of the despatch from the
Adjutant-General and did not seem to have heard of it.
That's strange, I thought. Surely the Chief of Staff should
know that his army was getting ready for war.
As we were preparing to leave Ennis a report came in from
a friendly Auxiliary that members of his company from
Killaloe were in Ennis and that they intended to shoot de
Valera as his car passed into the town. We, the oily gun crew,
set off on foot to examine the approaches to the town. We
were joined by other groups and patrolled the road until the
President's car passed through in safety.
A little later, on 7th December, the full text of the Articles of
Agreement was published in the Irish papers. I was in East
Limerick and the paper reached me the following morning.
The five Irish delegates had signed the articles and had
returned to Ireland to recommend them to the Irish people.
They had signed under Lloyd George's threat of 'immediate
and terrible war' on the Irish people.
I cursed loud and long. So this was what we had been
fighting for, what we had worn ourselves out for during the
truce.
The Quartermaster of the Brigade was in the room. He was
silent.
'But Mick,' he began.
'Damn Mick,' I said.
'There's some catch somewhere,' he said. 'Mick Collins
would never have signed it. He knows what he is doing.'
I walked out to my car, a long grey-green body, with a very
large wheel-lock so it could turn easily on a narrow road. The
windscreen was gone, so had the hood. I drove hard across
trenches and pot-holes, bumping, swaying, jerking, but I was
not thinking of the car or of the road.
Dinny Kelly met me at the door of the hut.
'Bad news, Officer, a regular catastrophe,' he said as he
shook hands. 'Collins is a nice boyho, but he must have been
dead to the world to sign the likes of that. I wouldn't be in his
boots this minute for all the money in the Bank of Ireland.'
'Were you in Tipp?' I asked. 'How do the people take it?'
'Some of them are pleased, the ones that never did a hand's
turn to help. The others are tearing mad.'
A numbness followed my first outburst of rage. I became
suddenly very tired. I sat down near the table. I felt like a
man who tried to cover his head to escape blows showered on
him from every side.
I sat with my elbows on the table, my hands pressed
against my temples. I could not think; I looked at the wall
where the map of the division hung. I took it down and
pinned it on the table and stared at it dully. The area began
to shape itself up for me, the contours became hills and
mountains, little spots of green became woods and forests, the
blue lines of rivers formed valleys. Here was the country we
had fought for. I followed the boundaries. Evacuated
barracks, burnt or stormed, were marked in green triangles.
They showed where the enemy had been driven in on his
main lines of communications. Blue circles for police block-
houses, blue squares for military barracks. Our small
companies dotted in with red pencil. Places where we had
fought had crossed swords in purple India ink. The history of
the area was before me. I followed our little struggles, our
victories, our defeats. We had given ourselves to this land,
with death or imprisonment as a reward. Other generations
had done this. The dead, what did they think? Small dots on
the map showed where men had died. I bent close to the map.
Men from the Tipperary battalion, Paddy Moloney and Sean
Duffy, commandant, had died fighting, surrounded by Tans,
beyond that small dotted double line, the road. In the Cashel
battalion, the commandant had died, shot through the heart
as he fought from a house. There was the house, a black dot.
Up near the hills Tommy Donovan, the battalion comman-
dant, had been killed fighting on the streets of Killenaule. I
moved across to the adjoining brigade, East Limerick. There
the brigadier had been shot dead outside that house, standing
in from that thick red line, the main road. Here Martin
Conway, the fearless, had fallen in action against police and
soldiers, and lower down on the map the wounded Tobin had
dragged himself to die, there, outside his mother's house.
Here we had been chased, there we had stood and fought.
What was the use of brooding over it? I became angry
again as I thought of the men who had betrayed us.
CHAPTER THREE
DECEMBER 1921- MARCH 1922
THE officers and men I met seemed dazed. Some had been
crying, their eyes were swollen. We awaited the arrest of the
delegates. They had no authority to sign without first re-
ferring the matter to their Cabinet. Some of us expected that
they would have been arrested when they landed, but nothing
happened. The press approved of their conduct; county
councils expressed agreement or disagreement. The Catholic
clergy as a whole applauded their signing. I sent despatch
riders to the neighbouring divisions and found that the First
and Third Southern were opposed to the so called treaty, but
that the First Western to a great extent approved of it. Dail
Eireann, it seemed, was going to debate the articles. Why
could not the President decide the matter.
I went to Dublin to find out what was going to happen, to
discover how the army stood. I dropped into McGilligan's, as
was my custom when in town. The family, with the exception
of Eileen, was in favour of the treaty. Ginger O'Connell, the
Assistant Chief of Staff, was there. He was not perturbed; he
seemed pleased with life in general. He smiled, twisting his
head slightly as he did when he made a pun. Beside him sat
Michael Brennan, Commander of the First Western, in
uniform; curly hair, handsome face, with Clare accent. He
seemed to be on good terms with the Staff now. Formerly
Mulcahy and Collins had been hostile to him.
'We're talking about the army,' said Ginger. 'We'll be
allowed to have twenty thousand men.'
So that was it; he had solved his difficulties. The organiza-
tion of an army was the important question!
'How will you build it up?' I asked.
'From the IRA,' he said. 'We expect to get many a good
battalion from the Second Southern for the Free State Army.
Stout fellows in your area.'
I was silent.
'How many men can you contribute?'
'You'll have to fight in our area if you are false to your
oath,' I said. Ginger's smile faded away. 'That's where you'll
meet with immediate and terrible war.'
Then I left the room.
The Dail had been meeting daily. Member after member had
disclosed his views, most of them at length. Terms of abuse
had begun to creep in. The old story, divide and conquer.
The morning after my arrival in Dublin I wrote a letter to
the President, Eamon de Valera. I told him that he, for us,
had always typified the ideal of Irish nationality, that we
trusted and relied on him. I pledged our division to his sup-
port if he wanted to take action, and told him that the First
Southern Division could be relied upon. That afternoon I met
Mulcahy and the Adjutant General, Gearoid O'Sullivan, in
the halls of the National University where the treaty debate
was being held. I saluted. They shook hands with me.
'When will the debate be finished?' I asked.
'I don't know,' said Mulcahy.
I asked him if he was in favour of the Articles of Agree-
ment. 'How are you going to vote?'
'I am in favour,' he said, 'but you must disassociate my
position as Chief of Staff from that as representing a con-
stituency. I would do or say things as a public representative
that I would not do or say as Chief of Staff.'
'I cannot reconcile the two positions,' I said. 'I hereby
tender my resignation as officer commanding the Second
Southern.'
'You are acting prematurely. I can not accept your
resignaticn. During the months to come we will require all
our experienced officers to deal with the new situation, to
help to police the country and maintain order.'
I saluted and walked off. At the head of the stairs I saw
Cathal Brugha. He ran towards me, gripped both my hands
and smiled. 'Well, a chara, how are you?' he asked. I told
him I had offered to resign. He linked his arm in mine.
'You must not do that,' he said; 'you are playing into their
hands. That is exactly what they would like you to do. Go
back to your division and try by every means in your power to
keep it intact.'
'How is the debate going to go?' I asked. His face became
grave. 'I don't know, but I think we'll win through.'
That night I found Peter Moloney reading a copy of Docu-
ment No. 2, an alternative to the treaty, which de Valera had
devised. Next morning I met Liam Mellows and told him that
if that document were put forward as an acceptable alter-
native to the treaty, I would withdraw the support I had
offered.
All that evening I walked from street to street. I was sick at
heart. The splendid dream we had built up was toppling like
a house of cards. I found myself near the National Gallery. I
went in. Often I had come there for quiet, for peace. The
Italian and Dutch rooms seemed filled with ugly daubs today.
I walked out again. It was no good trying to sit and think.
There was no solution now. The majority of the Army Staff
had their minds made up: how long since? O'Connell had
worked the situation out. How often had we vowed, as we sat
around the turf fires, or as we tramped with squelching feet,
the rain dripping into our boots, that we in our generation
would finish the fight? We would save the boys to come from
what we had seen our people go through, when we felt others
would take our places. Was the sacrifice in vain? We were
strong in faith, in spirit, and men. We had built up a govern-
ment that the people respected and trusted. In our strength
did we do what we had never thought of doing in our weak-
ness, betray the sovereign independence of Ireland? What
would the Fenians have done in their day if the heritage of
their trust had been violated? What would the poor dead
generations, who had toiled, landless, starved, homeless,
beaten to their knees, cowed, disheartened, with the vision in
their hearts. They did not barter. We were to become part of
the British Empire and lose our souls.
That night, in a house in Heytesbury Street, I met Liam
Lynch, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows and Seamus
Robinson, the brigadier of Tipperary Three in my division.
The family had talked to us at first and laughed; then when
they had seen our faces they became serious also. We sat
around a polished table in the drawing room. Rory's eyes
were sombre. I noticed the grey streaks in his black hair.
Liam Mellows looked energetic, business-like, efficient,
anxious to settle down to work. He had been attending the
meetings of the Dail.
Liam Lynch was square and determined looking. He
tightened his pince-nez glasses as he muttered: 'My God, it's
terrible, terrible. '
Seamus was dogged. His hair was touselled. He held his
clenched fist underneath his underlip. Somehow he had
sensed that one day something would go wrong. There was
an old antagonism between Mulcahy and himself. Seamus
had too much of the French kind of inquiring, critical logic.
I sat there white-faced, feeling as if I would like to cry.
Thought was so difficult when there was no way out. Think-
ing in the dark only made one's brain turn around the wrong
way. If only we could act. That would clarify thought. What
to do?
Liam Lynch broke the long silence. 'I wish we knew what
the other divisional officers thought and felt. That would
make things easier.'
'Have you seen Collins?' asked Rory. 'He was looking for
you. '
'Yes, I have. I met him and Eoin O'Duffy. They said the
treaty would give breathing space, allow the army to arm and
equip; then we could declare war whenever a suitable oppor-
tunity came.'
Rory said: 'They mean to enforce the treaty, but we must
organize.'
'That's the difficulty,' I said. 'They have their minds made
up and have, I expect, organized IRB and the army. We don't
know who remains true, and we are disorganized.'
Rory was in favour of breaking away from General Head-
quarters, and that as soon as the debate in the Dail was over.
Seamus and I agreed. Liam Mellows said: 'Let the situation
develop. The Republican Army will never stomach the
treaty.'
We decided to keep in touch with each other and with
Rory's office and find out what men still believed in an
uncompromising Ireland. Rory's quiet humour broke the
gravity; soon we were chatting and laughing.
That same night when I returned to the house I slept in, I
met Con. 'Collins sent four messengers after you here today
and this evening. They said he wants to see you at once. It's
urgent.'
'I'm not going to meet him,' I said.
We returned to our hut next morning early.
Dail Eireann adjourned until after Christmas. We knew
that time was on the side of those who were in favour of the
treaty, and had hoped that a vote would have been taken at
once before the adjournment, for in the meantime pressure of
different kinds would be brought to bear on public represen-
tatives, public bodies, and army officers, to support the
treaty. During the debates the alternative to the treaty, Docu-
ment No. 2, which had been discussed at a secret meeting of
the Cabinet, and was not meant for publication, had been
dissected by the members of the Dail. In fact, the debate
seemed at times to resolve itself into a discussion of the rival
possibilities of the Articles of Agreement and of Document
No. 2. Early in January 1922, the Dail reassembled and when
the final vote was taken, sixty-four deputies voted for, and
fifty-seven against, but only three accepted the articles on
their merits; the other sixty-one supported them as the only
alternative to war.
Collins was spoken of as the man who had won the war.
The people's war, which had been lost when we were able to
win it. Members of the Dail said they voted for the treaty
because they were told that the IRA could not fight again.
There was not enough ammunition. They had been told by
Collins and Mulcahy that the army was in favour of the
treaty. Two days after the vote was taken, de Valera resigned
as President, and Arthur Griffith, one of the signatories to the
treaty, was elected President of Dail Eireann in his place.
Griffith stated that the Republic of Ireland would remain in
being until the Free State was established, and that Dail
Eireann would remain in existence until an election was held.
Dick Mulcahy, the new Minister for Defence, promised to
keep the army 'in the same position with regard to the
government of the Republic and under the same management
and in the same spirit as before'. Four days later Griffith
called a meeting of the members elected to sit in the Southern
Parliament. A year previously the British had constituted two
parliaments, one of Northern Ireland, the other of Southern
Ireland. When the Southern Parliament had been convened
four out of one hundred and twenty-eight elected members
attended. Dail Eireann refused to recognize it. Now sixty-four
members were present, including the four Unionists from
Trinity College who had last year been the only members
who attended this Southern Parliament. The Articles of
Agreement were submitted to the body. They approved of
them. By their presence they had agreed to a divided Ireland.
A Provisional Government was formed before the meeting
ended, with Michael Collins as Chairman, and authority
taken from the hands of the Dail.
The British began to evacuate the country slowly, handing
their barracks over to the Irish Republican Army. Our Head-
quarters undertook to maintain a certain number of men in
barracks, to uniform and equip them, and to give them a
small allowance. Some of the Dublin barracks were first
handed over, and were occupied by men from the 'Dublin
Guards', officered by members of Collins's former intelli-
gence squad. In the country the men in barracks were main-
tained by running bills, as instructed by Mulcahy, on the
local traders.
A meeting of senior officers was held in Dublin. I was in the
mountains, the Comeraghs, and the despatch did not reach
me in time. When I returned from the mountains I saw Con
at the hut. 'You missed the meeting,' he said, 'but you did not
miss much. De Valera attended and appealed for unity. He
said that no matter what political parties said or did, the
army must remain intact.'
'That's all tripe,' I said. It was impossible. There were two
parties now, Republican and Free State. Those who believed
in an absolutely independent Ireland and those who wished
to become a dominion of the British Empire.
Some of the officers of the Headquarters, the Chief of Staff,
Assistant and Deputy Chiefs, Director of Intelligence,
Adjutant-General, Director of Organization, Director of
Training, Quartermaster-General and Director of Publicity,
approved of the treaty and would naturally strengthen their
political positions by reason of their army ranks. Three of
them were members of Dail Eireann.
The Directors of Engineering, Chemicals, Munitions and
Purchases, were still Republican. The commanding officers of
the First and Second and Third Southern Divisions, of the
Second, Third and Fourth Western, of the Fourth Northern,
and of the Dublin Brigade were Republican. The command-
ing officers of the First Eastern, First Western, First and
Second Northern, and some of the brigades still
undivisionalized, were pro-treaty.
I knew from the conversation I had had with Ginger
O'Connell that a Free State army would be built up. I had
no longer any faith in Collins or Mulcahy. They would use
the army for their own purpose and slowly our men would
either be absorbed or would have to return to their farms,
businesses or universities.
I went to Dublin to see Rory O'Connor. Count Plunkett
told me that he was at home in Monkstown. I took a tram out
along the sea front. The house overlooked Dunlaoghaire and
Dublin Bay. Across the bay was Howth Head, Howth of the
Golden Spears, and the semi-circle of coast connecting it with
the city.
Rory came to the door. 'The very man I want,' he said. 'I
sent word to you two days ago that there would be a meeting
this evening. We must come to some decision at once.'
In a front room overlooking the bay, he played gramophone
records, Brahms, Debussy, La Fille aux Cheueux de Lin, Ravel's
jeux d'Eau, Schumann's Carniual. I searched amongst the
records for Spanish music, Longas, Falla, Albeniz, 'but I
could find only a Gitana. We forgot about the time. Suddenly
he started. 'We must go down town now.'
As he placed the records in the albums he turned to me and
said: 'Did you ever hear 'The Soldier's Song' sung by a
drunken man?'
'Yes, ' I replied.
'Well, you'll hear it now.'
He placed four records on the central steel point; on top
was 'The Soldier's Song'. The records covered the steel point.
He moved the top record until it was inaccurately centred,
and released the disc. The words of the song were drawn out,
the notes became flat, rising from one false note to another.
"The Soldier's Song' is like that to me now,' I said. 'I
cannot bear to hear it sung.'
We trammed to the foot of Grafton Street and walked to
the Pillar. His office was at the back of Marlborough Street.
Women sat with wicker baskets of apples, herrings, bananas,
at street corners. 'Three bananas a penny,' they shouted, 'a
penny for three bananas.' Women with shawls over their
heads, broken boots; children in their arms, snuggled against
their dirty blouses. Kiddies ran about on bare feet. It was
cold. Their small, torn coats were turned up about their
necks. Some had holes in the seats of their trousers, others
had a collection of grey, black, brown patches. The houses
were tall, four and five storeys. Steps led up to the open doors.
Some doors had one hinge missing. Ionic pillars, chipped,
broken; cracked semi-circular fan-lights over the doors. The
houses of the Dublin aristocrats of the eighteenth century.
Here now was poverty, dirt, laughter, song, curses, children,
children everywhere. We climbed the wooden stairs to his
office and entered a large room. I had been here before, two
or three times. A door led into a smaller room where his
typist worked. The door was closed now.
The officers he had summoned arrived one by one, the
Western officers together. Liam Lynch, McCormick, Tom
Maguire, Billy Pilkington, Michael Kilroy, Oscar Traynor:
the officers commanding the First and Third Southern, the
Second, Third and Fourth Western, and the Dublin Brigade:
the areas, with my own division, that had borne most of the
fight. Sean Russell and Jim O'Donovan, Directors of
Munitions and of Chemicals from Headquarters, were also
present. Liam Mellows could not attend. I had not met
Kilroy or the other Western officers before but I had heard
about them.
Kilroy wore blue smoke-glasses; he had grey hair in
amongst the black, a square face. He spoke slowly, haltingly,
as if translating from a foreign language, his strong Mayo
accent rising and falling. He was older than the others and
had commanded the West Mayo column during part of the
Tan war.
Billy Pilkington, fair-haired, thin faced, ruddy cheeks,
straight, a pair of flashing blue eyes and an insistent direct-
ness of speech. He was very much loved by his men; very
religious, a fighting saint.
Tom Maguire was quiet looking. He spoke in mono-
syllables, nodded often instead of replying. He had been a
large farmer though he did not look a farmer. He might have
been a teacher in a college.
The room was not well lighted. We sat on chairs forming
three sides of a square, which Rory's desk completed. A
prismatic compass, a map measurer and a celluloid pro-
tractor stood against the ledge of the desk. To one side of
them were coloured mapping inks and small slender mapping
pens. Maps hung on the wall. A large scale map of Dublin; a
map of Ireland with the divisional areas inserted in red
pencil. A pair of prismatic glasses hung on the back of the
door beside a heavy leather jacket lined with wool. Rory's
blue-black skin looked darker than usual; patches of light
rested on the hollows of his cheeks, the dark colour deepened
the shadows.
'We are all here now,' said Rory. 'You all know why you
were summoned. I outlined the reasons in my note. I think we
should regularize the meeting and appoint a chairman.'
He was elected chairman.
'There are officers in other areas who might have been
summoned,' he said, 'but I thought it best to gather a small
group together first. The Headquarters Staff are playing with
words. We are all still the Republican Army, but soon it will
be reduced and disbanded. How is the situation in your area,
Liam?' he asked.
'Some barracks have been handed over there but I have my
own men in them. Recruiting for the Free State Army is going
on, however. It is hard to trace it exactly, but we know some
of the organizers.'
No barracks had been taken over in the other areas.
'We should form a headquarters of our own,' said Jim
O'Donovan, 'and at once.' He spoke with his lips closing on
the words.
'Well, what do you think, Ernie?' asked Rory.
'The sooner we form an independent headquarters, the
better,' I replied. 'The men do not know what to do. Time is
on the side of the others to wear us down. Once we take a
definite step the men will know exactly where they stand.'
'They have the money,' said Billy Pilkington, 'the press, the
clergy and the arms. All our areas are being sapped in one
way or another. I vote we here and now form an independent
headquarters.'
Rory had been writing on a sheet of paper.
'Let's see how this reads,' he said. 'The undermentioned
officers had viewed with alarm the attitude of the Head-
quarters Staff on the question of the treaty. They demanded a
convention of the whole army to meet at once. If the conven-
tion was not summoned, an independent Headquarters Staff
would be formed.'
Sean Russell suggested some amendments. He twisted and
untwisted his hands as he spoke, the fingers pressing the
knuckles of the other hand. He threw himself forward when
he stood up. The lapels of his coat went further back and his
body turned to one side. His even teeth showed when he
talked. He was the Director of Munitions, but his kindly,
ready smile betrayed no trace of his death-dealing work. The
statement was revised and read again. The officers were
satisfied with it.
Some days after Mulcahy had received the communication
he summoned the senior officers to Dublin. We met in the
Banba Hall. All the Headquarters Staff, divisional comman-
dants and independent brigades were represented. I carried
two guns under my coat as I thought there might be an
attempt to arrest some of our number. We sat around the
room in a semi-circle, but though there was no break, there
was a division. To the right were the men who were
Republican, to the left the Treatyites.
Mulcahy said he intended to keep his promise, to maintain
the army as the Republican Army.
'A name will not make it so,' said Rory, when the Chief of
Staff stopped speaking.
'We intend to cut away from this Headquarters,' said Billy
Pilkington. 'All you,' pointing to the Staff and to the officers
on the left, 'want to build up a Free State army so that you
can march in step into the British Empire. Do it openly. We
stand by the Republic.'
'I do not recognize the authority of this Headquarters,' I
said, 'nor of Dail Eireann. The members of the Cabinet and
of the Staff are imperialists, marking time until we are worn
down. They, the Free State, will be maintained with the arms
which the British have sold to you.'
The officers protested. Jim O'Donovan turned to Collins.
'You are a traitor,' he said, 'and you should have been court-
martialled long since for treason.'
Collins jumped to his feet. There were loud shouts of
'Withdraw', 'Apologize'. Some of our number seemingly did
not approve of the word 'traitor'.
Mulcahy brought the meeting to order with a few quiet
words. Whatever he felt his face did not show either feeling or
emotion. Collins sat with hands propped up, supporting his
chin, a fighting expression on his face.
'I will not withdraw the word,' said Donovan. 'It is true.'
Mulcahy had a suggestion to offer. 'We will give you
officers permission to appoint two men to attend meetings of
the Headquarters Staff to see that nothing hostile to
Republican interests is said or done.'
'We'll go into another room and discuss the matter,' said
Rory. We left the meeting and talked over Mulcahy's sugges-
tion. Rory asked us what we thought.
'I agree,' said Liam Lynch.
'I don't,' I said. 'We cannot remain in Dublin all the time.
Things can happen that will not be brought up at a Staff
meeting and that we will not know of.'
The majority were in favour of forming an independent
headquarters. Liam Lynch said he would have to leave us in
that case. That eventually decided the question as his division
was the strongest numerically, was better armed than any
other area except in the Dublin Brigade, and had the largest
territory. Oscar Traynor and I were appointed 'watchers', as
we were called. We returned to the meeting and informed the
Staff of our decision. Mulcahy promised to call an army con-
vention in two months' time, at which delegates from every
company area in Ireland would attend. The constitution of
the army stated that a convention should be held yearly, but
there had been none called since 1918. A large number of
men in Dublin would have been noticed by the British during
the Tan war.
I returned to the south, summoned a divisional council,
and placed the matter before the officers. One brigade, East
Limerick, was willing to accept the conditions, the other four
were hostile. I had the option of continuing to represent one
brigade, many of whose officers approved of the treaty, or of
refusing to co-operate with General Headquarters, and com-
manding four brigades whose officers believed in complete
independence. I decided to command the latter. By breaking
away from General Headquarters we would not receive any
arms or ammunition. We would find it difficult to maintain
men in barracks. We would be isolated. It was a definite step,
however. Our brigades would know exactly for what they
stood, to whom they were giving allegiance. We would find it
difficult to get food; we would have to cut down staffs. Many
of the men would have to return to their homes.
I was called to attend staff meetings in Dublin, but did not
comply. I was ordered to report at Beggar's Bush barracks,
the then Headquarters, but refused. The Assistant Director of
Organization asked for a permit to drive through my area, as
he thought he might be arrested. It was granted. I met him in
Limerick and he had a talk with me. Two days later the
despatch which he had brought with him and had not
delivered, ordering me to attend a court martial in Dublin,
was forwarded.
An immediate election was threatened. Churchill was
anxious to have an election at once, but the Ard Fheis of Sinn
Fein, comprising three thousand delegates, met and it was
agreed to postpone elections for three months. In the mean-
time the final form of the Free State Constitution was to be
produced for the people's consideration to vote on. Collins
had often hinted in private interviews that the Constitution
would be definitely Republican. The meeting was then
adjourned.
During this time some of the barracks in the Second
Southern had been evacuated by British troops. Our men
went up to the gates on the morning of the evacuation with
rifles and fixed bayonets to take over the post. Sometimes they
were admitted; at others they had to wait until the garrison
marched out. We would not allow the Mulcahyite officers to
take over the barracks. They were afraid to enter the area.
The local battalion staff moved in with a small guard of men;
they could not afford to feed many of them. The barracks
which formerly held one thousand or six hundred men now
housed ten or fifteen. Some of the barracks had been left
without a guard after our men had taken them over; the
neighbouring battalion could not afford to keep any men
here. The empty, unprotected posts had been the scenes of
extensive looting. The people from the towns and neighbour-
ing places had taken everything they could lay hands on, gas
and electric-light fittings, woodwork, timber, closets, baths.
the orgy of loot had developed into destruction in some
instances. People seemed drunk as they smashed, tore and
carried off material for which they had no use, on their backs,
on asses and carts, in trucks. It seemed as if they vented their
vent-up feelings of hatred, which they had had to suppress for
so long, on the fittings of the former quarters of the British
Garrison.
I was at the hut when a Limerick officer arrived to see me.
'Dublin officers have taken over the Castle and the Strand
barracks from the British,' he said, 'and men from the First
Western Division have arrived as a garrison.'
Limerick city was in our division; evidently the
Mulcahyites had grown in strength since they dared to enter
a hostile area.
'Why the hell didn't the Limerick Brigadier take over the
barracks himself?' I asked.
'We did not know they were going to be evacuated. It was
news to him when he found that the Clare men had occupied
them early in the morning.'
'I will probably arrive in Limerick tonight,' I said, and he
drove away.
Limerick was a key position. It had always been strongly
held by the British who had attempted from it to dominate
counties Clare, Limerick, and portion of Tipperary. A Cork
officer arrived that evening to see me. He wished to know if
we had any definite plan of action to prevent our men being
gradually absorbed by Mulcahy. I told him that our division
was acting by itself, trying hard to exist.
'They have paid some divisional officers in our area,' he
said. 'They have uniformed and equipped some of them in the
barracks. They have organization behind them and know
their strength.'
I told him of the Limerick situation.
'What do you intend to do?' he asked.
'I am going there as soon as I write some despatches.
Would you like to come?'
'Yes, I would,' he replied.
We motored in to Limerick, where we met the Brigadier of
Mid-Limerick. 'I have been talking to a Clare man in the
Castle barracks,' he said. 'He seems friendly and when I said
you would be in town tonight, he said he would like to see
you.'
Late that night a tall, uniformed officer with a soft green
uniform cap came to the house. 'I remember meeting you in
1919,' he said, 'in Mid-Clare.' I did not remember his face. I
talked casually whilst I tried to remember the last occasion
we had met, but could not. 'We thought we were going to
Dublin, to Beggar's Bush barracks first,' he said; 'then we
found ourselves in the Castle barracks here. Some of us did
not like coming in to your area, the others did not mind. They
say that you are all rebels and that General Headquarters is
going to have its authority recognized in Limerick.'
'We don't want trouble,' I said, 'but the troops in the
Castle and the Strand barracks will have to leave.' I asked for
the names of the Dublin officers. He gave them to me. I
inquired about strengths. He told me the position of the
sentries, of the machine-gun posts, the strength of the guard-
room, the situation of the officers' quarters. He seemed
anxious to give information. He drew rough sketches for me.
'Are you willing to help?' I asked.
'I am,' he replied, 'I'm a Republican.'
'How do you return to barracks?'
'I have late leave. I knock at the front gate, one of the
sentries opens it. I flash a light from my lamp when I get
inside, tell my name, and then walk across to my room.'
'Are you willing to get late leave tomorrow night? I will
have some men here. We will follow you in the gate, gag the
sentries, hold up the guardroom and rush the officers'
quarters. We don't want any shooting.'
'All right,' he said, 'I'll do that,' and he left the room.
I knew the Dublin officers, Slattery, Stapleton, and Kehoe.
They had been members of Collins's intelligence squad.
'They will fight,' said the Brigadier. 'We will have to
manage the sentries and the guardroom very quickly, and
then lead the men to the officers' rooms. Once we have them
prisoners there will be little trouble with the other officers or
the men.'
'Whether there's shooting or not, the Free State Army is
not going to seize a portion of my area,' I said. 'It will have to
be confronted sometime. Trouble might as well begin in this
division.'
I sent off a despatch to Seamus Robinson, telling him to let
me have fifty to seventy armed men by road the next night.
Our scouts would meet them on the Limerick road. The men
were not to be told where they were going. In the morning an
officer and I walked through the crooked, twisting lanes of the
old part of the city, Irishtown. The Castle barracks, known
as King John's castle, had been built in the thirteenth
century. It had been a portion of the old walls; part of it faced
the Shannon and commanded Thomond Bridge and the far
bank of the river. The walls were massive, over forty feet high
sloping back out of the river, with a tower at the corner near
the bridge. The other walls were modern, as were the
barracks buildings. The tower and the river walls were loop-
holed, with long narrow slits for crossbows, embrasures for
cannon. These had now been filled in with stones, leaving
small openings for rifles. Lichen and grass grew between the
crevasses, and mud and green slime were at the bottom. The
river was low, but the tide at the mouth, over forty miles
away, reached to beyond Thomond Bridge. We had studied
the rough sketches before we approached the barracks. We
identified the officers' quarters and other buildings. We again
visited the narrow by-lanes. 'This would be a good place to
keep our men while we're waiting in the night for the Clare
officer,' I thought. 'There are not many houses here.' It was a
small lane, deep in mud; puddles of water lay where the
roadway had sunk. We crossed the river by the swivel bridge
near the boat club and looked at the Strand barracks which
was in view of the castle; then we returned to the house we
had been staying in near the Tipperary road. We checked off
the imaginary men for the raid. Ourselves two to hold up the
sentries, two men to tie them up; six men for the guardroom;
eight for the officers' quarters, and ourselves; twelve men for
the men's quarters; a reserve of ten men to remain near the
guardroom, and twenty more men to cover the outside
approaches: total sixty. 'Won't the British and the Clare men
be surprised when they find that the castle has been
captured,' said my companion.
At ten o'clock that night the Tipperary force arrived. It
had numerous cars, lorries, Crossley tenders, a Lewis gun
and seventy men. The transport was placed in a small
bohereen off the main road. A guard was mounted. It was
raining; the wind lashed the rain into our faces as we detailed
off the men and explained what they had to do. We moved
quietly through the muddy lanes, in groups; heavy coats; the
darkness and the rain hiding our weapons. There were few
people out of doors. We reached the lane near the barracks.
After the men had been arranged in order of entry we lay up
against a wall and tried to shelter. The Clare officer was due
to arrive at 11.30 pm. We waited; no officer. Twelve o'clock;
he had not appeared. Perhaps he had been delayed, we
thought. We waited until one o'clock. Then, thoroughly wet
and in bad humour, we moved back to the Tipperary road.
'He must have funked it,' one of us said.
'We're here now,' I said. 'We can't surprise the barracks.
We'd better occupy some buildings and wait till morning.
Where's the nearest large building?' I asked the Limerick
Brigadier.
'The County jail,' he said.
'No, that won't do; we'll be there soon enough. Any
others?'
'The County Home.'
'We would disturb the patients,' I said.
'Well, the only other place I can think of,' he replied, 'is the
asylum.'
'That will do grand,' I said. We all laughed. We drove up
to the insane asylum and knocked at the door. There was no
reply. We knocked again. We heard the rattle of keys
approaching. The door was unlocked; the porter stood at the
half-open door, the heavy keys in his hand. 'What do you
want?' he asked crossly. He was in shirt and trousers, and
wore loose slippers, his hair was tossed.
'We want to enter,' I said.
He carried a lighted candle in his left hand, which he held
above his head. The light waved to and fro in the wind.
Forms of men, caps turned back-to-front, rifles on their backs,
could be seen in patches of flickering light.
'This is the asylum,' he said; 'you can't come in here.'
'That's all right,' I said. 'You hunt up the Master; tell him
the place has been taken over until morning. Nobody is to
leave without permission.'
We placed men on guard out of sight near the entrance
gates; and others stood near the telephones inside. We made
tea in the kitchen, then lay on the floors and slept.
Next morning we decided to place our men in the hotels.
We took over the Royal George and the Glentworth and
billeted our men there. We could not feed them ourselves. I
interviewed the hotel proprietors and told them to make the
bills chargeable to the division. Before noon I telephoned the
Castle barracks and said I wanted to see the Dublin officers.
I was told to come over at once as they would like to talk with
us. Another officer and I walked across the barracks yard and
were met by Slattery, Stapleton and Kehoe. They brought us
upstairs to a room over-looking the yard.
'Well,' said Slattery, 'we were expecting you earlier but you
did not come,' and he smiled. I wondered if he was referring
to our raid. Perhaps the officer had given information.
'I want you to leave the city,' I said. 'You have no authority
to enter the divisional area.'
'We have received instructions from the Chief of Staff to
take over the barracks here and to hold them,' said Slattery.
'I am sorry,' I said, 'but you'll have to leave. You can wire
the Chief of Staff. If you remain here, I'll have to attempt to
capture both barracks. I don't want bloodshed, but my area
is not going to be invaded. Would you like it if I occupied
barracks in Dublin?'
They were uncomfortable; they did not like the situation.
'We have to remain here,' said Kehoe. 'We don't like to
because we know you, but we have to carry out our orders.'
Two officers from North Tipperary walked into the room. I
knew both; one was Collison, a fine-looking man. 'Hello,
Mike,' he said, addressing me. I was known by that name
when I organized his area in 1919. He shook hands and
smiled.
'I'm delivering an ultimatum,' I said. 'I want these officers
to leave Limerick.'
'I don't like to be here; I wish I was out of it.'
'I will give you twelve hours' notice prior to hostilities,' I
said to Slattery; then we walked back to our headquarters at
the Glentworth.
I sent to Clonmel for more men and explained the situa-
tion by letter to the three divisional commanders in
Connacht. I asked them for picked officers and men. I
received a wire to say that men would entrain for Limerick as
quickly as possible. The hotels were unsuitable, but they
provided us with food and beds. At last we could have well-
cooked, regular meals and sleep again in sheets; the occupa-
tion of Limerick was worth while if only for the good meals.
At the last moment we could seize the positions that would be
of use to us for attack or defence. A staff was appointed and
the engineers surveyed the city, visited suitable positions
which they reported on, and selected places to be mined. I
went to Dublin to see Rory O'Connor. He looked grave when
I told him of the Limerick situation.
'We have continued to work with Mulcahy under the
'watchers' agreement,' he said. 'We are waiting for the situa-
tion to develop.'
'It has developed in our area,' I said. 'Can you send me
some engineers?'
'No, I'm afraid I cannot,' he said. 'You have taken the
responsibility on yourself; you will have to see it through.
Perhaps an agreement may be reached. Mulcahy and
O'Duffy were to have gone to Limerick today.'
'If we don't act soon they will have taken all the important
positions in Ireland--Dublin, Athlone, Limerick, and our
men will grow tired of the inaction.'
'I cannot help you,' he repeated, 'but I hope there will be
no fighting.'
Mulcahy and O'Duffy had arrived in Limerick, I learned
when I reached the city. The officers at our headquarters
refused to visit them in the Castle barracks. And they
declined to visit our officers on neutral ground. I surmised
from stray remarks that the conversation on the 'phone was
not as polite as it might have been, as they returned to Dublin
highly incensed. The western men arrived and were marched
off to take over other hotels. Soon practically every hotel in
the city was occupied. Sean Moylan of Cork came to see me.
He offered to send engineers and explosives. We could blow
in the gate of the castle or a portion of the wall and rush the
buildings, using explosives in petrol tins with batteries
attached. Extra Mulcahyites arrived. We marched and
counter-marched to give the appearance of having more men
than were actually there. Supplies of land mines had been
prepared; the city had been surveyed and supplies of sand,
sandbags and barbed wire had been commandeered.
The Mayor of Limerick invited the Castle officers to meet
some of our own at lunch. We ate well but there was no
result. I required complete evacuation. They meant to remain
in the city. The British armoured cars patrolled up and down,
as did the armoured cars from the Castle barracks. Liam
Lynch was asked to negotiate and he came to Limerick, sent
by Mulcahy; he met officers from either side, together and
individually. Finally an agreement was reached. All the
Mulcahyites were to evacuate the city and hand over the
barracks to me. All my men were to leave Limerick save the
garrison I would put in the Castle and Strand barracks. We
had won without firing a shot. We had maintained our rights.
The Connacht men departed to the western divisions; boys
who had come from different parts of the country, outside of
our command, without the authorization of their officers, left
regretfully for their areas. The barracks were occupied by a
small guard of Limerick men. I watched the Mulcahyites
leave the city. A company of the East Limerick Brigade,
formerly members of our division, were the last of the
invaders to leave. They hung around. They did not want to
go. The knew the Tipperary men were still in the city and
they thought of delaying so that they would be the last to
march through the streets. That would make the defeat less
bitter. I threatened to arrest the officer in charge, and
watched them march out. Then the Tipperary men passed
through in their lorries and tenders on their way to Clonmel.
I was left to the inglorious aftermath, the collection of the
many bills from the hotels of Limerick. We had attempted to
include the payment of the bills in the agreement, but we did
not succeed. After all, Mulcahy had been responsible for our
occupation of Limerick; the bills should have been his to pay.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARCH--APRIL 1922
THE situation dragged itself out. The British were still
leaving the country, the Royal Irish Constabulary were being
disbanded, and numbers of Auxiliaries had volunteered for
service in the Holy Land. The promised army convention was
due to be held on 26 March, but on 16 March, four days after
the Limerick settlement, Arthur Griffith took the bold step of
proclaiming the convention. He threatened to suspend any
officers who attended. Our division was the only area that
would be unaffected. We were independent of Army Head-
quarters and of Dail Eireann. It was a challenge to the
democratic spirit of the army. 'They must have gained in
strength,' said Con, 'to take such a step. The army will
hardly stand for it.'
'The army has stood for a lot,' I said. 'Mulcahy and
Collins are afraid of a convention. Perhaps they sense they
are not sufficiently well dug-in. A new Executive will
probably be elected and a new Chief of Staff.'
'I wonder what Rory and the others will do now,' he said.
'It must be plain to them now that the Collins-Mulcahy
policy is going to be put through at any cost.'
Next day I received an urgent despatch asking me to attend
a meeting in Rory O'Connor's office. That was good news.
The longer we hesitated to make a definite decision, the
stronger the Staters would become. I wondered how many of
the officers who had attended the first meeting still remained
faithful.
We met in Rory's office. All the officers who had formerly
signed their names demanding a convention were there, save
McCormick, the commandant of the Third Southern. He
had gone over to Mulcahy. Liam Mellows was present, and a
newcomer, a small, dark-complexioned, brown-eyed officer,
Joe McKelvey, commander of the Belfast Division. Rory was
again elected chairman of the meeting.
'We're in the same position in which we found ourselves
two months ago,' Rory said, 'but the situation has developed.
We can all see what faith can be placed in Mulcahy's word.
He's afraid of the convention. He dares not hold it. He thinks
he has the whip-hand now because he has money, is able to
pay his officers, and provide them with arms.'
'We'll hold the convention ourselves,' said Liam Lynch.
'We can notify all commands in Ireland whether they are
friendly or not.'
'What do the other officers think?' asked Rory.
All were in favour of holding a convention.
'We'd better elect a Chief of Staff before we return home,'
said Michael Kilroy. 'It can be a temporary appointment
until the army convention is held.'
Liam Lynch was elected Chief of Staff. Liam Mellows,
Quartermaster-General. Rory O'Connor, Director of En-
gineering. Jim O'Donovan, Director of Chemicals. Sean
Russell, Director of Munitions. And myself, Director of
Organization.
'We'll have to remain in Dublin now,' said Liam Lynch.
'Can you,' turning to Oscar Traynor, the Dublin Brigadier,
'provide a headquarters for us?'
Traynor thought for a while. 'I can,' he said. 'The Gaelic
League hall in Parnell Square. Will that suit?'
'Yes,' said Liam, 'that will do for the present.'
We moved in that night. The hall stood amongst the row of
houses forming the west side of Parnell Square. Built at the
end of the eighteenth century, it had some spacious rooms but
it had no office equipment. In the room on the ground floor I
had signed as a member of 'F' company of the first battalion
over five years ago. The Dublin Brigade supplied an armed
guard. Some of the lower windows were strengthened with
sandbags, but the building was unsuitable for defence. From
my office on the second floor I notified all areas in Ireland
about the convention. The constitution of the Irish Volunteers
and the organization scheme were hastily printed and sent to
divisions and independent brigades. Each brigade was to hold
its own convention: each company elected two delegates;
each battalion staff elected two; all were to discuss the situa-
tion, pass resolutions, examine the constitution and the
organization scheme. And the assembly elected a number to
represent the brigade at the Dublin convention.
On 26 March the general convention met in the Round
Room of the Mansion House. Over two hundred delegates
attended. Representatives also came from the north, the mid-
lands, Wexford and Carlow, those areas in which the senior
officers were Free State. The meeting unanimously reaffirmed
allegiance to the Republic, and agreed to place all its forces
under the supreme control of an Executive to be appointed by
the convention. Finally the Executive of sixteen members was
elected by ballot. They would select from their number an
Army Council of five who would remain in or near the
capital. I was elected a member of the Executive.
The adjourned convention reassembled on 9 April. At a
table on the raised platform sat the Chief of Staff. He had
been elected chairman. I sat by his side; he had appointed me
as secretary. Resolutions which had been forwarded by the
brigades were put to the meeting and voted on, amended,
accepted or rejected. The Executive had been instructed to
draft a new constitution for the army and submit it to the
convention; it was dissected paragraph by paragraph. When
it was ready, I sent copies to all units and the constitution
was amended by the assembly who voted on each paragraph.
The Executive was to continue to meet to discuss and decide
on policy. It was to represent the views of different areas so
that the Chief of Staff could be kept in touch with the situa-
tion in distant parts of the country. The Army Council was a
tabloid executive which could meet frequently and advise
the CS.
When the Executive met that night in our headquarters,
Liam Lynch was confirmed as Chief of Staff. He retained the
members of the Headquarters Staff he had already appointed.
The Chief of Staff as member of the Executive possessed the
same influence as any of the other members, although per-
haps his words were listened to with added respect. A resolu-
tion to proclaim the elections, which were to be held in
Southern Ireland, was discussed at a meeting. The treaty
would be the issue of elections to be held in the twenty-six
counties only. The election was not based on adult suffrage;
no man under twenty-five, no woman under thirty, could
vote, and the ages could be increased by four years in either
case. During the Tan war young men and women had not
added their names and addresses to the register. It would
have given the enemy too much information. Unless England
withdrew her threat of war no election should be held. There
was a majority in favour of proclaiming the elections, but no
decision was arrived at, as a unanimous vote would be needed
to take such an important step.
No arrangement was made to reimpose the Belfast boycott.
A pogrom had continued in the north; begun in Belfast, it
had spread to other parts of Ulster. Directed against the
Catholic minority, it was intensified against all who had Sinn
Fein sympathies. It had started in June 1920 and had con-
tinued sporadically. In six days of August 1920 twenty-two
people had been killed, well over a hundred seriously injured,
and more than three hundred slightly wounded in Belfast.
About one hundred and seventy houses and shops had been
burned. The destruction of life and property in north-east
Ulster had been much greater than that in the rest of Ireland
during the years of 1916 to 1921, yet martial law had not been
declared, and curfew restrictions, which had been imposed in
most cities, towns and even villages in the other provinces
during the Tan war, were not in operation. The homeless
people, over twenty thousand, found refuge in the south in the
homes of friendly persons. The Belfast boycott had been
imposed to check the victimization. Unionist firms in Belfast
were on the list; the people in other counties had been
instructed not to stock or sell articles forwarded by their
firms. During the Tan war the IRA had enforced the boycott.
Trains were held up, wagons searched, and boycott goods
burned. During the truce the IRA could not destroy supplies,
but the shops had learned not to stock the goods. Collins had
met Craig, the Premier of Northern Ireland, in London some
months ago. As a result, the boycott which had seriously
affected north-eastern trade had been withdrawn. No guar-
antee had been received that the minority would be respected.
The Orange Hall, a large building on the other side of the
square opposite the Gaelic League rooms, our headquarters,
was seized by us. It was then the headquarters of the
Orangemen in the south, the organization which had insti-
gated the pogrom. It was held by our armed guard, and here
some of the refugees from the north were housed. They had to
depend on charity; officially they had not been cared for.
Some had a dazed, hopeless look in their eyes. They carried
little bundles, all they had been able to save in some in-
stances. The women looked broken; their nerves had been
shattered during the period of waiting, always expecting that
their houses would be attacked by rifle fire and burned by the
mob. Dormitories were fitted up for them; boycotted food
supplies were given to them. In the west, mansions and
estates were taken over; they provided shelter for others of the
homeless.
Our headquarters was unsuitable. It had become too small
and we had the barest of office equipment as we wished to
economize. Some of us ate in our friends' houses in rotation as
we could not afford a mess. Twice it was reported that we
were going to be attacked by Staters. Despatch riders and
messengers scoured the city for us. We buckled on our guns
and hastened to headquarters, waiting for the raid which did
not come. We could not have held the building for long, any-
how. It was found impossible to maintain our men in the
barracks throughout the country. Mulcahy, since the con-
vention, had repudiated the bills which he had ordered those
who had once accepted his orders to run on the local traders.
The shopkeepers blamed our men for non-payment. A meet-
ing of the Army Council was held in the Gaelic League hall.
It was decided to raid the banks in Dublin and in the country
to maintain our men. Mulcahy and his staffs were receiving
salaries, being paid and armed by monies subscribed through
the Republican loans in Ireland and America. Many needy
people had stinted themselves to purchase bonds, the money
to be used to defend and maintain the Irish Republic. Now it
was being used to undermine it, to win over men, to buy
arms, armoured cars and munitions from the British. Osten-
sibly the arms were at some future time to be used against the
British; in reality they were to crush those who believed in the
complete sovereign independence of Ireland. Griffith and
Mulcahy could compensate the banks. Raids took place
simultaneously throughout Ireland. Receipts in the names of
the officers in charge of raids were to be given for all monies
received.
My staff had increased; a typist and an assistant director,
Sean MacBride, son of Major John MacBride executed after
Easter Week. The typist had saved what was left of my
temper. No longer would I pound, with finger uplifted as I
sought the keyboard, tying myself into knots in the process. I
was in the Orange Hall one night, selecting tins of Marsh's
biscuits of Belfast which would supplement the afternoon tea
we had in our rooms, when Liam Mellows came in by the
back yard.
'We're going to take over the Four Courts tonight,' he
said. 'We're going to have a decent headquarters at last.'
So that's why the Army Council met this morning, I
thought. 'It's a huge series of buildings, Liam. They will
surely attempt to clean us out tomorrow,' I said.
'We'll see,' he said, and smiled. 'Some of your Tipperary
lads are due to arrive any minute. They will act as a garrison.
Men from the Dublin Brigade will take the Courts over at
midnight.'
We brought the biscuits over to the Gaelic League rooms
and waited. There were armed men in the halls and in some
of the rooms on the first floor. There was an air of suppressed
excitement and of gay laughter--something to do at last. I
packed up all my papers and tied them into brown paper
packets. 'Are you ready?' said Liam, as I put on a Sam
Browne belt and examined the breech and magazine of my
long-barrelled Parabellum. 'It's near twelve o'clock now,' he
said. 'We'll move down.' We walked along by the footpath
near the river, through the dimly-lighted streets. We could see
a group of men in one of the lanes off the river. 'They must be
the Dublin men,' said Liam. As we approached the Courts
the heavy massive buildings took blurred shapes in the dark-
ness. The dome could be seen faintly against the sky. We
leaned against the parapet opposite to the main gate. We
approached the main gate. Some stooped down and gave the
others a back. They climbed over the railings and disap-
peared in the dark.
'They're going to round up the police, I suppose,' I said.
Liam nodded his head.
Dublin metropolitan police guarded the buildings which
were government property, containing the courts of higher
appeal and comprising the headquarters of the legal depart-
ments. The main building had been designed by James
Gandon and was now, together with the Kildare Street Club
and the Rotunda, amongst the outstanding edifices in
Dublin. The city had been ill-fated. Two fine buildings had
already been destroyed; the General Post Office had been set
on fire by shells during Easter Week, the Custom House had
been burnt towards the end of the Tan war. The heavy iron
gates of the Courts were opened from the inside. Liam and I
walked through. Inside in the shadows loomed tall forms, the
police, guarded by five youngsters. They were told to march
outside and go home. They answered our 'goodnights' and
crunched away. A sound of marching men. 'What's that?'
asked Liam. 'I don't know,' I replied; 'the Tipperary men or
the Staters.' We waited in the shadows. The marching feet
swung in the gate. Forms carrying rifles appeared; they wore
no uniform, the Tipperary men had arrived. Guards were
posted inside the three entrance gates. We moved up and
down in the dark, meeting members of our staff, trying to find
our way with flash lamps and candles. We went astray in the
dark. We got separated and shouted until we heard footsteps
or voices. It was a huge area of buildings.
One large block was pointed out by Liam Lynch. 'That
will be the Headquarters block. You had best select rooms
there. '
I entered room after room on the second storey. This will
do, I thought, as I located a nice little suite of rooms. I pinned
a sheet of paper on the door: 'Office of the D/O'. I opened
other doors. I found more suitable quarters. I pinned another
sheet on the door. I went further; yet better offices. It was like
being in a Hans Andersen fairy tale. First the boy had filled
his pockets with coppers. He went into another room. Here
was silver. He emptied his pockets and filled them with silver.
His pockets bulged. He found another door; he entered.
Coffers full of gold were in the room. He quickly emptied the
silver and filled his pockets with overflowing gold coins. At
last I was satisfied.
I went downstairs to help to put the position in a state of
defence. Motor-cars and lorries brought in sandbags and
barbed wire. The building swallowed them up. 'It's like
putting a strawberry in a bull's mouth,' said a Tipperary boy,
as he carried in a sandbag. The majority of windows were
barricaded with heavy legal tomes, law books and weighty
ledgers, and tin boxes filled with earth. There was an endless
succession of windows. The buildings were as big as a city
block. Before dawn we were tired, and we sat down to rest. In
the darkness Liam Mellows sang come-all-yez, 'The Croppy
Boy', and 'Come all ye brave Un-it-ed Men', giving the
proper stress and intonation in his inimitable way. He seemed
gayer, more cheerful now. Perhaps action, such as it was,
after the long period of inaction had made him more light-
hearted. Anyhow it was an adventure and the smiling faces
one met, the snatches of song at intervals, the ring of voices
across the darkness, showed that the men who were tired of
the drifting policy now realized that some kind of a decision
had been made. We had a good strong headquarters with a
well-known name. That counted for something. We had come
out into the open; no more hole-and-corner work.
From the flat roof some of us watched the dawn over the
city, lifting slowly along the river, creeping up with the gulls
from the Custom House. Shafts of light striking the shivering
Liffey; a light breeze making little waves in relief. The light
climbed up the houses, touched the sturdy Norman mass of
Christ Church, moved to the slender spires of St. Patrick's
Cathedral and dropped on to the irregular squares and cones
of Guinness's brewery. We looked down at the defences and
laughed. The barristers and the gowned notables from the
Inns of Court never dreamed that one day their heavy legal
tomes might defy the law and stop a bullet. We walked
through and outside the buildings, attempting to get an idea
of the whole. The Four Courts was built in the form of a
square, with gaps where there were heavy gates leading to
courtyards. Facing the Liffey was the main gate, with a high
wall on either side, and buildings of cut-stone continued in
each direction until they turned the corner of a street crossing
the river by a bridge. Inside the gate was a large rectangular
courtyard surrounded by buildings with a pillared colonnade.
The buildings continued up the side streets at right angles to
the river, an interval on either side for a gate. Two isolated
buildings completed the square. The smaller one contained
the records and was known as the Records office; the other
was large. lt was now the Headquarters block. The other
large building, on the opposite side to our block, facing the
river and separated from us by a courtyard, contained the
dome.
We all had offices now; roll-topped desks, typewriters,
bookcases, comfortable upholstered and leather chairs, good
lighting. Supplies of files, notepapers, sealing wax and office
material were supplied by the stationery office below stairs.
The Tipperary garrison remained a few days, then returned
to their area. They were replaced by less sturdy-looking
Dublin men. Paddy O'Brien was appointed to command the
garrison. He was above medium height, straight, soldierly,
beautifully proportioned. 'The most beautiful body I have
ever seen,' said a Dublin officer who had been at the univer-
sity with me. 'I noticed it often when swimming. He reminds
me of the Greek enthusiasm for manly beauty.' Blue-eyed,
serious, good featured, tireless in energy. O'Brien selected
Sean Lemass as adjutant.
The Records office was converted into a munitions factory.
It was the most isolated building for that work. Lathes and
motors were installed. Mine cases were made and filled with
the explosives manufactured in the building; grenades were
cast and filled. Liam Mellows, the Quartermaster-General,
endeavoured to import arms. Officers were sent to foreign
countries. Sean MacBride, the Assistant DO, a native French
speaker, departed on mysterious journeys. Small quantities of
arms arrived and were distributed; the garrison was armed
with a short light German Mauser carbine. In the cellars I
practised revolver shooting with the adjutant of the Courts,
using ammunition which I had bought from the Assistant
Quartermaster. Our target was a royal coat of arms cast in
metal, the lion and the unicorn supporting the crown. They
were scattered through the small courtrooms of the buildings.
Liam Lynch heard the shooting one day and investigated.
Next day an order was issued that there could be no revolver
shooting without the written permission of the Courts com-
mander. The Belfast boycott officers were on the ground floor.
The director of the boycott, Henderson, was now important.
It was well to be as friendly as possible. Did he not have
stores of tobacco and delicacies? My bedroom was in a large
chamber. It must have been a conference chamber of some
kind. There was a raised dais at one end, above which was
the royal coat of arms. The room was panelled with oak; high
carved-oaken chairs and upholstered settees were near the
walls. There were no beds in the building. I made a couch by
placing three of the chairs together, then I wrapped myself in
a rug which one of my friends lent me.
We ate our meals in the block opposite, where there was an
officers' mess. It was a place to avoid. The typists dined out.
The material for the food was good, although we did not
believe it until we had inspected the pantries and the kitchen.
The cooks might have learned their trades in a sailors' dive on
the quays. They were self-made cooks, however, who
improved with time. I heard the orderly officer of the day
register a complaint to the cooks, while I was seated near the
door leading to the kitchen. 'I don't worry about the officers,'
one of the cooks said; 'they'd complain anyhow. They think
they're soldiers if they grouch enough.'
The minority party, the Republicans, in Dail Eireann were
trying to obtain some form of political unity. Negotiations
had continued for some time. Liam Lynch attempted to bring
about unity between the two armies. A committee of officers
from either side, ten in all, met frequently. Liam thought that
a joint Headquarters Staff, Republican and Free State, might
be reached by negotiation. He had already discussed the
defence of the Courts with the Dublin Brigadier, Oscar
Traynor. In case of threatened attack on our position by
either British or Free State we would probably receive notice
from our Director of Intelligence. Positions surrounding the
Courts were to be occupied by snipers; some houses were to
be lightly held; the Dublin barracks were to be isolated both
by snipers and by occupying houses. Movement of enemy was
to be hindered by destroying or blocking the canal bridges
and barricading the streets. This would confine the armoured
cars to certain areas. Attack was to be then directed on the
positions occupied by the hostile troops surrounding the
Courts.
I went to Connacht on a tour of inspection, visiting country
I had not seen since I was a boy, country which had always
been a vivid, living memory. I motored from Sligo along the
coast out to Erris on the rough Atlantic, where our boyhood
hero Ferdia had come from; the mountains of Achill and the
cliffs could be seen in the distance as I took the road to
Mulranny. Clew Bay again, a circular sweep of water
running inland, turning at Westport to go out to sea once
more, passing beneath the bare-looking climb of the Rock.
The islands shining in the rough water. I spent from early
morning until midday looking at the bay near Mulranny. My
work could wait. I might never see the bay again. I visited the
military barracks in Castlebar, now occupied by our men. I
inspected the companies on parade in the barracks square
where once from the high wall of Lord Lucan's demesne my
brother and I had often watched the British soldiers drill. The
towns in the west seemed to have a strange grey lichen
appearance; there was no warmth in the buildings. I saw
Tom Maguire in Ballinrobe near the lake country, after I had
visited rock-swept Connemara.
In the Second Southern area Seamus Robinson had been
placed in charge of the division.
On my return journey I visited Templemore barracks in
Co. Tipperary. The barracks was occupied by men from
Tipperary Two Brigade. They courted the Beggar's Bush
Headquarters one minute, the Four Courts the next; the
officers did not seem to be quite sure what part they meant to
play. I had met Leahy, the Brigadier, a few weeks previously.
He said that he hoped to obtain rifles from Mulcahy; he
would then hold his barracks for the Republicans. Rifles were
always a bait. We fought hard to obtain them, or had paid
dearly for them. Many of the men now supporting Mulcahy
thought that the rifles given to them would one day be used
against England. The Mulcahyites made up his mind for him.
'Two weeks ago,' he told me, 'an armoured car was sent from
the Bush and remained inside the gate. A guard was always
kept in the car. At night the crew, Dublin men, slept in it. I
expect the car was a threat. Our men surprised the guard one
night and captured the car. We have it behind one of the
blocks. The mechanics are overhauling the engine.'
'We want it in the Four Courts,' I said.
He hesitated for a while. 'All right,' he said, 'I'll go with
you.' We inspected the car. It was covered with heavy plates
of bullet-proof steel. The engine was long, a Rolls Royce. On
top was a revolving steel turret which contained a Vickers
gun, capable of long sustained fire without overheating; the
ammunition was in strips, side by side, in narrow belts. Near
the driving wheel was a long steel rod with a handle pro-
jecting into the car; the rod opened or shut the steel flaps
protecting the front of the radiator: the engine would overheat
if the flaps were not opened occasionally. There were small
loopholes which could be closed with small steel shutters;
they were for the revolvers of the crew.
We started off for Dublin, the driver, the Brigadier and I.
This was a piece of luck. To think that I would return in an
armoured car, the only one our men possessed. The car was
stuffy at first, but the day was cold. We were soon warm and
cosy. On corners the speed had to be considerably reduced as
the car was too heavy. We had to wait outside the entrance
gate of the Courts until the sergeant of the guard came down
to identify me. I had forgotten to get a leave pass before I
departed for the west. When I had signed my name and rank
in the guard book I was admitted.
Men gathered about the armoured car. They were all
pleased. This was an event. The Brigadier went directly to
the Quartermaster's office. He was, I suspected, going to
drive a hard bargain and obtain rifles in exchange. The
following day I saw one of the garrison painting a name below
the turret with white enamel--'The Mutineer'.
The press, as directed by the Staters, had given us a variety
of names, 'Mutineers', 'Executive forces', 'Rory O'Connor's
men', 'looters', 'bank robbers'. Always they were shy to call
us Republicans; that name might raise memories even though
Staters had proved as well as they could that a Republic had
never existed.
CHAPTER FIVE
APRIL--JUNE 1922
WHILST I was in the country other positions in Dublin had
been occupied by our men. The Ballast Office, the Masonic
Hall, and the Kildare Street Club. Oscar Traynor had been
ordered by our Chief of Staff to occupy these buildings; he
was reluctant to do so, although two of them had been in-
cluded in the emergency defence scheme which he had
previously outlined for Liam Lynch. The Kildare Street Club
was the most exclusive in Ireland and was the headquarters of
the ascendancy, always closely linked with Dublin Castle.
The Club fronted the grounds of Trinity College and ex-
tended into Kildare Street. It was well proportioned, with
windows that had solved the problem of space. Now, boys
from the Dublin Brigade, some of them undersized, roughly
clothed, armed with rifles, replaced the uniformed porters at
the entrance hall. They sat in the upholstered chairs where
the members once lolled at ease. They played handball and
occasionally puffed leisurely at long cigars. The source of the
cigars was a mystery. I was friendly with the quartermaster of
the Courts; he often brought a pocketful of cigars to my office
and said with a grin: 'I can recommend these. I get them in
my club in Kildare Street; all the other lords smoke them
there, so you may be sure they're good.' Belfast refugees slept
in the well-furnished bedrooms and sat somewhat fearfully in
the reading rooms.
Executive meetings were held frequently. I was a member
of the Executive and the secretary. There was no attempt to
define a clear-cut policy. Words ran into phrases, sentences
followed sentences. At times I sat holding my head in my
hands, dulled, wishing I could stand up, let out a few wild
yells to relieve my feelings, before I left the room. I watched
the half-hidden yawns of the other members. A drifting policy
discussed endlessly in a shipwrecked way. One speaker pick-
ing up a sentence, inverting it, developing it as a theme,
playing with it. Then silence, in which we all sat in a kind of
vacuity. Soon I learned to hate Executive meetings. I got a
bad headache even before the meeting began. I thought of
them when engaged on other work and shuddered. They were
a bad dream; the situation was going to make up our minds.
In Tipperary and Westmeath, at Annacarty and Athlone,
friction had occurred and an exchange of shots. Liam Lynch
instructed our men in a few instances to evacuate posts to
avoid fighting, with the result that they became dissatisfied,
thinking that the Executive in the Four Courts wished to
compromise and were unwilling to support them, but we
would not retire indefinitely. I felt that Mulcahy and Collins
were playing for time until they felt strengthened and secure.
The longer the army negotiations could be drawn out the
better. Some of our men were preparing to leave for their
homes. They thought that negotiations would end in com-
promise and that the question of the sovereign independence
of the nation would be lost sight of. In parts of the country
organization slackened and languished.
Another little crisis occurred. Some of our officers, in-
cluding Sean Hegarty of Cork and Dan Breen, had entered
into negotiations with Mulcahy. A statement was published
in the press which was signed by both groups, appealing for a
unification of the army on the basis of the acceptance of the
treaty. Our officers had no authority from the Executive to
negotiate. They evidently meant to work the treaty and allow
the army to gain strength until it could declare for indepen-
dence. They could not substantiate any agreement arrived at,
and their action tended to show how disorganized we were
and how individual attempts at a settlement could whittle
down our resistance. No action was taken by Liam Lynch at
this breach of discipline.
I asked permission of our Assistant Chief of Staff, Joe
McKelvey, to organize an operations staff. He was respon-
sible for that branch but nothing was being done. He told me
to see the Chief of Staff. I went to Liam Lynch's office and
told him how essential it was to have a group of officers work-
ing on operations so that in case of war our troops would be
able to co-operate efficiently and strike quickly, acting on a
carefully thought out, prearranged plan. 'Negotiations will
soon end,' he said, 'and everything will be settled satis-
factorily. There will be a joint Headquarters Staff and we will
see that the Republican position is not jeopardized.'
'I do not trust Mulcahy,' I said. 'I have no faith in him. I
have not had it since the day I tendered my commission
before the vote on the treaty took place.'
'Well, I think negotiations will end shortly,' he said.
'So we cannot organize an operations staff?'
'There will be no necessity for one.'
'Can I inspect the defences of the Courts officially with
the ACS?' I asked.
'All right,' he said, 'do that.'
Next day the Assistant Chief of Staff with Paddy O'Brien,
his adjutant and I inspected the Courts. We selected snipers'
positions on adjoining roofs from which our positions could
be commanded. Range cards of the distances were to be
prepared. The defences were divided into sections. The men
already knew their individual positions; alarms had been
given occasionally to test the speed and accuracy with which
they could get ready. The Headquarters Staff, in case of sur-
prise attack, were to act as a section, in charge of a section
commander under the control of Paddy O'Brien. The Head-
quarters officers were to rank as volunteers. We arranged for
a sudden night alarm to test the garrison. Of the four gates,
only one was used, that on one of the side streets; the other
gates were protected with a little barbed wire, and behind
them in the open spaces were obstacles. We needed more
barbed wire and moveable obstacle rests which could be
rushed to places in the interior of the buildings. The windows
were not sufficiently well barricaded. Communication
between the blocks was in the open. We needed a supply of
sandbags to make a passage way between the dome and the
Headquarters block, between the munitions and Head-
quarters blocks. We needed a way of escape if we were
suddenly surrounded. The sewer system underneath might be
investigated; a tunnel could be sunk and be driven out in two
or three different directions under the side streets. There were
many recommendations to be made. We made a thorough
inspection of the position and drew up a report which we
forwarded to the Chief of Staff, but it was not acted on.
The army negotiations continued. To promote a better
understanding, Liam Lynch ordered the Dublin Brigadier to
evacuate some of the positions in the city. It was understood
that the Four Courts would eventually be evacuated.
I had a talk with Paddy O'Brien in his office near the main
gate. His adjutant, Sean Lemass, was present.
'The Four Courts will be evacuated next,' he said.
'It looks like it,' I replied.
'There will be a joint Headquarters Staff formed,' O'Brien
said. 'When our members on it find out too late that the
Staters mean to organize their Free State, they will break
away and attempt to reorganize an opposition. But it will
consist of Headquarters officers only then.'
'We don't all approve of the negotiations,' I said; 'they are
to kill time.'
'That's just it,' said O'Brien. 'I know what I'm going to do.
I'll blow up or burn the Four Courts rather than hand them
over. '
'I'm with you in that case,' I said.
Next day barrels of petrol and paraffin were stored in the
cellars and in dark corners, unknown to the rest of the Head-
quarters Staff.
In the meantime, de Valera and Collins had at last come
to an agreement known as the 'Pact'. It was submitted to and
passed unanimously by Dail Eireann. A statement was issued
that:
We are agreed:
1. That a National Coalition Panel for this Third Dail, repre-
senting both parties in the Dail, and in the Sinn Fein organization,
be sent forward, on the ground that the national position requires
the entrusting of the Government of the country into the joint hands
of those who have been the strength of the national situation during
the last few years, without prejudice to their respective positions.
6. That after the election the Executive shall consist of the Presi-
dent, elected as formerly; the Minister for Defence, representing the
Army; and nine other ministers--five From the majority party and
four From the minority, each party to choose its own nominees. The
allocation will be in the hands of the President.
- Signed --
Eamon de Valera
Miceal 0 Coileain
The terms of the Pact were submitted to the adjourned Ard
Fheis representing the Sinn Fein organization. The terms
were unanimously approved. Michael Collins, addressing the
Ard Fheis said: 'If, as has been said, the agreement imperils
the treaty, we have to face the situation in this manner: that
we have made an agreement which will bring stable condi-
tions to this country and if those stable conditions are not
more valuable than any other agreement, well, then, we must
face what these stable conditions will enable us to face.'
On 26 May, three days after Collins's speech, Griffith was
summoned to London. Four days later Churchill announced
that the Provisional Government would not receive further
supplies and that evacuation of British troops was suspended.
Evidently Churchill feared the Pact. Next day Collins went
to London. He returned the same day. Five days later Collins
and de Valera issued a joint statement reaffirming the Pact.
At a public meeting in Dublin Mulcahy and Collins
advocated the Pact; it was still more important than the
treaty. Two days after, Collins was called to London where
he remained for a series of conferences. On the eve of the elec-
tion he addressed a meeting in Cork. 'You are facing an
election here on Friday,' he said, 'and I am not hampered
now by being on a platform where there are Coalitionists,
and I can make a straight appeal to you, to the citizens of
Cork, to vote for the candidate you think best. . . .' He had
broken his own Pact. On the morning of the election, the Free
State Constitution which was to have been issued before the
election, with the King freely scattered throughout its para-
graphs, was published in the Irish papers--too late to be read
by the electors in the country.
Rory O'Connor came up to my office that afternoon.
'Would you like to visit your university?' he asked.
'No,' I said, 'not yet, but as things go I'll be returning there
shortly. '
'We are paying a little call to the university offices. They
have just finished counting the votes. It would be interesting
to know if our Free State friends there have voted for Panel
candidates.'
With two officers we drove to Merrion Square. We walked
upstairs to where some professors were chatting, seated inside
the counter which railed off a portion of the room.
'Is the count finished yet?' asked Rory, addressing a clerk
who stood behind the counter.
'Yes,' he replied, 'it's just finished.'
The ballot box stood on the counter.
'In that case,' said Rory, 'we'll borrow the box. We are
anxious to know if these gentlemen,' pointing to a group of
Collins's supporters, 'have kept their word.'
'You can't do that,' said the clerk.
The men inside the counter jumped to their feet and
shouted 'Looters! ' 'Robbers! ' We carried the heavy box out-
side to the waiting car and drove away. 'We'll be in a very
awkward position if they have kept their word,' said Rory, as
we entered the gates of the Four Courts.
The university ballot papers contained the names and
addresses of the voters, so that individuals could be identified.
That evening a group of us examined the papers. The
Republicans had voted for Panel candidates; a few of the
Staters had, but the majority, including some of their out-
standing men, had broken the Pact. The result of the election
was published later. Ninety-four Panel candidates had been
returned; fifty-eight of them were pro-treaty. The Dail was
due to meet on 30 June.
At the meetings of the Executive the situation was dis-
cussed endlessly. Some favoured an attack on the British in
the north, giving them two days' notice first. Others thought
we should attack them in Dublin. A fight would probably
unite the Staters and Republicans; some of the Staters would
want to fight with us. The only solution appeared to be the
British. They would, we expected, attack us before the two
days had elapsed. We of the Four Courts were the centre of
the armed Republican resistance. We had to defend the
independence of our country, and whether we made mistakes
or not, we were going to make a last attempt to prevent the
stampede of the nation.
Our Director of Intelligence had been for some time past in
communication with the training nucleus of the new police
force, the Civic Guards, who were based in a hutted camp in
Kildare town. Following the precedent of the Royal Irish
Constabulary, the force was being trained in the use of rifles,
revolvers and hand-grenades. One night I was summoned to
McKelvey's office.
'There's a chance of getting arms,' McKelvey said. 'Some
of the Civic Guard officers are willing to come over to us.
Some who are not willing may be talked into giving their
rifles. Two lorries of guards are to proceed towards Dublin
around midnight, bringing arms and ammunition. Be careful
now. We don't want any shooting. Our convoy will start later
tonight. '
'Do you know the names of any officers or men involved?' I
asked. He mentioned some names. 'A few are friendly,' he
said. I knew two of the officers he mentioned; once I had
helped to organize their area.
A Crossley tender, the armoured car, and a line of motor-
cars were outside in the courtyards being overhauled for the
journey. Then we started off, in cars separated at intervals so
as not to attract attention. On the main road near the
entrance to the plain of the Curragh we halted until all the
cars had joined us. I walked down the road towards the
Curragh with two others until we saw the lights of a lorry
approaching. We held up our hands and shouted 'Halt!' The
lorry pulled up.
A voice said: 'Who are you?'
I replied: 'From the Four Courts. We want to talk to you.
We see no way out of the present situation but to attack the
British. That would reunite both forces.'
'I would not mind having another whack at the British,'
said a man. 'Nor I,' said another.
'We want to have as many arms as we can before we give
them notice,' said the officer with me. 'We ask you to give us
your weapons, and if any of you wish to come back to the
Courts with us, you can do so.'
'When do you intend to attack?' asked a voice from the rear
of the tender.
'We'll wait until the new Dail meets, then we'll know
exactly how many armed men we can have. If we don't fight
before the British leave the country, we will be left to face
each other.'
One man came over to me. 'There's my rifle. We have
fought the British together.' Another gave me a revolver. 'We
know you. Here's my gun.' They handed over their weapons
by degrees. 'Don't forget that we are Republicans. We'll be
ready to fight for Ireland when we're needed.'
Most of our convoy led by Tom Barry and Rory had
proceeded towards the Kildare police camp, while we pulled
in at the side of the road and waited. One of our men climbed
a telegraph pole and cut the wire when we heard cars coming
across the Curragh. 'They may be Staters from the Curragh
camp,' I said. We could see the lights of seven or eight cars,
'No,' said a voice in the darkness, 'I think they're our own.'
Men jumped down and ran towards us. They were
laughing and talking. 'We were given the arsenal.' said one.
'Rory and Tom Barry talked the guard over.'
Rory came up to where we stood beside the tender. He was
smiling. 'They have given us all the rifles and ammunition
they had. They even gave us tenders to remove the stuff. Some
of them are coming back to the Courts.'
'You can have our tenders, too,' said a guard. 'You might
as well make a clean sweep.'
'There may be a hell of a row tomorrow,' said another, 'but
we don't mind now. It will be worth it.'
We arranged the convoy and distributed our men. Those
police who had joined us shook hands with Rory and me. The
other guards marched along the road in the dark. They would
have to face the music tomorrow. Those men who had
disappeared into the darkness had risked their positions, their
pay, perhaps their liberty, to provide us with arms to fight the
British who had divided our nation.
The convoy started back for the city. We wondered if we
might be halted before we reached the Courts. I sat in a
tender on a pile of rifles. The men whistled and sang. We
were all in good spirits and reached the Four Courts before
dawn with our treasure trove.
Liam Lynch had decided to summon another convention.
He as Chief of Staff could have decided on war and have
issued instructions to all our commands to prepare for it.
Officers in charge of areas could have been interviewed.
Instead a convention was called and members of it were
entrusted with an operations decision which the Executive
could have decided at a meeting. Liam Lynch was not in
favour of the project so perhaps that explained the con-
vention. A convention would mean that the enemy would be
immediately informed of all questions discussed and would
receive a report of the proceedings; after the last one there
was an account of the transactions in the press the following
day.
The new convention met on 18 June in the Mansion House.
We knew that the Staters and the British would receive a
report. A resolution proposing to declare war on the British,
first giving them and the Staters seventy-two hours' notice
prior to hostilities, was submitted to the delegates. Some were
annoyed because they considered a resolution of that nature
fatuous; it was not a matter for a convention but for the
Executive. Others were confused and thought it meant
seventy-two hours' notice from that moment, though it was
worded clearly.
The resolution was narrowly defeated. Liam Lynch and
some of the officers from his division had opposed it. Rory
O'Connor and many of the men who had supported it stood
up and left the room, stating that they were going to the Four
Courts and had their minds made up on what they were
going to do. I remained until the meeting was over. That
evening I had some difficulty in getting into the Courts; the
guard at the gate had been strengthened. No member of the
Executive or of the Staff except those who had voted for the
resolution would be admitted. Our members were again
reduced. Soon the Four Courts would be left with a garrison
only.
Joe McKelvey was elected Chief of Staff by the members of
the Executive who were in favour of war.
During the following days we had visitors to the Courts;
civilians came to offer their services at the entrance gate.
They said they had heard that we were going to fight the
Provisional Government. They were obviously British officers,
or a certain brand of secret service men; they were searched
in the guardroom and interrogated, then told to return to
their barracks or to Dublin Castle. A few were shown up to
my room, where we talked while the DI instructed men to
follow them when they left. They were traced back to their
source, the British barracks or the Castle. We wondered
what they had come for. Possibly to get a shrewd idea of the
defences, such as they were, from the inside, or to locate the
offices of the Headquarters Staff for reference in case of a
sudden night assault. We did not wish to take them prisoners;
it would have served no useful purpose. Already we had one
prisoner near the guardroom. He was a professional gun-
runner. He entertained us with stories of Mexico and of the
South American republics. He passed comments on the hotels
in Dublin; there was only one where a person could eat in
comfort. I expect the food from the officers' mess was not
much to his liking. He was rather tall, well dressed, with light
fair hair and a slight moustache varying between fair and
white, well pointed at the ends, he must have used some kind
of grease. He was accused of trying to double-cross some of
our agents in Belgium and Germany who were attempting to
purchase arms. He protested vigorously. This was an outrage,
it was the first time he had ever been arrested. He was told it
might be the last time, and his smile, showing a few gold
teeth, dwindled away. His nasal voice was not raised so often
now.
We were told by our Director of Intelligence that some of
the members of the Headquarters Staff and of the Executive
were likely to be shot by men who had served on Collins's
intelligence squad during the Tan war. I do not know what
truth was in the report, but we took additional precautions,
carried our guns always and slept near them. One night after
midnight I was walking towards the Four Courts along the
quays from O'Connell Bridge. As I came near the Courts a
man jumped out of a doorway, an automatic in his hand, a
cap pulled down over his eyes. He shouted 'Hands up!' I
jumped forward and seized his gun. He pressed the trigger,
but there was no report. I recognized his voice as we
struggled; he was the quartermaster of the garrison. He had
forgotten, luckily for me, to remove the safety-catch of his
weapon. The neighbourhood of the Courts was being held
up; passers-by were diverted to the upper bridges and to the
side streets. The officers of the garrison were exploring the
sewers, endeavouring to make a line of communication that
would lead out of the position. The adjutant, Sean Lemass,
managed to fall into a sewer and he smelled to heaven.
Sir Henry Wilson, former Chief of the Imperial General
Staff, was shot dead in London on 22 June by two London
Irishmen. We believed that Wilson had been shot through
instructions from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, that is
through Collins, O'Hegarty and Mulcahy who were
members of the Supreme Council. Two of Collins's trusted
men had been in London before the shooting took place.
Arthur Griffith, who was not connected with the IRB, sent a
message of sympathy to King George and to Wilson's family.
The English accused the Four Courts Staff of instigating the
shooting. The Four Courts officers had nothing to do with it,
for the truce, so far as the British were concerned, had been
observed. The motive for the crime was not apparent.
Perhaps Collins may have wished to appease some of the
Northern officers who were members of the IRB and who
required some assurance other than promise of arms. The
establishment of a Free State would cut them off from the
remainder of the country. Some of them believed that he had
deserted them, others he had promised arms to. Wilson had
been responsible for the reorganization of the Ulster Special
Constabulary, a kind of territorial force, armed and
equipped. Whether Collins, for he was the dominating factor
in the acceptance of the Articles of Agreement, wished to
break with England, eventually, it is hard to say. His per-
sonality and influence had helped to coin the saying: 'What is
good enough for Mick Collins, is good enough for me.' Many
men had followed him, thinking that he would beat the
British, the masters of duplicity, by his own duplicity and
probably he wanted to give weight to his promises by aggres-
sive action. He was the controlling influence in the Irish
Republican Brotherhood. It seems strange that this organiza-
tion, which for over sixty years had been the backbone of the
separatist, physical-force movement in Ireland, should have
been the strongest element to support the treaty. It did not
work openly but its effects could be felt. Collins was now
what was called a 'stepping-stoner', one of those who agreed
to accept the treaty as a stepping-stone to the Republic.
Many sincere Republicans followed him blindly. He used all
his many influences, as member of the Supreme Council and
as Chairman of the Provisional Government; his former
ranks in the Republican Army--Director of Intelligence,
Adjutant-General and Director of Organization--had helped
him to maintain touch with groups and individuals.
Personalities rather than principles seemed to have swayed
many. Men talked of what such an officer had done,
recounted his many exploits and what he had suffered for
Irish freedom. We regarded a tradition as it was reflected in
the living present. There were so many temptations: power,
position, money, the appreciation of a grateful public. We
ourselves always felt humbled, for any of us might succumb.
We gave the men who had fought and worked credit for the
past, but when their present action negatived the past they
were only a danger to the cause they had once served. To
uphold the sovereign independence of Ireland, to maintain it,
seemed easy enough in theory, but there were so many by-
paths. The line of least resistance led away so often from the
path. One had material values to consider, which led away
slowly from the spiritual values.
The main result of the shooting of Wilson was to focus
attention on the occupants of the Four Courts. Next day
Rory O'Connor and I, instructed by Joe McKelvey, Chief of
Staff, visited the offices of the Provisional Government,
formerly the College of Science, looking for Mulcahy, the
Minister for Defence. We were instructed to see him in
person. We walked past the military police on duty and
entered the building. A clerk directed us to the office. We
knocked and went in. Mulcahy's secretary was seated at a
table. He jumped up in surprise. He became startled-looking
when he recognized us both.
'What do you want here?' he asked.
'We would like to see Mulcahy,' said Rory; 'we have a little
business to discuss with him.'
'He is not here at present,' said the secretary, backing
towards another door. 'In that case,' said Rory, as we
reached the door before the secretary, 'we'll just look in to see
how he keeps his office.' We opened the door.
Mulcahy, in uniform, was seated at a table, writing. He
turned around at the noise of the door. He stood up when he
saw us. He looked surprised, then sat down again.
We stood in front of his table.
'What do you want?' he asked. He spoke concisely, as if he
wanted to deal with us quickly. He did not ask us to sit down.
'Our Chief of Staff instructed us to see you in person and
here we are,' said Rory. He produced a typewritten sheet
folded in an open envelope and handed it across the table.
'We would like you to read this, please.'
Mulcahy read the writing. It stated that in case we decided
to attack the British, we would give their Commander-in-
Chief, and the Minister for Defence, seventy-two hours'
warning.
'We would like you to consider it,' said Rory.
'All right,' said Mulcahy, 'I'll send a reply.'
'In writing this time,' said Rory, 'there have been too many
verbal exchanges. '
'Yes, in writing,' he said.
We said 'Good-day' as we reached the door but he did not
reply.
We stopped at the secretary's desk in the other room.
'You'll never be President of the Free State now, your career
is ruined,' said Rory. 'Dick is raging at you for allowing us to
walk in unannounced.'
Macready, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in
Ireland, was summoned in haste to London. As he relates
himself:
At six P.M. on the 22nd June I reached the Royal
Hospital to be greeted with the news of the
murder of Sir Henry Wilson in London. An hour
after I heard of the sad news, a telegram arrived
calling me over to London. I confess that I was
somewhat taken aback when asked if the Dublin
Four Courts, in which Rory O'Connor had been
established with his Republicans for the past
two months, could be captured at once by British
troops.
This conversation took place on 23 June, the day after
Wilson was killed.
Next day soon after arriving in Dublin and whilst
I was going over the details of the scheme with
General Boyd, whose troops would carry out the
operation if it materialised, a telegram came
ordering it to be put into effect the next day.
On the following day word came through from
London that the Government had reconsidered
their original decision and that no action was
to be taken against the Four Courts.
The situation had become tense, something was bound to
happen, how or when nobody knew. We were drawn closer
together in the Courts. There was an air of gaiety, a greater
sense of comradeship. We learned to know each other better.
For months we had busied ourselves with administration; our
relations were those of staff officers building up resistance.
We discovered little personal things; we talked of our homes
and of our friends. We discussed books and sang old ballads.
Late in the night we could be found talking in each other's
rooms. The feeling of comradeship in common danger bound
us closer together, it helped us to comprehend our deeper
feelings and ideals, gave us more understanding; we became
less impersonal. Rory talked of his experiences in working on
the Canadian Pacific Railway; Liam Mellows told us of his
escape from Ireland after the Easter Rising and of his visit to
Germany. He showed us the huge Zeppelin night-binoculars
which the firm of Zeiss had given him. He spoke of hard,
wretched days in the United States, of his imprisonment
there.
Commandant-General Leo Henderson, the director of the
Belfast boycott, was arrested by Staters when enforcing the
boycott on a Dublin firm. He was removed under escort and
imprisoned in Mountjoy jail. Joe McKelvey sent for me that
evening after he had discussed the arrest with Liam, Rory
and some other officers. Rory was busy working on his
tunnel, which had been neglected of late.
'What do you think we should do?' McKelvey asked.
'I think we should arrest an officer of equal rank,' I said,
'and hold him prisoner in the Courts until Henderson is
released.'
'Whom do you suggest?'
'Collins, Mulcahy or O'Connell,' I said.
He thought for a moment. 'O'Connell would suit. Do you
know where you could find him?'
'Yes, he's generally in McGilligan's. I'll wait until he leaves
the house.'
I took a car and three men. We crossed the city and halted
a little above McGilligan's on the opposite side. We saw
people enter and depart. After an hour or more I saw Ginger
O'Connell leave the house. He walked towards the canal
bridge. We followed slowly. The car halted at the bridge. I
walked after OConnell. I touched him on the shoulder.
'Ginger, you're under arrest,' I said. He turned around
quickly. He looked startled. He saw a gun in the hands of a
man behind me.
'Into the car,' I said.
He began: 'What do you mean? I bloody well-- '
'Into the car, quick, Ginger,' I repeated.
He sat down in the back seat, a man on either side. 'Keep
quiet,' I said; :we don't want to hurt you or tie your wrists.'
He began to struggle when passing through Westmoreland
Street. 'Sit on him,' I said. He was placed on the floor and a
man sat on him. As we came through the gate he said: 'I hope
they blow the hell out of you.'
I left our prisoner in the guardroom and reported to the
Chief of Staff.
'I have Lieutenant-General O'Connell in the guardroom,
sir,' I said.
He laughed. 'No, you haven't?'
'Yes, he's below.'
He telephoned to the quartermaster and told him to
prepare a room for Ginger. 'You'd better telephone to
O'Duffy,' he said; 'you might as well complete the operation.'
I rang up Portobello barracks. 'I want to speak to the
Chief of Staff,' I said.
After a delay I heard O'Duffy's 'Hello'.
'Hello, this is O'Malley, Director of Organization
speaking.'
'Hello, Mr. O'Malley. What do you want?'
'I have to tell you that Mr. O'Connell, your assistant chief,
is now in custody.'
I heard a surprised 'What?'
I repeated the information.
'He will be released in exchange for Commandant-General
Henderson whom you have now in prison.'
'Is that all?' he asked.
'Yes, Mr. O'Duffy. Goodnight. '
'Goodnight, Mr. O'Malley. '
That day Churchill had stated in the House of Commons:
The presence in Dublin, in violent occupation
of the Four Courts, of a band of men styling
themselves the Headquarters of the Republican
Executive is a gross breach and defiance of the
Treaty. It is not unfair to make the new Irish
Parliament a request in express terms that this
sort of thing must come to an end. If it does
not come to an end, and a speedy end, then it
is my duty, on behalf of His Majesty's Government,
to say that the Treaty has been formally
violated.
Lloyd George said:
Here you have three or Four hundred young men
seizing the Courts of Justice of their capital,
near the centre of their Government, where
they have an organized force, and they
permit them to run a sham Government in the
name of the Republic. I do not want to use
the language of menace, but it is essential
that that should be brought to an end, and
speedily.
CHAPTER SIX
JUNE 1922
THE following day members of our intelligence section
reported that a Stater officer had paraded the square in
Wellington barracks with a wreath to bury the Republic.
Not until ten o'clock at night did rumour of attack become
definite. We were told by a Franciscan friar from Church
Street that the Four Courts would be attacked after mid-
night, that Free State troops were on their way to Dublin
from the Curragh of Kildare; the Dublin garrisons had been
recalled to barracks; any member of our Executive found on
the streets was to be arrested. We realized how inadequate
were our defences. Members of the HQ Staff talked the situa-
tion over with the garrison staff. Captain O'Brien looked at
me as he came to the table; then he lifted his eyebrows to say
we're in a nice mess now as a result of this Headquarters
Staff. Joe McKelvey talked about strengths of defences.
'They're hopeless,' I said; 'nothing has been done. Get in
touch at once with Traynor, the Dublin Brigadier, to arrange
for snipers to hold outposts in a large circle around the
Courts, and get his men ready to hem in the barracks
occupied by the Staters.' O'Brien agreed with me. 'We must
not fire a shot or give any provocation,' said McKelvey.
'You mean,' said Mellows, 'that members of the Executive
will not resist arrest if attacked outside the Courts in the next
few hours?'
'Yes,' said McKelvey.
'I don't agree,' I said. 'There is no food in this place, I have
just found out. I am going out with a lorry and an escort as
soon as this conference is over and I intend to use weapons if
any one prevents me from bringing back food for the men
here. '
The majority vote was that there should not be any
resistance or provocation. Army records of importance were
collected and sent to what was considered a safe hiding-place.
Trenches were dug inside the heavy gates to prevent
armoured cars moving in from outside. Our engineers
brought out mines and began to dig up the paved blocks of
the street near the Liffey. Stater armoured cars drove up; men
got out of them and cut the wires connecting the mines to the
batteries inside. Our men stood there helplessly, as they had
been instructed not to fire under any circumstances. Some
thought that the Staters were looking for a flimsy excuse to
create an incident which would right themselves in the
public's eyes in an attack on our position. I, and a few,
believed that the Staters were slowly driving for power; any
temporary negotiation would give them time to strengthen
themselves and to weaken us. We should have occupied posi-
tions around the Four Courts, the city bridges, the
approaches to their barracks, and have blown up their
armoured cars as hostile reconnaissance units before an
action. Free State armoured cars patrolled the city and inter-
fered with the laying of mines; our outposts had to withdraw
as they had not received instructions to fight when molested.
Our touring scout-cars were chased as they moved up town
around British and Staters' barracks to find out information;
sentry patrols in the streets were held up.
I went out in a Crossley tender to get food, and I ordered
the men to bring rifles and a Thompson gun. 'I have been
instructed not to open fire,' I told the crew, 'but I'm going to
bring back food whoever dies for it.' The sergeant in charge
with my party laughed. 'All right,' he said; 'we'll back into
any armoured car that gets in our way and go for the turrets.'
The delay whilst shops opened for us made us tense. An
armoured car passed us but did not interfere. On my way
back from a bridge where men were using picks to make a
mine-bed I saw men from an armoured Lancia jump down
quickly. They held up four of our men some distance in front
of me; they searched them. I drew my revolver from its holster
and held it through the pocket slit in my coat but I was not
interfered with. I had decided that I would not be taken a
prisoner.
Inside the Four Courts men moved barbed wire, cleaned
and checked ammunition, fitted rifle-slings, cleaned rifles,
automatics and machine-guns, and laid out spare parts.
Captain Paddy O'Brien saw that the officers rechecked the
ammunition, examined the weapons, and knew the positions
they were to occupy. Dr. Jim Ryan arrived with nurses and a
group of Cumann na mBan girls to help him. A temporary
hospital was fitted up on the ground floor of the Headquarters
block; large supplies of medicinal equipment, bandages, lint,
gauze, bottles of iodine, picric, and splints were carried in
and arranged on tables.
Lancia lorries drove up outside all the heavy gates, backed
their cars broadside or tinkered with the engines, and the
crews walked away. 'What do you want?' our men in the
guardroom shouted. No reply. 'What the hell are you doing?'
What was their idea anyhow? The gate guards wanted to get
permission to fire as the Lancias could contain explosive
charges which would blow the gates and entrances to bits. No
permission was given.
Across the river in the darkness men were moving into
position. We could see the dark shadows advancing.
Armoured cars purred their gentle throttles, heavier Lancias
drove up and down. Their troops entered the Four Courts
Hotel and the adjoining buildings which fronted part of the
Courts. They opened the Bridewell gates, opposite the Head-
quarters block across the street, and marched in. We could
hear them as they prepared the position inside; lights
appeared in the windows, sandbags were placed to form loop-
holes; now they could command portions of the open yard
inside the Courts. Our position was being slowly sur-
rounded. Houses commanding the courtyards and the
windows facing the yards were now occupied. The Staters
were taking advantage of the fact that we did not want to
open fire on them. The Courts was already a trap. A report
came in that artillery was on its way from the British lines.
I suddenly found that I was cold, due more to tenseness
than the air. 'We're like rats in a trap, Paddy,' I said to
O'Brien as we inspected positions on the roof of the Head-
quarters block dominated by men in the Bridewell.
'I know,' he said, 'I wish I had power to make the whole
Headquarters Staff leave, then I could fight it out as a
soldier.'
In the rotunda, under the dome, Headquarters officers met
again to talk, seated on the ground in a half-circle. Some were
in favour of leaving for the country to take charge of areas and
to assist as staff officers.
'We don't know what the country will do,' said Liam
Mellows.
'The West will fight,' I said, 'and the Tipperary men.'
'Our men are disorganized,' he continued. 'We don't know
what the First Southern Division will do. They will fight, of
course, later, but they may not be able to help us. We have
created the Four Courts situation. We should face the
responsibility. '
Rory nodded. His face was quiet as if he was thinking
deeply of other things. 'I think we should stay here,' he said.
'It's unmilitary, but we represent the Republic at present. It
is now going to be attacked; we should be here to defend it.'
'We can defend it,' said O'Brien. 'I think Headquarters
Staff and the members of the Executive should leave at once
for the country. It's not too late yet. They have work to do
outside where their influence can be felt. They can organize
the country and then advance on Dublin. We can easily hold
out here for some days.' The majority wanted to remain in
the Courts. In a way, that was unfair to the commander of
the garrison as his position was already not properly tenable
by reason of Staff decisions.
'I wonder will they use artillery,' said Joe McKelvey, as if
talking to himself.
'They have no artillery,' said Peadar O'Donnell. 'The
British might lend them some. Perhaps both will attack
together. They might use Stokes guns. What's artillery like?'
he asked, turning to us. There was silence. I was also thinking
of its effect and of what Stokes fire could do. Would it be bad
on the nerves and would I show my fears? I tried to visualize
accounts I had read of artillery bombardments.
'You get used to it,' said Seoirse Plunkett. 'It's not bad.' He
and his brother Jack, sitting together, had been in the GPO
during Easter Week 1916, as had some others of the garrison.
Rory and Joe McKelvey began to draft a 'Proclamation to
the Citizens of Dublin'. Rory asked me to help him but when
I had read a few sentences I laughed. 'I doubt if anyone will
read one of our proclamations,' I said; 'I'm against the use of
too many words just now.'
The Dublin Brigadier, Oscar Traynor, arrived and talked
to the Chief of Staff. He brought the proclamation out with
him to have it printed.
At 3.40 am, a soldier handed in a message to the guard at
the main gate.
The officer in charge,
Four Courts.
I, acting under the order of the Government, hereby
order you to evacuate the buildings of the Four Courts
and to parade your men under arrest, without arms, on
that portion of the Quays immediately in front of the
Four Courts by 4 a.m.
Failing compliance with this order, the building will
be taken by me by force, and you and all concerned
with you will be held responsible for any life lost
or any damage done.
By order
Thomas Ennis
O/C 2nd Eastern Division
Paddy O'Brien ordered the guards company to fall in by
sections. He read the message to them and they laughed. It
was the first time the Staters had ever asked us to leave the
Courts.
'You are to command the Headquarters section in the
rotunda,' he said to me. 'Fall them in.'
'But I'm not the senior officer,' I said, 'and anyhow I
shouldn't be in charge, for a crowd of Staff officers are no joke
to handle. I'd sooner have a group from the guards company.'
'I'm putting you in charge,' said O'Brien, 'and you know
why. '
I came to attention and saluted. 'Yes, sir, I'll do my best.'
He gripped my hand hard. 'It's come at last,' he said quietly,
then he walked into the darkness.
Liam Mellows was walking up and down under the dome,
a rifle on his back.
'Liam,' I said, 'Paddy O'Brien has placed me in charge of
the HQ section. I don't think I should be in charge of men
like you.' He put his arm around my shoulder. 'We'd all
prefer to serve under you, don't you know that, for you have
had the most experience of any of us.' He patted his rifle
barrel. 'God, it's good to feel myself a soldier again after all
those futile negotiations,' and his face beamed.
I examined rifles and small arms, checked on the ammuni-
tion and first-aid supplies. There were batteries, cables and
land mines to one side, but no appliances to fight fire from
incendiary shells and grenades.
Underneath the dome the garrison had gathered. A Fran-
ciscan, Father Albert, in his brown habit, the hood over his
head, his feet sandalled, spoke to us. 'I'm going to give you
general absolution, boys.' His worn, thoughtful face was
troubled. He looks like the Saint Francis of my imagination, I
was thinking as I looked at him, his face modelled by his
kindly, unselfish spirit and his unfearing tenacity. Father
Dominic, my fellow prisoner once of the dark cell in Dublin
Castle, stood close to him.
We all knelt down. Some of the men gripped their rifles
instead of joining hands; others held their revolvers. We were
dedicating our weapons as well as our lives. Then he made
the sign of the cross over us. 'Say an Act of Contrition now.'
The disjointed murmur of voices. 'O my God, I am heartily
sorry for having offended Thee'; then the priest pronounced
the absolution. Ego te absolvo. A pause when he had finished.
'We'll say now an Our Father and three Hail Marys for
Ireland,' and the responses came loudly in Irish and in
English. Our faces were tense there, kneeling in the light of
the candles. The electricity had been cut off by the attackers.
'We'll place ourselves under the protection of the Mother of
God and under the mantle of Brigid,' Father Albert said;
then: 'God bless you, boys.' The tears were running down his
cheeks. Men stood up slowly. Some were still on their knees.
'Company, fall in by sections!' shouted O'Brien. The
sections drew up in line, two deep, with an interval between.
'Company attend!' There was a click of heels in the night.
'Company, by sections, number!' The simple parade ritual
had another meaning now; it became alive, as if for the first
time the words had been uttered, and as each man shouted
his number he asserted his resolution to fight.
'Order arms! To your posts! ' he shouted. Five sections ran
quickly to their action positions; the sixth, the HQ section,
remained beneath the dome. I looked at my watch nervously,
forgot the time I had just seen, then looked again and forgot
what I had tried to observe. The minutes were slow in
coming. Artillery and trench mortars, incendiary shells,
armoured cars and tanks, of these I was thinking in a con-
fused jumble, and of my relationship to the section. Would
artillery fire shake my knees and confidence, and would I
disgrace my section?
'Time's up,' said Rory, and as he spoke a machine-gun
From outside echoed across the night, to be answered by a
shout from each of our sections. A heavy boom came next,
and we knew artillery was being used; the crash of an
eighteen-pound shell announced that those who stood in arms
for an independent Ireland were to be attacked by some of
their former comrades.
'That's Mulcahy's answer to our last note,' I said.
Now that fighting had begun, problems that could have
been easily solved a few days ago came up. Communications
between the blocks was in the open. The dome area was cut
off from Headquarters block, the latter from the Records
office. The space was covered with rifle and machine-gun fire.
One man was hit as he crossed behind me. Paddy O'Brien
and I found men to work on a sandbag barricade but there
were not enough bags to make a covered bullet-proof passage
between the blocks.
I climbed up the iron ladder of the dome, pausing as I
heard a wind sound of bullets crossing its space; they made a
shrill whistle as they passed. Up above, dawn was coming up
the river, risen to the roofs and spreading slowly towards
Kingsbridge. This was the second dawn I had watched from
the Courts. I could see the old city rising from the river,
gradually in Parliament Street, steeply in narrow Winetavern
and streets towards Christ Church and the Castle. Light
climbed up the house-tops and along the ridge of church
spires towards the west; slight flashes, soon indistinguishable
with full light, showed snipers' nests. I could follow the quays
up to the corner of O'Connell Bridge and down by the older
houses to beyond the Mendicity Institute. The river border
the most colourful part of the city, haphazardly pleasant the
disparity in roof heights and the colour contrasts of shop
fronts. Beyond the corner of Winetavern Street was a gun. I
saw its recoil as it fired. This gun was firing with open sights
at an easy target, the corner of the Courts facing Morgan's
Place. Slowly the top storey was crumbled, the stone stairs
shot away, and men were lowered to the floor below by using
knotted blankets. Behind, on Mary's Abbey side, was a
second gun at the end of Chancery Street. It looked as if the
enemy could advance and occupy any position they thought
necessary; the third and fourth battalions of the Dublin
Brigade which might have interfered with enemy positions
and guns across the river did not seem to make much of an
impression on them.
Men of my section worked picks and shovels to tunnel
under the open space whilst some of the section in Head-
quarters block tunnelled to meet them. It was slow work. 'I
wish we could tunnel between Headquarters and munitions,'
said Paddy O'Brien, 'but we'd have to go right under the
cellars.' The other tunnel which Rory and the engineers had
begun three weeks ago was unfinished; it would take a long
time to complete. It was originally to have run to Patterson's
factory in Church Street. Rory O'Connor had been in
charge but the work was not determined. It ran nearly as far
as the street and was water-logged; it had been kept dry with
a hand-pump but would need a full section-strength to con-
tinue the work; the enemy would know of its scope and direc-
tion as two of our garrison had joined up with the Beggar's
Bush troops. We had not sufficient men. There were between
a hundred and eighty and a hundred and ninety men in the
garrison, but to hold the Courts under present conditions we
would have needed at least two hundred and fifty. Practically
all were on duty at a time. The reserves of each section for
counter-attack were very small, and we had no central reserve
to fall back on. As I walked about between sections, the
buildings seemed to consist chiefly of windows, about five or
six windows to each man. They could not all be barricaded;
only a few had been made bullet-proof, but rifle-grenades
could always be lobbed in, and movement under fire was a
little difficult. The roofs were dominated by buildings close to
them, and by snipers from St. Michan's tower and from the
top of Jameson's distillery, but one tunnel was completed by
the end of the following day. We could not make another as
we could not spare the men. The munitions block containing
the Records office was isolated. Paddy O'Brien and his
adjutant went the rounds frequently during the day, inspect-
ing sections, crossing to munitions which was commanded by
the Bridewell prison less than thirty yards away. The passage
was narrow; Thompson guns and machine-guns spattered as
they ran across. I went with him at times. The telephones in
the sections buzzed at intervals. We answered the operator at
the main switch and reported the situation in the sections to
our commander. Then the telephone did not work; the service
had been cut off.
Ginger O'Connell was removed to another room in the
centre of the building, the safest room we could find. The
shells were pounding the walls, large gaps appeared, and
O'Connell's former room was hit by successive shells a few
hours after he had left it.
'How are things, Ginger?' I said to him.
'Oh, all right. The shelling doesn't seem to make a deep
impression. '
'Well, I suppose you know the plan of attack well enough.
A few of the old Chinese tortures would help in a case like
this. But you know this is an easy place to take.'
He smiled, nodding his head.
'What about books, Ginger? I have a pile in my room and
can bring them over. This isn't as exciting for you as it is for
us. I will bring you a mixed lot, war and peace; indeed I'll
bring you Tolstoy's War and Peace.'
'I'd like to read it,' said Ginger, 'but I think it will be
browsing because I won't have time to finish.'
I crossed to my room and brought him back an armful of
books, Von Lettow-Vorbeck's campaign in German East
Africa, the defence of Duffer's Drift, and interesting short
military stories. He did not seem very anxious to read.
Matty McDonnell was hit in the ankle as he crossed the
open space between the dome ad Headquarters block. Two
Red Cross men were bringing him back on a stretcher to the
hospital when a machine-gun opened up on them. They
dropped the stretcher and ran for cover, closely followed by
McDonnell. Charlie McAuley dressed his wound and
prepared to extract the bullet. As the surgeon was operating,
bullets from the Bridewell direction came in through a door.
Then Father Dominic thought of our great mainstay. The
Law Library was close by. He took two men with him, and
soon columns of books blocked the door against illegal
bullets. Within four hours of the attack five men had been
wounded, four of them by snipers from the Bridewell and St.
Michan's Church.
The Records office, munitions block, was held by a section
of young lads under Tom Morrissey, all of them orderlies who
in peace kept communication between staff officers and who
served food in the mess. Morrissey was handed a Thompson
gun, which he had not been trained to use, as he went into
position. At first the section lay down behind the roof
parapet, protected by sandbags. Free Staters held Hammond
Lane factory to the north and the Four Courts Hotel behind
them. Snipers from St. Michan's shook the bones of the
brothers Sheares in the vault below, and maybe the large
black spiders amongst the mummified corpses, but they soon
drove our men to the first floor. Here there were no sandbags.
Before evening they could not fire on Hammond Lane, nor
could they open a door. They had used books, ledgers, and
records on tables to protect themselves from the enemy in the
Four Courts Hotel. They had no food; it was brought across
under machine-gun fire. There was a gun in the Haymarket
which bashed in the west side of their building; soon railings
and concrete foundation were blown away, leaving a gap from
the street to the rubble front behind. The inside was a jumble
of lathes, moulds and mine cases; hand-grenade bodies lay in
heaps; electric detonators, electric wires and explosives were
piled between the racks which held the records. The men
facing the Bridewell held the roof until it could be no longer
held, and a few had to lie out for a further twelve hours until
darkness covered them. In the lower rooms there were ex-
plosives, including a large amount of TNT. This was the real
danger for a direct hit could explode it and blow up the block
around it.
It was cold at night, under the dome. We sat leaning
against a wall, with a blanket around our legs; others lay flat
on the flags, or sleeping against a pillar. We talked and
argued in a friendly way, except about the shortage of food,
lack of ammunition, and the completely hopeless position for
defence of the buildings through this section's fault. When
some of us had made these matters clearer than was wished
by some of the section, the discord ceased. Men are very kind
to each other when in danger; it seems a strange time to make
a man gentle, but here everyone was kindly and solicitous,
each trying to put himself last when it came to physical com-
fort. Rory and Liam were wearing leather motorjackets
which kept them warm at nights. At the end of the first night
I thought of my sleeveless leather jacket which I then wore.
Rory handed me the printed proclamation which he had
helped to write: 'To the Citizens of Dublin'. It now adorned
the dead wall spaces and the pillar boxes of the city. 'The
situation is well in hand,' he said, and laughed.
Then he quoted:
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?
He usually said those lines when anything went wrong, in a
bantering way, but often before he had finished the smile had
gone. He sat there, his face becoming set as he finished. There
was silence under the dome.
Paddy O'Brien, with his adjutant, often with myself, went
around to our posts at intervals to gather information and to
check on shell damage to the buildings. Our fire had to be
very particular and the natural tendency for men in action to
fire luxuriously in excitement to be stifled. 'The Mutineer'
went slowly up and down the yards between three blocks but
out of reach of direct hit by the guns on the Liffey side, con-
centrating fire on snipers' posts with its Vickers gun.
Cumann na mBan girls carrying despatches came up to the
side-gate under fire as the chains had to be opened to give
them entry. They brought us news of the outside; one
brought ammunition given to them by Free State soldiers.
Mary Comerford slept on sacks of flour. O'Connell Street
had been occupied by Oscar Traynor and his men. They
were endeavouring to advance towards the Courts, but they
had occupied in strength the east side of the street and it
would be difficult to cross it. On the south side of the river our
men of the third battalion had their headquarters in the Swan
public house but they did not seem to make any impression
on the bombarding guns. It seemed a haphazard pattern of
war. A garrison without proper food, surrounded on all sides,
bad communication between their inside posts, faulty de-
fences, girls bringing ammunition from attackers, relieving
forces on our side concentrated on the wrong side of the
widest street in the capital.
Our men were wounded as they lay behind sandbags on
the roof. Paddy O'Brien, Sean Lemass and I climbed the
dome by the thin iron ladder. A wooden partition provided
the only protection in places. Bullets entered with a buzz and
changed to a duller, muffled note as they crossed inside. From
a flagstaff on the dome hung a tricolour. The Republican flag
hung limply now as there was little breeze, but as we watched
it ruffled into an eddy, showing the scars. Bullets had torn a
piece out of it, there were eye-holes across it, the wooden pole
had been nicked in places and long splinters hinged off it.
'They must be hard up for a target,' said O'Brien scorn-
fully.
Along the quays towards O'Connell Bridge we could see
Free state troops through our glasses and on a church tower
and roofs near at hand there were snipers. Paddy O'Brien
laid his rifle and sighted slowly. 'About seven hundred yards,'
he said. 'What do you think?'
'I think Paddy must be about right,' said Lemass.
'I'd allow somewhat more,' I said.
We saw a green-coated soldier fall in front of a Lancia.
Another came forward. The rifle echoed again and another
man lay by the Lancia. 'I got them all right,' said O'Brien,
his eyes shining with excitement.
Across the river were the guns, eighteen pounders, pro-
tected by a barricade of armoured Lancia cars. Two cars
made a V slit, a loophole through which the muzzle of the
gun protruded. We watched it recoil when it fired. We used a
machine-gun and rifles from the top. We spattered bullets off
the paved roadway, firing in front of the cars, endeavouring to
make the bullets ricochet and zing upwards towards the gun-
ners. In the distance we could hear machine-guns and rifles
attacking the positions in O'Connell Street. We looked down
on our position. Morgan's Place had been battered. Muni-
tions block was in a more ragged condition, and the corner
near the gun shop had been battered at the lower storey. The
roof of Headquarters block had been holed but the far end of
it was intact.
'Munitions is getting it most,' said Sean Lemass, 'and the
garrison are kids. We should have put older men with them.'
We were now tunnelling across to munitions underneath
the cellars. Explosives would have made the work easier but
those blocks were a mass of explosives, some of which would
detonate. Slowly the work went forward as men were tired
and they had to remain at their posts continuously. A meet-
ing was held under the dome. If the tunnel could be pushed
forward quickly, reinforcements from the nearest post, Head-
quarters, could come in case of attack. 'The young lads were
hard to hold,' Morrissey, section commander of munitions,
said to me the last time I had seen him. If the Four Courts
Hotel could be rushed, we could burn it out completely; we
had sufficient grenades for a storming party. The Chief of
Staff and others thought that by burning out the hotel and
adjoining buildings, munitions and Headquarters blocks
would be left very open to artillery fire and it would
encourage the attackers to use incendiary shells and
grenades. It was decided not to attack. Mines were laid
throughout the yards in case there would be an attempt to
storm with armoured cars and tanks. Already one of our out-
side mines had been exploded by accident. It had left a nice
crater in the street as a warning, but the section commander
in charge made an equal crater in the mind of the unfortunate
who had touched off the switch.
Paddy O'Brien met me after the staff meeting. 'Munitions
is a weak post, Paddy,' I said, 'insecurely held. I'm afraid the
tunnel will not get through in time.'
'I know,' he said. 'The only thing left for me is to burn it
out, and I think I'll do that. Make the garrison come in first
and then put the place up.'
'Don't bother about artillery,' I said. 'Gunners, if they're
any good, can hit any few square yards of this place. A
building doesn't make a bit of difference, save they might like
to fire over open sights. It's hard on you, Paddy. The only
hope for this place is to put Headquarters section in muni-
tions and let it be blown up.'
'That would help,' he said with a smile, 'but there's the
future to think of.'
He had decided to burn out munitions as he felt it could no
longer be held. The block contained the Irish archives and it
had suffered more than any other of our buildings from shell
fire. The last report from its section commander was that
unless the Four Courts Hotel was taken, he would not be
able to hold his position; at present his only safeguard for his
men was the ground floor at the rear facing the dome.
Landings and windows could not be properly protected even
on that side.
'Paddy,' I said, 'our strong points are mines and explosives.
The broken mortar and the rubble of the outer walls are a
fine defence, and mines, we have plenty of mines. Even if we
withdraw the garrison, save for an observation post or two,
mines could be scattered through the building and used on
attacking parties. They will hardly get past a series of mines
unless they come in waves.'
'They might bomb us from the air,' he said. A plane had
passed slowly over the Courts during the previous day. 'The
Mutineer' had slewed up its gun but had not fired; too diffi-
cult a target anyhow. The British were observing the results
of artillery fire and they would report to their new allies.
Simon Donnelly of the Headquarters section, who had once
escaped from Kilmainham jail with Teeling and myself, was
in difficulties. He had a very tight-fitting pair of shoes and he
talked about his sore feet to a rather unsympathetic audience.
'I have a new pair of shoes in my room, Simon,' I said. 'I
think they will fit you.'
I crossed through the tunnel which now connected the
dome with Headquarters block; there was a very definite
aroma as the tunnellers had struck a sewer on their way. I
reached my bedroom. The door had been drilled and
splintered by bullets; I counted about forty holes, two of them
made by a shell. My leather portmanteau had been cut and
torn, my clothes and books damaged. I picked up some of my
books from a shelf. Baudelaire, two al fresco prints, Tintoretto
and Piero della Francesca, a portfolio of drawings. There
were two bullet holes through a copy of Vasari's Lives of the
Italian Painters. Authors had been drilled and torn out of all
proportion to the number of books. 'Bad luck to them, any-
how,' I said in the direction of a piece of artillery gone
through a Synge illustrated by Jack Yeats. 'They mustn't like
books or anything to do with books.' It's a funny thing for you
to be thinking of your possessions at a time like this, I
thought, as I left a smashed pair of field glasses back on a
chair. Maybe it takes misfortune or war to prove that pos-
sessions are not important. Cuchulain had suffered most of
all. Mrs. Hutton's bulky translation of the epic contained a
shell splinter which had gashed Mesca Ulad: demon chariots
were now careering around the Four Courts in the form of
armoured cars and Lancias. I turned over another un-
damaged volume of Vasari, old garrulous Vasari, and sitting
on my bed read his remarks on Andrea del Sarto. The royal
coat of arms had suffered; the lion's head was missing and the
horn of the unicorn. A volume of Montaigne had escaped
shell and bullet. He would have been a good man to have here
with us; he could have joined our philosophic discussions
under the dome. I put him in my pocket where he lay beside a
thin copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets which I had been reading
last night. Beneath a red plush chair I found my bright yellow
boots, untouched; a terrible colour to wear. Simon will have
his pair of shoes, I thought, as I strung them by their laces.
I moved through the building watching curiously the effect
of shell fire; most of the section had been withdrawn. The
large central hall where we had given a concert on the night
of the Bodenstown pilgrimage to the grave of Wolfe Tone was
a wreck. Shells had come through the glass roof. Fragments of
wall, chairs, railings and tables were scattered everywhere.
The concert had been an expression of feeling on behalf of
singers and listeners. Old traditional songs had been received
in a taut silence for negotiations with Beggar's Bush had
broken down. There had been rhetoric in the speeches, but
one quiet talk about the danger of immediate strife had made
all realize that it was our last concert together. A shattering
crash made my body stiffen. A shell had come through the
roof and had torn away a ragged hole of wall. I dropped to
the ground; as I lay there another shelled plaster off the wall
in a cloud of smoke.
'Here they are, Simon,' I said when I got back to the dome.
Simon tried them on his feet; they seemed to me to fit him.
He stood up as he tested them while we laughed at their
colour.
'I can die in your boots,' he said with a grin.
In the evening one of the guard from the room over the gate
reported that there was a messenger outside. Sean Lemass
and I unlocked the chains. The messenger was a Cumann na
mBan girl. She had a bicycle with her and she wanted to
bring it inside the gates. Bullets whizzed. 'Leave it there,' I
said. We all dashed for cover. She carried a despatch from
Oscar Traynor to the Chief of Staff: his men were working
their way down towards Mary's Abbey; he had received word
from a very good source that the British had threatened to
attack us next morning unless the Staters attempted to storm
the Courts. Joe McKelvey wrote a note telling Traynor to
push on down as far as he could and to try to get his men
across the river and snipe the gunners more effectively. The
girl went into a room to secrete the note. We shook hands
with her at the gate and wished her a safe journey, and
watched her cycle down the street. I told Rory about her
wanting to take in the bicycle.
'They're great girls, he said. 'They treat fear so imper-
sonally. I suppose they really think we should have captured
the guns by this.'
That Thursday evening Lieutenant Ned Keller was sent by
O'Brien to withdraw the orderlies from munitions and then to
destroy the building. When he reached the door across the
bullet-swept passage from the Bridewell he was fired on from
inside the building. A voice shouted: 'You're a prisoner.' The
first of our posts had been captured.
We had heard very heavy fire that evening, concentrating
on munitions, but as spasmodic intensity was a routine now,
no one had paid much attention. After the Staters had blown
in the heavy iron railing and its concrete support for a
distance of twenty feet, they then blew in the whole side of the
building, concentrated fire, and rushed across. The orderlies
looked up to see green uniforms on a balcony shouting down
to them to surrender. In a rush for cover young Cusack and
Wall were shot; the remainder surrendered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JUNE 1922
I WAS seated on the floor under the dome, watching Jack and
Seoirse Plunkett testing mines with galvanometers. Suddenly
there was a burst of machine-gun and rifle-fire.
Paddy O'Brien rushed in from Headquarters block. 'Our
Lewis opened up on Staters coming along the quays. They
were rushing this building; some were dropped but others got
in.' There was a sudden scurry of men near me. Some in
panic ran towards the guardroom, others were preparing to
move in different directions, others shouted orders. Chairs
and tables were carried forward as obstacles.
'Throw up rough barricades of wire,' I said, 'leaving an
open space under the dome. Lay mines forward of the
obstructions and mine the passages.'
Paddy O'Brien hurried towards that part of the building
where the attackers should be, shouting the name of the
section commander; I followed the sound of his voice in the
darkness. There was a dark, fearful silence in front of me. I
heard his voice again in the distance; I met him in the
passage, returning.
'I don't know what to make of it,' he said. 'I can't find any
of the section. You'd better go back with me to the others.'
Under the dome Rory, Liam and the Headquarters section
were unwinding bobbins of barbed wire amidst the loose
stones and mortar blown in by the shells; some were placing
mine cases, others had piled furniture to interlace with con-
certinas of wire. Another group was building a barricade of
stones and rubble.
O'Brien strode over to a man who was winding wire
around the legs of a chair. 'You were in the advance section.
Where's the officer in charge?'
'He's out near the front gate,' said the man.
'Why the hell did you come back from your post?'
'Because we should have been relieved six hours ago. We've
been near the gate for the past two hours trying to sleep.'
Paddy O'Brien went towards the gate.
I took four men forward with me up the passage towards
the Staters, to hold up any advance until the barricades and
mines would be ready beneath the dome. We heard footsteps
in the dark. 'They're making a hell of a row,' whispered a
man.
The noise ceased; then it began again. The sound of their
boots boomed up and down the passage. We were lying flat
on the ground. My heart beat fast; I felt myself trying to hold
my breath. 'Let them get past us,' I whispered to the men
who lay beside and behind me at right angles to the main
passage. 'Open on them when I shout, but not before that.'
The noise came closer. We heard their voices.
'They're our men,' said a voice beside me. 'For God's sake
don't shoot.' We allowed them to pass by and then halted
them. They were three men of the advance section who had
not heard the remainder retire.
'The Mutineer' fired through the windows of the buildings
in front of the dome, raking from every angle, trying to locate
the attackers. Paddy O'Brien was talking to Rory and to Joe
McKelvey when I came up. 'I have a counter-attack
prepared,' he said, 'and the mines are ready. Can I blow
them now?' It would mean a result Paddy and I had agreed
on: the blowing of a gap in a building which could then of
itself form a barricade, with a peppering of mines in front of a
holding party. Rory said: 'If you blow the mines you'll make
a big hole in the building.' Paddy O'Brien came to attention
quickly. He saluted, then walked away.
I met Dinny O'Brien, Paddy's brother, moving off from the
dome up a passage. Candles were stuck into pieces of
masonry, making a Rembrandt etching; men were cleaning
rifles behind a barricade, others were making neat shelters of
stone. Dinny's mild blue eyes were lighted with excitement.
'What are you up to?' I asked; I might have known there
was trouble about by his smile.
'Oh, we three are going up to bomb the Staters.'
Chummy Hogan, his number two, chuckled. Young Page
was carrying a Lewis gun on his back.
'I'll go with you,' I said.
'This is great gas,' said Chummy, as we picked our way
slowly up a jet-black corridor. I did not feel too cheerful.
Where did these men inherit their gay insouciance, as if war
was an everyday, trivial matter, and why was I up here, I
thought again, as Chummy stood up to fire. To share danger
with these other men or to safeguard Headquarters section?
My doubts were resolved by the throbbing of the Lewis.
'Shorter bursts,' I whispered, 'and don't talk in between
shots.' Dinny laughed aloud.
We emptied automatics and revolvers through doors to
right and left of us, then we hurled ourselves through until by
experience we found that contact with the floors and bruised
shoulders did not help. We crawled along passages whilst
Page fired over our heads, or Chummy held the Lewis to his
shoulder until he received a torch signal. At last we reached a
heavy door which was soon pocked with bullets. We tried to
force the door but it held firmly. The Lewis gun fired in
bursts of five. A pause. There was no reply to our fire. 'They
must have barricaded it well,' said Dinny. 'We might be able
to get in the windows from the yard.'
We held another council of war under the dome. We
squatted around on the flags, our coats buttoned up around
the necks. We had slept at short intervals and were tired.
Traynor's men had some positions near Mary's Abbey.
They held houses in Capel Street. Automatics and small
arms were being sent down to other houses, but a link-up
with us seemed remote. Our wounded would not be allowed
out save as prisoners, and we were not sure of what treatment
they would receive or what might happen to them. We had
about fifty rounds per rifle now; there were five Thompson
guns with numerous drums but not so much ammunition,
two Lewis guns and the Vickers. Information about enemy
positions on the north side of the Liffey was meagre, and in-
accurate, some of us thought.
'This is a rat-trap,' Paddy O'Brien said. 'The walls are
pretty well battered already. The big guns will blow the rest
of it on top of us. We'll make a sortie tonight in full strength
and fight our way to Mary's Abbey.' He drew out our
advance on a large sheet of paper. 'I'll take the advance
guard, with 'The Mutineer'. The main body can carry some
of the wounded in the Crossley tender and the rest on
stretchers. You,' he said, turning to me, 'will command the
rearguard.'
'All right, Paddy,' I said, 'that suits me.'
The Lancia outside the main gate would have to be hauled
away by manpower as an explosion would create too much
initial suspicion. We had not much food. We had had little
sleep. The men were tired and the absence of a really decent
Feed must have been felt by all, although no one allowed his
stomach to speak for him, but the decision cheered us up. We
Felt as if this rat-trap could at last be left behind. There was
no sense in remaining here any longer.
Later I saw McKelvey, Rory and Liam talking to Paddy
O'Brien. 'We're discussing the sortie,' said McKelvey as I
stepped into the group. 'Rory says that if we wait for the
morning we can get out through the sewers. What do you
think?'
'There's been a lull in the firing for the past two hours. I
think it looks like an attack at dawn. I think Paddy O'Brien
should be allowed to carry out his plan; at least we can feel
like men if we fight our way out.'
He said: 'The Staters have armoured cars and Lancias in
the streets; we have only one armoured car. It's a long
chance, that, of fighting our way out.'
The decision was to remain. There was silence for a while.
Paddy O'Brien became the disciplined deferential soldier
again. 'We'd best strengthen our side of the building,' he
said, 'and prepare to receive an attack.'
We waited for the dawn. It was cold on the flags and our
food was scanty: tea and Belfast boycott biscuits. There was
silence all around the Courts, broken now and again by a
rifle crack. Dawn came but there was no mass attack. Heavy
firing began again and we manned positions and waited.
Rory came over to me. He looked worried.
'The morning tide has flooded the sewers,' he said. 'So
that's that.' He smiled as he recited.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
Paddy O'Brien was hit on the head by shrapnel splinters.
He looked very white seated against the wall of a court-
room beyond the dome, with a blanket around his legs. Blood
had brightened his heavy bandage. 'How are things outside?'
he asked.
'Never mind about the outside,' I said. 'How do you feel?'
'A bit dizzy and weak in the head.'
'You'd best wrap yourself in blankets and keep warm.'
Above on the Judge's Bench someone was conducting a
judicial inquiry into our supplies of Mauser and Lee Enfield
cartridges; the rival claimants lay in opposing heaps.
'Did you hear about the sewers?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said, 'but don't say anything to the men.'
'An explosion may come at any minute,' I said. 'That will
solve all our difficulties. We'll go up together.'
'That will be a good end,' said Paddy, as he shook my
hand.
Our nerves were getting taut, perhaps with strain. I felt
emotional surges in myself and a desire at times to cry. Front
and flanks had been pounded steadily, top storeys were out of
reach, corridors were involuntarily barricaded with fallen
masonry from ceilings and walls. I told Paddy O'Brien about
each post when I returned to the courtroom. He looked weak
as he lifted himself up from the blankets.
'I want you to take charge now, Ernie,' he said. 'I can't
think clearly any more. But I wish we had tried to fight our
way through last night.'
I hesitated. 'No one could replace you, Paddy; surely you
know that. Why don't you make the Chief of Staff respon-
sible?'
'I'm asking you to take charge now,' he said, 'for I can't
hold on much longer.'
'All right, Paddy, I'll do my best.'
It was decided to remove the wounded together with the
doctors and the girls. I spoke to Dr. Jim Ryan. He did not
want to leave. His kind, sensitive mind felt every pain the
wounded men experienced.
'But you must leave. It's an order,' I said. I lowered my
voice. 'We are expecting the munitions block to blow up.
That's really one of the reasons, but don't tell it to anyone.'
A cease fire was ordered, and the wounded, the nurses and
doctors passed through the gate. Armoured cars patrolled the
outside approaches but at a respectful distance, as they were
evidently afraid of mines.
The munitions block had been on fire for some time now. The
roof had caught first. Slowly the flames crept or dropped
down to lower storeys, then on with a rush, crackling, as if
reminded of their work. 'The Mutineer's' gun had been hit;
our engineers had worked on it by candle-light and a Lewis
now replaced it. 'The Mutineer' moved up and down the
yard, raking the windows of the occupied building but there
was no reply. The Vickers was a loss. It was a heavy gun and
could keep up sustained fire without overheating, but
ammunition was low. Some of the Mauser rifles were out of
action also; the barrels began to glow when the rifles had been
used quickly and the luminous sights had dropped off.
Outside, flames lighted the courtyard, shining on the armour
of 'The Mutineer' as it moved slowly on patrol. The glare was
reflected by windows on our side. On our right flank flame was
our guardian. Behind us was a hinterland of mines. We had
withdrawn from most of Headquarters block, but at any
moment the tons of explosives in munitions might detonate,
or the TNT, a half-ton of it, in the cellars. The fire roared and
crackled. Suddenly I thought of my books, maps and papers
in my office rooms, my notes and the small handbooks I had
practically completed, my library and my clothes. A strange
time to be thinking of property, I thought, as if to scold
myself.
'What day's today?' I asked.
'The 30th of June,' said Peader O'Donnell. 'The Dail
should have met today.'
'Are there any TDs with us?'
'Yes, Liam Mellows, he's a TD. He could address us
today.'
'How's Ginger?' I asked. 'I hope he's all right.' We had
removed him from room to room trying to find where he
would be safest. But one room was as safe as another by this.
Stray shells blundered against the pillars of the colonnades or
dropped into or through the rooms. Ginger sat beyond the
dome, wrapped in a long heavy coat, amongst some of the
men.
'Hello, Ginger,' I said; 'how goes it?'
'All right. I wish you had laid in more food.'
'I wish we had more ammunition,' I said. 'We'll have to
move forward soon. They're a long time blowing hell out of
us.'
He had been more cheerful the first day. Perhaps he
thought he would be rescued at once. The Staters had pinned
their faith in armoured cars, machine-guns and big guns.
They were what mattered in their minds. Money talked, but
artillery boomed. Their faith seemed to fluctuate between the
two.
We went forward, thinking that we could hold the building
lightly; the men were gathered into a kind of semi-cellar near
the gate. I was in the guardroom with Dinny O'Brien, trying
to listen for movement across the street but all I heard was
my blood thumping when I listened too intently. We went out
to the main gate and put our heads against the bars. 'I expect
we can blow that car away,' I said, pointing to the Lancia.
As we stood near the gate there was a loud shattering
explosion. The pillars of the gate shook. A blast of air seemed
to rock about us. I was thrown heavily against the iron bars
and fell to the ground; groping with my hand I felt Dinny
beside me. The munitions block and a portion of Head-
quarters block went up in flames and smoke. Large pieces of
stone and wood crashed around us, papers feathered down. I
had seen the sky behind me as I fell. Yellow-white, topped
with dark balloons of smoke.
'That's the first explosion,' said Dinny; 'the other should
come shortly.'
A thick black cloud floated up about the buildings and
drifted away slowly. Fluttering up and down against the
black mass were leaves of white paper; they looked like hover-
ing white birds. A half-burnt broken volume fell at my feet. I
picked it up. An account of the Secret Service money paid by
Dublin Castle to informers in the year 1798. I thought: in a
hundred years' time will the new Records office contain an
account of the Secret Service money paid out in 1922? I had
expected that the other buildings would have gone up also.
The flames in Headquarters block raced on towards the
undamaged part of that building. I was badly shaken.
Rifle bullets hit off the bars of the gate and whirred. We
dashed for the window and scrambled through into a room.
The windows were unprotected. We could see the gate and
the houses across the street. There was a series of small
explosions in the yard and against the walls. Grenades came
through the windows and burst in our room. We crouched on
the floor near the wall; I felt the dust rise into my nose and
mouth. We were not hit. 'Rifle-grenades,' I said. 'Get back to
the corridor.' We moved into the corridor. 'Those houses
opposite must be occupied,' I said. 'We'll go back to the
others and see are there any killed or injured inside.'
The yard was littered with chunks of masonry and
smouldering records; pieces of white paper were yet gyrating
in the upper air like seagulls. The explosion seemed to give an
extra push to roaring orange flames which formed patterns
across the sky. Fire was fascinating to watch; it had a spell
like running water. Flame sang and conducted its own
orchestra simultaneously. It can't be long now, I thought,
until the real noise comes. The dome had been lifted by the
shock. 'We thought it was going to leave us for good,' said a
man with a Thompson gun as I passed under it. The dome
was an old friend by this. Its proportions gave a kind of
dignity to the small humans gathered below it. The majority
of the garrison was crowded together in the semi-cellar, but
some were out in the adjoining rooms which had gaping holes
from the shells. Rory was talking to one side with Joe
McKelvey. He called me over.
'We've been discussing surrender. Ammunition and food
are low and the flames will soon reach this block.'
'There's no hope of relief from the outside,' McKelvey said,
'and you know the sewers are flooded.'
'We're not depending on the outside,' I said, 'but on our-
selves. What do you think, Rory?'
'I think we should surrender.'
'And you, Liam?' I said, turning to Liam Mellows who was
looking through a shell hole.
'The Republic is being attacked here,' said Liam. 'We
must stand or fall by it. If we surrender now, we have
deserted it.'
'Let's hold on for a while, Rory. I'm thinking of rushing the
houses near the main gate.'
Rory handed me a message from Oscar Traynor which had
recently arrived.
I have gone into the whole position re your
situation, and have studied the same very carefully,
and I have come to the following conclusion: to help
me carry on the fight outside you must surrender
forthwith. I would be unable to fight my way through
to you even at terrific sacrifice. I am expecting
reinforcements at any moment.
If the Republic is to be saved your surrender is
a necessity.
As senior officer outside I take it that I am
entitled to order you to make a move
which places me in a better military
position. This order must be carried out
without discussion. I take full responsibility.
I re-read the document. 'This command is directly under
General Headquarters,' I said, 'and this is GHQ at present.
This order is a face-saver, and I don't like it. The Dublin
Brigade has failed to get through to us. Now they are fighting
on their own hook. So are we.'
We heard shouts outside. 'Stretchers outside the guard-
room,' I was told. Inside men fixed bayonets, standing-to,
while Dinny O'Brien and I unlocked the heavy chains. Father
Albert had come back with doctors in white coats, and nurses
wearing white bands on their arms on which were small red
crosses.
'We want to remove the wounded,' said a man in a white
coat. We unlocked the chains. They followed us in through
the window.
'Are there many killed, my son?' Father Albert asked
anxiously.
'Shaken, Father,' I said, 'but no one badly injured.'
'We'll bring out the wounded,' said a doctor. 'Is that all?
We have stretchers for forty. Who's in charge here?' he asked.
'I'm in charge,' I said. 'My name's O'Malley.'
'I don't agree with you,' he said, 'but you're a great crowd.
Don't you think you have done your duty? Can't you sur-
render now?'
'I'm afraid not,' I said. 'We're going to hang on.'
Father Albert had been talking to the Headquarters Staff,
strongly urging surrender so that the lives of the garrison
would be saved. 'Padraig Pearse had to surrender to save the
people,' he said to me. 'The movement went on when he was
dead. And besides, the people are changing. I have heard
many of them curse the soldiers in green.'
'Padraig Pearse fought a good fight,' I said. 'We haven't
done so. We're not men just now, we're a symbol, and I think
we should hold this place to the last. No, Father, we won't
surrender.'
McKelvey, Rory and some others of the Headquarters
section were for surrender. Liam Mellows and I were against
it. I went up to the Chief of Staff. 'I think you should leave,
sir, with the wounded,' I said. 'I know they'll get through. It
would be better if senior members of the staff were not taken
here. '
'That's a rotten thing to say to me,' he said, tears in his
eyes. 'You are asking me to desert the men.'
'I'm not,' I said. 'I'm in charge of the garrison now and I
don't look on myself as a staff officer. I don't want the HQ
staff taken in case of an assault.'
Father Albert shook hands with us in turn. I helped him
out of the window to the gate and locked the chains in posi-
tion. The firing began again, slowly, reluctantly it seemed,
then it intensified.
Dinny O'Brien and I were at the main gate again. We
looked through the bars into the houses opposite and at an
angle tried to look up and down the narrow street. 'Dinny,' I
said, 'we must find if those houses are occupied. We'll charge
across the street with a number of men, break in the doors
and hold until we can get the rest of our men across. 'The
Mutineer' can rake the windows and doors with fire. Then we
can return and blow up the Lancia so that 'The Mutineer'
can make a dash up town.' Rifle fire went high, then lowered
on to the gate; it pinged off the bars.
'What do you think, Dinny; are those houses held?'
'I don't know,' he said, 'but someone is taking an interest
in us just now.'
'I'll wait for a while,' I said.
'I'll wait with you,' said Dinny.
A bullet cut the strap of my field-glasses which were hang-
ing round my neck. They fell to the ground. Dinny picked
them up. 'They're not broken,' he said simply. Small explo-
sions began around the yard; we threw ourselves on the
ground. 'Rifle-grenades,' I said, as splinters cut glass across
from us. 'That's not so nice. We're a pair of owls; we can't
find out this way. Let's go in.'
We climbed into the first large room and watched the
houses across the street. The small explosions continued;
there was a smash of glass at the end of the room. 'Those
bloody houses are held,' said Dinny, 'but no matter.'
There was another explosion, but I did not think it so
severe as the first shock. Again masonry was hurled through
windows and about the yards. Dust swirled around in the
corridor. We leaned against the walls. They swayed to and
fro. There was a strange buzzing in my ears. Shattering
explosions: grenades fell into our room and burst. The noise
seemed to shatter my ear drums. We threw ourselves on the
ground whilst splinters went around the walls. I held my
hands to my ears and my body shook. My nerves began to
twitch. My mouth was filled with grit. The bursting noises
seemed to thud and rethud against my ears.
'Dinny,' I whispered, 'I'll stay here. You go back, pick
thirty men for a charge; bring ropes, sledge hammers, the
Thompsons and the Lewis, and bring the Plunketts with
mines and batteries. The rest can cross under our covering
fire. '
Dinny moved across to the corridor. I crouched on the
floor. After a time, it seemed a long time, he came back. He
looked very grim and swarthy.
'More than thirty volunteered,' he said, 'but the others
want to surrender. What do you think of that?'
I went back with him. The men had been for some time
crowded into the half-cellar; there were unprotected windows
in front. 'What's this about surrender?' I asked.
There were shouts. 'No surrender!' 'We want to sur-
render ! '
'All right,' I said. 'Keep quiet about it.'
In a corner a group of us discussed it. The Chief of Staff
and Rory and some others were for immediate surrender.
Liam Mellows would not discuss the matter. 'I've already
told you what I thought, and still think.'
'The men have done their best,' said McKelvey, 'and it's
not their fault.'
'All right,' I said, 'let whoever wants to surrender go out
and surrender. Some of us will stay here.'
Suddenly I began to cry. I tried hard to stop but I could not
keep back the tears. Seoirse Plunkett came over to me. 'You
know what to do with those who want to surrender,' he said;
'you can stop that. And it's no use crying.' Seoirse was always
a rock of gentle determination.
The morale of the men had been broken by their crowding
together in cellars where they could do nothing but listen to
the fire directed against the walls and hear the explosions. I
thought for a little. If we allowed some of the garrison to
march out and we remained to fight our way out, they would
be disgraced. They had all done the best they could; it was
we of their Headquarters Staff who had left them here to be
trapped. I suddenly thought of the dead. Had we maintained
the tradition? What would our dead comrades of the Tan
war, the men of 1916, the Fenians and the others think? The
majority were not afraid to die. A surrender would be harder
than having to fight it out. I might force an issue by threats,
but I wanted to fight with men who were volunteers.
'Very well, sir,' I said to the Chief of Staff, 'we'll go out
together and surrender, but let's use up our ammunition
first.'
Some of the men broke down and cried, leaning on their
rifles. Others scattered through the front rooms and fired
enraged volleys in the direction of the big guns along the
quays and at the houses opposite. A white towel hanging
from a sweeping-brush was thrust through a bullet-shattered
hole in the glass. After a time the firing in front slackened.
Father Albert was driven up with green-uniformed soldiers in
a motor-car.
'The garrison want to surrender,' I said to him as I stood at
the gate, 'and I wish to discuss terms.'
'We will go to Brigadier-General Daly,' said a green coat.
'He's in charge of the attack.' I handed Father Albert an
envelope. 'That is for Daly and I would like a written reply.'
In the enclosed note I asked Daly if at this late moment we
could unite to attack the British before any further blood was
spilt between us.
We sat together under the dome, the men nursing their
rifles, somewhat weary now that the tension had eased. I had
often wondered why men who were not afraid to die should,
when they had weapons in their hands, surrender to what
they thought was certain death. I thought, as did the others,
that the members of the Headquarters Staff would be
executed, but that was not a factor that weighed on our
minds. Now that surrender had been decided the men were
quiet, each, I suppose, trying in his own mind to see into the
future.
Rory O'Connor sat beside me with his back against a
pillar. He looked in the dimmed light more than ever like a
Byzantine portrait, the dark blue-black shadows on his face
recessing the lines.
'What's the book?' he asked, for I had closed a small
volume as he sat down.
'Shakespeare's Sonnets. I'm trying to find a little peace
before the answer comes back.'
'Well, what does he say on the situation?'
'I can tell you that at random for I know a number by
heart :
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.'
'Has he any more hopeful message than that?' he asked.
'Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linguer out a purpos'd overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come: so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might.'
'So shall I taste at first the very worst of fortune's might,' he
repeated. 'Not that that sounds much better.'
Father Albert returned. 'Daly says the garrison is to parade
on the quays outside the Four Courts and he has not been
authorized to accept conditions.' I sent back word that we
wanted terms for the men but were not particular about the
officers as we expected they would shoot us. Father Albert,
departed, but no reply came back.
'Who'll take charge of the surrender?' asked Rory.
'The Headquarters Staff,' I said, 'for they have directed
operations all along.'
There was a silence. I did not want to take the surrender,
neither did the Chief of Staff. To surrender was not
shameful, but actually to hand over to the troops outside was
undignified. There was some debate as to who should make
the surrender, but as I was in charge I decided to-make it
myself.
'All right,' I said to the Chief of Staff, 'I'm OC. I'm
responsible, and I'll take the surrender. Company, fall in by
sections. We're not going to march out with our arms. The
men outside have broken their oath to the Republic. Pile
arms and ammunition in the room beyond. Gunners will
smash machine-gun parts. Strip automatics and throw the
parts in the burning block. Then parade on the quays.'
The machine-gunners stripped their guns, jumped on the
parts, twisted and battered them; their hands were torn and
bleeding but they did not heed, they smashed in a frenzy. The
men walked out of the gate in groups. The rifles and revolvers
were heaped in a large room. The Courts' quartermaster
with Peadar Breslin and I remained there to pile them up.
Paraffin was slopped around the floor, and then with blinding
flashes incendiary grenades were thrown; flames flared on the
rifle pyre, licking the butts and the woodwork. We watched
For a time, tears of rage in our eyes.
'Let's go,' I said; 'the men are all outside by this.'
We could feel the heat of the burning buildings as we
crossed the ground. I stripped my long-barrelled gleaming
Parabellum and threw the top mechanism into the flames of
Headquarters block. I had scarcely fired a shot.
'Wipe your faces,' said Peadar Breslin, 'I can see the lines
of the tears.' We wiped our faces with our handkerchiefs. The
handkerchiefs were black and grimy when we had finished.
The men were standing outside watching the flaming
buildings. 'Fall in,' I ordered, 'by sections.' The sections fell
in two deep, dressed, and were numbered off by the section
commanders on the quays to the left of Church Street bridge,
facing the river. Only when we were on the quays did sur-
render seem worse than it was inside.
Paddy Daly and Tony Lawlor came up to us, smiling.
They wore green uniforms. Daly carried the shoulder tabs of
a brigadier-general.
'I am surrendering on behalf of the Republican garrison of
the Four Courts,' I said. 'I want to discuss terms with you.'
'There are no terms,' said Daly. 'This is an unconditional
surrender.'
'I want terms for the men,' I said. 'I am surrendering my
command as prisoners of war. Are you going to see that they
receive prisoner-of-war treatment? And I demand terms for
my men.'
'I have received my instructions. No terms.'
Soldiers in green uniform with fixed bayonets marched up.
They stood on guard around us. How hateful the green uni-
Forms seemed now. An officer gave an order to the prisoners
to form fours. They looked at him and laughed. He ordered
again and was told to 'Go to hell. Who do you think you're
talking to?'
Amongst the officers was a Clare man. I walked over to
him. He was in uniform and carried a captain's tabs. 'Hello. I
did not expect to see you here.' He looked confused and
ashamed. 'We were rushed into it. We did not realize what
we were doing and we were into it before we knew. I'm sorry.'
We shook hands and walked towards the Liffey parapet. 'I
have some papers in my pocket,' I said, 'and I want them
delivered.' I mentioned the name of the house. 'Will you
bring them for me?'
'I'll do it,' he said. 'Anything you wish.'
'They're to be kept in safety till I send out a note. On your
word of honour now?'
'On my word of honour I'll deliver them safely.'
I slipped him a bundle of papers as we both stood looking
into Anna Livia, the river that flooded our sewers. 'Here's an
offering to Mother Liffey,' I said as I flung my long-barrelled
Parabellum out to the centre of the Liffey. 'I was very proud
of that gun and now my pride is in the mud.'
I walked back to where the men were standing. All the
officers still wore their Sam Browne belts and holsters, empty
holsters. A photographer set up his tripod in front of us.
'I won't let you take a photograph,' I said.
'But it's for the papers,' he said, as he settled the tripod.
'No photographs, and I mean it.'
He looked towards the bayonets of the Staters as if for per-
mission. 'If you don't move quickly, we'll throw you into the
Liffey.' He gathered up the tripod and melted away.
MacManus, who had attended our training camp in the
Galtees, came up grinning. He had seen service against the
Turks in Gallipoli. His face was blackened. There were holes
in his green uniform tunic, the edges were singed, it was open
at the neck. 'Damn good show,' he said. 'When you let off
that mine we were in the block opposite the Bridewell. Two of
our companies were nearly blown up.'
'We did not fire a mine,' I said. 'It was the spirit of freedom
lighting a torch. I'm glad she played her part.'
Daly came over to me. 'I want you to move your men up
the quays to Jameson's distillery.'
'All right,' I said. In fours we marched along by the river,
then up side streets, surrounded soon by a crowd; some
curious, some cheered us, others muttered words of
sympathy. 'Look at the poor boys, God help them. Who'd
ever think it would come to this.' In front was an armoured
car, beside us Staters with fixed bayonets. We marched across
an open paved square and halted in front of the distillery.
Daly told me to lead the men inside. We entered the yard; the
ground floor windows had iron bars and the wall of the yard
was high. I dismissed the company. We walked through the
rooms to find out what our temporary prison was like. The
house was a high one, containing offices. Outside was the
open space, rectangular in shape. An armoured car moved up
and down. Soldiers in green uniforms were scattered about
the square. Outside a crowd of men and women had
gathered; they climbed up the railings above the basement
and asked questions about friends and relations. Some of the
boys threw out their holsters and belts through the windows
to people they recognized, asking them to keep them in safety.
On the stairs I met a Stater in uniform. 'What do they
intend to do with us?' I asked. I had escape in my mind.
'I think they will remove ye all soon to Mountjoy prison.
They might at least treat ye decently.'
'Perhaps you'd like to help,' I said.
He looked at me straight. 'I'll do anything I can.'
'Then try and get a few uniforms or uniform coats and caps
as quick as you can.'
'All right,' he replied. 'I'll look for my pal. We'll be back
later.'
I found soap and water to wash the grime off my face and
hands. I took off my leather jacket and placed it in a corner; I
wanted to be ready whenever an opportunity came to escape.
Sean Lemass was scrubbing himself beside me. We tidied our
hair and clothes as best as we were able. 'They're going to
move us to the Joy soon, Sean, so we'd best make up our
minds as to whether we'll go or not. I'm sure we can get out
of this place if we try hard enough.' The bars of the lower
windows could be prised apart but that would be difficult to
do as the outside was jammed with people and we were not
sure how friendly they might be; besides there was the
armoured car a few yards away.
A company of Staters, headed by Daly, marched into the
yard of our building. They stood at ease in two ranks, the
butts of their rifles on the ground. Most of our men were there
in groups. 'That's a good chance,' I said to a man.
He looked at the Staters. 'Indeed it is.'
I went over to Rory O'Connor. 'Let's rush them now,
Rory,' I said. 'They can't use their rifles quickly. We could
disarm them and hold the building.' Rory shook his head.
'It's not dishonourable,' I said; 'we have not given our
parole.'
'No,' said Rory, 'it's not dishonourable.'
The fight to him had been a symbol of resistance. He had
built a dream in his mind and the dream was there; failure
did not count and he evidently did not sense defeat. With me
the fight was a symbol only if it had dignity or significance. A
stout resistance at the beginning would emphasize the
difficulties ahead for the Staters and make waverers uncertain
of overt allegiance to the Free State. If we disarmed our
guard, it would turn the laugh on our opponents, and then we
could join our men in O'Connell Street.
Daly came over to me. 'Are you sure that all your men are
unarmed?'
'I think they have no weapons, but I'm not sure.'
'Can you find out?' he asked.
I knew that he hesitated to search the men. I shrugged my
shoulders. 'You can find out for yourself if you wish,' and
walked away. He watched us as Rory and I went towards the
door leading to the stairs. When I returned to the yard the
Free State troops had gone away. Sean Lemass came over to
me in a hurry. Normally he was very calm, but now he was
excited, trying hard to keep his breath as he spoke.
'I think there's a chance of escape. The small gate here,'
pointing towards the front corner of the yard, 'leads into the
next house, the manager's house, and we can walk right
through.'
'Let's go now,' I said. 'I'm not going to discuss any further
decisions with the Headquarters Staff, but we'll send word to
them to come if they want to.'
Joe Griffin, our Director of Intelligence, and Paddy Rigney,
joined us. We opened the small gate. There were two Staters
standing near by but they did not seem to notice. We opened
the back door of the house and walked through the kitchen
into the hall. A man and a woman were standing at the front
door looking into the street, evidently the manager and his
wife. I said: 'Good-day. Please excuse us passing through
your house, it's rather urgent,' and walked past into the
crowd.
The armoured car was moving back slowly towards the
crowd of people but no one looked twice at us as we crossed
the large square. As we turned the corner we heard a shot but
we did not look back. We ran when we were out of sight.
Rigney had already left us.
'I'll leave you here,' said Joe Griffin.
'I suppose we'll meet at Philippi, Joe,' I said as we shook
hands.
'Where will we go, Sean?' I asked.
'Over to the south side. We'll try Paddy O'Brien's house.'
'But he's not at home.'
'Yes, he is,' said Sean. 'The ambulance men who took him
out of the Courts were friendly; they said they'd take him to
his own house.'
We passed down narrow streets to the river side. There was
a noise of shooting but it was some distance away. We crossed
the Liffey below Church Street bridge and walked on the
south side until we were on Merchants Quay opposite the
Four Courts. Cordons of troops kept the gathering crowd
away from the approaches across the river. The Morgan's
Place end was smouldering, it would soon be a ruin. The
dome was perched to one side. There was a spot to the right
of the colonnade through which an entry might have been
made; the corner near Chancery Lane was battered to the
ground storey; and over all hung smoke from Headquarters
block behind. The walls were very battered; gaping holes,
lathes and pieces of smashed wood jutting out amongst the
crumbling upper storeys. 'It's terrible to see them fighting
amongst themselves,' said a man beside me. We moved on
through the crowd. The burning buildings had a fascination
for us. We stood leaning against the river parapet for a long
time, the buildings reflected in the sky and river. An old
woman moved in beside me; she began to cry. 'The poor
boys, the poor boys, they were all killed inside, God help
them.' 'No, they weren't,' said Sean, 'and there are plenty
more to take their place.' She looked at us in doubt, then
sobbed as she tried to speak. 'God bless you and guard you
for those words,' she said.
We reached Paddy O'Brien's house behind the Castle near
the Coombe and knocked at the door. Paddy's sister opened
it. I saw the surprise on her face as she recognized Sean. 'Oh,'
she said, 'oh, come in. How on earth did you get here? We
heard you were all prisoners in Jameson's.'
'Oh, we did not like the distillery, so we left it,' said Sean.
She smiled. 'How's Dinny?' she asked.
'He's slightly wounded, but he's all right; he's a prisoner
with the others.'
'How's Paddy?' I asked.
'He's very weak. He's in bed upstairs but he's restless. He
wants to get up and go out.'
We climbed the narrow stairs. Paddy was in bed, pillows
supported his back. He looked very pale, and shaken. His face
was the pillow colour, relieved by a dark band of blood on his
bandage. We sat on the edge of the bed.
'I'm sorry, Paddy,' I said. 'You would never have sur-
rendered.'
He turned his face into the pillow. After a while he said:
'Yes, it's terrible; that's the worst of two commands, the
Headquarters Staff and mine. We could have fought our way
out that night.'
'Well, it's over now,' I said.
'You'd better leave the house as soon as possible, Paddy,'
said Sean. 'The Staters will probably raid for us, and they'll
miss you also.'
'What are you two going to do?' he asked.
'We're thinking of trying to make our way to O'Connell
Street to join up with the men there, or leave for the country
and hasten the men who are marching on Dublin.'
'The Tipp men are due to arrive soon,' said Paddy. 'They
should be in Blessington by this.'
'We'll go to Blessington, then.'
'And I'll be with you as soon as I can walk,' he said, with a
set face.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JULY 1922
NEXT day we took a tram to Dalkey. The tram was held up
passing through a Free State outpost near Blackrock and we
were searched, but a girl had my attache case. We walked
into Bray and found the barracks smoking but little damaged;
our men had left for Blessington two hours before in such a
hurry that they had not burnt their papers. What South
Dublin had been doing since the attack on the Courts I could
not imagine. A man walked over from the hotel door. He was
the American gun-runner whom we had released a few hours
before the attack on the Four Courts began. He inquired for
Liam Mellows and Paddy O'Brien. 'I liked them well,' he
said. 'I sure am sorry about O'Brien. They were good boys in
there.' He flashed his gold-toothed smile. 'I'm waiting for the
next boat, glad to go; this country of yours is too sharp for
me.' 'If you send us a consignment of trench mortars,' I said,
'no one will quarrel with you about excess profits.'
I commandeered a motor-car and the two of us turned off
the road near the Glen of the Downs, up by the Sugar Loaf
mountain and crossed towards the Sally Gap. The country
was bare and treeless, stretches of heather and soggy bogland,
practically unreclaimable. A bird on the wing, a plover, or the
startled quick rush of a snipe. It was strange to have such a
wilderness within twelve miles of Dublin. Not a house in
sight; treeless heather hills, bluish gaunt mountains in the far
distance--that was a relief to the eye after a haphazard study
of classical line in the Courts. We crossed the narrow
military road built after the rebellion of 1798; Michael Dwyer
and his men had then fought in the hills near Imail. That
fighting in our country had given large armies of British a
surprise; with the road the mountainous areas would then be
more easily penetrated, they thought. The British were
always ready for the last rebellion. The road was narrow and
bad. We overtook a convoy of South Dublin men. An old man
halted us. 'I heard tell,' he said, speaking slowly, 'that there's
fighting in Dublin. What do you think they're fighting about
now?'
'It's hard to tell you in a few words,' I said, 'but I think
they think they're fighting for a younger generation.'
He stood in the road and looked in our direction. The
Blessington road wound high into wooded slopes; below was
a saucer-shaped depression holding the Liffey valley and the
city; rising ground in north County Dublin, foothills to the
south, and the sea shining on the edge.
Blessington was almost one long street below the hills;
there were men from South Dublin there already. It lay under
the mountains, making access to the plain easy, and would be
worth holding. A defence scheme was hastily drawn up. Sean
Lemass, I appointed Director of Operations, Harry Boland,
Quartermaster. Harry's gay face lighted up when he had
work to do. The bank was taken over as headquarters;
engineers were sent out on the roads with an engineer from
Trinity College to dig up the metalled surface and lay mines
to prevent the approach of armoured cars. Movable bar-
ricades were placed near the village.
Next day the Tipperary column of seventy men came in a
char-a-banc, Crossley tenders and touring cars. They had
taken nearly a week to come less than eighty miles; with
energy the men could have reached Dublin in the first twenty-
four hours. Michael Sheehan was in command; he had been
Quartermaster of Tipp Three towards the end of the Tan
war. He was noted for his careful--to others, miserly--
hoarding of ammunition. To Mike a round of ammunition
was a jewel. Men were always impressed with the importance
of every round he reluctantly parted with. He was older than
the rest of the men. A long weather-blown face, splashed with
freckles, a lean neck, a grin gaping from a toothless mouth
which blurred his words. He had a slow manner of speaking.
He would never be bustled, never found without a stinging
remark to answer the jibes of 'you young fellows', as he called
us. It was good to see Tipp men again.
In a long string of cars we moved towards Dublin at mid-
night. We had about one hundred and thirty men, mines and
explosives. Our advance guard would capture and hold some
canal bridges; the main body was to take the College of
Science where most of the Ministers of the Provisional
Government had barricaded themselves. That seemed to me
more important than holding a street on the north side of the
city. We intended to park three miles from Dublin and then
send back the transport to Blessington, but we were halted
before we reached that point. A messenger from Oscar
Traynor said he was disbanding his men. Staters had
pumped petrol into the O'Connell Street positions from
armoured cars; the buildings were on fire, they were held by
about forty men who were putting up a show of strength.
Later he sent out rifles in a Red Cross car; the Red Cross, it
seemed, could be pressed into IRA service when needed.
Rifles were rifles; all thought it legitimate for us to abuse the
Red Cross, but for no one else. We returned to Blessington.
Tom Derrig arrived from Dublin next day. He had a con-
temptuous wave of the hand when he spoke of anything or
anybody he did not like. That dismissed an argument, it was
all raimeish. He was more of a politician than a soldier, I
thought, looking at him with new eyes for I was searching for
officer material. His western accent was strong, inflected; he
spoke clearly and pressed down his hand for emphasis. 'The
kids were great, trying to attack armoured cars with revolvers,
and the women . . .' Cumann na mBan girls had learned to
drive motor-cars under fire; they practised gear changes up
and down streets and back lanes until they felt themselves
sufficiently skilled to act as despatch carriers. He laughed at
the decoy mines which the boys had placed on certain streets.
The Staters were afraid to advance in their armoured cars,
but the 'mines' were empty petrol tins with wire running to a
house near by. Cathal Brugha and de Valera had joined up
as volunteers when the fighting began. Erskine Childers, in
charge of publicity, arranged for the gathering of news, and
its printing. He walked through streets heavy with rifle and
machine-gun fire, from his office to the Gresham Hotel, IRA
headquarters, seemingly unconscious of danger, gravely
preoccupied with his work, his light mackintosh coat a con-
spicuous mark. My brother Cecil, a medical student aged
twenty, had a command in the Gresham. The Staters sprayed
the buildings with petrol, after shell fire. When flames ate
through the houses it was decided to evacuate O'Connell
Street and a rearguard under Brugha was left to cover the
retreat of the others. The girls had refused to leave. They
recited the proclamation of Easter Week: 'The Irish Republic
is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every
Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees
religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal oppor-
tunities to all its citizens, . . .' Why, if men remained, should
women leave? The question was debated with heat in rooms
of burning buildings, under the noise of shells and the spatter
of machine-guns. Cathal Brugha had to exert his personal
influence to make them go.
We talked of the Dublin fighting. Some were uncritical. To
me it had been hopeless. We had failed to profit by the
experience of Easter Week. Dublin had failed to learn its
lesson, a commonsense lesson. In 1916 a definite plan had
been prepared and acted on, although due to the counter-
manding order of MacNeill only sixteen hundred men turned
out instead of some three thousand. Joe Plunkett, it was said,
had worked on his Dublin plan for three years. Some posi-
tions held during the Rising, Jacob's factory, Boland's mill,
the Four Courts, had not been directly attacked. That
allowed the British to concentrate on Pearse's headquarters,
the GPO. The few central buildings had been too strongly
held; those which had not been attacked might have thrown
out more snipers and have held more small blockhouses. In
the recent Dublin fighting, the eagerness of our Headquarters
Staff to allow the Staters to attack first meant that the Courts
was hardly worth keeping in the end, as it had no strong
points holding approaches and none of our snipers went
beyond the building. The Dublin Brigade had first taken
Barry's Hotel far up on the north side, then they had moved
to O'Connell Street positions which possessed no particular
advantage. They had occupied buildings on the east side of
that wide street, whereas if they meant to relieve the Courts
the west side should have been held. No attempt had been
made to hold the bridges on the Liffey. Driblets had ad-
vanced, had captured places from the Staters, but had been
stopped not by the green coats but by orders from Oscar
Traynor. The operations scheme as roughly outlined for
Dublin was a defensive and an offensive one, yet when the
attack began as we knew it must, though we dismissed the
thought of it from our minds as much as possible, we found
ourselves waiting until the building was pounded about our
ears by artillery fire. We had had enough men to isolate
certain barracks and to attack others. Positions held by
skeleton forces could have induced Staters to attack them. By
pinning them to ground, by carrying out the original plan
which would have meant much hard fighting, we could have
restricted the enemy movement, held Dublin until relieved,
and have stimulated the fighting spirit in our men throughout
the country. At any rate we should have been able to hold all
approaches to the Four Courts until help arrived.
It was not of much use now to fight in our minds the
Dublin fight. I had surrendered my own command; there was
no excuse that I could see for that, and I felt a sense of
disgrace about it that no extenuating circumstances could
explain, nor could I find peace of mind about it. Yet the
others did not think I had done anything wrong; nobody said
what should be said about such a personal failure. Most were
not dissatisfied with the events of the past week. To me it
savoured of a demonstration, and when compared with
Easter Week it appeared ludicrous, almost a gesture. A good
fight would justify ourselves in our own eyes, I thought, and
establish us in the minds of the people. Deep down they could
be stirred by something they would adjudge as heroic, how-
ever else it might appear to those taking part in it. I was
annoyed by this calm acceptance of our lack of planning as
heroism. They expected the country to be roused and to fight,
yet we had no direct touch with our greatest strength, the
First and Second Southern Divisions, and what was happen-
ing in Connacht, which was mainly Republican, was a
mystery. Our actions were idealized rather than tested
critically so that there would be a standard for further
fighting. The fighting seemed to fit into the general romantic
feeling of the sentiment about it.
The Staters held positions in Enniscorthy; the IRA there
were not strong enough to attack, but kept the garrisons
inside with snipers. From the men on the Tipp column we
heard that Kilkenny city was being attacked by our men from
the Second Southern. It was a key position; we would go on
there first, then move down to Wexford. Liam Lynch, acting
again as Chief of Staff, was in Limerick but he had not built
up his communications lines. I instructed the officer com-
manding South Dublin to hold Blessington as a base, harass
and attack posts in the neighbourhood, worry the Curragh
camp. Soon, I thought, the men in the south would have
captured all posts and would then link up with Blessington
and prepare to move against Dublin.
I was inspecting the transport of the Tipp column before
we set off, when Paddy O'Brien came up. He looked weak
and unfit, with a large bandage around his head, but he was
able to walk. His eagerness to help was greater than his
strength. The blue eyes in the pale face seemed to fight a
battle with his body. He was going to help again, his body
must obey.
On a stretch of road in Co. Carlow, bordered on the left
by low hills, we saw three lorries of armed men approaching.
I was with three motor-cars of the advance guard. I signalled
the convoy to halt, then dismounted my men and moved
across country in extended order, endeavouring to outflank
the others who had halted and were lining banks and hedges.
I sent a scout forward with a white flag to see who they were.
The scout signalled to us to advance. They were some of our
men from Carlow who had captured a barracks from the
Staters.
Near Carlow town we met Mrs. Tom Clarke coming from
the south in a car. I asked her if Kilkenny had been taken by
the Tipperary men under Dinny Lacey. 'No,' she said, 'it has
not even been attacked.' It would be best to help the
Wexford men. We turned our cars back and proceeded
towards Ballymore Eustace.
We remained that night at Castledermot, a small village.
A night alarm was sounded, whistles were blown, men tried
to get into their breeches in the dark. As usual, I could find
one leg, with another man trying to insert himself into the
other. A shouting of 'They're coming!' 'They're coming!'
Men in their shirts snatched rifles in one hand, trousers in the
other, and lay down near the windows; others barged round
looking for a door to get out through, shouting for their
officers. I carried my trousers in my hand until I got outside
the door. Women were crying and wailing in the houses along
the street. It was a false alarm, nothing more. Two motor-
cars had arrived from Limerick with despatches. We could
not discover who had first imagined the attack; nobody
seemed to know anything about it. Everyone was now
supremely reticent about who had first given the alarm and
who had passed it on without inquiring.
We summoned Carlow to surrender and were refused.
Paddy O'Brien had reconnoitred the town and decided that
the police barracks could be rushed, and that the military
barracks was not very difficult to deal with, but Enniscorthy
asked for help as they had attacked the Free State garrison
there.
After dark next evening, we reached Enniscorthy. We
heard the noise of firing as we approached, occasional shots
only. Paddy Fleming, in charge of the Third Eastern Division,
a tall, lithe boy with a half-nervous, wholly charming smile,
met me on the outskirts of the town. 'We were just sniping
until you arrived,' he said. There were three posts held by
Staters: the old castle, a police barracks and the post office.
Our men moved up from house to house near the castle; they
occupied positions in rear of the barracks which fronted a
wide square.
Next day Paddy O'Brien, Fleming and I, with some others,
rushed up a narrow lane towards the post office. We reached
the building without a shot being fired. The windows were
barred. Boys smashed the glass with the butt end of rifles and
threw in hand-grenades. The noise of bursting cases, then
silence. A sudden rifle crack and a boy beside me fell. A few
more sharp cracks from some distance I could not find, then
Paddy O'Brien in front staggered and sprawled forward. His
collar and neck were stained with quickly flowing blood. I
banged slowly with my revolver in the direction of rifle fire; I
reloaded and emptied again. When I looked behind me I saw
the men carrying Paddy disappear round the end of the lane.
The other man lay flat on his back. He moaned; his face was a
whitish grey. His eyes were staring. I pulled him in close to
the wall. I took cover beside him against a shallow gate
entrance and heard him begin an Act of Contrition, say 'O
my God . . . O my God I am heartily sorry .. .', slowly,
haltingly, seemingly unconscious. It must have been a habit
with him to be able to say it just now when he was dying. He
struggled to the last words. There was a little shuddering
gurgle and he was dead. At the gate above me was a Wexford
officer. He was pressed against the gate but he was too fat to
be under cover; his posterior protruded and shook with
nervousness. I laughed. He turned his head in surprise. Then
when I had pointed out the cause of my mirth, he laughed
too. After a time we ran down the lanes, but no further shots
were fired at us.
Paddy Fleming met me in the street outside. 'The post
office can't have been occupied,' he said; 'the Staters must
have left it. Those would be snipers from the castle who fired.
They must be hidden in the houses opposite their post.'
Paddy O'Brien was lying on the floor of our dressing
station; he bled through his plugs and bandages. 'Don't talk
to him,' a Cumann na mBan girl whispered. 'He's been shot
through the lung.'
We collected petrol and explosives to blow in the outer-
yard gate of the castle, then to blow in the front door and fire
the building. A deputation of priests came to see me. They
wanted me to withdraw from the town to prevent further
fighting. 'I can't do that,' I said, 'I'm here as a soldier, and
I'm going to storm the castle soon. If you really want to
prevent bloodshed, it would be better to interview the
garrison and tell them to surrender, otherwise they haven't
much hope. I'll arrange for a cease fire for an hour.' They
said they would talk with the garrison. After the hour was up,
a Free State officer carrying a white flag was led blindfolded
to our headquarters. 'I wish to arrange terms of surrender,'
he said.
Outside the castle, a squat round tower which had been
modernised with small windows, the Staters were drawn up
two deep. They surrendered their rifles, with a Lewis gun. I
allowed any officer who had fought during the Tan war to
keep his revolver. The officers, one by one, gave me their
solemn promise that they would not bear arms against the
Republican forces again; their men gave a promise to their
officers. We watched the green coats march out of
Enniscorthy.
'It's well worth our while to bring a few priests about with
us,' I said to Sean Lemass. 'They'd save fighting if we allow
them to talk to garrisons.' He grinned.
Three priests came to see me. They asked me not to burn
the castle or the police barracks. I promised them I would
not. I had no intention of burning the buildings. We visited
the castle. The water-tank on top had been punctured by
bullets; water dripped through the rooms, down the winding
stone stairs; it flowed out the door. It must have been
uncomfortable for the garrison. Our men smashed the roof of
the police barracks to prevent its being reoccupied. Armoured
plates protecting the windows were removed in lorries.
The nuns were nursing the wounded in the hospital where
Sean Lemass and I visited Paddy. His face was white and
bloodless, with a light touch of yellow at the contours and
turned to one side on the pillow. He opened his eyes slowly
when we sat near him; pain lined his face when he tried to
smile. I had spoken to a nun before I saw him. 'There is no
chance. He is dying fast, and we were so fond of him,' she
cried.
'Paddy,' I said, 'we have to go. There are other posts to be
cleared in this area.'
he spoke slowly, in gasps of pain. 'I'm sorry to . . . leave
. . . you . . . so soon. . . . Fight . . . well . . . Ireland . . .
Beannacht De.'
He fell back exhausted. His eyes were closed and he
moaned. Sean and I stood looking down at him. Here was
dying the best of our men; would we ever find another like
him. Was it worth all this seemingly eternal fighting? Ireland
was an inspiration and a curse. Did we only realize universal
sorrow when we bitterly felt our own? We talked with the
Free State wounded in the beds on the opposite side of the
ward. We spoke in a dulled way. They shook our hands in
sympathy. We walked over on tiptoe to Paddy's bed. 'Paddy,
we're going now,' I whispered. I did not want to leave the
bedside, but there was nothing I could do. The blue eyes had
lost their shafting light and were dimming; he tried to speak
but could not. I bent and kissed him.
'The capture of this place was never worth his loss,' I said,
as we walked away.
'No,' said Sean gloomily. 'I wish we had never come near
the damn place.'
Ferns surrendered without much trouble. Our convoy passed
through the leafy lanes and little dells of Wexford, close to the
foot of Mount Leinster heaving itself sheer out of the hill
country; in the distance the steep bare slopes of the Black
Stairs mountains. We took Borris. Tom Derrig with a Lewis-
gun section of Tipp men did not turn up till after the
surrender; he had gone into MacMurrough Kavanagh's
house for a feed. We waited in Newtownbarry on the Slaney,
a peaceful, quiet town; on either side of the river the slopes
were wooded. There was an air of placid ease about the town.
I was expecting trained engineers; explosives, and a few
capable officers from the south. I intended to clean up posts
as far as Dublin. That would leave Kilkenny city and the
Curragh camp to be dealt with later when we had tested the
men in barracks attacks and in semi-open fighting.
News came from Dublin that Cathal Brugha was dead.
Cathal Brugha, we thought, the man we most needed now.
We had many memories of him: 1916, badly wounded,
fighting on after the retreat of his men, the grey look of pain
in his face in later years. He had been an athlete; he had
worked without pay in the Gaeltacht, organizing, trying to
help its people to live. A stern disciplinarian, his integrity
undoubted, he had given way slowly to the shooting of police
and detectives and intelligence officers; he would not allow us
to shoot women spies. When the Tans had burned supplies,
houses and creameries, he had consented to a campaign of
destruction in England, the burning of factories, docks, ware-
houses, the gutting of farm supplies. In 1918 when con-
scription threatened, he had brought over a number of men to
England: their Cabinet must be wiped out if the English
actually attempted to enforce conscription. At the end in
Dublin he made his remnant of men surrender; then, revolver
in hand, he had run towards the waiting ring of soldiers.
They called on him to surrender. He rushed on and fell
gravely wounded; later he died. I knew what he must have
thought before he rushed out. We had destroyed an effective
resistance by the surrender of the Four Courts; the death of a
prominent TD and former Minister for Defence was needed
to compensate. He had preferred death rather than outlive
the dishonour of his former comrades. That, to me, was a
policy of desperation, and it was unsoldierly. Dying to carry
out orders in a job of work was one thing, seeking death was a
different idea. I expect that he had seen the futile way in
which we fought, the air of induced martyrdom in the
Courts, and the mysterious occupation of O'Connell Street.
We sat in silence for a while. Then one after another told
some little story of him. He lived again in our little group.
The quiet indomitable face, steady grey eyes, the tightened
reserve of his mouth, the slow smile and sturdy air of indepen-
dence, the uncompromising.
We moved to Tullow. We had asked Liam Lynch to send
mobilized columns up country to attack posts simultaneously
before the Free State could recruit and consolidate. I was
arranging for attacks on Carlow and Athy with the help of
Carlow men.
I had inspected a barracks held by our men in Baltinglass
and wore a Free State Officer's cap with the badge removed.
Returning by motor-bike and nearing Tullow, I heard a
'Halt! Halt!' when close to the town. A boy was walking on
the footpath, holding a rifle in one hand, one arm around a
girl. He swung up his rifle nervously. I rushed at him on the
motor-bike. I knew he was from our Tullow garrison and did
not want to use my revolver which was tied to my wrist by a
lanyard and resting in a clip on the handlebars. My uniform
cap was back-to-front; probably he took me for the enemy,
and he might shoot even if I halted. 'Drop it, you fool,' I
shouted. He pressed the trigger, then worked at the bolt.
Before he could load, I had jumped on him.
He was from the Tipp column. I had often met him with
Dinny Lacey during the Tan fight.
Later, news from Enniscorthy. Paddy O'Brien was dead. A
doctor with two nurses arrived from Dublin. My young
brother, Charlie, aged seventeen, had been killed on the third
day of the fighting in O'Connell Street. He had refused to
leave his post. I had not seen him during four years,
throughout the Tan war, but I had then seen him a few times
in the Four Courts before we were attacked, all too few the
times I now understood. I had been isolated from my family,
and had never gone home since I left the house in 1918.
A despatch came late at night to say that the Enniscorthy
officers had broken their promised peace. They had rushed a
small post with an armoured car and had killed a number of
our men.
In Tullow I received a despatch from New Ross. Sean
Moylan, Director of Operations on our GHQ Staff, had
arrived there with two hundred men, including engineers and
machine-gun sections. Evidently dissatisfied with the spirit
there, he returned to Cork without any explanation. We
cursed him and his officers; our Headquarters came in for
their share. What the hell did they mean, anyhow? Was this
going to be a movie scenario or an attempt at a fight?
A despatch from Liam Lynch: I was appointed to act as
Assistant Chief of Staff, organize the provinces of Ulster and
Leinster, proceed to Dublin at once and there build up a staff.
Misfortunes seemed to pile on top of me.
I tried to think in terms of the new command but I seemed
to be sagging across a dark log; a worm gnawed at my brain.
All I could see was the futility of the order. I did not now know
the officers or men in Ulster or Leinster, save in Carlow and
Wexford, and I knew little of the physical nature of the new
command. I had been present at an election in north-east
Tyrone, but the IRA was not well organized there now. I had
never been in Belfast. Both these areas were now under the
government of the 'Six Counties'. I had organized Co.
Donegal, Co. Monaghan, Westmeath, South County
Dublin, parts of Longford and Offaly, but that was three or
four years ago. The officers would not be the same, the
mentality of the people would be different.
There was no such thing as a stereotyped command
amongst our divisions. Unlike as in regular armies, one could
not find when moved to another unit the same system, a fixed
standard of training in officers or men. Where to begin? It
would be necessary to stay in Dublin, run it as a head-
quarters, and attempt to strengthen its resources so as to help
weaker outlying areas. Wicklow, County Dublin, Meath,
south Louth, the counties half-circling the capital could
hardly be counted on. It would be difficult to move about in
Dublin, better to remain in the country in a good area, but
there was no good area. To the south the old Second
Southern took in Kilkenny, the greater part of Tipperary and
half of Limerick. I knew north Cork, a portion of Waterford,
nearly all of Clare, north Tipperary and south Offaly. Now
with my rough knowledge of Wexford and Carlow I felt I
would be of more use back in the Second Southern. I had
cycled or tramped across it. I had helped to organize it during
the Tan fight. I knew people in country districts, some in the
towns, and I understood the type of men there. I could grade
the officers in each battalion, knew those who were depend-
able, those who showed possibility of development, who
would lead, who needed to be pushed. Now I was to go to a
strange country, a disorganized country as far as I could
sense. I was unfamiliar with its people and their ways. It
would take some time to gain knowledge of the situation in
Dublin. This was not the time to sit down and think in terms
of what an area could do; the time needed one who could act
quickly, who knew his own mind, the possibilities of his
command. Dublin itself, the nucleus from which our strength
should radiate, I did not know; the political and military
situation had changed so often in the past few months. Some
who had been kind to me and in whose houses I had stayed
would now be on the other side; I would have to fight against
their menfolk. Bitterness was due to increase as the Staters
controlled the press and that press had always been hostile to
complete independence. We had no way of influencing the
outside mind save by our actions and immediate relationship
to the neighbourhood we happened to be in. Our lassitude in
the Four Courts was against us. I should have known all the
areas around Dublin whilst I had been in the Courts, as I
could have inspected them thoroughly and have made my
own appreciation of their situation. It served me right, I
thought, for my lack of interest in staff work during the past
few months. I would lose time now in the beginning, and time
was on the side of the others. Tan war experience would no
longer suffice, as this type of fighting would need semi-open
warfare. Columns would have to be larger and their men be
trained to take the offensive in attacking positions and in
driving the enemy out of towns and cities. Intelligence, the
tapping of enemy sources and the quick handing on of every
type of information, should be the major service on our staff,
with engineering a close second.
The Free State would concentrate on Dublin, militarily
and politically. The British would supply them with field
guns, armoured cars, rifles and ammunition supplies. They
could recruit amongst British ex-soldiers, disbanded Irish
regiments. Men who had been careful to conceal their
opinions during the Tan fight, or who had been hostile to us,
would now help them actively. There would be no shortage of
money. The middle class was in power and could use its
imperial connections. They could borrow money, make jobs
for their men, make use of technicians, and rely on now
friendly imperialists. Irish Catholic clergy would support
them; a powerful, open and hidden, influence. We were dis-
organized, comparatively unarmed. Unless our Connacht
and Munster men moved on into Leinster, effective opposi-
tion would be broken up piecemeal and we would be soon
crushed.
I would have to work in the dark. I did not like my new
appointment. It was as if I had to begin life over again. Any-
how, it was no use moaning about it; often in trouble we had
quoted Wolfe Tone's saying in his diary:
'tis in vain for soldiers to complain
I talked to Mick Sheehan of the South Tipp column; the
men did not want to remain in the south-east if I left for
Dublin, in what was to them a foreign area. They did not
know the country or its officers, and would prefer to return to
Headquarters at Clonmel. I paraded the column for in-
spection for the last time, shaking hands with officers and
men, and I outlined their best route home to follow till they
reached the river Ware. The char-a-banc and Crossley
tenders hummed and chirred; then in swirling dust they
headed for Tipperary. I felt suddenly lonely without my men
when I heard the last distant rumble of their cars. Whilst they
were with me I had a staunch portion of the old division; was
dealing with men whom I knew.
Our force was now small. Sean Lemass, Derrig, some
despatch riders on motor-bicycles, a few Carlow men. We
reached Baltinglass on a Saturday night. The barracks
occupied by our men had been attacked by officer cadets from
the Curragh, but they had been beaten off.
The inhabitants were not friendly. Next day we went to
Mass at the chapel in the town, about twenty of us. Outside
the chapel were two sentries in charge of the rifles as we did
not wish to carry them inside. The sermon was about our-
selves. We were looters, robbers, murderers. The Hand of
God was against us. Some of the officers stood up to leave,
but I motioned them to remain. If we were going to be
insulted when we could not hit back, we might as well be
dignified. The sermon continued. The people should have
nothing to do with us, neither help, aid nor shelter us. We
were outlaws, rebels against authority. It was good to get out
in the fresh air again.
CHAPTER NINE
JULY--SEPTEMBER 1922
IN the city a room was found for me to work in, on top of a
prim Georgian house not far from Mount Street bridge. It
was a studio; there was an easel in a corner, tubes of paint
and art books on a sunk-in shelf, paintings and sketches on
the walls. A skylight gave me a way out in case of a raid.
Madge Clifford, my typist, got ready our office for work,
defence and escape. A step-ladder was placed under the
skylight; a heavy chest of drawers was moved so that it could
be suddenly pushed against the door; two blocks of wood
nailed to the floor would back it with support. In the night I
crawled over roofs to know my way in the dark. Madge could
sit for her portrait if there were only a few in the raiding
party.
I attempted to gather a staff together. Tom Derrig became
Adjutant and Director of Intelligence; Sean Lemass was
Director of Communications; Harry Boland, Quartermaster;
Austin Stack in charge of Accounts and Records. I would find
officers for Engineering, Supplies, Chemicals, Munitions,
Transport, Organization and Publicity by degrees. It was a
difficult task as I did not know the officers personally.
The lawyer who owned the house was at the seaside, but
his wife was nervous. She told me that she had seen sus-
picious men at the top of the street, and two women were
lingering beside the railings opposite. She was afraid for me.
That was a hint to leave. I found another house where I was
welcomed. Offices of the staff were at first close together on
different sides of a fashionable square which we called 'the
front', but later we had to disperse and I had to go beyond the
canal to another house in quiet surroundings. Too many
visitors were coming to see me and I could not use a place for
long for fear attention would be attracted, especially as I had
to stay with people who were known to be separatists.
I walked to keep appointments, daily crossed the canal
bridges to visit staff offices. I wore a brilliant tie and a hat
sporting peacock feathers; surely no one would suspect me
with such a flaming tie. Our new Director of Intelligence told
me that he had seen an enemy report: I had been noticed
crossing the canal two mornings in succession at different
times, and walking down Leeson Street with a newspaper in
my hand. That was the Irish Times, then a good blue-gut
Unionist paper. I thought it would emphasize my respect-
ability if I was questioned. Usually I carried a .45 revolver in
a holster.
An urgent despatch from the DI early one morning. Men in
plain clothes stationed at the canal bridges with orders to
shoot some of us on sight. That was to be expected. I used a
bicycle now. It was best for moving about. One could turn
suddenly, or dash down a side street or back lane. I studied
the lanes and by-lanes connecting the main thoroughfares. I
changed my hours, never crossing the same street in suc-
cession, always returning to my headquarters by a circuitous
route. In the streets or on the bridges one might be spotted as
one cycled past, but by the time the man or group had
recognized who it was and be prepared to fire, one was
possibly out of pistol shot or out of sight. Bridges were
dangerous. I cycled up slowly, scanning the footpaths in an
apparently casual way, then made a quickened descent on the
far side, often feeling a twinge around the shoulder blades
where I expected a bullet to land. The real danger would
come from armoured cars, from lorries of troops, or a sudden
hold-up by men in plain clothes, or from touts spotting our
houses. Some officers saw touts all the time. At first we had to
use the houses of our friends, of people who were known to be
Republican; in some of them Collins, Mulcahy and
O'Connell had held interviews and staff meetings during the
Tan fight. As organization improved, the Cumann na mBan
girls took the strain off my friends and selected places that
were not well known.
Dublin, the Command Headquarters, was weak; the
officers and men were being picked up and it was extremely
difficult to get operations carried out. We had to deal with
opponents who knew our individual officers by sight and were
aware of their efficiency, energy or experience, mentality and
degree of training. They had a rough idea of what we would
do in a given situation, the method of our attack, which of us
were most to be feared. The British had been striking in the
dark. They did not know our officers personally. We were an
invisible army who melted away when they tried to
steam-roll. The people supported us then, and informers were
hard to obtain. Now the people, on the whole, were against
us; they were willing to give information. The newspapers
had led them to believe that we were small disorganized
groups. Catholic clergy of all ranks pounded pulpits and
re-used their favourite adjectives. We now had to face our-
selves and not the English.
Oriel House was the centre for the new detective force, the
Criminal Investigation Department, the CID. It had an
unsavoury record; prisoners were interrogated and ill-treated
there to extract information, and its members raided through-
out the city. The men were untrained in detective work, but
they were handy with their guns and they were tough; some
of them had been attached to our intelligence in the last fight.
Their work was espionage. They wore civilian clothes, were
well armed, and carried out hold-ups on the streets. Unlike
the old detective department, the political branch of the DMP
who had stalked about ponderously like giants in a story
book, they varied in height, and, remaining individual, they
were difficult to identify and avoid. Above all, they knew a
good number of our Dublin men opposed to them. A civilian
intelligence system was also being organized and it co-
operated with the CID and with the military intelligence
force. The intention was to have in each street a man or
woman who could observe the life on that street and report
regularly.
I had a sense of unreality about our work in Dublin. I
walked through the people in the street; amongst them might
be one of the CID or a military intelligence officer perhaps
out looking for me. At any time there might come a rush of
men, or an officer or green-coated soldier in a passing lorry
might recognize me, and the normal life of the street could be
broken by revolver or rifle fire. In the country it was different.
We carried arms openly, our watchfulness showed in move-
ment and expression, we were on the alert and prepared. In
the city eyes had to be veiled with casual glances. Even
though we could pick out the touts or spotters we could not
take too obvious an interest in their movements. The men
who bumped against me purposely with a muttered apology
would feel my hip pocket gently but deliberately. My Webley
revolver lay over my heart: a quick short draw would displace
it from its tight-fitting soft holster. Every morning, instead of
my daily dozen, I practised quick draws and grips with either
hand. I had to train myself steadily to certain facial ex-
pressions, to try to appear disinterested on the streets, and to
prevent my eyes from staring too hard. I practised muscle
changes until they would seem natural.
We talked of disguises: dyeing hair, changing features,
wearing wigs, fixing eyebrows. I changed my loose, long
stride to a short quick walk, but when I was thinking of some-
thing I stretched my legs. If one's appearance was changed,
one would have to grow into the character part to fit it
unconsciously, otherwise the result would draw attention. I
would not dye my hair or eyebrows: theatricals savoured of
the dramatic. I could not last long anyhow, I felt.
One day as I was cycling past University College,
suddenly I noticed men on the path to my right; further on
towards Harcourt Street to my left were three men. When I
passed this second group I felt a twinge in my spine, the old
sign of unease, and this time it had some sense in it. There
came the quick sharp report of an automatic, then two further
shots and a whistle as something passed me. I bent lower over
my handlebars to make my body target as rectangular as
possible, then turned to the right and was soon under an
arch. Truly a bike was the correct approach to an under-
ground movement. It prevented you from being tailed by
touts on bicycles as one could always turn quickly down a
laneway which made the spotters too obvious, or halt to fight
which then put them at a disadvantage. During a sudden
street raid it gave a good view of a street, and if approaches
were cordoned off, I could leave the bike against a curb,
knock at a door, and with some impromptu remark walk
through the house to the back gate.
Beyond the canal bridges I had other houses to sleep in,
where I kept late appointments. We changed the houses
frequently to avoid attention, but I was still limited to a few
for meeting country officers. I held staff meetings in the
morning at eight o'clock; for a time in Kay Brady's in Leeson
Street. The Staters would hardly be properly awake at that
hour, I thought; nor was it the custom for the IRA to rise
early. There was little activity in the mornings. Our staff
dribbled in slowly, generally a meeting beginning three-
quarters of an hour beyond its timing. Austin Stack came
twice dressed as a Protestant minister in a peppery grey suit,
his grave face suiting the disguise. The door of the house
would be left slightly ajar, or it could be opened by pulling a
cord, for a delay at a door might mean that a spy or passing
tout would identify someone. I had a collection of yalekeys.
Large and small keys for front and back doors. I had to work
steadily at key drill until I could in the dark remember the
feel of the particular key that fitted a lock. I knew how to get
into houses over back walls at night, and through side-gates,
and where to find unlatched windows.
The Adjutant, Tom Derrig, came to my headquarters. An
ex-British Army officer had walked into Tom's office in his
sister's house by mistake. The brother was Free State, the
sister Republican. He had known Tom during the Tan war.
'At it again, the same old game,' he said, withdrew with
apologies and closed the door. We discussed the various
angles of the incident. 'It's all right,' I said; 'he won't give
information without first telling you.' Tom agreed. He did not
move his office. There was no raid.
It was difficult to organize the Command, to find out who
was in charge of an area. I knew the names of most of the
senior officers in Leinster and Ulster. I had met many of them
when I had been Director of Organization in the Four
Courts. Their names had given me no inkling as to their
worth. It was difficult to get in touch with the divisions and
independent brigades of the Command as no lines of com-
munication had been established; despatches could not be
forwarded. The first step was to build an efficient com-
munications system. Sean Lemass undertook the work,
helped by Cumann na mBan Headquarters, but it was dis-
heartening. Soon the words 'Are you in touch with' became a
joke with us. Large stretches of the communication route
which we had outlined on our maps were hostile, or the
friendly units there were disorganized. Special messengers
had to bridge the gap, to establish contacts. Slowly the
system was built up. Commands existed on paper often. The
months of indefinite action had produced lassitude and
uncertainty. We had drifted so long that our men had become
tired. Our intelligence service was not good, yet we had fairly
good information but were not strong enough to act on it.
During the Tan war the girls had always helped but they
had never sufficient status. Now they were our comrades,
loyal, willing and incorruptible comrades. Indefatigable, they
put the men to shame by their individual zeal and initiative.
The men in many cases were supine, lethargic. The wave of
disgust at the signing of the treaty had made some cynical,
others indifferent. The shame of men of our own blood
dividing our country, walking into the British Empire, had
dulled rather than enraged them. On the other side they saw
good men whom they had trusted and who had fought well in
the Tan time. They were more inclined now to dissect
motives, to question orders, to think the fight was hopeless.
Many saw themselves fighting their one-time friends. I was
fighting imperialists. The one-time friends as far as I could
see did not mind fighting us.
We were hard hit in Dublin; frequent raids, numerous
arrests and uncertain outlook had taken a big number of
officers and good men. We should have been strongest in the
capital. During the Tan war the Republican Government had
concentrated there; the Dublin Brigade was strong and
activity had been pushed to the uttermost. Our victories now
in the south and west did not carry as much weight as a
simple well-planned operation in Dublin. Public opinion was
most rapidly affected in the metropolis. A small active service
unit of twenty to twenty-five men was started in the city. It
worked in groups during the daytime, endeavouring to bomb
lorries on the streets: difficult work on account of the hostility
of the civilian population. It needed good pistol shots most of
all. That would mean less civilian casualties and more
military, but the shooting was poor. I suggested operations to
the Brigade but its officers, perhaps unwittingly, placed
obstacles in their own way, and battalion officers had not
much initiative. I expect we, on the whole, felt cowed in the
city. I wanted to form a column from amongst my own staff.
The intention was to show to our commands the possibilities
of a small group, handled with energy, seeking the offensive,
but it was not favourably received at a staff meeting. I
thought it better that we should act as a column rather than
as fountain-pen officers whose instructions and orders were
not being carried out. And time was with the enemy.
I inspected areas in the neighbourhood of Dublin. One
could better appreciate then the difficulties of the officers and
men. Michael Price was the officer commanding the First
Eastern, and he undertook the work of endeavouring to
organize the scattered units there. Liam Lynch had protested
against his appointment. Cork officers for some not very clear
reason did not like Price, but I did. His officers were worn out
when I met them, constantly hunted, little sleep, a small com-
mand now spread over a large area. I went north to
Monaghan where the officers were sitting down; I outlined
attacks for some not very willing officers.
Harry Boland, our Quartermaster, a close friend of
Michael Collins, was deliberately shot during a raid in
Skerries and died a few days later. He had been a general
favourite, his gay cheery face always brightened up our
meetings, but it was impossible to make him take proper
precautions; he could not adjust himself to the new con-
ditions. Joe Griffin, our new Director of Intelligence, who had
been with him, was arrested. His successor was shot while
attempting to escape. Austin Stack was the new Quarter-
master. He had to have special rooms built to hide arms,
ammunition, and people. Now there were sliding panels and
portions of rooms walled off with secret entrances, all the
settings for a good mystery story. The Director of Chemicals,
Jim O'Donovan, had been arrested but escaped; he came into
a meeting where I was appointing another man to replace
him. The Assistant Director of Organization, Tod Andrews,
who had been wounded, had succeeded in escaping from
Wellington barracks. The headquarters of the Command
Engineer had been raided, papers captured, a few land mines
and explosives, and some of the staff. One officer had been
badly wounded in the leg, but had managed to escape.
Through the Directors of Chemicals and Munitions, work-
shops were established and grenades manufactured; I had
intended to wait until we had made a good supply of
explosives before we began to fight in Dublin and the
immediate neighbourhood. The weapons we needed most
were automatics and revolvers, hand-grenades, rifles and
incendiary grenades, land mines, Thompson guns or sawn-off
shotguns, and quantities of explosives. Positions could be
stormed with mines; gates or doors of buildings blown in. A
charge inside a building would have a shattering effect; it
would blow away the ceilings and maintaining walls. Used
against a building from the outside we would need twenty to
forty times as much explosive to shatter it. Our munitions
factory worked as hard as its staff were able. The shops were
changed constantly. All the time our men were being
arrested. In the evening I was never sure what member of my
staff was missing. I often replaced a casualty with a boy who
had succeeded in escaping that same day from a prison or an
internment camp. The Quartermaster-General in the south
did not send explosives or supplies. We wished Liam Lynch
would soon arrive in Dublin. Then he could understand the
situation and realize the importance of the capital before it
was too late. It had been lost to us since the beginning of the
fight. The Dublin Guards had been sent to Kerry so the Free
State garrison was not very strong in the city, but their intel-
ligence service had local assistance in every company area
and was getting a good grip.
One night, returning from a meeting of South County
officers, I walked across the city. At the meeting reports and
despatches from battalion areas had been given to me, which
I padded to a roundness in my socks. I did not carry a gun. I
was close to Baggot Street bridge when I saw a car without
lights move up slowly to the bridge; there were four civilians
in the car. Something wrong with their lights, I thought. A
car on the opposite side at the bridge began to swing its
beams up and down, then across the street. It moved down on
the wrong side, on my side of the street. It was an armoured
car. There was no laneway or gate near me. The searchlight
focussed on three men in front of me, then on myself. I'm
trapped, I thought; the car without lights must have picked
me out. The armoured car came to a halt. Men with guns in
their hands jumped down, shouting: 'Put them up!'
The three men held up their hands. I did not, as I thought I
had been recognized. If they meant to shoot me, they would
not shoot me with my hands up. Damn them, anyhow. I
moved in under the muzzle of the machine-gun in the turret.
That wasn't going to riddle me first. Two men stuck revolvers
against my chest. They searched my pockets. They did not
pass any remarks about my hands not being held up.
'What's the idea?' I asked, waiting to jump and snatch a
gun.
They did not reply. They searched me thoroughly, felt the
lining of my tie, the inside of my collar, under my armpits.
One of them felt my socks on the outside, patted my trousers,
ran both hands on either leg down to my boots. They did not
say anything.
'Have you finished now?' I asked.
'Yes,' said one, 'you're all right. You can go ahead.'
I walked away slowly. I did not take a natural breath until
I had crossed the canal bridge.
Another night I was cycling from Upper Leeson Street
towards the canal when I heard a sudden 'Halt there!
HALT!' as I was close to the bridge. The voices came from
either side of the footways, and as I swung my bike around I
heard rifle shots. I dropped to the ground with my bicycle,
and as figures rushed towards the rise of the bridge I fired a
Few rounds, and then ran back to the pathway on Mespil
Road. The figures disappeared but their rifle fire shook the
night. To go down the canal was now impossible. To return
by Leeson Street seemed as bad, as I would then be under fire
from either side. I went quickly back for my bicycle which
was in no man's land, fired quickly at both sides of the
bridge, reloaded and cycled away. As I looked around the
corner I found going on what Irish newspapers would
describe as a 'fierce battle' or a 'determined encounter', but it
seemed to be between the opposing sides of Leeson Street
bridge.
Michael Collins was killed in an ambush in Co. Cork.
Those Free State people who had once glorified the ambush
now spoke of it as a cowardly form of murder. Arthur Griffith
had died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Republican rumour,
always busy, said it was due to severe shock when he found
that Collins and the IRB had been implicated in the shooting
of Wilson, former Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Many
Republicans were in high spirits. The two men more than
any others responsible for the treaty were dead. Religious
ladies nodded heads in significance. 'Yes, it was a judgement
of God.' He was now on our side.
Funerals went to Glasnevin cemetery. Soldiers in green
uniforms marched, with arms reversed, after bands playing
the 'Dead March', following their dead. Our men were buried
quietly; women mostly as mourners. The CID were nosing
for men. Cumann na mBan girls in uniform, some with eyes
shut and faces screwed to one side, fired a volley over the
graves with revolvers or automatics.
I moved my headquarters to the suburbs and remained
with a young curate for two weeks, but it was an isolated
house, difficult to approach.
Eamon de Valera came up from the south to Dublin early
in September. He stayed with Austin Stack in a house in
Upper Mount Street known as Mrs. K's, where he had
contact with Republican TDs and through Stack with our
Command. They had a room prepared. There was a space
concealed into which they could retire in case of a raid;
already they had used it successfully, and many ingenious
devices were worked out.
 I met Dev to talk over the general situation. His face was
pale; worn lines made his jaw seem longer. He was worried. I
was worried myself, but talked of the Command as cheerfully
as I could. He could not see, I felt, a military win on our side,
and now he had no direct say in the conduct of the fighting.
All I could point out was a slow increase in sympathy and
morale amongst the people even in this bad area, which
would eventually yield political results. He talked of negotia-
tions with Collins. 'Signing the Pact was the worst day's
work I ever did for the Republic.'
I was anxious to have a full meeting of the Executive called
but it had been postponed. Only when I met officers who
really knew each of our areas could I rely on their intimate
knowledge for an appreciation of their particular and the
general situation. In the south a line had been held along the
Suir by our First and Second Southern Divisions, and across
the Shannon below Limerick city, with its rear and flanks in
the sea. They had placed themselves on the defensive, a fatal
point of view, and they were slowly being driven back. Provin-
cialism may have induced the line, such decentralization
suiting a piecemeal guerilla warfare, but no series of minor
tactical victories by us in Connacht and the south could
make up for our weakness in the capital. The Staters pushed
on slowly. Our line served no purpose that I could see. The
offensive was with the green coats who landed in Cork and
Kerry by sea, and occupied towns. The troops had been with-
drawn from Dublin so we availed of the opportunity to build
up the organization as best we could, for it was essential that
we should be strong in the enemy's headquarters. At night
the various posts were sniped; machine-guns rattled, but the
enemy could afford to waste ammunition.
I went home, to Iona Drive, Glasnevin, to see my people. It
was now September 1922. My last visit had been in May of
1918. Mulcahy had suggested then that I had better go home
to see them. Evidently he had been approached by my
parents or by someone who knew them. The suggestion had
been emphasized so thoroughly that I had taken it as an
order, but I did not remain longer than twenty minutes.
Father, naturally enough, had said what he thought of me,
my approach to medicine, and the futility of my Volunteer
connections, and I, who acted under what to me was then a
command, did not say anything.
Now they had changed. Father and mother were glad to
see me. My elder brother Frank, of the King's African Rifles,
who had died in East Africa, was in a grave at Dar-es-
Salaam, and I was now the eldest. The next to me was with
the Nigerian Frontier Force; the next, Cecil, had been
arrested two weeks before when attempting to cut a railway
line and was now in Maryborough jail; the next, Charles,
had been killed in action in O'Connell Street. The two
younger ones, about fifteen and sixteen, who had been out
during the Dublin fighting, were attached to Fianna Eireann;
they slept at home but were expecting raids at any time.
Although father and mother did not approve of the decided
views of the younger members, yet their unity made a
difference.
A boy had been born since I was last home. He was a
'publican, he whispered to me. I was called 'Uncle Jack' by
the household for fear he would talk to children in the
neighbourhood if he knew who I was. Before I left he called
me into the hall. 'You're not Uncle Jack, you're Ernie, but I
won't tell.'
I came home once a week, but they were nervous for fear
the people would recognize me, or that the house might be
raided while I was in it. The neighbours would not recognize
me, I felt. Father and mother were now ostracized by most of
their neighbours, who refused to speak to them or to
acknowledge their presence. Others were insistently rude and
gave air the benefit of their opinions. Yet none of these had
ever lifted a hand to help us during the last scrap, nor had
they helped the Empire save by their inflated sense of
righteousness. At least they might have remembered that in
1918 we had saved their manhood from being conscripted by
their friends. The outraged bourgeoisie were determined to
defend this Free State of theirs, which had been handed them
on a platter cooked a l'imperiale. My friends opposite, good
Unionists, were now, save for the Buckleys next door, the only
local people who kept their humanity and were still kind to
my family.
Monsignor O'Hagan, Rector of the Irish College in Rome,
was anxious to meet me. He had already seen Mulcahy,
Provisional Government Minister for Defence, and was
attempting to effect negotiations. He was anxious to see if a
settlement could be made. I knew of O'Hagan's work in
Rome where he had fought hard and ably against British
diplomatic pressure on the Vatican. Always he had insisted
on the national status of his college, which had formerly been
considered an appendage to Beda, the English College in
Rome and the focus of our country's most persistent enemies,
the English Catholics. I had been warned that he was a
trained diplomat but I found him sympathetic and direct with
me when I met him at home.
There was little I could do to help him save to report our
conversations to Eamon de Valera and to Liam Lynch. We
had taken the oath of allegiance to the Republic; we meant to
keep it. We would fight until we wore the Free State down, or
were wiped out ourselves. Negotiations would have to be
conducted through de Valera and Lynch. I had no personal
suggestions to offer, but as he intended to visit the Staters'
HQ I asked him to mention the systematic torture of our
prisoners and the deliberate murder of men, mostly in this
Command; he could tell them to curb their murder gangs.
Agents could be controlled if they wished to control them.
That would at least prevent intense bitterness.
Coming from a meeting of officers in Kay Brady's house
late one night, I was walking near the kiosk at Leeson Street
bridge when an open car, travelling fast without lights,
rushed across from Wilton Place. I had time to see four
officers as I jumped, then the edge of the radiator struck me
from behind. I was thrown forward and fell on my back.
I lay there for some time. I must have been stunned, for I
heard a man say as he helped me to get up: 'I thought you
were dead at first and I was afraid to go near you.' I sat on
the footpath for a while until my legs were able to bear me;
then I wobbled along, crabwise, sitting down to rest whenever
my legs folded up. My hip had been injured. It was lucky, I
thought, that the soldiers had not stopped to investigate their
victim as my pocket was filled with documents.
Oriel House was now famous as a 'knocking shop' where
prisoners were battered and tortured. I was anxious to have
their headquarters captured, with its papers, and I thought
the attempt would not be difficult. I had been put in touch
with a friendly CID man who wished to meet me. Some of
our officers thought I would be trapped when I went to meet
him, or they looked on the whole move as a plant so that I
would be tailed back to my headquarters. Although I was
advised not to, I met him in a house we rarely used. I thought
him all right as we talked and then, relying on instinct,
trusted him. He seemed willing to help in any way he could.
He described Oriel House, the number and position of
sentries, rooms where the arms and records were kept, tele-
phones, and the general house routine. I took notes. After-
wards some of his answers to random questions could be
verified. I drew plans of the building which he amplified.
Oriel House was old and strongly built; it held the corner of a
street. The CID must have felt secure for their defences were
not thorough. Their general feeling of irresponsibility helped
to bring this about as the men were rather uncontrolled. They
drank hard, were encouraged to be offensive and destructive
when on raids, and they had helped military intelligence to
murder some of our lads.
Oriel House was in the Third Battalion area. I sent my
information to Joe O'Connor, commandant of the Third,
having first established some of my informant's details; but he
did not seem eager to use it. At last I told him that I would
get some men from the First Eastern Division and try to take
the place myself. He decided to use his own men. The best
time was in the evening when the CID men would have
finished a meal and be less careful. The door was held on a
chain. Three men were to knock at the door, give the name of
a man then out on duty, and hold up the guard. Others
would enter behind them, make for different landings and
there seize telephones, documents and arms. There were
about fifty rifles and small arms there, and that in itself was
worth a raid. If unable to retreat in time, our men were to
hold the building as long as they could, throw out snipers,
and withdraw under cover of dark.
Michael Price, OC of the First Eastern, was in town on the
night of the proposed attack, with his acting brigadier,
Brennan, and Commandant Paddy Mannion, whose father
had been an inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary. I
intended to be near the scene, with Sean Lemass, when the
attack began, as I was concerned about the job which I had
insisted on. When I told them where I was going, Price and
the other officers asked to come with me, for my own pro-
tection, if it was nothing else, they said. I did not want to
bring them into danger as their own areas needed them
badly, but as they pressed their point, I gave way.
We walked down the east side of Merrion Square. I was in
front, Price behind me a little to my right, the others about
twenty feet further back. Our men were to hold up the guard
at half-past eight; we would go in five minutes afterwards. We
waited at the corner of the square. A few revolver cracks. We
saw men rushing out of Oriel House; some ran up a lane to
one side.
'Something wrong,' said Mick Price. 'We'd better slope
away.'
I did not like to leave until I had word from the Third
Battalion; someone might be able to explain what had
happened, and their commandant knew I would be waiting at
that corner. An armoured Lancia approached noiselessly
from Merrion Street. It was close to the corner of Clare
Street before I first noticed it. Soldiers were kneeling inside
with rifles pointed at either side of the street. The Lancia
halted twenty yards away from where we stood. The soldiers
got down and spreading out to either footpath began to
search passers-by.
'We'll move away slowly,' I said, 'and keep to the house
side of the square. If we see the Staters ahead of us, I'll knock
at a hall door and we can go through the house to the gate at
the back.'
When I looked back I saw Staters on foot advancing up the
street we had just left. We crossed to the far side near the
railings of the park. At the end of the square the others
wanted to remain with me in case I was held up, but I walked
on by myself.
'You're very excited,' said Kay Brady when I went into
Harry McAuley's house in Fitzwilliam Square. 'Is there any-
thing wrong with you?'
Two days later I received a despatch from Joe O'Connor
about the attack. The OC Third had seen an armoured car
under Westland Row railway bridge as he made a last-
minute reconnaissance. Its guns were trained on Oriel House
and he decided to call the job off as it created a doubt in his
mind that the enemy might be ready inside waiting for some-
thing. He met one of his company captains at the street
corner and told him to call off the operation. While the OC
Third hurried to Lombard Street to find the captain of 'G'
company, the car moved slowly off towards Merrion Square.
In the meantime OC 'G' made an attempt on Oriel House.
The plans went awry because the guard, instead of being
surprised, were shot at in the hall. The first men to enter had
found three men on the door, three behind a desk, and some
men on the stairs, and they fired through excitement, or
because the guard had not put up their hands quickly. The
men in the hall surrendered, but one of the CID on the stairs
tried to draw a gun and was killed, and another was
wounded. Our men outside retreated instead of immediately
following up. None of them had been captured.
There was no question of the information being a plant, as
far as I could see. The following day I was told that
Brunswick Street police station had been asked before the
attack if there was any activity in their vicinity and had
replied that everything was quiet there. The armoured car
probably came as a result of men being noticed in the
neighbourhood. Paddy Mannion had got as far as Mount
Street bridge where he was halted by the Staters, put up
against the bridge parapet, and wounded. As he lay on the
ground he was killed by their rifle fire. At his inquest a verdict
of wilful murder was returned against the military.
The Command Director of Publicity had at last printed a
paper, An Phoblacht, 'The Republic'. Before it came we used
cartoons drawn by Countess Markievicz pasted on letter-
boxes and lamp-posts; handbills, and small mimeographed
typewritten sheets sent around by hand. The CID raided
vigorously for the printing press; it had to be moved
frequently. The printers were often captured, but daily An
Phoblacht was sold on the streets of Dublin by newsboys or
copies were pasted on the walls, despite all efforts to locate it.
Cumann na mBan and young boys painted with whitewash
and tar the walls of Trinity College, the pavements, the walls
of the Mansion House, any dead wall space they could find.
News of the fighting in the south, accounts of ill-treatment of
prisoners and the names of the officers concerned, appeared.
-------- CALL OFF THE MURDER GANG. And
. . . , THEY HAVE MURDERED PRISONERS. UP THE
REPUBLIC. My brothers were nearly captured bill-posting.
Robert Brennan was in charge of our publicity and was
ably seconded by Frank Gallagher whom I met on the south
side a few times. Frank had a small room cut off from a larger
one, and bookcases in place of a door concealed the opening.
Here he kept his papers; here if a raid took place he would
retire. After our meetings I would generally remain the night
with him. We listened to our snipers sending an occasional
shot at the sentries in Portobello, and the increasing volume
of reply as machine-guns stuttered and sprayed. We planned
impossible plans and laughed at their absurdity, talked of
books or discussed literature. That was a welcome break. In
Munster, Erskine Childers had published his daily paper in
the mountains, but after the hasty evacuation of our GHQ
near Glengariff the paper had been discontinued. I had
written to him. He did not complain, but I knew how isolated
he felt in the south.
Jails were being filled. Soon barracks housed prisoners and
internment camps had to be prepared. If all active Repub-
licans were arrested, the fighting would cease. The Staters
knew who to raid for, and they were able to identify our men
in a round-up. Prisoners would sometimes be released if they
signed a form stating they would not again take up arms
against the Provisional Government. I sent instructions to all
prisons in the Command that the form could not be signed
by anyone.
CHAPTER TEN
SEPTEMBER--OCTOBER 1922
I FOUND another house to stay in as the activity circulating
round an office of mine was sure to attract attention after a
while.
I moved to Mrs. Humphreys on Ailesbury Road. The
neighbourhood was sedate, leisurely, respectable and
imperial, removed from fighting, arrest and sudden death.
The last time I had met Mrs. Humphreys had been in 1917
when, as a volunteer in 'F' company of the first battalion of
the Dublin Brigade, I had seen her pin religious medals on
men who had been out in the 1916 Rising. She and Miss
O'Rahilly, who lived with her, were sisters of The O'Rahilly
who had been killed in a charge on Moore Street in Easter
Week 1916. The house was so frankly Republican that I
thought it would not be suspect. Cathal Brugha and others of
the Headquarters Staff had stayed there during the Tan fight
Surely the Staters would never think that we would have the
hardihood to use such a well-known house again.
I was kept awake for successive nights by a sniper. By the
sound he must have been using the roof of the house next
door, but what was he firing at? Beggar's Bush, the nearest
post, was a good mile away. The moon, then, was his only
target, unless there was some kind of a Kentucky mountain
feud being carried on between my respectable neighbours.
I worked in a study off the breakfast room in the front of
the house. Madge Clifford came every morning and she
worked till seven o'clock or often late into the night. She had
been a typist at 23 Suffolk Street and was fairly well known
She had her hair bobbed and she tried to change her
appearance frequently. I was known as Mr. Ryan to the
maids in the house for fear of any leakage through talk. At
night-time I slept in a concealed room at the end of a
corridor; if there was a raid during the day I could go up
there with my papers. The room door had been changed to a
cupboard in which clothes hung, but by pulling a wire
connected to a powerful spring the cupboard swung open. It
had been built in the Tan time by Batt O'Connor, a great
admirer of Michael Collins, and he was now on the other
side.
We joined the family at the Rosary in Irish, then they were
off to bed by ten o'clock. Mrs. Humphreys, her son, Dick, and
her daughter, Sheila, as well as Miss O'Rahilly, spoke Irish
fluently; at meals bearla was seldom used, save when I could
not follow the conversation and that was often enough. My
Irish was poor. I was talked to by Mrs. Humphreys with
gentle severity on the incongruity of an Assistant Chief of
Staff of the IRA who had to have his own language translated
for him.
At times I would see myself through their respectful eyes;
then I would realize how unfitted I was for the responsibility
of command. I was admonished about my hours. 'You should
go to bed early,' Mrs. Humphreys often told me. 'It's bad for
your health to stay up late, you'll ruin your eyesight, and I
feel sure you keep dreadfully late hours.' Evidently they saw
nothing abnormal about our life. I crept upstairs, always after
one, often between three and four; then I read for a while to
clear my mind of this undue demand of war on its time. My
crime was not discovered until I had knocked over a small
clock one night. Next morning at breakfast the clock which
had stopped near three o'clock was shown as evidence of
guilt.
The Director of Operations and his assistant came every
day. It was difficult to avoid attention as members of the staff
visited rather frequently. Couriers brought and collected 'the
post' as the despatches were called, many times a day.
During the day I cycled around to visit the offices of the
Director of Communications, Adjutant, Quartermaster; held
staff meetings; and met journalists, messengers or officers
from remote districts in the Command. Writing notes meant
more work for couriers; it would never have the same result as
a personal contact. The chief danger was in being 'tailed'
from place to place. That would endanger the staff, their
papers and couriers. A single unimportant routine form
forwarded by hand might result in the capture of our entire
staff. Papers were a worry, but files had to be kept for those
who would take our places. The Command was not effective,
operations were not planned and carried out in proportion to
our armament and the opportunities presented. However
efficient the staff might be on paper, the result would rest
with flying columns and supporting units. There was the
danger of over-organization in staff work, a tendency to work
out beautiful paper schemes with every man in his place, to
draw up delightful forms which would give accurate, intensive
information, to receive reports under varied headings with
perky satisfaction. Men get drawn into the organization
scheme; they become efficient, self-satisfied automatons. The
objects to be aimed at were intelligence, operations, training
and administration, in their order of importance. Our senior
officers were mainly satisfied with administration, and
organization gnawed at itself. It would have been better
results if they had taken command of flying columns. That
would strengthen morale and give an example of the handling
of men, of courage and of capacity for leadership. Tod
Andrews, the Assistant DO, was lanky, his stilted legs could
not be mistaken. He often dropped in for a chat. He was one
of the few active organizers we had to visit distant commands
and came to report whenever in town. The DO could see no
end to the fight; his battalion had been badly disorganized
when the attack on the Courts began, and he had seen the
Dublin Brigade lose its officers in successive raids. His
records of areas were on a sliding scale as weakly-held areas
were often nearly eliminated, but again recruited and re-
organized.
In the evenings we stopped work for half an hour to play
tennis. The DO objected at first, it was too silly and too risky,
but eventually he was glad to take a racquet for doubles with
Tod and Sheila Humphreys and I, or we played singles.
Tennis kept us fit; we forgot the risk in the game. It was
necessary to keep physically fit and tennis with its intensity
gave us an opportunity to unlimber muscles and minds daily.
We could see the adjoining houses from the court at the back,
and as our household had no contact with its neighbours, that
made it additionally secure. If troops appeared during the
game, I had a ball in my pocket which I intended to hit into
the next garden, then climb over the wall and disappear
amongst the fruit trees. Often I thought of the lads on the
hills in the hostile areas. They had little food, no comforts,
while we could have regular meals, the only regular meals I
had had for five years, and even play tennis.
Workshops were prepared by the Directors of Chemicals
and Munitions. Jim O'Donovan and Sean Russell had also
been in charge of those departments during the Tan fight but
machines were now with the Staters. The Quartermaster-
General in the south evidently did not see the necessity for
concentrating on Dublin and consequently did not forward
explosives when requested; we would have to wait until the
Chief of Staff reached us.
The Provisional Government met at Leinster House on 27
September and an Act was rushed through, setting up secret
military courts and thereby giving the officers commanding
districts power to inflict the death penalty on our men cap-
tured with arms. I was anxious that a fitting reply should be
made and had ordered all units in the Command to plan a
successive series of attacks to take place the night after the
Bill was passed, but the attacks did not materialize; instead
posts were merely sniped at the same night.
However, a proclamation was being prepared, outlawing
the Provisional Government and declaring them traitors to
the Irish Republic.
Six or seven miles outside of Dublin the mountains begin. For
thirty miles they are twelve to eighteen miles in breadth, run-
ning south to join the higher ranges beyond the Wicklow
border and stretching to the sea beyond the Bray river. Few
roads followed the valley running east. The winding road
built by the British after 1798 crossed the length of the chain.
Bogland; heather; gaping, useless land, nearly impassable in
winter; no forest, timber only along the lowering eastern
slopes of the pleasant valleys. Very few houses save in the
glens, Glenmalure, Glendasan, Glenmacnass; the western
edge unpeopled. Food dumps would have to be made, and
dug-outs for shelter. Using the mountains as a base, columns
could attack posts in the neighbourhood of Dublin and inter-
rupt communications. Small wireless sets would be needed to
keep touch between columns. We had few men in Wicklow
and adjacent Kildare; the work should fall on South County
Dublin, but the scheme was never developed.
Sean Lehane, in charge of Donegal, was hard pressed and
was instructed to attempt to make his way to the midlands, to
Meath or Westmeath. His column started off, harried and
weakened.
The column in South County Dublin suffered heavily yet it
had to be replenished and when we sent men there we knew
they would not last long. Boys were sent out from the city
when it was difficult for them to find houses to sleep in. When
a boy left us he had a slim chance. The area in a circle around
Dublin had never been properly organized in the Tan fight; it
was late to begin now when there was little support, but it
could have been done. Well-led columns of city and country
men would have given work to men on the run and have
drawn off Dublin garrisons. But the people as a whole were
hostile, and hostility was on the increase as the southern 'line'
was broken and Free State victories, doctored as carefully as
the old British reports, appeared in the press.
Dundalk was to be attacked by our men under Frank Aiken
commanding the Fourth Northern Division, the greater part
of which was in Ulster. Undecided up to the attack on the
Courts, he had protested in person to Mulcahy, who sent
him back with promises. Later, Mulcahy's men came as
friends to Dundalk and captured Aiken's barracks through a
breach of faith, and he and his officers were arrested and
imprisoned in Dundalk jail, but the jail wall was blown in
and he and many others escaped. He attacked and recaptured
the barracks, blowing up the lower portions of the building
with mines. In fifteen minutes the well-timed operation had
resulted in the capture of the entire garrison of three hundred,
and of rifles for some four hundred men. Shortly afterwards
the IRA evacuated Dundalk, which was then reoccupied by
Free State troops, and our present operation was to rescue
our prisoners again in Dundalk jail.
I left Dublin to inspect divisions in the north. A girl drove
me in her car. Twenty miles from Carrickmacross she ran
into the shafts of an ass-drawn cart. The radiator was a
wreck. I obtained buckets of water from cottages along the
roadside and filled up frequently. Our trail was a watery one.
Coming out of a house with a bucket of water I saw two
armed Staters approach the car, but they passed it without
comment. Beyond Crossmaglen, across what was now known
as 'the border', I met some of our officers. They were not
doing anything, just moving about carrying rifles. I discussed
operations and outlined plans for the area; then hurried
towards Dundalk. I had heard that posts were to be attacked
by our men there that night.
Outside Dundalk I met Frank Aiken and Paddy Quinn, his
quartermaster, and other members of his staff. It was the
intention to attack various positions in the town as well as to
rescue prisoners. The officers for each specific operation were
present, most of them young boys. Frank Aiken puffed slowly
at his pipe. His quiet brown eyes glanced over operations
maps; he held up a finger to emphasize points. The officers
received instructions, asked questions, made suggestions,
then outlined their plan of action. They seemed well trained,
eager, capable of responsibility without much supervision.
That alone was cheering, and a change to Dublin where we
had clerked away without much prospect of seeing plans
realized.
Aiken, Paddy Quinn and I made our way across country to
the outskirts of the town. We waited for the noise of the first
explosion which would be the signal to move up to action
headquarters. Rain drizzled for hours, soon we were wet
through. After two hours standing in the shelter of a wall we
felt that the prisoners had not been able to co-operate; yet the
attack might still take place, or the Staters might locate some
of our small parties.
'I wish we could dry ourselves,' I said. 'I'm wet through.'
'There's no friendly house near here that I know of,' said
Aiken.
'Let's try that one,' I said, pointing to a house with a
garden, on the far side of the muddy lane. A gravel path led
through flowers strongly scented after the rain.
'We're Staters,' said Aiken, as he tapped the knocker.
There were lights in the upper rooms. After a little delay, a
man, in shirt and trousers, opened the door slowly. 'Hello; is
there anything wrong?'
'We're officers from the barracks,' I said. 'We'd like to
shelter if we may.'
'Certainly; you're welcome. Come in and hang up your
coats. What brings you out on a night like this?'
Snipers; they've been bothering our sentries.'
We sat down near the embers of the fire. He blew the coals
with a brass-bound bellows. 'Yes, we've heard them often
enough; they keep us awake at nights.' He called to his wife.
She came downstairs, a pleasing fair-haired woman. 'You
must be hungry,' she said.
'Well, we are,' said Aiken, 'to tell you the truth.'
She prepared a good cold supper for us. We were very
hungry and we ate thankfully while our host talked to us. He
was an engineer on the railway; the talk veered towards rail-
ways, the destruction of communications. He told us of
bridges blown up, and of the armoured train in Dundalk; he
drew diagrams.
'Are you a stranger here?' he asked.
'Yes,' I replied, 'I'm not long in Dundalk.'
Later they went to bed, but said we could remain at the fire
as long as we wished, to be sure to close the door when we
left. We thanked them for their hospitality.
'Do you think he believes we're Staters, Frank?' I asked.
He drew on his pipe; he slowly puffed out a thin length of
smoke. 'I think he does.'
'I'm sure he doesn't,' said Paddy Quinn, 'but he won't
attempt to leave the house.'
We sat and talked until morning. Our men, Frank said,
frequently sniped from across the border when hard pressed
by the Staters. The people on the other side were more
friendly. The border was patrolled on that side by the Royal
Ulster Constabulary. The Staters co-operated with the Ulster
police to round up Republicans; there was a mutual exchange
of prisoners. At dawn we closed the door and left the house.
We were crossing a road outside the town when Paddy Quinn
said: 'Drop down quick--Staters.' We lay down. 'Where?' I
asked. 'Around that bend,' he said; 'I don't think they saw
us.' They had probably heard our men moving to and fro in
the night-time and had thrown out picquets to cut off
stragglers. There was little cover; we had revolvers only. We
crossed a large field, but though we saw the picquet, six men,
they did not see us.
I found that the division as centred around Monaghan was
not doing anything, but as I was due to attend a meeting of
the Executive to be held near the Knockmealdown mountains
on the Cork border, I had little time to spend there.
I obtained a car and a driver, and plotted our route on my
maps to avoid all the Free State posts I knew of; I was not
sure of the areas outside the Command but we could always
avoid towns by taking the by-roads. A boy of seventeen, the
son of a Dundalk lawyer, who wanted to join a South Dublin
column, came with me; he had a .32 automatic with six
rounds. I had a .45 revolver. The driver was unarmed. The
Dundalk boy was slovenly in appearance as if he was attempt-
ing to break away from home by a disorganized, dirty
exterior. He had read widely. His vocabulary was as lengthy
and abstruse as his browsing amongst books; Latin words
rumbled sonorously. We talked of books and school life whilst
our eyes strayed to either side of the road, but it remained
mostly with the driver to watch for troops. We passed
through Co. Cavan into Westmeath without meeting any
enemy. At the entrance to a village near the foot of the Slieve
Bloom mountains we saw two lorry loads of Free State
soldiers approaching. just then we saw a rough lane which
had not been marked on the map. We turned slowly up the
lane, increased the speed of the car, crossed the ford of a river,
and by a series of by-paths reached the main road again
beyond the village. I knew the by-roads from Offaly onwards,
through the mountains of north Tipp where I had often
cycled, till we could see the straight height of the Galtees
rising massive from what looked like plains, and the
Comeraghs joining the sky on the south-east. The enemy did
not seem to be active around south Tipperary and the people
whom we met were as staunch as ever.
My dog Moss was the first to scent me as I crossed the
fields to Tincurry. He pawed me and wagged his tail till I
feared it would fall off. Mrs. Tobin and Eva came out at his
wild barking. 'And how is every inch of you?' Mrs. Tobin
asked, shaking hands. 'Sure we never doubted but that we'd
see you again.'
It was pleasant to munch sweet apples in the orchard and
to look up old nooks with Eva. Rhododendron bushes were all
around; Mrs. Tobin had stories about individual trees. 'We
knew you'd get through,' she said, 'but we thought you'd
never come.' Fighting always seemed a distant interlude in
the peace of Tincurry.
We moved down to the Knockmealdown mountains for the
Executive meeting. Liam Deasy in charge of the First
Southern, Seamus Robinson of the Second, were in a house
further down beyond a bend of the Suir. Between them they
controlled more than the province of Munster: that area was
still intact as a fighting force. I was ragged about Dublin and
the poor area I had. Here our men could move around at
their ease. The Staters had penetrated the south, some of the
towns, but the mountains were still ours.
Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff, came in; his face looked bonier
than usual. 'I wish you had kept your information about the
Staters' encircling move,' he said. 'We broke up our head-
quarters over it.' He had had a secure area in the mountains
of Ballyvourney; I had received information from an officer at
Stater Headquarters about an intended sweep of that area.
General Murphy was to be in charge: he had planned his
encircling advance carefully on a 1/2" map, but I knew his
troops would never be able to advance in that rugged country
as easily as he could on a map. I sent a special messenger to
Ballyvourney with the detailed plan for the round-up, expect-
ing that GHQ would be able to resist enemy penetration,
particularly as they would know of the exact disposition of the
forces pitted against them. Instead there had been a hurried
evacuation of the entire area on the arrival of my notes.
'Besides, the Staters didn't carry out the round-up,' said
Deasy.
Joe O'Connor from Dublin wore a hard hat. The hat
seemed funny to us in the mountains. The Connacht men
had not arrived. Frank Barrett came from Clare, mud
splashed to his hips, as the meeting began after six o'clock.
Communications were bad: GHQ seemed more out of touch
with Connacht than we were with our isolated fragments in
Donegal. It was decided to send a staff officer to the west to
co-ordinate activity there. Clare was in a bad state, or
according to Frank Barrett; he made a poor mouth, I
thought. His men had to dump their rifles in some battalions
as they had no ammunition. Joe O'Connor and I laughed
when some of the officers furnished their reports. The
Northern and Eastern Command existed more on paper than
in any other way; the Fourth Northern was the only division
that had any cohesion. We had little ammunition, practically
no explosives, but there was a slow improvement: areas had
begun to wake up, yet areas with twenty times our resources
in men and arms were complaining and more pessimistic.
Billy Pilkington arrived from Sligo next day. His area had
done a good share of fighting; he seemed confident and
assured. He gave me more hope than any of the others.
The south was to disband its large columns. We suggested
the southern men should equip motor columns and mop up
posts in the midlands, or co-operate in sudden raids and
surprise attacks there, but that was not accepted.
A long haze of talk was brought up by a motion to ask
Eamon de Valera to form a government. We had acted with-
out consulting the political party; now, in difficulties, we were
again to give allegiance. Civil government could function in
the south and west, so the officers representing those areas
stated, and that would give a necessary background of sup-
port. It was agreed after a long discussion that the army
should proffer allegiance to de Valera, who would select a
Cabinet.
We each nominated two successors to take our places in
case of our arrest or our death so that the Executive Council
would be kept up to strength.
A question we were anxious to discuss, what to do when
the Free State began to execute our men, was not considered;
it was thought too remote a possibility.
We sat around a blazing turf-fire in the kitchen, in the
night-time, talking. Officers told of narrow escapes and mis-
haps; we related humorous incidents of the fighting, with a
laugh often to end our own drawbacks and defeats. We dis-
cussed officers and men. Great numbers of prisoners captured
had to be released; it would be too great an expense to feed
them. They immediately rejoined their units and fought
again.
Liam Lynch motioned to me, during a pause in the talk, to
move into another room, off the kitchen. We sat at a table, in
'the room' of the house; two candles gave us light.
'I'm thinking of moving to Dublin,' he said.
'It's about time; then you can fall back on the resources of
the south.'
I told him what headquarters in Dublin would be like.
'Can you arrange for a headquarters for me?' he asked. 'I
will bring a number of staff officers with me.'
'I'll do that, but if you remain together, you can't move
around much,' I said. 'It's best to have only your adjutant
with you.'
'That can't be helped. I'll be there soon. You make all the
arrangements, then I'll send you to Connacht.'
'That will be a relief. I'm tired of being a spare fountain
pen.'
'Do you remember North Cork,' he said, 'and the old
column? That was a good time and we didn't know it.'
Joe O'Connor and I left the Cahir valley and arrived in the
old South Tipp Brigade centre at Rosegreen. The Davins
were expecting us; many of my old friends gathered around
the fire in their kitchen. After we had drunk the inevitable
'drop of tay', they recalled incidents from the Tan fight,
trivial happenings, what we did or said, doings and sayings
we had long since forgotten, a trick of speech, a sudden anger
and a humorous jest in a tight corner. 'Musha, do you
remember,' someone would begin; then a roar of laughter
from the others. Bill Quirke had captured a 'ghost train' the
previous week near Cashel. A ghost train was an armoured
car on railway tracks, driven by a noiseless engine, to protect
the line. Bill had commandeered it. 'Then he brought the
prisoners down here for a few pints apiece.' It was good to be
back here again.
We slept in another house a few fields away and returned
in the morning. Joe O'Connor, an elderly married man, had
been promised slips of plants and trees in Rosegreen for his
city garden. He had already collected slips from Tincurry,
wrapped them in folds of paper at the back of the car, and
talked of them proudly. With a splash of holy water on our
foreheads, accompanied by many blessings, we started off.
We planned a return route and reached Dublin without
having to pass an enemy post. This could be utilized in future
for special messengers, I thought.
The meeting had shown me that there was no unified
operation plan for the whole of Ireland. No concerted action
would be taken, and the Staters would recruit and train an
army in the meantime. It looked as if we would be worn down
piecemeal, but men seemed to think that we could carry out
much the same tactics as we had used against the British.
During the first month no definite operations orders had been
issued and in many instances Republicans awaited attack.
The offensive spirit was negatived and in areas where men
had carried through a minor campaign of guerilla warfare
against the British, and were now capable of developing a
system of semi-open warfare, their potentialities were
ignored. Slowly the resistance retrogressed back from some
semi-open fighting to disintegrated guerilla war in which
smaller and smaller columns and groups took part. Ireland
would have been more partial to us if we had been defeated
after heavy fighting, but this scattering of energy, this
indefiniteness, this decentralization of action potentialities,
meant that control became increasingly difficult and that
co-ordinated action was impossible. To the country at large a
fight was being waged by bands of men who might be worn
down little by little, or their morale lessened by executions.
Continual guerilla warfare, with its oft-repeated instructions
to safeguard one's line of retreat, had worn down an offensive
spirit and undoubtedly it affected the outlook. Once in a
while a sustained fight was needed to reassure ourselves.
Raids became more frequent in Dublin, as did hold-ups on
the streets. The CID, with women searchers, were fond of
that peculiar form of raid known as the 'sit-down raid' in
which they entered a house quietly, unknown even to the
neighbours. They locked all the family in a room at the back;
then they sat down inside for a day or two, enjoying the
freedom of the house as regards food, drink and souvenirs. All
callers were arrested, searched and put in with the family.
That type of raid was hard to guard against, though we did
attempt a series of warning signals that would tell us if the
house was being occupied, such as a front-room blind at a
certain angle, but it was not often successful.
The Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral from Maynooth in
October and instructed the clergy to read it from their
pulpits. It crystallized the random fulminations of the great
majority of the priests who were in favour of the treaty.
Sunday after Sunday their sermons had degenerated into
essays of political abuse. Now Republicans who continued to
carry and use arms against the State were deprived of the
Sacraments. This had little or no effect on the men but it
undoubtedly affected public opinion. Those people who sup-
ported the Republican movement resented the abuse of
clerical power to suit political ends, but Republicans already
had their minds made up, and despite the clergy, the press,
and the Provisional Government, their views remained
unchanged.
Arrests continued, upsetting attempts at organization, but
fresh officers stepped into the vacant places. Isolated groups
of our men had been rounded up by the Free State in Dublin
and neighbourhood, and individuals were murdered. This
continued. We had the names of the Free State officers
responsible for the murders but we were unable to catch
them. It had become increasingly difficult to move around
Dublin, yet we had to hold staff meetings, interview officers
from the country, and visit each others' headquarters.
Sean Dowling, our Director of Operations, was also
Director of Organization and Jail Escapes. He still came to
Humphreys every day as it saved couriers for communication
purposes. Specific operations could not be easily planned by a
Command officer as none of our units were certainly capable
of carrying them out. I had to meet officers from the country,
as personal contact was essential, and then I could outline
operations which might be carried out. Dowling was trying to
control despatches and letters for jails. Everyone who had a
relative or friend in prison was anxious to send in news in a
surreptitious note, but this meant that the few soldiers or
military police who were friendly were over-burdened with
notes. He tried to arrange that only letters bearing certain
marks would be taken by friendly soldiers but his efforts were
being frustrated as quickly as he built up a reliable system.
For a time letters to be delivered were sent to him, and his
remarks as he read them, to cut down the in-going post, were
piquant enough.
One of our principal objectives should have been an attack
on Mountjoy prison, as the Four Courts garrison, Rory
O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Andy Cooney, the Plunketts, and
many of the staff were there, together with a number of other
experienced officers; and men arrested in the Dublin Brigade
area some time after the fighting in O'Connell Street had
ended.
We handed the problem of Mountjoy over to the engineer-
ing department. We wanted large supplies of explosives, a few
simultaneous breaches in the surrounding walls, and some
storming parties to cover escaping prisoners in the exercise
yards and to hold the Staters in the Joy. A delicate timing
from inside and outside, with good transport to get the
prisoners away, would be needed. The Dublin Brigade was
very short of explosives, and our GHQ in Cork had not sent
us on supplies, nor had we been able to get them from our
dumps in the Fourth Northern.
Already there had been an attempt at escape from inside
the Joy. Some guns had been smuggled in. They were not
taking any chances of a leakage; I had not been told about the
plan. But at the last moment something unforeseen had
occurred. The rush was made, some of the guards were killed
and wounded, but the heavy gates of 'C' wing swung back.
Our men were driven to cells by rifle fire, and Peadar Breslin
was killed, Peadar who had remained behind with me in the
Courts to set fire to the rifle stocks and the piled heap of our
arms. Andy Cooney undertook full responsibility for the
escape attempt and it seemed that the Governor, Phil
Cosgrave, brother of the Staters' Willie Cosgrave, stopped
the troops from firing on the prisoners. They were marched
into the yard, surrounded by machine-guns and riflemen, but
the Governor walked up and down between troops and
prisoners until quiet was restored.
Our engineers began to tunnel into the jail from one of a
row of small houses close to the walls. The work was slow,
fatiguing, as there could be little or no relief for the men
engaged on the task. Girls brought them food daily, but the
neighbourhood was actively hostile. From inside the jail other
tunnels were sunk to meet the incoming diggers.
Sheila Humphreys was a very active member of Cumann na
mBan. Before dawn she often started off with her paint
brushes to join companions who decorated the dead wall
space of the city with slogans in coloured paints. Dressed in
uniform she attended burials of our boys at the Republican
plot in Glasnevin. She looked after our wounded, moving
them from place to place; found safe houses for our men to
sleep in; guided strangers through the city, and carried
despatches. That was routine Cumann na mBan activity.
One morning we heard that she had been arrested. Madge
and I quickly parcelled up our papers and I was ready to
move at once in case of a raid. Late in the evening Sheila
came home, bubbling over with joy. She had been arrested
with other girls that morning while they had been painting
their favourite site for our exterior decorations, the boundary
wall of Trinity College. Troops in an armoured car surprised
and arrested them. A girl had painted the inside of the car
before they reached Portobello, the Staters' headquarters.
They were locked into a large whitewashed room, but two
girls had managed to hide their paint and brushes. Here was
a grand chance. A room in the enemy's headquarters. They
worked quickly and soon the walls jumped with green paint:
CALL OFF THE MURDER GANGS, ---------
FIGHT FAIR. DON'T TORTURE OUR PRISONERS.
THE IRISH REPUBLIC LIVES. Hours later some officers
came into the room. The girls had evidently been forgotten.
'Why, what brought you here?' one of the officers asked in
surprise. 'If you look at the walls you'll soon find out,' said a
girl. They were released, and Sheila brought back some car-
tridges which she had stripped from the feed to the Vickers
gun whilst inside the armoured car.
I received a report which had come from a friendly source
in one of the Staters' barracks. Sheila and other Cumann na
mBan girls had tried to remove a wounded prisoner from a
city hospital. They had been too late, however, as the Staters
had already taken the man to jail. The girls had been armed
with revolvers, and Sheila was mentioned by name in the
report.
I spoke to her about this with diffidence as I did not con-
sider myself of importance, but my knowledge of men in the
by-ways of the Command was peculiar to myself; all I pos-
sessed, then, was an experienced staff officer's knowledge,
and maybe a certain influence with good men, and if I became
a casualty that information which could not be added to
paper would be lost. Documents had to be kept for my suc-
cessor, and there were others which had to be referred to
continually, yet I had the habit, I knew, of keeping too many
documents. I was reluctant to destroy our files. Whether that
was due to a collector's instinct or not, I do not know, but
when I went through my papers with the intention of destroy-
ing them, I found a great number to excuse their continued
existence.
One night late I was working in the study when there was a
loud sharp knock at the door. I took my gun from beside my
pen on the table and listened. The knock was repeated. Sheila
ran downstairs quickly. 'I'll open,' she said. 'It must be the
Staters.'
'No, I'll go myself,' I said.
I cocked the hammer of the Webley, unlocked the door,
threw it open, and waited to one side in the darkness of the
hall. A figure walked in, brushed beside me and laughed.
'I frightened you,' she said. It was Mary Comerford, with
a despatch from the north. I was frightened for I had intended
to fire, when she laughed.
Newspapers wrote romance about 'fierce battles' in which
there were often no wounded or no objectives gained.
I had been instructed by Liam Lynch to capture and
execute the editors of the Irish Independent and the Irish Times,
but I did not carry out his order. Undoubtedly they were
doing the enemy's work by their misinterpretation of events
and by their wilful perversion of facts. They were inflaming
public opinion and ignoring the more brutal side of the Free
State methods: the murder of prisoners, the work of their
murder gangs, and the consistent ill-treatment and torture of
prisoners to extract information. Yet I considered that the
Free State Cabinet should be first dealt with.
Why not the Cabinet or a few bishops? They were more
nearly responsible for the direction of the offensive against us.
When I first came to Dublin I was willing to have the
Cabinet shot; I would have gone on the job myself with a few
officers, but Liam lynch had interfered. We could have
wiped out the Free State Cabinet but it would not be worth
while beginning anything like that unless we could see it
through. Now that the Staters had built up an army it would
not have the same effect. We would stand over any shooting
and accept responsibility. The fight, such as it was now,
would then turn into a hunt for individuals; the other side
would shoot prisoners of lesser rank and it would degenerate
into gang war. In the Command we had decided on one line
of action. I had sent out orders that any Stater officer who
was responsible for the torture or murder of a prisoner should
be captured, tried and executed; if unable to be captured he
was liable to be shot on sight. I obtained the lists of such
officers from the different areas, with statements of the
offences. Their names and sentences were to be printed and
circulated at once and painted on the walls of the city so that
the people should be prepared for the executions that would
follow and understand why they had been incurred. We had
the movements of the Cabinet under observation and
intended to arrest two of them.
The newspapers had been consistently hostile. In effect
there was a strict censorship, but in the majority of cases no
additional pressure was required. Our intelligence depart-
ment intercepted and forwarded me a communication which
was sent out to censors and the editors of papers:
MILITARY CENSORSHIP
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
1. The Army must always be referred to as the "Irish
Army", the "National Army", "National Troops", or
simply "troops".
2. The Irregulars must not be referred to as the "Executive
Forces", nor described as "forces" or "troops". They are
to be called "bands" or "bodies of men.
3. Irregular leaders are not to be referred to as of any rank,
such as "Commandant", etc., or are not to be called
officers.
4. No news as to movements of troops may be published.
5. No news may be published as to movements of newly
enrolled members of the army, movements of foodstuffs,
or trains, or transports of equipment for army purposes.
6. Description of a military operation must not be published
while the operation is still incomplete, for instance, an
encircling movement.
7. Articles or letters as to treatment of the Irregular
prisoners may not be published.
8. The Censors are not to insert words of their own in any
article submitted to them. Their business is to cancel
what is objected to. They may, however, propose to sub-
stitute words or phrases, such as "Irregulars" for
"Republicans", "fired at" for "attacked", "seized" for
"commandeered", "kidnapped" for "arrested", "en-
rolled" for "enlisted".
9. Letters, news or articles dealing with proposals for peace,
or negotiations with the Irregulars, should not be passed
without submitting them to the Chief Censor.
10. The term "Provisional Government" should not be used.
The correct term is "Irish Government", or simply "the
Government".
11. All G.H.Q. Bulletins from here should bear the date and
time of issue.
12. Escapes of prisoners must not be published.
By Order
Army Publicity Department
Beggar's Bush, Dublin
I forwarded notices to the Dublin newspapers giving them
the option of handing their papers over to the Stater Military
Council, or of printing at the head of their articles or news:
'As passed or directed by Censor'. Also they were instructed
that for every use of the word 'Irregulars' instead of
Republicans, they would be fined five pounds, the bill to be
forwarded weekly and collected whenever we thought neces-
sary. Replies were forthcoming from two editors asking what
they were to do, as they said they were compelled to publish
the information as issued from Portobello barracks, but the
correspondence was interrupted by another event.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NOVEMBER--DECEMBER 1922
I HAD been six weeks in Humphreys, and that was a long
time as time was valued by us. Madge had been looking for
another house for me but it was difficult to find a really
suitable place which fulfilled our many demands. When I was
away on a tour of inspection in the north the house was
raided, but my bedroom was not touched. That blind spot
reassured Mrs. Humphreys; she thought the Staters did not
know of the room and her mind was at ease about it. How-
ever, I was sceptical; yet I tried to think that the room was
safe when she talked about it to me, but my instinct fought
against being boxed up during a raid as I was determined to
fight it out.
Liam Lynch sent word that he would come to Dublin
within a few days and bring some staff officers with him. He
then intended to send me to the west of Ireland to co-ordinate
the activities of the four divisions in Connacht. I was glad of
this because I was tired of acting in the capacity of a third-
class clerk issuing orders which would not be carried out. In
the west, at any rate, I could have an opportunity of taking
part in operations. I also received a note from Erskine
Childers, who should have been in charge of publicity in
Dublin, to say he would soon leave for the city to assist
Eamon de Valera, and was looking forward to the change.
Co. Cork away at the south of the island was no place for a
headquarters. Our men had more actual control there, but
The GHQ Staff would be more inclined to think in terms of
the southern divisions.
Mrs. Humphreys had been severe about my clothes, in a
gracious way. 'They're unbecoming to an Assistant Chief of
Staff,' she said to me a few times, 'and I hope you will permit
me, dear boy, to get you a suit.'
Three or four members of our staff were not drawing any
salary, though others were being paid regularly. Money had
no value now that I could see, save to buy cigarettes or books,
but I had very little time to read and no other expenses
beyond the departmental. Eventually I was persuaded to
inspect suit patterns and to visit Lehane's for a fitting.
I had agreed to sleep away from the house so that I could
arrange about the suit, but I had first to attend a meeting of
some Dublin battalion officers beyond Clontarf Park and was
able to talk to them about their difficulties and mine. They
did not complain, I noticed, although their units were being
hard pressed, and I tried to read their reflections of my eager-
ness to get planned specific operations in Dublin. They were
a good crowd of men, I could sense, and whatever they felt
about the shortcomings of myself and our staff they hid under
a friendly comradeship. I returned late that night to
Humphreys, although I was to have stayed the night in
another house so as to have a fitting next day.
The entrance door to the room where I slept at the end of a
passage was concealed so that the passage appeared to ter-
minate at the clothes rack. Chintz hangings covered the rack
entrance; coats, scarfs and furs hung from hooks; my door
was opened by pressing a hidden spring.
At about half past seven next morning, 4 November, Sheila
tapped hard at my door. I was awake at once as my habit was
when anything unusual was to happen.
'Earnan, the house is surrounded; the Staters are coming
in the gate. Mama saw them outside as she was coming back
from Mass. Are you all right?'
Excitement was mounting in her voice but she was able to
control it.
'Thank you, Sheila, I'm all right. It's come at last.'
'Beannacht De leat anois, Earnan,' she said.
I shielded a match with my hand for I did not want a light
to show at the back of the house through the sepia blind,
while I placed my Smith and Wesson and a hand-grenade
near my safety razor on the dressing-table. I heard heavy
knocks at the front door and the sound of feet going down-
stairs, whilst I dressed in the darkness, putting my trousers
and coat over pyjamas. My hand was shaking but my mind
was clear as I moved the .45 cartridges in rows of six on the
table beside the bed. Then I put a cardboard file of my most
important papers on a chair. I would bring them with me if I
broke through, or burn them in a bucket which I kept in the
room for that purpose. I knelt on one knee to pray for
courage; then I sat on the end of the bed, revolver in my
hand, listening in the darkness.
Why the Tain should come into my mind I don't know;
maybe the preparation for fight evoked a memory, but I was
trying to remember what Ferdia wore on the last day of the
fight at the Ford.
Outside of his brown-leathern, well-sewed kilt he put a huge
goodly flagstone, the size of a millstone, the shallow stone of
adamant which he had brought from Africa. He put his solid,
very deep iron kilt of twice-molten iron over the huge goodly
flagstone. On his left side he hung his curved battle sword,
which would cut a hair against the stream with its keenness
and sharpness. On the arch-slope of his back he hung his
massive, fine buffalo shield whereon were fifty bosses.
And when Cuchulain saw the feats Ferdia had performed,
he said to Laeg his charioteer: 'If defeat be my lot this day, do
thou prick me on and taunt me and speak evil to me, so that
the more my spirit and anger shall rise in me.'
There was nothing very splendid about a Smith and Wesson,
yet I was fond of it as a good piece of mechanism, and my one
grenade was not very warlike to look at, but it was the most
effective weapon against a crowd of men, especially when they
were bunched together.
I could hear voices in the distance that were so dim that it
might be imagination as I tried to keep my breathing quiet.
Voices, footsteps coming upstairs. Rooms were searched.
Men came to Dick's room, then Sheila's, the bathroom, and
they were in Miss O'Rahilly's where the corridor turned at
right angles in my direction. I followed the sounds along the
far corridor. There was now no such thing as time, for the
tension of my mind neglected it and my feelings closed in and
out as on a melodion. I was unsure now of myself. I did not
know if I could draw on a reserve of courage, but my will to
fight seemed to me intact. This trapped feeling and my use of
the room made me feel unreal to myself, and therefore
uneasy.
They were in Mrs. Humphrey's room, now, at the end of
the corridor. There was a blurred sound of talk. I could hear
her voice but could not make out the words. Men came down
the corridor, tapping walls with the butt ends of rifles, as if
they were searching for recesses; by this time search parties
must have been aware that many houses held concealed
rooms and dumps for papers. Perhaps that banging was
routine now on a search. Would they notice the door? I
should have padded my room, I thought; I had suggested it
often to myself but had neglected to do anything further. Why
didn't I have it padded to deaden a blow?
I heard Mrs. Humphreys say: 'Oh, that's a clothes press,'
as the curtains were drawn back.
A rifle butt crashed against the wooden partition.
A man's voice said: 'It's hollow.'
My heart beats were now so loud in the darkness that I felt
they must be heard outside, and I pressed one hand hard
against my heart to keep it quiet, but it seemed to be now on
top of my tongue. I had moved to one side of the door to avoid
bullets, and had already shifted the dressing table to make a
slight barricade.
Rifle butts crashed in shattering echoes; a panel began to
light; a piece of wood fell into my room. I thought of firing
through the door, releasing the spring and rushing out, but
Mrs. Humphreys might be behind the Staters. Another panel
was smashed in, but those outside could not see anything yet
in the darkness. They had not located the hidden spring. I
heard the men breathing hard as they struck in the narrow
corridor. I would have to fire. I could not wait for a grenade
to be thrown in. A heavy crash; the door swung open and a
hand appeared. I fired twice; once at the hand, then below
and to the right at what might have been the body, and there
was a cry of pain. I heard a rush of feet, but I was afraid to
fire again as some of the family might be in my way.
As I came out of the room I saw the attackers scrambling
out of the hall like frightened sheep. I saw a chin edged out
from a door. Another of them, I thought as I fired. There was
a thud. I fired again close to the corner and rushed forward.
Miss O'Rahilly lay on the floor, blood on either side of her
cheeks. She was pale but she did not moan. I had shot her
through the chin.
'0 my God, I've shot you; that's terrible,' I said. 'I thought
I'd got a Stater and it's you.'
Mrs. Humphreys helped Miss O'Rahilly into her room.
'Never mind her now,' Mrs. Humphreys said to me as I
remained near the bed, feeling helpless and distressed. 'She's
not badly hurt. Think of yourself,' and she smiled. Mrs.
Humphreys was as calm and as sweet faced as when pouring
out tea at breakfast. Miss O'Rahilly tried to smile also.
That unnerved and worried me as I passed up and down
the corridor, thinking of her wound, cursing myself for snap-
ping so quickly and for the momentary pleasure that I had in
hitting a mark. That was a bad beginning, to have one
casualty already in the family, and through my fault. It was
terrible that such a thing should happen. The sharp tinkle of
bullets splintering glass in the top rooms made me think of
the situation. Firing had been going on for some time past,
with fire directed at the house from all sides.
Sheila was standing at her door. 'You hit one,' she said,
'but you fired too low. They're brave, aren't they? And you
should have seen them run away.'
I heard a noise of men downstairs and a confused shouting
of orders. I put the gun in my coat pocket and gripped the
serrations of the Mills hand-grenade. As I went down the
stairs I could see the Staters had crowded into the hall, and as
they opened fire I pulled the pin, held the grenade whilst I
counted, and lobbed it into them, and then flung myself on
the stairs to avoid splinters of metal. There was a stampede
and a rush for the front door. Men huddled, crouching as
they ran. I did not fire as they were too frightened, but I
watched their panic in a strange kind of detached wonder-
ment. Soon the hall was empty, only the unexploded grenade
remained below in the centre of the floor. Evidently the cap
was defective; my most effective weapon had failed me.
On the stairs I picked up a rifle someone had dropped.
There were ten cartridges, one in the breech. I went into
Sheila's room.
'They're hiding behind the walls outside,' she said, 'and
some must be in the houses opposite.'
Her bronze-gold hair was plaited round the back of her
head. Her blue eyes shone with excitement; they matched the
colour of her dress with its foamy white collar.
The house was about thirty feet from the front gate and two
storeys high. Behind were flower beds, a rock garden, the
tennis court and fruit trees. A wall over six feet high sur-
rounded the grounds. Beyond the wall to the right were
houses, three-storeyed, red-brick houses. To the left was an
open field with bushes close to the wall. I looked through the
windows but could not see anyone. I opened a window and
leaned out.
'Mind,' she said; 'don't lean out too far, they'll hit you.'
Suddenly a bunch of men rushed through the front gate and
across the lawn, as covering fire was opened up from different
sides, but the only result was the sound of glass being drilled
and smashed, the cracking of glass and the thud as bullets hit
off the walls. I heard men shout 'Surrender!'
As I fired I shouted: 'No surrender here!'
This was not going to be another Four Courts. I was an
individual soldier again, responsible for myself, and there was
no Headquarters Staff to make decisions. I fired quickly with
my rifle. On the lawn a man lay wriggling and twitching; his
comrades dashed back through the gate. The wounded man
lay still.
'He's done for, I think, poor devil,' I said to Sheila.
Now that it was under fire the house seemed to be full of
windows, and as I searched around for the best place to keep
the women safe, one room seemed as safe as another. The
high front wall masked the ground floor windows and though
I should have liked to repel attackers from downstairs, I had
to use the upper floor for observation. I went in to see Miss
O'Rahilly. She must have been in pain and her swollen
mouth did not allow her to talk, but she did not complain.
Her eyes followed me as I watched her but I could not see any
reproach in them.
'I've telephoned for the ambulance,' said Mrs. Humphreys,
'but I don't know if they will let it through or not. Now we're
all right here, so don't worry about us.'
The noise outside might have been typewriters clicking.
The very presence of Mrs. Humphreys seemed to banish rifle
fire; one could sit down and drink tea slowly in such an
atmosphere. Mrs. Humphreys had normally a preoccupied
air as she went about her daily tasks; she was probably
praying, I had often thought. Now she was more business-like
as she had a patient to look after. Bullets seemed a minor
matter in the amenities of this household; no one appeared to
be disturbed by what was now happening, and an immediate
future of storming parties was faced with resolute but utterly
unemphasized courage so that I would be left free to make a
fighting decision. I thought of this serene firm strength as I
went downstairs.
I was going out to fight in the open as the women were
endangered by my presence, and it was not fair remaining in
the house. I went through the rooms downstairs trying to see
where the enemy were. I stripped the hand-grenade in the
hall; there was a slight dinge in the cap, that meant some-
thing wrong with the nitroglycerine. The grenade was useless.
On the waxed floor of a passage I found a revolver; two car-
tridges had been fired. I reloaded and put it in my trousers'
pocket. My armament was slowly increasing, and as I
searched for further weapons I met Mrs. Humphreys on the
stairs. She was quietly indignant.
'I tried to get to the gate for an ambulance,' she said, 'but
they fired on me; most vicious the bullets were, most vicious,
and I had to roll over and over to get back to the door.'
'You shouldn't have done that,' I said. 'Now you are taking
unnecessary risks, after all your good advice to me.'
Outside the drawing room window I saw three soldiers
crouching against the wall. I rechecked the rifle, examined my
Smith and Wesson, put the hand-grenade in my pocket as it
might again serve to break a charge, and got ready to go out.
I slung the rifle over my shoulder and carried my revolver in
my right hand. If the Staters would not allow a woman to
walk to the gate, there was less chance of any respect being
shown to them as the attack progressed, for by this time
reinforcements must have arrived. There was no reason why I
should remain in the house. I opened the back door and ran
quickly round by the trellis-work where the rose trees clung.
'Put them up, you bastards,' I shouted.
The green coats faced me, swinging round in surprise with
their rifles as I pressed my revolver trigger. A man's peaked
cap spun off; then all three ran around the corner making for
the gate. I did not fire at them again. This running away was
disconcerting, as they were no longer an enemy or a danger to
me once they showed their bent backs.
Suddenly I thought of Miss O'Rahilly's precious lawn. She
had trowelled assiduously at daisy roots and it was a grave
offence to cross it; couriers and my visitors had been com-
mented on adversely for an unnecessary short cut. By now the
soft green had been torn and badly pocked by men stamped-
ing over it. I laughed, thinking of what she would say under
other circumstances at the abuse of the sacred lawn. Bullets
whizzed around as I stood on the grass looking for a mark to
fire at. It was annoying, I could not see anyone, but I used the
rifle and fired back at what might be the sources of these wasp
sounds.
A heavy rock struck me full force in the back.
I felt a cold twinge in my stomach and my knees bent
forward, but I did not fall. I must not let them know I have
been hit, I thought, as I tried to straighten myself. I walked
towards the next house beyond the garden wall, firing with
the rifle held against my thigh.
I was hit again, in the right shoulder with a sledge
hammer, and I fell on the grass. The pain was great. That
must be bone pain, I said to myself, and it's a right bad
smack. I must try to make it appear that I stumbled. I fired
from my left shoulder, but my rifle hand was becoming numb,
the fingers seemed thick and slow to move on to the trigger. I
was hit again in the back. I found myself on my knees; my
legs were very shaky when I stood up. My back felt wet.
Blood was glueing my right hand to the rifle stock. All my
bodily movements were slowed down as if I was listening to
messages being sent to muscles which could no longer obey. I
clung for support to the rifle strap over my left shoulder as if it
would draw up my knees and straighten me, but it weighed
me down.
I tried to run for the back door through a burst of fire.
Something struck the rifle and my back at the same time. I
saw red flashes before my eyes as I fell against the wall. The
pain made me moan. Then I was inside trying to smash a
window to stick the rifle through, but I couldn't break the
glass and I was whimpering at my own futility.
I called: 'Sheila' . . . no reply . . . 'Sheila.'
'Yes, Earnan, I'm coming.' She was trying to cut away my
jacket as she said: 'A great big hole in your back and blood all
over you.'
Her face became a haze as I lay on the floor. It felt like a
harrow. I was lying on spear points and my lips were numb. I
was trying hard to tell her that my back hurt, and to destroy
my papers, but I could not speak.
Later I heard her say: 'Here come the Staters. They cer-
tainly took their time.'
I could see green uniforms around me. One soldier took up
the rifle which lay beside me. He ejected an empty cartridge
case and pointed the muzzle at my body, and then, very
slowly to me, I saw the bolt move forward and heard the snap
as he turned down the bolt. It was as though I were looking at
carp through a glass tank, the slow swish of tail, the dignified
vacuous mouth and the blurred outline. Another soldier
pushed the muzzle towards the ceiling and snatched the rifle
from him.
'That's O'Malley,' he said, 'and you'd better leave him
alone while I'm here.'
He stood, rifle in hand, astride my legs whilst more green
coats crowded in.
Mrs. Humphreys came and put her arms under my head.
That was good; it took the weight off my back and eased the
pain.
A doctor with a large bag came in; he looked rather fussy.
'Has there been a burglary?' he asked, but no one answered
him. He worked on my back and shoulders and I felt sleepily
at ease. A priest arrived and asked for cotton wool and
candles; candles that had previously been blessed on
Candlemas for such an occasion were lighted. He gave me
Holy Communion and he anointed my five senses: my eyes,
my nose, my lips, my ears, my hands; and wiped away the
sacred oil with wool. I must have been given whiskey for as I
talked. I heard Sheila say: 'You're certainly the most lively
wounded man I've ever seen.' Then came an argument in
which she centred as she had dumped the two revolvers,
determined that the small arms would be available for some
of our men in the future, but the insistent invaders led her
away.
Sheila and Mrs. Humphreys were ordered to put on their
coats as they were under arrest, and it was all my fault. Mrs.
Humphreys wanted me removed to a hospital and I heard
them both argue with the Stater officers about bringing me to
Vincent's. 'He must be brought to Vincent's. Goodness
knows what would happen to him in a military hospital.' The
officers refused. Thcy had instructions to bring me to
Portobello barracks, their general headquarters.
I was in the air on a stretcher and Mrs. Humphreys was
tucking a large lion-skin rug over my blanket. 'Goodbye now,
dear boy,' she said, 'agus beannacht De ort. ' I tried to thank her
but I wasn't able.
The Pembroke ambulance was outside. I was lifted into it
on the stretcher; the escort climbed into their lorries. Far
away I heard a voice say: 'Go very slowly with the ambul-
ance, very slowly.'
After a time the ambulance halted in a barracks and I was
taken out.
'Wellington,' he replied.
Why Wellington, I thought; had not the officer said
Portobello? I was carried into a room and placed on a table.
A man in uniform trousers, but no tunic, looked at my
bandages.
'Still bleeding,' he said. 'Are you in great pain?' His eyes
were kind as he bent over me. Suddenly I was able to talk.
'I'm all right, thanks,' I said.
He rolled up my sleeve and punctured my arm.
'What's that?' I asked.
'Morphia, it will ease the pain.'
I felt very numb but I was conscious. I was carried out on
the stretcher. At the main gate where I was being placed in
the ambulance, two soldiers came up. 'That's him,' said one,
and they raised their rifles to their shoulders as if they were a
firing squad.
'Shoot away,' I said, 'and waste lead,' but the Red Cross
men put me on the ground and stood between them and their
target.
The eyes of one of the ambulance men looked sympathetic
so I asked him to make a dash for it if he could without
danger to himself. He nodded and did not reply.
I heard mention of a name, Portobello, and so I was in the
enemy headquarters at last.
I was in Portobello and a fog came, everything had hazy out-
lines except pain. I could not lie on my back or on my right
side, and when my dressings were changed my back seemed
to be torn open. One day I listened to a conference of
surgeons around the bed that seemed to slip in and out of
reality, whose voices came in and out of a vague distance. I
thought I recognized a face, that of Charlie McAuley, and I
tried hard to take part in the discussion, to speak to him.
How did he get in here; he was one of the few who were now
willing to take risks for our wounded and he was staunch. It
must be a dream, for Charlie would hardly be allowed in to
see me. I was lifted up in the bed. Then the precise voice of
Surgeon Barniville, who bent over me; a voice I remembered
from its dry concision at anatomy lectures in Cecilia Street.
'The case is hopeless,' I heard another say. Then a pleasant
voice: 'Hopeless', which I was able to identify from its deep
resonance and to track down between cross-sections of
hearing it hum 'The Wearing of the Green' as the owner
operated in Vincent's, and a jaunty tale of a mishap to a
jarvey at a race meeting. That was Johnny Mac. Then some-
one said: 'He'll live,' but who it was I could not make out.
A hospital orderly sat near my bed one night. 'I've an
evening paper that I kept for you. Would you like me to read
it?' It was a 'stop press' that had announced my death some
days ago. 'It's not often you can read out an account of a
man's death to him,' he said, laughing.
One morning there was evidently an attack on Portobello,
as excited soldiers armed with rifles rushed into our ward, but
they withdrew when occupants objected to their presence.
One night I felt an orderly working at my wrist. He was
trying to take off my gold wristlet watch. He had a mean face.
'I want to keep it safe for you,' he said, when I opened my
eyes suddenly on him, but I motioned him to leave the watch
alone; already my leather boots and my wallet had dis-
appeared in the same kind way.
A figure in uniform stood at the end of my bed and looked
at me for a long time. His face was in a dim haze. I could not
recognize the features. Later, one of the orderlies said in
respectful awe: 'The Chief of Staff, General MacMahon,
came in this evening to see you, and he said: "I hope he won't
die." '
The day never ended and the night was worse. Why, when
there was no sense of time with me, one part of twenty-four
hours should be more of a strain than another, I could not
then work out. Snatches of poetry sang in my mind as I tried
to rebuild entire verses; at times I was successful, more often I
filled in gaps with lines of my own. It was an achievement
when at last I was able to reconstruct
Who will go drive with Fergus now
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade
but my great triumph came when I could remember Villon's
Dame du ciel, regente terrienne
Emperiere des infernaux palus
My thoughts drifted slowly during the long days. At first I
thought darkness would never come, but the days passed. I
tried to make poems of things I had loved: mountains, rivers,
trees, books and people. I found myself mingling my lines
with those in a poem by Rupert Brooke, 'the rough male kiss
of blankets', and one of Padraig Pearse.
I tried to trace the development of Italian painting. Into
drifting thought moved images like the slow shuffling of a card
pack with an emphasis on some, as when the unskilled dealer
fumbled: Giotto, Masaccio, Andrea del Castagno,
Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, for I had known them for a
longer time. Masaccio and della Francesca were my fav-
ourites. They had a classic formalism, a ceremonial grace
which enhanced their figures, to stress, whatever their
subject, the human dignity and mystery of man. I could
almost reconstruct the colouring of some and the form of a
few, but line I could remember best, the scientific and
experimental line of the Florentines, but Holbein would
intrude, with Cezanne and the glowing flame of Van Gogh,
or the vigorous direct touch of Albrecht Durer. The imagina-
tive, visionary line of William Blake flowed in and out in
sinuous grace. Had I not carried a volume of Blake, Durer
and della Francesca around with me during the hard years; I
had studied them in many a strange background of mountain
or bog, and my mixed portfolio of reproductions, cut to fit my
pockets, had become frayed and crinkled, worn glossy
surfaces stuck with rain and sweat. I had met few people in
my wanderings who were interested in painting, and I expect
through dearth of discussion I was a jumble of unrelated facts
based on emotional values.
Free State wounded were in the ward, in the beds near to
mine; some of them moaned and cried. One boy kept crying
throughout the nights: 'Oh mother, mother.' Night seemed to
be the worst time for the wounded, but I had to bite hard on
my wounds for I was in enemy hands and that meant no
giving in to pain and no sense of complaint.
Stretches of country came into my mind. A cone-shaped
mountain with a white burnished top, glistening; irregular
boulders on its slopes, heather below, and steel-grey lakes and
a brown haze of bog; in the distance a mountain with steep
sides and a long ridge. Where could that be: Croagh Patrick
over Clew Bay, or Douce under snow? Slowly I solved the
problem: it was Errigal in winter in Co. Donegal, with
Muckish in the background. Rich country, with a narrow
wooded glen, mountains in the distance, some of them faint
under a deep green sky. The mountains showed up more
clearly, they changed from cobalt-blue to mauve, they bulked
closer to the eye. It was raining; earth-breaths of clouds
puffed about their tops and hovered, and one of the hills had
a piece missing. That was the Devil's Bit in Co. Tipperary,
seen from Templemore. The Old Boy had once grabbed a
piece of those hills but had dropped it some twenty miles
away in the plain where it became the Rock of Cashel,
Cashel of the Kings. Cliffs shattered with coloured light on
varied rock: Slieve League, Bloody Foreland, or Arranmore at
sunset. More difficult country would come, with features not
prominent, harder to make out and to track down. I would
run down in my mind lengths of wall, a copse, or small wood,
glimpses of sea and river, and the subtle colour of budding
trees; then full summer-leaf strength, or lonely bogland with
its fugitive bird life. The days were no longer dark and
lengthy when I could visit Ireland, area by area, remembering
places that I thought I had forgotten. When I had recognized
a place it faded away slowly as if pleased that I had been able
to remember it, nor did it come again. I followed long streaks
of grey or reddish mud-roads, puzzled over turns and the
country on either side, flat country with long white roads
seemingly never ending, hilly country with twisting brown
roads winding up and down. I was physically tired when I
followed the roads, tracing them out of my knowledge of the
country. It was as if I had actually walked them, and I would
fall asleep, tired out.
Some of the wounded were sympathetic and offered to help
me in any way they could; many of them were soldiers of the
World War, a few were young boys. In the next bed was an
ex-Connaught Ranger. He talked of his officers, some of
whom I knew by name because the Connaughts were once
largely recruited from their own province in the west of
Ireland where I was born. To talk to a country-bred Irishman
about his townland was like being moved by a woman's
beauty and telling her of it. We talked of lakes and mountains
and soldiering in India. He had belonged to the battalion that
mutinied in India and he told me the story.
I had kept a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets in my trousers'
pocket and as we got to be friends I asked him to read them to
me. He was shy and nervous as he read, and at times really
embarrassed, but he saw the reading meant a good deal to
me, so he screwed himself up resolutely. He read in such a
soft voice, so low at times that I had to strain my body
towards him.
'Can't you raise your voice a little?' I asked once, 'for it's
hard on the wounds.'
He looked shyly at me: 'You know,' he said, 'the other lads
think I'm reading a prayer book to you and they call me a
sky-pilot.' And Shakespeare continued to be murmured in the
condoned guise of religion.
Erskine Childers had been captured, with David
Robinson, on their way to Dublin, in his cousin Bob Barton's
house at Annamoe, where he had spent many young years.
He was a prisoner in the Portobello barracks, and I listened
to men who came into the ward talk of him as that damned
reactionary spy of an Englishman. They hated him, many of
these ex-soldiers from British regiments, yet they knew
nothing about him, except what their officers told them, and
what propaganda directed by Piaras Beaslai they had read in
the papers, and through the bitterness of his opponents in
their parliament. He was 'for it', they said, meaning that he
would be executed. I told them about Childers, his gradual
change which went in hand with the integrity of his mind; of
the gun-running at Howth in 1914, how his yacht had carried
the 'Howth rifles', as the long Mausers were afterwards
called, to Ireland; and his work on publicity during the Tan
war to interest outsiders in our cause. Then, members of their
present Provisional Government were very anxious and
willing to have his advice and judgement, and to use his
psychological knowledge of the British bureaucratic caste.
They refused to listen to me. He was a damned English spy
and he had always been a spy. Arthur Griffith's bitter words
had carried weight, coming from a man who seldom stooped
to abuse. Winston Churchill, in a speech the day after the
capture of Childers had: 'seen with satisfaction that the
mischief-making murderous renegade, Erskine Childers, has
been captured. No man has done more harm or shown more
genuine malice, or endeavoured to bring a greater curse upon
the common people of Ireland than this strange being, . . .'
Churchill could have gone closer home if he were really
looking for a rogues' gallery of those who had been a curse to
what was now his benevolent concern, 'the common people of
Ireland'.
The way had been prepared; he, a staff captain attached to
Publicity, had been blamed for destruction of railways and
roads and held responsible for our successful operations.
Formerly our separatist people as a whole would have
suspected the meaning of any English pronouncement, and
would have at once looked for the hidden motives, but now, in
division, I heard men in the ward quoting Churchill.
In Munster, Childers had not taken any part in activities
but had moved about, often amongst men who were rather
hostile, as he could not get official reports from our units for
the paper which he was responsible for printing. Dilatory
correspondence was a national weakness; for an efficient staff
officer like Childers to deal with its devious by-ways of delay
- and the consequent queries to despatch carriers meant a tem-
perament philosophically attuned to resigned sainthood, or
energetic nerve-fretting irascibility, and he had to eschew the
latter. He had suffered much in his isolation, that I knew from
his letters before I had been hit, and I could read between the
lines, as he would not complain; he had felt the publicity of
his opponents which had filtered through and influenced
some of our people. Secret Free State reports had tried to
place him as an insistently active force, as against de Valera
who was anxious to end warfare. His English accent was
against him; his whole mental build was not understood by
men who were now directing their energies into a formless
kind of guerilla warfare; his Anglo-Irish heritage raised a
subconscious barrier which could bristle with history, being
cross-memoried by Cromwellian troopers, merciless aggres-
sion, confiscation, and the determined killing of Irish brains.
It was hard that a man like him should, when intentions were
sincere, meet this deep-buried race feeling at the turn of a
phrase or the intonation of a voice. A medical orderly told me
that Childers was trying to get a note to me from his prison
in the barracks, and in return, with the help of the
Connaught, I had written a letter to him but could not get it
through for he was watched too carefully. He found it hard to
sit down, I was told, because he had been severely kicked. I
had met him on several occasions before and during the truce
and had learned in a small way to appreciate his worth.
Kindly, courteous, chivalrous, aesthetic-looking, his body
consumed by the fire of his spirit, he had at all times been
willing and ready to help in any and every capacity. He knew
the mentality of the British ruling class better than anybody
amongst Republicans, and so British publicity had
endeavoured in every possible way to portray him as a sinister
figure.
On the morning of Childers's trial, 17 November, four of
our prisoners were executed, and Kevin O'Higgins, Minister
for Home Affairs, spoke that day in the Provisional
Parliament and indicated why they had been shot: 'This
particular punishment was not vindictive. If these were
merely average cases it might perhaps have been because it
were better at the first to take cases which had no particular
facts about them to distinguish them from the cases of thous-
ands all over the country who were bleeding the nation to
death. If they took as their first case some man who was out-
standingly active and outstandingly wicked in his activities,
the unfortunate dupes throughout the country might say that
he was killed because he was a leader, because he was an
Englishman, or because he combined with others to commit
raids.' That to my mind was the ignoble crime, to shoot four
young boys because they were unknown and were not yet in
folklore, to prepare the way for getting rid of a man whose
brains would have been of use to this nation. He must have
known about the young lads who had been executed as an
excuse, and their deaths must have saddened his last days.
One week later he was brought to Beggar's Bush barracks,
where he was shot.
The Connaught Ranger brought in a Webley and put it
under his mattress. 'That's for you when you're able to use
it.' He had been in charge of a sentry post, which might be a
means of getting me through to the outside, he thought. 'I've
been talking quietly, feeling my way with a few of the men,
and I think I'll be able to square the guard.'
' But you can't remain here any longer in hospital,' I said in
wonder.
'Oh can't I? I haven't been an old soldier for nothing, and
there's nothing I don't know about swinging the lead, for
that's the most important part of a man's training.'
He carried out my messages; people outside were doubtful
about him, as he drank, but he brought back replies.
The chaplain, a young priest, visited me by request.
Previously, after I had first come, he had administered Holy
Communion, but had not since been to see me. I asked him
to give me Communion in the morning. He said: 'Have you
read the bishops' pastoral?'
'Yes, I have.'
'Do you agree with it?'
'Certainly not. I take my orders from my Chief of Staff,
and he's not a bishop. You wouldn't like to take your orders
from him, I know.'
He turned quickly towards the door. 'Then I cannot hear
your confession.' I told him I did not need confession. 'I want
to receive only.'
'So long as you intend to wage war against the existing
lawful government, I cannot give you the Sacraments.'
'But you attended to me when I first came here; you have
already administered Holy Communion, and you did not
question me about the pastoral, for I would have answered
you as I now answer you.'
'Yes, you were in danger of death.'
'But I'm always in danger of death. Can you guarantee
that I will be alive this time tomorrow?'
'No, but you are not dying now.' His lips pursed. He did
not care for the conversation in an open ward with an atten-
tive audience of sick and wounded. I did not then know that a
Catholic has the right to select the confessor that suits him
and that by Canon Law this must be complied with. Not one
of our men whom I later met knew this law, nor were they
ever informed of it.
'How can a badly wounded man wage war, and anyhow
you know I will be shot as soon as they think I've recovered
sufficiently. '
'I must carry out the orders of my bishop,' he said tightly.
'All right, then, you refuse. If you have an Imitation, you
might lend it to me.' He did not come back, but he sent me in
The Imitation of Christ which had been last in the hands of
Erskine Childers.
A soldier laughed as he turned towards my bed. 'You'll
hear no more of Rory O'Connor from this on.'
What did that mean? Perhaps there had been another
attempt to escape from the Joy and he had been killed. An
orderly read the evening paper to me. Rory O'Connor, Liam
Mellows, Joe McKelvey and Dick Barrett had been executed
that morning, 8 December, without trial as an official reprisal
for the death and wounding the previous day of two Free
State members of parliament. Sean Hales of Cork, whose
brother was fighting with Liam Lynch, had been shot dead
by our men in Dublin; Padraig O'Maille had been seriously
wounded.
The news was a great shock to me. I felt as if I had again
been wounded, the same swift disappearance of my innards,
an icy chill where they had been, and a trembling in my legs.
The four had been imprisoned since the fall of the Four
Courts on 30 June, and we had grown accustomed to think
that prisoners in jails were safe unless they had been captured
in arms after the Free State's secret military courts began
to function from 15 October. A sudden murder, or death in
action, we were accustomed to. When I was outside I thought
there was no surety of life, that death for some of us was as
inevitable as daybreak, but inside were some good men who
were safe; they could carry on when all this fighting was over.
The absence of a trial did not mean anything, just a legal
formula. McKelvey and Barrett I knew only since the occupa-
tion of the Courts, and then I met them in an official way in
the manner of GHQ officers. I could not see why McKelvey
had been appointed to the Staff save that he was a northerner
and he represented the Ulster point of view. Rory was the sole
member of the old Headquarters Staff that I could talk to of
things outside of staff work, but that kind of talk, though
friendly, did nothing to explore a deeper self. He was droll
and laconic, with a strong reserve. He had been made a target
by the Staters at which to hurl abuse. It had served their
purpose better to refer to us as 'Rory O'Connor's men', than
to admit that we were organized on the same lines as them-
selves, that we had a Headquarters Staff, and he as Director
of Engineering filled the same post as he had done on the old
Staff during the Tan scrap. Neither Liam nor Rory had any
sense of side; they never tried to swing their weight that I
could see.
Liam's death affected me most. He was our greatest loss.
One thought of him as a clear flame, steadfast, burning of its
own strength. Cheerful, chivalrous, clear in intellect, possess-
ing political intuition, no bitterness in his outlook and no
warping of his fine qualities by hatred of opponents. In him,
as in some of the young men who had come through the fire,
old Irish habits of thought, speech and mind were recogniz-
able: a crystal hardness without harshness, an intense love of
nature and of the earth, a simplicity that made the flippant
earnest; direct, serious, restrained, unemotional in speech,
gay in company, with personal aloofness. Well the Free State
knew his mind, his influence and his strength. Founded deep
in the Gaelic tradition, loving its song and story, its high
endeavours, realizing its importance, capable of interpreting
its every nuance of thought and feeling, one of the soldiers oF
the spirit was gone. One instinctively placed him with Pearse
and Sean MacDermott; and he was against the surrender of
the Courts.
I was moved into a small room where I was by myself. The
large ward had been noisy but I had found a few friends
there. My Connaught had tried every trick in his bag but he
could not malinger any longer and had to leave at last.
'I'll come in to see you whenever I get a chance, and I'll
keep my eyes open to get you out. A Connacht man has leave
to speak twice and to poke the fire, and he has the right to
stand by his friends.'
I had been thinking hard about escape but that was more
my feeling about captivity than anything else. I could hardly
sit up in bed, and I certainly could not put weight on a foot,
yet constantly escape was on my mind, even if I died on the
pavement outside their barracks. There was no desire to
escape a firing squad as such. Yet I did not like to be shot to
the orders of men who I had once fought with as friends.
A friendly Red Cross orderly from another part of the
barracks slipped in a few times to see me. He was elderly,
there were silver-grey streaks in his hair, and he talked as if
escape for me was the most natural subject in the world,
which, in truth, it was.
'We'll try to take you out of here some night on a stretcher,
through the window. I have two men. If only I could get
another.'
I told him about my Connaught Ranger.
'I wonder can we trust him,' he said. 'It's a great risk for a
man the likes of him.'
'He has no loyalty to this crowd, he doesn't like them, but
it's a job for him and he was out of work. Anyhow he has a
strange loyalty to this country and once he was willing to face
death for it.' I told him the epic of the Connaughts in India.
He sat on the edge of my bed and ran his fingers through his
hair. He was worried, for there were few he could trust; he
could not see a solution to some of the minor difficulties and
he felt responsible for the whole operation. He could trust the
driver of an ambulance, and said that he could work a pass to
allow it through the barracks' gate; when the job was finished
it could return.
One night late, he came in, cursing softly. 'Blast their
souls, blast them, but I'm being moved tomorrow. Maybe
they've spotted me, for you know they watch you close. I'm
for Athlone, I think, and I must get hold of that Connaught
sergeant and have you shifted tonight.'
'Take it easy,' I warned, 'and don't be rushed into any false
moves, for I'm responsible for the lives of the men on this job,
and nobody is going to be shot for me if I can help it.'
'We don't mind,' he said simply, 'and if there's a scrap we
can all die together. A man you know can't do much less.'
Escape on a stretcher could be normally looked upon as
sheer idiocy. A chief of the O'Donnells had once been carried
into battle on the necks of his men against his inveterate
enemies, the O'Neills, and here was I preparing myself for a
similar excursion. The O'Donnell had died before the fight
was finished, so maybe that was an omen.
Early before dawn he came back into my room. He walked
up and down for a while, unable to speak, twisting one hand
hard in the other.
'What's wrong now?' I asked. 'And don't worry; you've
done more than your share for me.'
'I can't find the Connaught anywhere, and I've searched
the barracks twice for him. Now I'll have to move off myself in
a few hours' time.'
I was fed on milk from a feeding cup, but the sameness of
taste was making it difficult for me to take anything except
when I was very hungry. Utensils were dirty and uncared for,
cups unwashed; there was a general feeling of improvisation,
anything would serve, and the less washing there was the
better in this service. I had to watch the orderlies when they
dressed my wounds, make them take ordinary antiseptic
precautions, and inspect bandages and dressings and anti-
septics, as I had found them willing to use a wrong bottle, an
infected pad or unsterilized instrument to save trouble. Most
of them had served in the British Army but with one
exception they were slovenly and untidy, due to improper
supervision and little discipline, and though there was a
doctor there from the west of Ireland who chatted and smiled,
 yet he never endeavoured to improve conditions.
An orderly was rubbing my wound granulations with
copper sulphate as he said: 'I'm afraid it's healing too
quickly, and I wish it was not, for they intend to shoot you as
soon as we have patched you up.'
I sent for books but they were not forwarded. I had money
smuggled in and bought some books through an orderly: The
Wallet of Kai-Lung which I re-read several times, with some
volumes of Yeats. I was able to read slowly now, but the chief
trouble was in trying to angle my head to see the page.
Gradually I solved the difficulty of posture, but the physical
strain wore my body down. Yet I could browse over a book,
fall asleep and wake up at leisure for another read.
At dusk on Christmas Eve I was moved on to a stretcher.
'What's up now?' I asked an officer.
He looked at me but did not answer.
'Maybe you're Santa Claus and you're going to put me in
a sleigh with reindeer in front. Anyhow I want my fur rug,'
for my lion-skin backed with fur had not been added to the
blankets.
One of the orderlies was crying as he helped to carry me
out. 'You're for it,' he said. 'They're taking you to the Joy to
shoot you. Oh, why are they doing this to you?'
The guard outside the hospital saluted, as if I was to
receive a last courtesy before the final farewell. So this was the
end, I was thinking, as the stretcher bumped with the
irregular march of the hospital attendants. I was to be shot
sometime during the morning, maybe with polite regards, for
the barrack or jail elimination makes for a kind of rigid, but
nostalgic, courtesy.
Outside the ambulance an officer bent over me as he pulled
back the blankets.
'I am sorry to do this, but I have to do it.'
He put handcuffs on my wrists and snapped the lock-clasp
into position.
'You are doing your duty, I expect, so why should you
apologise? The last men to handcuff me were Auxiliaries, and
they did not apologise.'
The frozen air made breathing difficult, but above me were
the timeless stars, and the sharp clearness of an unhurried
night sky.
CHAPTER TWELVE
December 1922-April 1923
THE opening and shutting of gates; questions asked, a
scrutiny by officers who looked in at me as I lay on the
stretcher. I was in Mountjoy jail. The prison doctor had me
brought over to the hospital.
It was dark; a glimpse of great gaunt buildings in faded
grey, barbed wire in twisted masses, many sentries. Inside the
hospital gloomy corridors ran into cold blackness, with stone
stairs and a clang of metal under the boots of the stretcher-
bearers; iron rails, dull white walls above, dull from lack of
light. I had somehow the same feeling as when I was brought
to Kilmainham jail in 1921: walls stretching to infinity, of
height that seemed to reach the sky, of footsteps of a brazen
clay, and cold stone without colour. Monotony without relief,
a crushing weight in the mass of the structure and a sense of
being trapped. It was as if the guards had smiled with teethed
joy and had said: 'Now we have you, me boyho.'
I was carried into a cell, but removed to another where was
a prisoner who could look after me, and the hospital orderlies
placed me in bed. The cell was larger than the usual prison
cell. A boy with long hair and a thin white face lay on another
bed which almost touched mine.
'You're welcome,' he said. 'My name is Brennan. What's
the idea of sending you here on a stretcher? Even the hospital
is crowded.'
I shook my head.
'It looks like a firing squad. How are the wounds?'
'Pretty bad,' I said.
'You'd have been with Rory and Liam if you hadn't
escaped from the Courts. Well, they'll hardly do anything to
you till the new year.' He dressed slowly. 'I'll get you a cup of
tea.'
From shelves made from boxes he took down fruit and
bread. His suitcase covered with old newspapers was the
table. 'That will be low enough for you,' he said.
In Mountjoy a firing squad seemed to be accepted as part
of my lot. The offer of a cup of tea made me feel at home
immediately.
'My stomach is bad,' he said; 'prison food. Parcels are
often stopped.'
That explained his colour and the drawn look of his face.
'Bob Barton is next door. I'll get him for you.' He knocked
hard on the wall behind me. Robert Barton walked in,
smiling. 'The Staters' Christmas gift,' he said. Bob was
recovering from pleurisy. He looked thin and sick. 'David and
I are making arrangements for tomorrow's dinner. Can you
eat?' And he rolled off a long list of delicacies. 'Have you
enough blankets?'
'No, I feel cold.'
'We'll see to that at once,' he said.
I was cold despite the rough sheets, three brown army
blankets and my heavy lion-skin rug. In a few minutes two
boys carried in a heap of blankets; I was given three more.
They were heavy on my legs.
'We'll make a cage out of a bit of a box. That'll take the
weight off you.'
Bob sat and talked in his quiet, gentle voice, a mellow
Oxford accent. David Robinson, tall, thin, and still worn
from his European war wounds, came briskly in. He had
managed to get a transfer from one of the wings on some
slight pretext so that he could be near to Bob in hospital. He
was planning Christmas dinners with great care and
thoroughness. I could not talk much, a few sentences, then
my head swirled. Bob Barton, always considerate, said:
'You're tired.' Then both of them went away.
David later told us of the Cork and Kerry fighting. He had
been adjutant to a cavalry company raised in the south, but it
did not last long. He had been a major in the Tank Corps;
had been severely wounded in France, and had the viewpoint
of the regular army officer. Our type of fighting did not
recommend itself to him. The inevitable 'drop of tay', and the
often repeated cry of 'They're coming! They're coming!' in
rousing a bunch of armed men, were seen again through his
tales. The climax for him was an attack in which the men had
to advance in stockinged feet in the wet morning. He also told
vividly of trench warfare, attacks by tanks, and the flaming
sunset of a heavy barrage at dawn.
The hospital consisted of a large ward and outside in the
corridor a row of cells. The ward was crowded. I was carried
in to see Joe MacDonagh, TD, in a bed inside the door: a
brother of Thomas who had been executed after the 1916
Rising. He had a severe attack of appendicitis and was in
great agony. He would be removed to the Mater Misericordia
hospital opposite the jail for operation if he signed the form,
but he refused to sign. His face was twisted in agony when we
met, but he managed to smile between spasms and to crack
his little joke. There was a new arrival in the ward, a Galway
man with a rather bald head. Joe was also bald. 'Who's the
man who wears his hair like mine?' he asked. In jail, books
were seldom returned when once borrowed, and his books he
re-read. When asked for a good book by some of the boys he
always offered The Brothers Karamazoff or The Idiot. 'That's a
good book, you'll like it,' knowing that it would be a task.
The borrower would not get through more than twenty or
thirty pages and keep it for a time, as Joe would inquire how
it was being enjoyed. The reader would not admit that he
could not make any sense of the book. Later the book would
be returned and the borrower, dreading another ordeal,
would never ask him for another. A day or two later Joe was
taken to the Mater where he died.
Bob Barton taught me chess and we played a game each
day, then I was tired out from the effort. Bob worked over
chess problems hour after hour, or played with David in my
cell. Soon I was able to get the stimulating heightened sense
that a piece of good play gave. Bob read to me and talked of
literature and art. We discovered that we had interests in
common. The bare dirty walls took on another texture. A
friendship was able to change their grimness. He had been a
landowner and a member of the Kildare Street Club. During
the 1916 Rising, as officer in charge of prisoners, he had been
influenced. He resigned from the army; later was a friend of
Collins and Minister of Agriculture under the Republican
Dail. He had been imprisoned by the British but escaped
from Mountjoy; then was recaptured and sentenced to penal
servitude in the English prisons. He told me of the proposed
revolt of the Irish in Portsmouth prison and the plans to seize
the arms there and to fight. It had not come off.
We were allowed to write a letter a week, but might receive
as many as were forwarded to us. Letters were heavily
censored, passages scored out with a puce pencil or cut with
scissors. My rank was carefully removed from parcels and
letters. Frequently reprisals on the part of the prison staff
deprived us of letters, parcels, books, laundry and cigarettes.
That was due to an increase in activity of our men outside, or
to some peculiar kink in the mentality of the Free State
Cabinet. It seemed especially mean to deprive prisoners of
privileges on account of action taken by our men outside the
jail walls. We had underground communication with the four
wings of the prison; with the women prisoners in Mountjoy;
with different internment camps, and with our own General
Headquarters. In the women's prison, in the female hospital
wing close by, Mary Comerford and Sheila Humphreys had
been on hunger-strike; concessions had been granted them.
They had made several attempts to escape. Copies of An
Phoblacht, and general orders and instructions from our GHQ
were smuggled in regularly. I read orders to the men in the
hospital. The daily paper was forbidden but we always
managed to obtain a copy and endeavoured to read between
the lines. New arrivals supplemented what information we
already possessed so that we were enabled to keep in touch
with events. Extracts from the Morning Post, the English Tory
paper, forbidden entry to the Free State for its jocular
remarks, were sent in to me. We read and enjoyed the reports
and descriptions of ourselves and of the Free Staters, and I
am sure the editor would have been amused to see how much
we looked forward to his notes on Ireland. They were more
welcome than the comic supplement, the funnies of American
Sunday papers.
Sentries fired at birds and pigeons perched on roofs, eaves
and walls, and this intermittent shooting went on jerkily dur-
ing the days. My nerves were bad now. I jumped when a
soldier in the hospital grounds fired a shot. Guards fired at
prisoners who waved to relatives and friends on the canal
banks which were overlooked by end windows of a wing. The
men were satisfied if they could see a vague outline of a wife,
son, sweetheart or friend. Such an appointment had been
prepared weeks ahead; a note would be sent out surrep-
titiously in laundry and replied to within pie crust, soap or
tobacco. Some of the boys provoked the sentries by a jack-in-
the-box appearance at a cell window. They ducked when the
sentry swung his rifle to shoulder, and came up again with a
taunt after the bullet had hit off the wall or had smashed the
glass. At night imaginary attacks were beaten off with rifle
and machine-gun fire from sentry posts.
The Catholic chaplain, Father MacMahon, visited me by
request of Bob Barton. Bob was not a Catholic and was, I
presume, considered a possible convert. The chaplain came
neatly dressed, silk hat in hand, and partly hesitant when he
stood inside my door. A bird-like appearance; something
perky in his look, bright in the eyes, and the jerk of his
double-quickstep movement.
He was not anxious to remain with me. I asked him to
recommend me a course of spiritual reading. He would not sit
down. He nodded his head and withdrew after a few words.
He did not return. Mr. Greer, the Protestant minister, we
liked. He was a Christian, not a Catholic, we agreed. He
came to see us, chatted of things in general, and then,
unasked, sometimes visited our people and told them how we
were. Visits were forbidden, even before execution; anxiety
was increased when our letters were stopped as a reprisal.
People outside read between the lines of our official letters, or
gleaned some information from scanty notes forwarded
through by-channels.
Phil Cosgrave, brother of the Free State's President, was
Governor of the Joy, nominally so, for his deputy, Paudeen
O'Keeffe, controlled the prison.
Cosgrave came to my cell one day, opened the door and
stood hesitatingly in the entrance. He was heavily built, stout
and flabby. There were deep-wrinkled pouches under his
eyes. He drank hard, I had been told, and had become
morose, so prisoners said, since the execution of Rory
O'Connor and the three others. His green uniform puckered
on his waist; he would find it hard to be a soldier. I had never
met him before.
'Are you all right, Ernie?' he asked.
'Yes,' I replied.
He walked over on heavy feet to my bed and looked down
at me.
'Would you like anything?'
'That's for you to decide. I will not ask for anything.'
He held out a fat-fingered hand, slowly, as if he were afraid
of a rebuff. 'Will you shake hands with me?' We shook hands.
'Thank you, Ernie,' he said.
Slowly he turned and walked away. That evening, parcels
of books and laundry which had been lying in the office for
some time were delivered to me. Next day a box of apples
came, carefully packed. I knew that they had come from a
good Tory orchard. The apples had each been cut in four and
then been left to rot.
Again he came and asked if he could be of any assistance to
me. 'I'll do anything I can,' he said. I told him that I wanted
to send out some personal letters and would expect a reply
enclosed in a letter addressed to him. He said he would
deliver the letters when they arrived. Three times he carried
my mail, handed it to me, and then left quickly as if he was
afraid he would be found out.
O'Keeffe, the Deputy Governor, or Paudeen, as he was
called, was well known to all prisoners. 'Paudeen! ' would be
yelled by a young boy, and his reply would come in an
unsteady stream. He had a vocabulary of obscene words
which he used on every possible occasion, but he was not
brutal. He threatened, but never to my knowledge did he beat
up prisoners himself; however, he allowed others to do so.
Fresh prisoners were consigned to the basement cells, dirty,
oozy, ill-ventilated, where they were ill-treated by officers and
lashed about by men of the garrison or by the CID. As sec-
retary of Sinn Fein, working zealously in holes and corners of
Dublin, O'Keeffe had distinguished himself during the Tan
war by an interview. An English journalist visited Sinn Fein
headquarters at 6 Harcourt Street to interrogate him. After
some conversation he asked: 'What is the policy of Sinn Fein,
Mr. O'Keeffe?' O'Keeffe leapt to his feet and pounded his
desk as he roared: 'Revenge, be jaysus, Revenge!' Nobody
could take O'Keeffe seriously as a soldier. He had enough
shrewd common sense to mingle it with dry humour which
made him almost tolerant. Paudeen's sayings were repeated
and had become wing folklore. His strong Cork accent was
mimicked before his face and in the telling of stories. 'Nothin'
escapes here but ghas, be jaysus,' he frequently observed,
which was true enough as our gasjoints were made of soap.
Once in 'A' wing he was particularly incensed about an
article which appeared in an outside paper, evidently based
on information supplied by a prisoner. He waved his gun in
the air. Someone called him a coward. He pulled off his great
coat, handed his gun to Andy MacDonnell who was OC of
the wing, and offered to fight the owner of the voice. Often,
revolver in hand, he ordered men to their cells. When they
told him to go to hell, with his eyes shut and head turned to
one side, he fired shots at the roof.
In the evening, at count, each wing paraded on the ground
floor. O'Keeffe, accompanied by our OC of the wing, checked
the number of men. Often his count was inaccurate. A heavy
smell of liquor and a slight roll would betray the cause; then
would come a noisy slanging match with adjectives increasing
in strength between the OC Wing and himself. Prisoners one
night were making poteen in a cell; it smelled strongly.
O'Keeffe suddenly walked into the cell, smelling more
strongly. He jibed at the men, then stood over the large pan
which looked like a night bucket. He sniffed. 'Oh the hard
po,' he said and walked out.
If Free State stamps were affixed upside down by prisoners,
he would have the letters sent back from the office; he was not
going to have the Free State insulted. He came to my cell to
hand me letters. Once he asked me why I did not write.
'You should write,' he said, but I told him I wrote when it
pleased me to do so and not when it pleased the deputy
governor.
I knew then that he was trying to think of the source by
which my letters went out, as I did not write my weekly letter
through the prison office. He often opened the iron slot
through which at one time food was pushed in to prisoners, or
stood to look in at me through the peephole, but I had the slot
tied with a string and the glass of the spyhole soaped so that it
would be harder for him to surprise me writing, or reading
the paper.
CID came to my cell, stood inside the door and looked at
me fixedly, sometimes for long periods. They did not speak. I
returned their look with the same vehement intensity, or
turned to the wall to sleep and pulled the fur rug over my
face.
There was a young sister de Bon Secour who came to look
after the sick. She harried the unwilling hospital orderlies and
tried to improve the food. Sister Angela, our lady of the
angels, we called her. She was gentle and sweet; she moved
around with her finger-tips joined as if she walked in another
world. She brought another world to us. We could forget the
drabness of jail when we heard her speak or watched her face.
She was well trained and capable, and her presence would be
shown by an extra regard the men had for their appearances
instead of their general carelessness. We were cases,
evidently, when she first came, but shortly afterwards she
would whisk a newspaper from under the folds of her habit
and leave it on my bed. She would forage for it in the officers'
mess of the garrison. She brought me candles from the
Mother Superior, for the light was bad in my cell, but candles
were strictly forbidden. They would be of use in the digging of
tunnels. The gift of the Reverend Mother assisted some of the
tunnellers in the wings.
Jimmy Mooney, a young Dublin volunteer, seventeen years
old, was moved into my cell when Brennan went back to his
wing, and Jimmy looked after my dressings and food when
the sister went home at dusk.
The prison doctor visited me one morning.
'There have been inquiries every day from Portobello
barracks about your condition,' he said. 'They seem very
interested in you.'
I knew what that meant.
He looked worried and said: 'Your lips are blue. You spit
up blood, you sweat,' and he continued with a list of
symptoms.
I was white from the loss of blood, and I took strychnine,
but I had not all the symptoms he described and I said so.
'I'm weak, but I'll be ready for them whenever they want me.'
'Well, they may send somebody else to inspect you. I
wanted to tell you how often they ring up to ask about you.
And they may send another doctor who will ask you
questions.'
A few days later an officer whom I had been at school with,
Captain Casey, came into the cell. He had served in France.
'Hello,' I said, 'what do you want here?'
He took a bundle of papers from his tunic pocket and
handed them to me. 'I'm on thc staff of the Judge
Advocate-General. These are the papers for your trial.'
The Judge Advocate-General was a son of Michael Davitt,
I remembered. I sat up and tried to read the charge sheet, but
my hands trembled. Here came the end at last when I was
not expecting it. I was accused of waging war, of killing a
Free State soldier, and of some other, technical offences. The
evidence accused me of fighting from behind Sheila
Humphreys.
'You will be tried in three days' time. I am to act as
prosecuting counsel.'
The trial meant death, which I had faced often enough in
my mind in the abstract, but here it was now as close as it
would be the morning after my trial, four days away.
I looked at Casey. I could remember him now in the fifth
school at the Christian Brothers. Now there were deep lines
on his forehead. He was looking at the rusty window-bars. He
must have noticed me as I read. Then I thought what if he
does? Why should I feel ashamed of being afraid of death?
Most of us fear it even when we think of it. The tremor of
mind passed slowly as I read the typed sheets.
'Do you want a solicitor to act for you?'
'No, I don't recognize the jurisdiction of your court martial
and the trial is a farce. You people are in a hell of a hurry to
shoot me. You have already given me the sentence.'
'The officers will judge the case on its merits,' he said
stiffly.
'Well, it seems strange to subject a sick man to trial.' I
knew that I could not physically stand the trial, that I would
probably faint from weakness, and that the court martiaI
might be sufficiently mean to imply cowardice.
'Can I not be tried in absentia? My sentence has already
been decided.'
'No, you will get a fair trial.'
'I'll write a statement to show how brave your troops were.
I think the witnesses should withdraw the charge of
cowardice on my part. You'll have to try me in bed, anyhow.'
I changed the conversation and asked him about his service
in France. He talked of the war. 'Where's your brother,
Frank, now?' he asked.
'He died in East Africa. He was in the King's African
Rifles. '
'I'm sorry,' he said, as if he felt he should not have spoken.
'Sit down,' I said. 'Let's forget all this and talk about
school. '
He sat down on a chair at the end of the bed and we
chatted of teachers, of boys we had once known, some dead,
others scattered over the world. He apologised for smoking in
the cell for he recollected cigarettes had been forbidden
prisoners. After a time he stood up suddenly.
'I have to go now. I'll see you again.'
I had expected that I would be tried, yet the realization
came as a shock. I pulled a small mirror off a nail in the wall
and looked at my face. Yes, it did look pale, but perhaps it
was not much whiter than usual for that was due to loss of
blood.
Bob Barton came in when I tapped on the cell wall.
'You should write at once to Liam Lynch and tell him.'
'I don't see the use,' I said.
I wrote a note to the Chief of Staff saying goodbye to him
and to my comrades as I expected to be shot the day after the
court martial. At the end I wrote: 'Another bit of lead won't
do me any harm.' A note generally took some time to go from
the hospital, but as I had finished writing, a cheery face above
a Free State uniform looked around the door. It was my
messenger. I told him to have the message delivered to Liam
Lynch in Dublin that evening. That night Lynch sent a letter
to the editor of the Irish Independent and enclosed my own
letter. Both of them, to our surprise, were published in the
paper the following morning.
My family knew little or nothing of where I had been for the
past five years, and at home I had been looked upon as a
black sheep. I began to write of what had happened to me
since 1918. I wished that some record should be kept,
especially for my brothers, but not for publication. I had
broken the traditions of the family and I wanted that the elder
members should at least know the extent of my folly. It was
fatiguing to use a pen for long, but after the first day I began
to feel an interest in the writing. I wrote with zest. It was
exciting, it seemed to give me extra strength, and I hoped that
I would have time to finish the story. Men and incidents
which I had forgotten came back, often over-crowding my
memory.
I sent out for a photograph of the commission forwarded
me by Cathal Brugha as Minister for Defence, confirming me
as Officer Commanding the Second Southern Division, to
hand it in at my trial, but I was unable to obtain it. I sent a
note to Sheila Humphreys, in the female hospital, for an
account of the fight that morning when I had been wounded;
I was anxious to refute the allegations of cowardice. Her reply
came back from the women's prison. After I was taken away
from Ailesbury Road, one of the soldiers had been found
under the bed in Dick's room; another had wedged himself
behind the front door.
The Chief of Staff said he would send in a solicitor to see
me, but I did not intend to use his services. I had a suit which
I had seldom used sent in. Jimmy Mooney brushed it care-
fully every day. He called it my shooting suit. Up to this
month, January, nearly thirty of our men had been executed.
Casey came back during the week for the court-martial
papers he had given me, and laughed when we talked about
our efficient communications system. His headquarters was
badly chagrined, he said. 'They were wild in Portobello when
they saw your letter in the paper next morning.'
'I suppose they wanted to shoot me quietly.'
Father MacMahon was told of my impending trial. He
came to see me but did not offer any suggestions or give
spiritual advice.
'It's a shooting job,' I said. 'You know that.'
'Oh no, it's not.'
'I suppose you don't wish to face such an ugly fact, but I
have to. I want some advice from you about preparing for
death.' He moved away nervously. Perhaps he did not like to
drag up the pastoral of the bishops. Assuring me that the trial
did not mean anything, he left my cell and did not come back.
I had learned to pray while in jail. Suddenly I realized that
I had never really known or meant much by the prayers I had
always been accustomed to say. They were a pattern, some-
what of a routine, and evidently the matter and not the spirit
had engaged my attention. Until one day I had really prayed.
Words and individual phrasings took on new meanings and
values; there was a spirit in them that I had not sensed
before, as I got ready for death in my own way. The excite-
ment of writing was calmed down by the exaltation of my
prayer. I wondered what it would feel like, the physical
aspect. What would the officers on the court martial feel?
What should I say at the trial? I would not recognize the
jurisdiction of the court. I would tell them they had no
authority or right, save that of naked force. Would I be per-
mitted to address the court, not in my defence but to state my
position? What would I think the night before the execution?
Would my courage hold out? Should I write letters, or just
send a farewell letter to my men? I would write to the men
only; they were always a cause of joy, a solace. What way
would I face a firing squad in the cold of dawn? It would be
good to face their rifles without a bandage, as I would like to
meet death with my eyes open, and I thought they might
grant this last request. Whenever I was unsure of myself, I
thought of the others whom I knew who had been hanged or
shot; of the three English officers we had sent to their death in
the early morning. When such a death came near there was a
strengthening; men and boys of different ways of life were
able to face it. A week ago I had heard of four of our young
boys who walked out to the wall in Kilmainham Jail. One had
a butt of a cigarette; he took a few puffs, then handed it to his
friends, who in turn took a few jerks. 'Shoot away, now,' said
the first, when the others had taken their smoke.
I felt pity for the Staters moving in a vicious circle, as I saw
them, being driven themselves by their own acts in the course
of empire, helped perhaps by our propaganda and abuse, to
depart further and further from thcir ideals. The whole situa-
tion looked more like a Greek tragedy. I could dissociate
myself now as a player and look on others without passion.
Always I had, so I thought, fought impersonally without
hatred. I had given allegiance to a certain ideal of freedom as
personified by the Irish Republic. It had not been realized
except in the mind. I had fought against the British Empire in
defence of that Republic, against Irishmen in the RIC,
Englishmen in the British Army, and Irishmen in the Free
State Army. To me they meant the same system which had
stifled the spiritual expression of nationhood and had
retarded our development; which had dammed back strength,
vigour and imagination needed in solving our problems in our
own way. The spirit of the race was warped until it could
express its type of genius. Lying in bed, I had doubts about
our course of action in resisting the attack of the Staters on
the Four Courts; I wondered if any other solution could have
been reached. Doubts did not last. Whatever alliance could
have been made with Collins, civil or military, some section
of the country would possibly have fought, and I knew that I
would have joined them.
Men and boys from the hospital came in to talk to me; a
few brought autograph albums. They would talk about their
homeland shyly, or ask me questions about their brigades.
Really they came to say goodbye. The weekend approached
and I had not received any notification.
Sister Angela said: 'You won't be shot, I know that. I've
made a novena for you.'
She turned the picture of Saint Francis of Assisi, which she
had given me, face to the wall. 'You like him best,' she said,
'and yet he let them send you the charge sheet. He'd better
look out or he'll stay like that for punishment.'
Sometime afterwards sisters were not allowed to enter the
prison hospitals.
I expected to hear further about my trial but no word
came. My execution was nearly hastened by my friends. Men
from the Dublin Brigade had held up a meeting of county
councils in Dublin. They called out four names, but the four
were absent. 'We hear that Ernie O'Malley was shot this
morning, and those four are going to go west for him.'
The girls were still in the female hospital. Their numbers
increased; there were about fifty of them close by. In England
the British had rounded up Irish Republicans, many of them
girls; they had been handed over to the Free State and were
now imprisoned in Ireland. We could hear the girls singing
'We'll hang Dick Mulcahy on a sour apple tree.' Tales of
their escapades were reported by the medical orderlies or by
note. There was a turret manned by a sentry in the angle
between the division wall of our two jails. If I could disarm
the sentry, I would have a few hours in which to get over the
wall. Boys in the hospital would tie up the military policeman
there, and I would dress in his uniform and go up to the
turret. The report of a revolver, if it was necessary to shoot
the sentry, would not be noticed as there was much firing at
night. Some of the girls sent me a good plan of the grounds
and they offered to get out of their cells and help to send me
over the wall. Before I had left home in 1918 I had planned a
raid for two German Mausers which were in a house in Eccles
Street; my return journey home would have brought me past
the Joy, across the canal, down an iron ladder on to the
railway cutting, and up another ladder on the far side. Now
that short cut would save my strength. But I had not enough
strength, I found. I rapidly became weak when I practised
walking up and down my cell. I was too weak, too helpless,
and would have endangered the others, so I had to remain in
bed to read and play chess.
Father MacMahon had been asking a man in the ward,
who was in great pain from rheumatic fever, to sign the form,
then he would give the Sacraments to him, but the man
refused and asked the other men in the ward to prevent the
priest annoying him. I left instructions that if the chaplain
interfered again he was to be told to leave the ward; if he
refused he was to be put out; if they were afraid they were to
send for me. Next day there came a string of protests from the
men, and Jimmy tugging at his coat-tails made the chaplain
leave. On Sundays at Mass he preached political sermons
against Republicanism to men who, inwardly seething,
listened not to words of spiritual consolation but to a bitter
attack on their sacred ideals and beliefs. As a disciplinary
measure they were ordered by their wing commandants to
remain quietly in their seats. They resented the order.
Perhaps the chaplain carried out the instructions of his
authorities, but it seemed cowardly to attack prisoners who
were incapable of carrying on active hostilities, knowing that
 the only way he could do so was by abuse from the pulpit.
The men suffered in silence, but often I heard them say they
 would cheerfully wring his neck if ever they caught him out-
 side the gates of the Joy.
One day he tapped at my cell door and came in. Had I seen
the morning paper, Mr. O'Malley; very interesting news
today, very interesting.
I told him papers were forbidden and that he must be
aware of prison regulations. I had already seen the paper.
Liam Deasy, our Deputy Chief of Staff, had been captured.
The night before his intended execution he had issued an
appeal to our command areas for the cessation of hostilities
and the surrender of arms, but had not met with any real
success.
The chaplain handed me the paper. I re-read it.
'Would you like to write a statement?' he asked.
'I would.'
He smiled. 'That's right, Mr. O'Malley.'
'Will you promise me that you will have it published?'
'Why, certainly. '
'Here it is verbally. I'll write it later. I would like to point
out to our men how gallantly boys of eighteen have walked
out to their firing squads. Life was precious to them, but they
did not falter. I wish that their example might again be
brought to the memory of all our officers. The men without
rank have shown the way to die; it is our duty to follow their
good lead.'
He stepped back in his nervous two-step from the bed. He
looked startled.
'I cannot have anything to do with such a message.'
'You said you were willing to take one from me.'
Then I told him what I thought of his conduct; he who had
not helped me to prepare for death, dared to come to my cell
and for the first time had brought a paper to me. It had bad
news and I was badly wounded.
'What would you think if you were ill and I came in with
the news that the Archbishop of Dublin had gone over to the
Protestant Church that morning?'
He had expected me to condone what I considered the
abuse of authority by an officer of high rank in a time of
mental stress. The letter would perhaps weaken our resis-
tance, but would only embitter the fight and perhaps prolong
it. Then I asked him to leave the room.
Prisoners from all over Ireland were in the jail. Patients
from the hospital were sent back to the wings, and new
arrivals told us tales of fighting outside, or affairs in the
different counties, or of life in other jails and camps. I was
told of a tunnel's progress by word of mouth through a new-
comer to the hospital; those of us who knew suppressed our
excitement, although I would probably not be able to escape.
I would have to get to one of the wings, but I could walk only
slowly and with pain.
Paudeen O'Keeffe came to my cell. 'How are you?' he
asked.
'All right.'
'But you're not all right, I know that. Wouldn't you like to
go to Mass? The chapel's not far away; it's only a few
hundred yards, and you can go next Sunday if you like.'
'I can't walk much,' I said.
'But you'll be able to walk that far.'
'O'Keeffe, if you want me to be fit for trial, feed me well.
I'll walk when it suits myself, not when it suits a firing squad.
You can use the stretcher for that.'
It would seem that the Staters wanted to shoot me, but did
not like to shoot me on a stretcher. Why there should be a
convention about patching up a wounded man before a squad
shot the life out of him was not clear to me.
Prisoners were transferred from internment camps, amongst
them Paddy Fleming whom I had been with in Wexford. He
had been sent up from the Curragh with other senior officers
and came to the hospital. Life in the huts of camps was more
open, shared in common, and noisier than jail life. Paddy told
me of escape attempts and of tunnel digging. Men who were
captured in arms and were awaiting trial often went on the
run in camp before their trial came up, or men would change
places in other huts to make it more difficult for a particular
man to be found. Paddy Ryan Lacken of North Tipp had his
head shaved, his face made-up from a box of theatrical
paints; his own friends often did not know him, and he was
not picked out by the CID. Free State intelligence officers
tried to hunt down men, but they were seldom identified or
recaptured. Sentenced men who were not well known signed
the form in the name of other prisoners who were expecting
release and were set at liberty. It was rumoured that
executions were pending, and that was given by some as the
reason for the transfer of senior officers, but perhaps the
enemy were attempting to smash our organization in camps
by removing camp officials and outstanding men. Raids and
arrests continued, and in camps, barracks and jails there
must have been close on twelve thousand prisoners. Anybody
opposed to the Free State was liable to imprisonment. As
well, each jail and camp had a quota of men arrested on
criminal charges and a number of touts and spies.
A bearded man named Byrne was brought to the hospital.
He was a Methodist, a pacifist and a Republican, and had
gone on solitary hunger-strike for release. He was a staunch
character, not the slightest trace of self-pity. He walked
around and talked volubly, or sat on his bed and discussed an
endless variety of subjects. He had few friends who would
interfere, little or no publicity, even from our papers outside,
yet he was determined to fight his lone battle. Day by day we
saw him getting thinner and weaker, but his spirit was as
strong as ever and we felt ourselves powerless, watching him
and listening to his talk. After twenty-six days or more he was
released unconditionally.
Late one night, just before lights-out, military police
tramped along our corridor shouting out names. 'Barton,
Robert C. Barton. Fleming, Patrick Fleming. Pack up at
once. Pack up.' One of the police said they were going back to
their wings. What was on, Jimmy Mooney and I asked each
other, but we guessed what we did not say aloud. Now I
thought of what had been said by those who did not object to
the executions: 'One day we'll take a hundred or more of you
out, and that will make the rest think.' It was what we had
expected. Bob Barton and Paddy came in to say goodbye.
Both were sick; the crossing to the wings could only mean the
one thing. Bob sat on my bed; he talked quietly. He looked
content, so did Paddy. Bob talked on. It would breed more
hatred; he would wish that those who had once fought with
us for the Republic would not stain their hands further. He
had nursed and cared for me, chatted and read. I was now
able to play two games of chess a day, and had attempted to
solve the problems which occupied so much of his time.
Paddy's susceptible lips caught the echo of his smile. He
had a sensitive face; it looked wistful now, but really it was
not. He had a slightly nervous trick of momentarily closing
his eyes and moving his head as he spoke. 'You've cheated
us,' said Paddy. 'We go first.' His large hands played with a
book as we talked. 'I wonder what has happened outside,' he
said. 'We must have had some successful scrapping.'
A knock on the door. 'Beannacht De leat, Earnan. I'll see you
on the other side.' He stood up, saluted and left the cell. The
voice of the police outside. 'Barton. Hurry up, Barton.' A firm
hand grip from Bob; his lips flickered and he was gone.
Jimmy Mooney and I did not speak for a long time after-
wards. There was no bitterness or rancour in those two; Bob
with gentleness and consideration; Paddy with a delicate
sensitiveness, a strange spiritual sense. It seemed hard that so
many of the people I admired had to die and would continue
to die for the cause. Jimmy and I talked and thought of things
one remembers another by, in absence; a smile, a humorous
remark, an association in books. Bob's ivory chessmen and
his joy in his ambushes in the end game; the problems in the
Times Literary Supplement; a last talk on Italian primitives;
fishing days on the Westmeath lakes; the time when he was to
be flogged with the cat-o'-nine-tails in an English prison, and
the description of the terrible shell cocoa of convicts which
almost gave me indigestion to hear of. Paddy's salting of a
phrase; his tale of a railway station in America where women
had lined up to kiss him. For them he represented the Young
Ireland, but I could not see it in that light. 'That'd take the
starch out of you,' he would say.
The making of a flag in Maryborough in 1918 where Paddy
was serving hard labour: when in solitary confinement he had
cajoled some flowers, a needle and a thread; then he had
barricaded his door and hung out a sheet with orange and
green flowers from the handle of a broom. The Republican
tricolour floated from the window; seen by people on the
street outside. Later, his escape from the Joy after men with
spoons in their pockets had held up the warders who thought
the spoons were revolver muzzles. As a final touch a prisoner
began to read aloud the proclamation of the 1916 Rising,
whilst other prisoners used a rope-ladder on the wall. The
warders thought another rebellion had broken out.
We tried to keep awake, but I fell asleep. Before dawn
Jimmy touched me on the shoulder. 'It'll soon be dawn,' he
whispered. It was very cold. The light came slowly through
the bars, making larger grills on the cell walls as we listened.
No sound of rifle volleys. We lay quiet for another hour.
Perhaps they had been taken away to another barracks or to
Kilmainham for the execution. Tired, we went to sleep. There
had been no executions, we learned that evening, and we
were left to puzzle at the ways of jailers.
Jimmy was a Dublin volunteer who had served in Fianna
Eireann. His legs were small; he was lightly built. He had
once hoped to become a jockey at the Curragh stables;
finally he had been apprenticed to a barber. Anyone small, in
his description, was 'two hands higher than a duck'. He had a
fierce contempt for the Staters. Their operations were sub-
jects for his amused tolerance. They did not count; we would
win the fight. His national faith was simple, unwavering,
unconquerable, like men who had fought with us for Irish
freedom. Not specious arguments, not casuistry, but this
awe-inspiring certitude, simple and direct. People who had
lived outside of Ireland were affected by this faith and partook
of it when they shared its belief. There was no room for
cynicism or disillusionment, but a fierce exultance whose
sincerity swept everything else aside. Often enough it warped
human nature; with him it did not. This was the belief of the
people, who practically alone had nurtured the spirit of
freedom, had kept alive the passionate desire of the race. Not
amongst the intellectuals would it be found; they were not
free from forms of mental snobbery, intellectual arrogance
and pride. Not much amongst the middle classes, the barriers
to all ideals save those of comfort. But amongst the people,
deep down in the soil and with the poor of cities.
I climbed one day to a window at the rear of the hospital,
on superimposed tables from which I could look out across
the prison wall. Water in the canal glistened in the sun, the
wind rippled its surface; trees were in bud along Whitworth
Road; in the distance I could see sparkles of the quartz in the
grey limestone Irish Romanesque church of Saint Columba.
Houses of red brick were brighter than I had ever thought of
them. It was like looking down on houses in a box of toys,
ruddy reds and deep greens. It was hard to believe that there
could be so much colour outside. Soon spring would be here.
In the country young wheat would be bright green and the
growing meadow-grass a strong green. There would be white
blossoms on the hawthorne and a purple fur on the plant
beech before it leafed; apple buds pinkish white and fragrant.
The furze would become a deeper gold and its odour
stronger; finches would answer clearly, skylarks soar, the spry
wheatears sing as they flew. All gayer in pairs mating, as
winter flocks were broken up; and jail was as dour as parched
grass. That view of the trees and the canal was a happy
memory. The warm colour of the brick and the foliage re-
mained with me later in the ugly drab cell.
Several times I had written to the C of S, as I expect had
others, pointing out that prisoners were casualties who could
not be considered. That had been my own attitude when I
was free; it was my attitude now as a prisoner. If our lives
were to be forfeit on account of the operations of our fighting
men, we would have no complaint. Some of the officers were
afraid, evidently, of the continuance of executions. Some
feared that the prisoners who were considered of importance
and who would be hard to replace would eventually be shot.
In jail we held no rank, and it was well. No one should live on
their reputation. Hell, it was hard to get rid of the current
folklore which exalted men beyond the stature they could live
up to. Outside, some of our officers were beaten; some of
them from the south had already met Free State officers and
had unofficially talked. That, unless our GHQ was willing to
back them, was a source of weakness. Such meetings would
only prolong the straggled fight and reduce it to one of
attrition. Prisoners had no right to advise, I thought, yet to
Liam Lynch I had protested about the destruction of com-
munications as an end in itself. I thought the policy a fatal
one, giving an excuse to men in some areas who would not
fight. If such tearing up of rails and roads was to be the
prelude to good fighting, then it was justified, otherwise not.
A campaign of destruction that did not serve any immediate
military objective, or did not grow out of a definite military
undertaking, seemed to me futile, and in a sense cowardly.
All my notes to him were written from the view of one who
would soon leave this side of things, and who thought that he
himself had not justified responsibility when one of the
fighting force. We were beaten as far as I could see. We had
been beaten for the past two or three months, if not longer.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
APRIL--AUGUST 1923
A FEW days later I was removed to 'A' wing, though scarcely
able to walk. My removal was viewed with apprehension by
some of the officers as they thought that there might be a
sinister motive. Jimmy came with me, but he would not be
allowed inside as he had come originally from 'C' wing. He
refused to leave me.
'I'm not going to 'C' wing, I'm going to 'A' wing.' He
argued with the police but they would not let him in.
'I'm going to see the governor,' I heard him say; so despite
the military police he insisted on making his way to the office.
An hour later he came back. 'Paudeen's not so bad. He said I
could move in to your cell to look after you.'
So he was permitted to move his mattress into my cell. I
had the only bed in the Joy.
The hospital had been quiet and I had been afraid of the
change to the wing with all its noise and bustle. I had become
accustomed to the hospital's greyness; I had forgotten its
drabness. Now I had again to get used to an ordinary cell.
'A' wing had a big number of men who had been captured in
arms and were awaiting sentence, yet on the surface there
was probably little difference from other wings and not much
sense of strain; but sometimes the men would show it.
Outside news was eagerly gathered; they knew that activity in
the field would often be replied to by a diet of executions. The
shooting of prisoners by areas looked as if the Free State was
'blooding' its senior officers, and men from an area which had
not yet responded were less sure of life. Up to the middle of
March sixty-seven prisoners had faced firing squads. January
was the culminating point with thirty-four executions; in
February only one prisoner had been shot; in some instances
prisoners had been executed after the local command had
sentenced them to terms of eight and ten years, for the
ultimate decision rested with Free State GHQ. Some men
were nervous and peaked; some did not care, but at odd
moments a man might drop his covering and show his
anxiety, fear or dread. Boys and men laughed about execu-
tions and ragged one another's concealed fears. I was growing
used to the idea of death by a long apprenticeship. I was more
passive about it now. In Kilmainham with the British I would
have tried to struggle with the hangman. Here it seemed a
natural end. Any day the Staters might shoot a whole wing if
they felt inclined; yet the laughter of the race in the front of
almost certain death was steady and if it could be so
described, joyous. Death could win the last throw, but it
would win from many who accepted it as one meets a good
enemy, almost in a spirit of sad comradeship.
A group of men were in half disgrace, which wore away.
The officer commanding the wing had written about them to
me when I was in the hospital. The men had been assured
that if they signed the form before trial they would not be
executed, otherwise they had no hope. That was a question
for the men themselves, I replied, and for the Wing OC. I
held no rank. I would not sign myself in such a case; boys had
been given the same opening but they were now dead. The
men signed; their conduct was contrasted with that of the
young boys shot in Kilmainham, but we were all prisoners,
and months afterwards they repudiated their signatures.
There was noise all day. Heavy boots on iron stairs, men
tramping with healthy zest, continuous hammering on coins
to make rings or ornaments, catcalls, yells and greetings
though some had parted twenty minutes previously.
'Oh the hard Joe!'
'What's the latest?'
'Up Kerry No. One!'
From the outside came shouts from rival teams playing
football with rag balls. A chorus syncopated from a cell, or
the scrape of a reluctant fiddle. A casual observer might have
thought he was amongst a crowd of schoolboys. Classes,
elementary and advanced, were held daily on many subjects;
wood was carved, macrame work knotted, fretwork-saws
turned out designs in wood, pewter spoons were melted and
run in moulds to make Tara brooches. At one time the guards
complained about the noise of ring hammering as men
zealously laboured on the locks of their cells to batter out
coins. Later, guards solaced themselves in the night watches
by banging out rings below on the ground floor whilst
prisoners shouted their lack of sleep. Cigarettes had been
banned at intervals and smokers suffered. Tobacco was
manufactured out of dried leaves and bay, or wisps of grass;
some smoked brown paper, and a few bartered rings of
copper covered with mercury to simulate silver with some of
the military police who acted as our warders. There could be
a brisk exchange for a quantity of cigarettes but this method
did not often succeed.
The day after my arrival a plumber came to my cell. 'I'll fix
your pipes,' he said. He brought with him lengths of gas
tubing which he had torn down in another part of the wing.
He tapped the gas main, bent piping behind the hinge of my
door, and cemented joints with soap. He hammered fittings
into the wall, and there was an improvised cooking range.
Gas in our cells, for lighting only, was supplied from above
the door. He made a bunsen and a fish-tail burner on the spot
out of pieces of an empty pineapple tin. Another boy fitted up
bookcases made out of boxes with the ends knocked out, then
the frame was supported on the walls by pegs. The lion-skin
rug which had been flung over me by Mrs. Humphreys when
I lay wounded, and which I had clung on to ever since, helped
at times to decorate the wall. Soon the cell was habitable.
A few cells had been papered early in the war. Simon
Donnelly, who had escaped with me from Kilmainham, was
very proud of his wallpaper which visitors came to admire. A
week after he had completely furnished his cell he was
changed to an internment camp. Photographs from illus-
trated magazines took from the walls' bareness and designs
were worked out in patterns of coloured paper; some cells had
drawings, others paintings. At one time nearly every prisoner
thought that he could paint; the evidence yet remained in
landscape, portrait and still life.
Cells had a window high up, and the walls were white-
washed. They had a bare, uneventful appearance. Some cells
were dark; they did not catch much sun in the daytime. All
had defective gas for reading as light came from an unpro-
tected jet, and because many windows had been broken in the
process of occupation, the light had additional flickers from
the wind. Lights were forbidden in cells after ten o'clock
when the gas at the main was shut off, except on the landings.
Candles were improvised, since they were forbidden, by
melted-fat cut from meat allowed to solidify around a piece of
string; then there was reading light. During the day it was
often difficult to read, there was so much 'ragging'. The night
was cold and quiet; all was still and we could begin to read.
Not for long, though. Someone would become exuberant,
roar at full-lung, or break out in song, to be howled down by
objectors or the chorus to be taken up by half the wing. Some
men darkened their windows with paper or erected tin
screens to conceal the light from shining through their doors.
Others were indifferent and did not trouble themselves to
hide their lights. One could hear a shout, 'PUT OUT THAT
LIGHT', the awful noise of a cartridge being rammed into a
rifle breech, an irritated 'DO YOU HEAR, PUT OUT
THAT LIGHT'. Perhaps a reply from the wing: 'Sockko'.
Then a shot. Another bolt ramming, a shot--silence. My
nerves were always on edge waiting for the shot when the
sentry was close to my window. My body stiffened at the first
shout; I listened to the noise of the bolt, then after what
seemed long ages, the shot. Exhausted, I would allow my
body to relax. Some nights I had to listen to shot after shot.
They had begun to produce the same effect as when I waited
in the room near the gates at the Four Courts for the rifle-
grenades to burst. My nerves were weak, there was not the
old control. Men often left an empty cell door partially open
so that a landing light would shine in to deceive the sentry,
and those in near-by cells taunted and jeered as he shot and
cursed.
Paddy Fleming was in the cell on one side of me. During
the night he often had heart spasms, his body grew rigid, his
speech became incoherent. If anyone would touch him during
an attack he would regain control; if not, he would feel as if
his heart was slowing. He would not be allowed a companion.
I was the only breach of that rule. Boys removed two bricks in
the wall beside my bed so that he could touch me when he felt
the attack coming on; otherwise he would lie supine for half
the following day. Imprisoned by the British in Mary-
borough, for many months he had fought them for political
status. He was confined in handcuffs, in strait jackets, or,
worse still, in 'muffs' which were used for dangerously
demented lunatics. He had smashed cell after cell, including
one specially built for him; he broke muff after muff, and as a
result of his excessive exertions he had damaged his heart.
One morning he walked into my cell.
'It's strange. I saw Liam Lynch last night. He walked in
through the cell door, stood for a while, smiled down at me,
and then he was gone.'
He believed in his vision; at other times he had sensed
things we do not normally feel. We were worried about Liam.
Perhaps he had been captured in arms; perhaps it did not
mean anything. Two days later we heard that he had been
killed during a round-up on the Knockmealdown mountains.
The fight had varied in intensity. In Connacht the western
divisions maintained their ground, especially Billy
Pilkington's area. Areas like Longford and portions of Meath
struggled with difficulty. South Dublin maintained its small
columns which had probably more vicissitudes than those of
any other area. Wexford continued to improve. North
Tipperary maintained its position in the mountains around
Newport; South Tipperary was still staunch and true. Kerry
fought on despite all the efforts to crush it. Our casualties had
not been heavy, but many of the best officers had been killed.
We didn't know how to fight and we didn't know how to sur-
render.
In the night-time in the cell it was pleasant talking to
Jimmy, listening to him. He gleaned information from many
sources. During a pause in conversation he would say: 'Have
you heard the latest?' and would recount some amusing
incident from one of the wings, or some further attempt by
the Staters to crush the resistance outside. 'Any news?' was
generally the introduction to talk, as it would be out of jail.
'It's terrible that these half-soldiers are keeping us in
prison,' Jimmy would say. He had the sturdy Dublin volun-
teer outlook, his unit was the best in Ireland, and the Staters
could never beat us. With him it was only a question of time
until we wore them down. His face was pale, he had a high
dome of a forehead, and he swayed a little when he walked.
He was self-conscious about his feelings for Ireland; he tried
to conceal them. When men sang 'The Soldier's Song', he
laughed as many of the others did. He baulked like a skittish
horse at the singing of 'My Dark Rosaleen', but as the verses
continued he would express what he felt, in that strange
attachment to Ireland which was as mystical as it was
practical. When men took unusual risks in jail, 'they wanted
to be bould Bobby Emmets'. Yet he talked of 'the Cause' as
if it had been the Quest for the Holy Grail, even as we in 'F'
company, before the fighting began again after Easter Week,
looked forward to and discussed 'the Day'.
From concerts held on the landings, Jimmy learned ballads
of the Tan war, or the Trouble, as it was now called: 'All
around my hat I'll wear a Tri-colour ribbon-O', or 'The
Foggy Dew'; but they could always be roused to a marching
song: 'Steady, boys, and step together' and 'Twenty Men
from Dublin Town', or the humorous parodies: 'King George
met Joe Devlin a short time ago, . . . And "begorra" says Joe,
I don't mind if I do.'
So he would sing in the night-time an old satirical song:
Soon we will all be civilized,
Neat and clean and well advised,
O won't Mother England be surprised,
Whack fol the diddle fol the dido day.
From the GPO to Boland's Mill,
We made poor England weep her fill,
But ould Britannia loves us still,
Whack fol the diddle fol the dido day.
The old songs from the Irish he did not know, but he learned
them and was helped out by voices from the neighbouring
cells when we kept our doors open. 'The Castle of Dromore',
a crooning lullaby, 'I know my love by his way of walking', or
'Sean 0 Dwyer a Gleanna, we were worsted in the game.' He
could recite Pearse's oration at the grave of O'Donovan Rossa
and his short sketch of him:
He jested when he was before his judges; he
jested when he was tortured by his jailers;
sometimes he startled the silence of the
prison corridors by laughing aloud and by
singing Irish songs in his cell: they thought
he was going mad, but he was only trying to
keep himself sane.
Liam Deasy, formerly the Deputy Chief of Staff, came to 'A'
wing. I told him what I thought of his conduct when he had
issued his appeal to all Republicans to surrender, so that
there would be no false footing between us. He felt his
position in the prison. His letter written the night before his
threatened execution had not resulted in the surrender of
arms, and Liam Lynch and the rest of his staff had con-
demned Deasy's action.
He had held his views for a time before his arrest, he said.
It was a matter for his Chief of Staff, I told him.
We were all prisoners, anyhow, and we did our best to live
jail life without friction. He had found the diary of a convict,
written on toilet paper hidden in a ventilator. After reading it,
he had burnt the story.
'Couldn't you have sent it out?' I asked.
'No, some of it was not fit to read.'
'But you read it, and I've never heard what a man felt like,
reviewing his past in jail.' And so another human document
was destroyed.
On 30 April, an order to suspend operations was issued by
Frank Aiken, the new Chief of Staff, and on 24 May a 'cease
fire' order and 'dump arms' instructions were forwarded to all
units of the IRA.
Arrests continued with renewed vigour. The Free State
Army was about fifty-five thousand strong. Areas never before
visited, now swarmed with troops and round-ups took place
in mountainy areas where troops had found it difficult or
impossible to get through before. Our men who wished to
avoid capture were hunted like foxes. They could not offer
any resistance, and if they went home they were arrested and
suffered very often at the hands of their captors. 'On the run'
was now no misnomer. Some of them who were put amongst
us said they had never travelled so fast, or so long, before,
with their 'caps in their fisths', as they said. The 'cap in the
fisth' was always afterwards associated with the ferreting out
after the cease fire.
Below in basement cells were the newcomers, and the
following dialogue was recounted as being the typical con-
versation of a young Kerry boy who was able to talk to the
new prisoners through their cell doors.
'Hello . . . Hello there.'
'Are you from Kerry wan or two?'
'Did they bate you up much?'
'Were oo caught with a gun?'
'Faith, that's too bad.'
A few more discreet expressions of sympathy, and then the
inevitable demand which had prompted the conversation.
'Have oo ere a butt?'
In jail you learn to do without anything. We were up against
jailers who had themselves been prisoners, and who knew the
ropes. The days were difficult. Anyone could catcall, yell or
sing when the humour seized him. The destructive spirit
could be seen in the broken cell windows which had not been
repaired. In the winter time many must have cursed the
former occupants who had smashed the glass for want of
something better to do. By degrees I became somewhat
accustomed to noise. Tin cans kicked on the floor of 'A' wing,
carpenters hammering, and the exuberance of windy lungs. I
read steadily, relieving history with fiction, drama with
poetry, travel or philosophy, but the light was bad. In strong
sun the dull yellow-white walls glared; at night the gas jet
jumped and stuttered. At the back of my mind was the
thought that if I was not shot I might always be an invalid. It
was better to read, to prevent thinking of oneself.
I found it very difficult to walk; my muscles were flaccid
from loss of tone, and my body, through nerves, was easily
tensed; I could not speak when I was tired. Generally I was
able to remain up for an hour or two daily. I could talk but
little as talking exhausted me. The hospital cell had made me
a recluse; one had been driven in too much on oneself, now
was the time to go out again, to eddy round. That was
difficult, I found. Sometimes I would get tired at the voice of a
visitor. To some people I could chat, but with others I couId
only utter a few sentences when the tired feeling came. It was
easier, I often found, to listen to men who had natural school-
ing, who had no pretension to learning or science. They were
natural; sometimes the others seemed sophisticated, jutting
out from themselves, and unreal.
Jimmy had learned to know my 'grey days' as we called
them, when I could not leave my bed or speak. He had
learned my idiosyncrasies, he knew the people who adversely
affected me, and would endeavour after a time to get them out
of the cell.
Sometimes we were able to borrow a small box-gramo-
phone which had some fairly good records. In the silent dark
we listened to violin solos or symphonies. We felt our souls
being slowly drawn out of our bodies; we became sound, a
feeling in sound, rising, falling, sadness, joy, memory and
unrealized desire. The warm richness and joy of the sublime
Beethoven, tempered with a fear for the record, for there were
few of his. A cracked Bach, rising in clarity and concise
strength above the needle rasp on the break. Kreisler made us
one with rhythm, swaying, beating, pulsing; or we visualized
Anitra's Dance from Peer Gynt, when through shut eyes we
saw a figure flash in silver light, flitting as softly as a moon-
beam till the end of the round. That was the right way to hear
music, in the dark, when everything was quiet.
I read aloud aided by a beef-fat candle until I was tired.
Paddy's voice came through the chinks in the wall: 'Good,
boy, keep it up, that's fine; try it again.' Tagore's The Gardener
read thus, my voice endeavouring to interpret the feeling,
grasping its sense of continuity, its fluidity. Reading prose or
poems I liked gave an added beat to the heart; feeling welled
up slowly till it reached the inflections of the voice and I had
to stop. We embroidered fantastic stories or imaginary tales
of people we both knew. I would strive hard to keep up the
adventures which gradually became real, until Paddy's voice
would break in. 'Whoa, man. That's all,' as I roved out of a
story. A rifle shot, or the spatter of a machine-gun, might
break in on the reading.
We played mental chess; it became a night-time occu-
pation. We rapped on cell walls, then called out our moves.
'King's bishop to queen's castle four', and the reply would
come back. 'Queen's knight to king six.' We studied the
relationship of the imaginary chess board, the next moves
were made, the game became slower as the moves developed.
In the end there would be a shout of protest. 'I'm there. I
have a knight there. Get off my square,' and the game would
stop unfinished. Down the passage, through my half-open
door, I could hear loud argumentative disputes about
previous moves.
I read to Jimmy. Don Quixote in a huge volume with Dore
illustrations, his own book; a special reading-rest was made
for it. There was Sancho's advice, which I had underlined in
my pocket edition: 'Let us run away now for there is no one to
see us running.' Most of all he liked the Odyssey, as I myself
did. It had more continuity and cohesion as a story than the
Iliad, it was more interesting, more imaginative. The episode
of Polyphemus he liked best.
A Greek class was held in my cell. A Tralee boy, Eamon
Enright, a civil engineer, taught us. He was brilliant at
science, a classical student and a linguist. We spent many
interesting hours discussing, talking, working. He read
Aristophanes for us in Greek, or quoted the long rolling
passages of Homer. We read Aristophanes in translation,
Frere's; and Sophocles, Euripides, and jumped from them to
the Elizabethans. There was always the surprise of certain
men in jail eager for knowledge of painting or general know-
ledge. My attempts through music and painting were not
successful; they wanted a literary approach, every picture
must tell a story. I persuaded boys to read Balzac because he
was anti-British. I myself was reading Chaucer and
Shakespeare to a tune of reproach. There was consolation in
our lack of fight when I read Motley's Wars of the Dutch
Republic.
Men who had been sentenced for civilian offences were also
sent to Mountjoy; they added to the known touts and pigeons
amongst us. A few non-political prisoners had been placed in
our wing. Probably it was a prelude to treating us as
criminals.
Going down stairs to a bath, very slowly, in pyjamas, sit-
ting down at intervals, I met an old man on the ground floor.
He had been sentenced for cattle driving. He always wore his
brown-green hat, which had once been black. He had a long
thin face, with a silver-grey scrub of beard; his shoulders were
bent, but his body was straight. His neck had deep creases in
the red skin.
Jimmy was carrying my towels, as he intended to give me a
shampoo and massage.
'I've watched you coming down for baths,' the old man
said. 'Why man alive, you'll catch your death of cold from
them. Now look on me. I had ne'er a bath in my life and I'm
past sixty-five.'
Attempts to escape were always being planned and tunnels
were ever under way. Most prisoners had private ideas of
their own on the subject. Some tunnels had been found by the
Staters, filled in, and blocked with barbed wire. Often an old
tunnel was used again, side-tunnels branching off from its
point of stoppage. Poison gas and grenades were placed in
some by the Staters but no casualties ensued. Dummy tunnels
were made to act as blinds to the real one. Picked men were
selected for the work; prominent men could not be chosen as
they were too closely watched. Bearings for direction were
taken with a prismatic compass but sometimes the reckoning
was wrong. Some were too short; one was too near the sur-
face, a sentry stepped through into it. Workers wore overalls;
they had to work in muddy water yet be clean for parade-
count in the evening. The earth had to be carefully removed
and distributed, and the tunnel in many cases was supported
by props made from cell boards or boxes. Lightning raids by
police might turn men suddenly out of the wings and a count
would prove that there was underground work. In one
instance men were stuck in the mud before count and the
Staters had to be informed of their predicament as the other
prisoners were unable to extricate them. Planning escape kept
some men busy. Their days were less barren. From con-
tinuous practice a few had become expert in tunnelling and in
avoiding attention. They had to avoid the prying eyes of the
military police, the prisoner touts, the notice of our men who
did not know of the work and might be inclined to talk.
Legend said that Michael Price, who had been in com-
mand of the First Eastern when I was free, had driven a
tunnel in one of the camps, equipped it with electric lights,
and provided trucks to take away earth and sidings into
which men could fit while the debris was moved down the
passage. The story grew, soon it equalled in detail
Scheherazade's tales. I had often been told by men who had
been sent to the hospital or to 'A' wing from other jails of
proposed escape plans, as a whispered secret. I hoped that
Mick Price's tunnel had not been found as a result of talk.
He came himself to 'A' wing. He was a prisoner in
Wellington barracks when I had been wounded, and, believ-
ing the evening paper which said that I had died of wounds,
he had held a memorial service for me. Other prisoners
recited the Rosary. Then he gave an oration. I had learned
part of it by heart, and I recited it when I met him in 'A'
wing.
'You'll be well buried before any of us will ever attempt
another hymn of praise for you,' he said.
He came to my cell to chat and told me of his camp
experiences and the punishment ordeal of the 'glass-house' at
the Curragh, where the military confine their own delin-
quents. It was a survival from the British occupation. He and
three others were removed from camp and sentenced for their
suspected part in tunnel-planning. In the glass-house, so
called because of its roof, prisoners had to do everything at
the double and were harried by sergeants who seemed to take
a delight in barking orders, and in giving vent to their
parade-ground voice in narrow cells. Unnecessary, meaning-
less tasks were thought out for them and at night their sleep
was interrupted by numerous counts. Price and his com-
panions had been tied up with outstretched hands to beams
so that the tips of their toes barely touched the ground. They
were kept in this position for long periods as they refused to
submit to the impositions of the loud-voiced ones. The other
unfortunate military prisoners submitted and other punish-
ments were meted out to them. Such institutions existed in
different parts of the British glass-house empire.
During late July and the first week of August, 'A' wing was
practically emptied, and we were distributed between 'C'
and 'D' wings. With most of the others, I went into 'C'.
A carnival in the wing was arranged. Plays were rehearsed;
there was an air of mystery about as groups gathered into
cells to discuss their schemes.
The great day arrived. Cells and landings were decorated
and costumes improvised. I was helped downstairs but was
able to walk slowly to the exercise ring. That was my first day
in the ring, and my first real view of Mountjoy. The prison
proper contained four blocks or wings of harsh grey stone,
radiating like the spokes of half a wheel, the hub forming
what was known as the circle, shut off from the wings by high
iron gates. The walls on the outside showed three layers of
cells; there were four, but one could not see the cells of the
basements. The small barred openings were the windows.
They seemed smaller than ever from the outside. Each wing
had its exercise ring rounded with iron bars. Tall polygonal
chimneys stood high from the roofs. The earth was bare; it
had been trodden into surface dust and hardened by feet.
Cinders gave a touch of rawness. In the angles between
wings long shadows were thrown; cells there had very little
light. The prison architects must have studied hard to evolve
a soulless building. No touch of warmth of earth or stone;
nature was barren here, only the ruthless strength of men
who built such walls to crush, to teach a lesson, rather than to
cure men, to make the grey stones eat into grey souls.
A procession was formed, led by a bishop with a large
crozier, and his attendants. Representatives from the British
Empire and other uncivilized countries followed, whilst the
civilized communities--mostly coloured--brought up the
rear. Fortune tellers, gamblers, strong men of the loop, side-
shows, thimble-riggers with their vanishing peas, plied their
trades. Pickpockets and robbers moved around, but a force of
detectives scattered through the crowd made many arrests.
Tribes of Red Indians appeared, under a coat of brown-red
boot polish, and various coloured races wandered about;
some, it seemed, would belong to the particular race they had
selected for many a day, as it would apparently be very
difficult to remove their paint. Disguised Ku Kluxers raided
and carried off struggling victims, mostly touts, who were
summarily dealt with. Plays were performed in the open,
tables side by side forming a stage. 'In the Shadow of the
Soup', and 'The Mist that does be on the Bog', were staged,
the dialogue in many scenes being simple but effective.
'God save all here.'
'May God save you, kindly stranger.'
'It's a fine night.'
'It's a fine night, surely.'
'Musha, it's a quare world that's in it, avic.'
'Did ye see any men whest of the cross?'
'No, woman of the house, nor east of the cross, sorra wan.'
In the evening there was a dance on the ground floor, the
'girls' wearing handkerchiefs on their heads or on their arms.
From the landings, which acted as balconies, rice, confetti
and streamers showered down on the dancing couples, and
the day was voted a pleasant memory by all. We were sorry
when lights-out came.
One day Jimmy Mooney fell on the first landing, after per-
forming some trick gymnastics. He was carried into the cell
and suddenly developed epilepsy. I managed to insert a spoon
between his teeth, and he lay there shivering in violent per-
spiration. He was taken away to the hospital and died four
days later.
My cell was lonely then. I missed his cheery direct
optimism. I had envied his courage and intrepid spirit, and
admired his humorous lack of bitterness. He typified the best
of the Dublin Volunteers, and that would suffice for an
epitaph.
Sean Lemass, who escaped with me after the Four Courts,
and had later been in charge of communications when I was
responsible for the Northern and Eastern Command, moved
in. He read aloud Carlyle's explosive sentences; quoted
Kropotkin; sketched with enthusiasm the plots of Upton
Sinclair's novels, and recited Kipling's spattered word
rhymes, the latter possibly because he thought they would
annoy me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AUGUST--OCTOBER 1923
A GENERAL election took place outside. Many of the
prisoners were nominated, and I was put forward as a candi-
date for North Dublin city. I protested against my selection,
but my protests were unheard. Sinn Fein had decided that I
should be nominated, and nominated I was. It did not matter
if we had no ability or political bent. We might be honest,
anyhow we might gather votes.
In Mountjoy, elections were held to test and teach know-
ledge of electoral organization, and to study the complicated
system of PR, proportional representiation. Meetings were
addressed from landing-rails or empty butter-boxes in the
exercise rings; waves of oratory flowed to and fro on rocks of
interruption and hecklings. Business men, farmers,
imperialists, separatists, educationalists, spoke seriously or in
mock parody. Rival candidates offered jail utopias for votes.
Paragraphs from the daily press and diatribes of bishops and
parish priests were used against the 'irregulars'. Polling day
was a frenzy, a principal difficulty the prevention of imper-
sonation. We discussed the making of box kites carrying
election slogans which could be flown from the wings and the
strings cut before the Staters could seize them. The kites
might have amused the city electors but they were never
made.
De Valera had been arrested in Ennis, Co. Clare, his old
constituency. He had given the Free State notice that he
would address his voters on a certain day. The meeting was
broken up by shooting and the threat of bayonets; people on
the platform close to de Valera had been wounded.
The result of the general election was a surprise. Some had
expected that ten or twelve Republican candidates would be
returned, but in jails and camps, alone, eighteen Sinn Fein
TDs were elected, with a total of forty-four. I was elected, and
was now a TD for North Dublin; the second preference votes
of the Free State Minister for Defence, Dick Mulcahy, had
given me my quota. How could one arrive at the point of view
which gave him first preference and myself second? Perhaps it
was as the people once said when they talked of our marching
and drilling as play-acting. 'Musha, God help them. They
haven't much sense, the creatures.'
I was met with mock gravity and deference now, increased
when they knew how I hated to be a TD. Long testimonials
from my constituents in jail were sent to me, which set forth
grievances, asked for my respectful assistance, and held hints
of desirable vacancies in departments of government.
I received a notice from the Clerk of the Dail to attend a
meeting of Dail Eireann, but first I should apply in person at
Leinster House to comply with a certain article in the Con-
stitution: which meant that I was to take the oath of
allegiance. The notice was sent to my home address, then
forwarded by my mother to Mountjoy. It would not be
correct to admit that a TD was in prison. I told my people to
return any further notice to Leinster House and inform the
Clerk that I was a prisoner. Afterwards I thought of what I
might have done. Apply for permission to go to Leinster
House as invited, then refuse to take the oath when I met the
Clerk. It would be amusing to have to go under escort, a
public representative in handcuffs, but I expect I would not
have been given permission.
Cosgrave, the Governor, died, and O'Keeffe was replaced
by Dermott MacManus who proceeded to strengthen de-
fences; barbed wire was festooned, and increased sentry posts
were prepared on platforms. MacManus came to visit my
cell, sat on the end of my bed and talked of the Tan war, of
the truce, and the attack on the Four Courts. He had been in
our divisional camp on the Galtees, and later I had seen his
torn uniform and white teeth grinning through a blackened
face as he talked while we lined up along the Liffey bank after
the Four Courts surrender. He had a thick underlip that
jutted out, his face was swarthy, he said 'By Jove', and his
garrison accent remained from service in the British Army.
He came again with a tall officer who had, so he said, met me
during the Tan war, but I had no remembrance of him.
After they left, I was told that the Kerry men in the wing
were very indignant because I had spoken to the tall officer.
'Why did you talk to that murderer?' they asked, he who had
shot a prisoner dead on the roadside.
One of the Kerry men tried to speak quietly, but missing all
through his story was the restraint of clarity. He forgot often,
his story would begin to get out of control, and then the
muscles of his high-boned face tightened, his eyes widened,
and words shot out supported by strong curses. 'Aeroplane'
Lyons was his friend; the rocks had smashed Lyons's body
when the Staters cut the rope by which he was being hauled
up the cliffs near Clashmealcon on the north Kerry coast, a
prisoner.
Kerry was strongly Republican and a very determined
attempt had been made by the Free State to subjugate it since
their landing at Fenit in August 1922, just over a year ago. It
was not until the back of the resistance had been broken in
other counties that special attention had been directed to the
Kingdom of Kerry. General Paddy Daly and his Dublin
Guards were there and were given a free hand. Up to
February 1923, ten Kerry men had been murdered while in
custody, but during the month of March twenty-five prisoners
were murdered, in three instances by a new form of execu-
tion. On 7 March, nine prisoners were brought from Tralee
to Ballyseedy Cross near the Killarney and Castleisland
roads; they were tied arm to arm on either side of a log and a
mine was set off under them. One man, Stephen Fuller,
escaped uninjured but pieces of the others were scattered on
the roadside and on the branches of trees, and the crows had
their pickings of them. That same day five more prisoners
were brought to the Countess Bridge in Killarney; three were
killed with mines and grenades, one by machine-guns, but
another, Tadhg Coffey, ran to freedom. Five days later, on 12
March, five prisoners were blown to bits outside of Cahir-
civeen. Large crowds came to the funerals; there were
protests, but not in the press, from people of different views;
many Free State sympathisers had expressed their indigna-
tion. The sequel, with its implications, came with the
publication of an official order from Free State Army General
Headquarters :
Prisoners who die whilst in military custody
in the Kerry command shall be interred by the
troops in the area in which the death has
taken place.
The thundering pulpits were strangely silent about what
crows ate in Kerry. During the recent election campaign,
William Cosgrave had addressed a meeting in the county,
and mourning mothers, some with black shawls over their
heads, had knelt in the street in his sight and had solemnly
cursed him.
'And not long ago, Jer O'Leary was shot at till he died at
the gates of the barracks in Castleisland. Maybe you think
now we like you to be talking to men the likes of that
murderer?'
Barbed wire and platforms were the beginning of a cam-
paign. MacManus attempted to deal with individual
prisoners only, and commandants in charge of the wings and
prisoners' jail organization were to be ignored. Paddy
Coughlan, our wing OC, addressed a letter to the Governor.
His note was returned with sarcastic comments appended in
red ink. His next letter referred to the Governor's bad man-
ners, and police came to the wing to arrest Coughlan, but he
could not be found. He slept on different landings, changed
his appearance and clothing, grew a moustache, and went 'on
the run'. He dealt with the routine work of 'C' wing, held his
Spanish class regularly, then disappeared at night to sleep in
the next wing, with which we had a means of communication.
He was caught and imprisoned in the basement of another
wing. Men in the cell above broke through the floor, hauled
him up by roped blankets, and he was again at liberty in jail.
Mick Price now became OC of our wing, and the minor
war inside the Joy developed. An Act was passed through the
Free State parliament authorizing the Staters to intern
prisoners for a stated length of time; the internment order
had to be served on each prisoner in person. We were ordered
not to answer to our names. At nights cells were raided by
CID and officers who attempted to identify our men, but as
they had changed their cells it was difficult to locate
individuals. We were awakened at night by men crowding
into our cells; lights flashed on our faces, and when ques-
tioned as to our names, we replied that we did not know
them. Eventually, I think, most of the internment orders were
served.
As a reprisal, the gas fittings in the cells were torn down by
the military police while the men were at exercise. Warned, I
hid mine under the blankets. Another raiding party found
them, but as I was in bed they did not take them away. A
further supply of piping was obtained by us; walls were chan-
nelled, the lead buried, joints soaped, cavities filled in with
bread softened between the fingers, moistened in the
whitewash that was scraped from off the walls of empty cells.
The opening was hidden by hanging a coat or a photograph
on a nail in front. A detachable tin jet that could screw into
the opening, and a detachable stand to rest tin cans or sauce-
pans on, completed the fittings. To the casual observer a cell
did not contain gas pipes.
A ladder was left one day standing against a new sentry
platform on the outer jail wall. I saw the ladder from the
main window. That's a chance, I thought, but there's a hell of
a drop on the far side.
George Gilmore, a boy from South Dublin, quiet faced,
slow to speak, of a good fighting record, looked through the
window. We were always anxious when Gilmore went to Mr.
Greer to hear Service in the library; he would stuff his pockets
with books from the shelves and he might be found out.
'There's a chance,' he remarked casually. 'The drop is
worse than the sentries.'
He walked downstairs into the exercise ring, climbed the
railings, ran hard towards the ladder. A few of us watched
him. He was climbing the ladder; he had almost reached the
top before the astonished sentries opened fire. The sharp lash
of a rifle bullet; other shots. He held on to the top of the wall
by his hands, then the hands went out of sight. Firing con-
tinued. Military police followed by the prison staff rushed
into the wings to search. Men changed their cells to keep
them guessing: they evidently thought that some whom they
looked upon as important had escaped. After count in the
evening they found out who it was, and next day, to our relief,
we heard that he had not been wounded or retaken. O'Keeffe
with his common sense had defeated all attempts at escape,
and now MacManus's military efficiency had meant the
escape of a prisoner. Wherever he was, O'Keeffe must have
laughed and slapped his unsoldierly thigh, as he emphasized
in singing Corkese: 'Nothin' escapes here but ghas.'
New locks were placed on all our cells and doors were put
in order. Our men were shut out in the exercise ring, then
brought in by twos and locked up in their cells. The intention
was to treat us as criminals. By night-time we were all locked
in.
Through the hole I talked with Paddy Fleming and we
decided to bore through to other cells and wait for orders
from the wing commandant. Paddy told me how to smash an
open door by swinging the hinge sharply back on a hard
bulky object. He had generally used his Bible in the British
jails. The door would then remain open until taken down and
new hinges put on it.
There was less noise than usual during the night, and no
taunting of sentries; the men knew that a crisis of some kind
was coming. Each in his own cell must have thought of how
to defeat the new scheme, or have felt the blankness that
comes when a prison door locks with a smash. Free State
Ministers had talked of putting us on trial. We would be
selected and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, and when a
number of others had been released from the camps and jails
there would be room in the prisons for those whom the
Staters intended to keep.
In the morning doors were opened in turn. Military police
doled out breakfast cell by cell; the sloppy tea was cold. Men
went to the latrine in the company of an armed guard. By
midday some locks were smashed and doors sprung out of
their hinges and the men who were free, in spite of police,
helped to smash other locks. Soon all doors hung at awkward
angles. Some of the military and CID drew guns. Men
rushed them, disarmed them and chased them out of the
gates of the wings. Their weapons were thrown out into the
circle. Men armed with door bolts, legs of tables, lumps of
wood and sections of gas piping, asked their officers to charge
the gate when the police next opened it and to get through to
the circle. They bayed wildly, shouting, asking to be led. The
worm had turned at last. The men showed that they had not
been cowed by long imprisonment. They were persuaded to
leave their makeshift weapons in their cells and wait for
instructions. Some of them chatted in groups and wondered
what would happen. The wing became quiet, as if not sure of
itself. Later, military police arrived in the circle, and Lewis
guns were placed in positions commanding the wings.
'We're for it now,' said Paddy Brennan, a youngster from
the north; 'we'll get it in the neck.'
We heard the noise of a heavy car in the yard. Sean Lemass
climbed on the table and looked through the cell bars.
'An armoured car beyond the exercise yard,' he said, 'and
extra sentries on the walls.'
A sound of marching men. Soldiers with fixed bayonets
tramped into our wing; their heavy boots rattled on the stone
floor. I put a blanket over my pyjamas and stood near my
landing railings, looking down on to the floor below. The
wing was rectangular. One end looked into the circle, round
which were built the other wings. The opposite end faced the
yard; a large window high up gave plenty of light. The cells
were arranged on the remaining sides, opposite each other in
three rows. The second and third landings were of wood,
protected by iron railings; formerly a wire-netting stretched
across between the balconies so that prisoners could not
commit suicide. Below, men stood at their cell doors, or
walked around talking. Above, men leant over the balconies,
watching.
'GET TO YOUR CELLS,' the officer in charge of the
party roared. Nobody appeared to hear him. 'GET TO
YOUR CELLS AT ONCE.'
His voice boomed up through the wing. My nerves jumped
suddenly.
No one went into their cells.
The officer gave the order. 'Prepare to fire.'
The soldiers took a half-right turn and brought the rifles to
their shoulders, sighting along the barrels at the men who
stood in front of them.
'Fire! '
The volley went high.
Our wing commandant leaned over the balcony of the
second landing. 'To your cells,' he ordered. His voice reached
to the end of the wing. The men quickly obeyed. From the
other wings came the sound of shooting and of cheering.
What were they going to do now? Close the doors of the
cells and put on new locks, or remove us to other jails? I
heard a whistle blown and a voice shouted: 'Outside to the
exercise yard!'
Paddy Brennan looked out the door. 'It's only the Staters.'
He came in again.
The officer was left to blow his whistle and shout.
'They want us outside now,' I said. 'What's the idea?'
'I don't know,' said Paddy. 'Perhaps they don't know
themselves. They came here to find a mutiny, now they have
to make one.'
We laughed. Instructions came from our OC that we were
to resist removal, passively.
The Free State officers and police were on the lower land-
ing, trying to make the men leave their cells. I heard a voice
shouting 'If you don't, I'll shoot', and the reply, 'Go to hell',
but no shot came. Another party of police arrived wearing
their green-glazed peaked caps. Men were carried from their
cells, struggling and twisting whilst they were hustled and
struck by the police, but they did not hit back. This was going
to take some time. Hoses were brought on to the three land-
ings. Streams of water at high pressure were turned on the
cells and the prisoners, but they remained within as long as
they could. Our adjutant marked the doors of sick men with a
large white cross and the police were notified. On the top
landing the jet was weak; there was not sufficient pressure.
The nozzle was placed down the backs of our men while the
police held their arms; they should have a taste of the water,
too. I heard a group on my landing shout: 'Now, boys,
ready!', and saw them rush forward, seize the hose pipe and
slash at it with knives. The nozzle was out of action, but the
holes served as a watering-can to drench anybody near at
hand.
Water swished, swirled and flowed down the landing.
Police found the work more difficult on the second and third
landings as men clung to doors, to the iron railings and to the
narrow, circular winding stairway which had room for one at
a time. On the ground floor cells were now vacant. I saw the
attackers turn the hoses into empty cells. They tore down
shelves and fixtures, which floated out mixed with books and
clothing. The police became more excited. They kicked and
struck the men, they shouted and cursed. Some used the butts
of revolvers and rifles on the heads and clinging hands. The
police on the ground floor roared approval. 'Plug the bastard. '
'Knock him stiff.' 'Use your bloody bayonet.' At the door
leading to the exercise yard our men had to run the gauntlet.
Some of them lost their tempers and hit back. They told the
officers and police what they thought of them, and threw a
new light on their ancestry. I got back to bed as I was cold
standing in the wet.
I placed a basin of dirty water near the head of my bed,
intending to throw it at the first officer or NCO who entered
my cell in charge of a raiding party. A few of the sick men had
had their cells hosed already.
An officer came into my cell. Police stood at the door.
'What's your name?' he asked.
I did not reply. We had been ordered not to answer any
questions.
'Get out of bed. There's nothing wrong with you.'
'No, I won't.'
He took hold of the fur rug and tugged. I raised the basin.
'If you don't let that rug alone, I'll give you a wash.'
He let go the rug. One of the police came near the bed. 'It's
O'Malley. Nobody is going to touch him while we are here.'
The officer turned quickly and walked out. The policeman
who had spoken linked arms with the others and they stood
outside the door. One of them called out and three more
linked on and would not permit anybody to enter.
I could hear the noise of our men being removed. Some
were dragged along the floor of the landing. I saw between the
legs of my police guard our OC, Mick Price, pass along, his
lips tightened, clutching at the legs of those who tried to carry
him and at the railings. Hours later the last man had reached
the yard. The prisoners were told they would be given food if
they came in one by one, but they refused to eat unless their
own food orderlies gave it out. It was a hard cold day. Men
were outside in thin, worn, wet clothes. Catcalls, yells and
song came up from the yard. A boy who was sick came into
my cell. He moved over the table beneath the small window,
stood on it and looked out through the bars.
'They're walking round the ring, and running to keep
warm, and the armoured car is slouching about. Some of the
sentries have Lewis guns pointed at our lads. I wouldn't put it
past them to shoot.'
We gathered blankets from near-by cells and dropped them
through a broken window. I stood on the table. Some of the
iron bars ringing the circular exercise enclosure had been
pulled up. Beyond that, the high stone wall, about twenty feet
high, covered with barbed wire. Sentries stood on platforms
erected on high poles. The neighbouring wing ran in at an
angle to join the end of ours. Some of the men were sitting
down; they looked very wet and scrawny with misery. A few
had blankets wrapped around them; others walked, played
leap-frog, chased each other, or sang loudly. A number were
delicate; they would find the night hard. We collected fruit
from the cells. We dropped oranges and apples down to them
but were told to cease; there would not be enough to go
round.
Night came. It was cold enough in my cell, though I had a
pile of brown army blankets under the rug. Searchlights
brightened up the yard; the mild purr of the armoured car
would be heard. A noise of crackling wood and a glare. Men
must have broken through the iron railings to raid a supply of
building timber in the basement. Whenever I woke up I could
hear men singing during the night, and the hiss of burning
wood; when I looked out they were walking or taking turns by
the fire.
Next day the prisoners still refused to eat. Even the
acknowledged touts and spies who were present in each wing
threw in their lot with us. The songs and yells came at more
frequent intervals. Police came to my cell from time to time;
some handed me packets of cigarettes. 'Give them to the lads
outside,' they said, then slipped away quickly as if afraid they
would be noticed. I threw out the cigarettes and men went
through the railings for them; they were received with cheers.
Small pieces were handed around and puffed with enjoyment.
A milk cart and a bread cart passed by on the way to the
kitchen, and men scrambled over or through the railings and
captured the supplies. The noise increased after the food had
been doled out. The fires were burning low; a group got
through the railings with the intention of raiding the base-
ment for more wood. Some of the sentries on the walls
shouted: 'Go ahead, we won't fire,' and heavy lengths of
timber were carried out and added to the glowing embers. I
heard a 'ma-aa, ma-a-a, ma-a-a' outside. They were imitating
the bleat of a goat. There was a pet goat well known to all of
us and friendly to some. Now friendship was forgotten, but
the goat must have guessed. He kept away from all four exer-
cise rings.
Late that evening, MacManus, the extra-military governor,
had to admit defeat. The hungry prisoners marched in, sing-
ing; some making music out of combs covered with thin
paper. We were hungry ourselves for we had not been given
food whilst the others remained outside. On the first day the
Deputy Governor Fitzpatrick came over to my cell with a pot
of tea. I had met him on parade in Co. Fermanagh in 1919,
when I had spent half the night with a small company in a
deserted house. I drank the tea, but told him I could not
accept any more food until our men were brought in. There
were no hospital cases from the continued exposure. Men
seemed to lose thought of the body, of themselves, in such a
resistance. Boys came to my cell and told little humorous
incidents of the lock-out. All were heartened and cheered, but
what would come next, we wondered.
Parcels and letters would not be delivered to our orderlies;
individual prisoners would have to come to the gate. Men
were ordered to cells several hours earlier than was usual.
Mick Price tried to set an example by scrubbing out his cell
daily, but discipline was only readily followed in what was
thought a matter of principle. In the evenings, at about
seven-thirty, he stood on the wire-netting of the second
balcony, after military police had roared: 'To your cells.' The
order was ignored. Men strolled about, or leant over the
balcony to chat, until sentries fired from the centre. Price
then ordered: 'C wing to your cells,' and our men obeyed.
From the netting he read out general and routine orders. A
shout from below. 'Get to your cell.' The voice read on. A
roar. GET TO YOUR CELL.' Shots echoed up the wing.
His figure was clear against the whitewashed wall of the
landing but he continued calmly, without hurry or excite-
ment. 'A fountain pen has been found on'--BANG--'the First
landing; if the owner applies to the'--BANGBANG flakes
of plastered mortar fell on the landing floor--'adjutant he can
have his pen. The food orderlies for tomorrow'--BANG-'Get
in YOU BASTARD'--'will be . . .', and the even voice went
on to the end. Evening after evening I shut my teeth at the
rifle noises and waited, nervously expecting him to fall to the
floor below. I was limp and trembling by the time I heard him
walk back to his cell on my landing. A few boys who ducked
their heads out of doors were hit by splinters.
Exercise was restricted; sanitation and the cleanliness of
the wing were interfered with, and gradually the attempt to
ignore our prison organization under our own officers in-
creased in intensity. It looked as if the attempt meant the
beginning of a determined plan to treat us as criminals.
Underground communication became more difficult, but it
was still maintained and copies of Sinn Fein were now printed
on a special onion paper for camps and jails, and orders and
letters from our General Headquarters were typed on the
same thin paper so that despatches would be less bulky.
Parcels, letters, books and papers were prohibited. Exercise
was further limited. Men were driven to cells by rifle fire. No
order was carried out save soldiers and police produced their
only authority, rifle or revolver. They had to draw guns
continually.
We had to make out on prison food now. Jail food was
never palatable, only the milk was good. Tea was always a
mystery. It might be better or worse, it might be coffee or tea,
it might be anything. Soda was added to it in the kitchen to
break the monotony and to help us try our ingenuity in
analysing the contents. Meat which was good raw was boiled
to rags; it came hard and dry. It might have made a good
substitute for leather. 'Leather up!' was the shout for dinner.
Soup was possible to taste if one added enough pepper to
stimulate taste buds. Friday meant one good meal, boiled
rice, which was invariably good, and we thanked our stars
that we were yet considered to be Catholics. Luckily, I was
able to get a little tea through some convicted men in the civil
wings; the tea made up for the food I could not eat. The
stoppage of parcels must have meant a big saving to people
outside. Some women sent much more than they could afford;
often they must have gone hungry to lavish luxuries on their
men folk. I often wondered if some of our men realized that.
Further restrictions were imposed, and the attempt con-
tinued to break down resistance and methodically deprive us
of privileges, so that eventually our captors could impose
criminal status by degrees, and use its acceptance as an
excuse to apply it to newly arrested prisoners. They had not
learned the lesson that the British had, when numbers of our
men were in prison.
Free men cannot be kept in jail, for their spirits are free,
and jail for political prisoners is always a duel. We were not
prisoners of war, no prisoner had been conceded political
rights, and the duel went on. Positions are usually reversed,
for jailers and warders have to peep and pry, to be ever on the
alert, to glue their eyes to keyholes, to listen at cell doors, and
to deal with what to them is an unknown quantity--the spirit
of freedom.
There was a tendency to think in terms of one's immediate
surroundings; food; warders, their sayings and doings, their
tricks of speech and idiosyncrasies. Sometimes one would
discover that a greater part of one's thoughts was taken up
with the trivial happenings of the day, the doings of the little
automatons that help to keep one captive. That is the danger
point. In our code it is the duty of prisoners to prove that they
cannot be influenced by their surroundings, or affected by the
personalities of jailers. A prisoner must reverse their whole
system, place them in the position of prisoners, make them
concentrate on petty doings and sayings, limit their minds to
the confines of prison walls. Make the enemy feel a jailer but
be free himself. Prisoners have to maintain a constant fight to
prevent being dominated by what is around them. Individual
as well as co-ordinated action is always necessary to enable
men to realize that only by such organization can they realize
their strength and effectively nullify or destroy a prison
system.
Sean Lemass was released. The body of his brother, Noel,
murdered by CID and missing for months, had been found
on a lonely bog patch in the Dublin mountains.
There were a few courses open. To smash the prison, to
attempt to fight our way out, or to hunger-strike. There were
those in favour of each plan, but an order would be obeyed by
practically all in the jail. In the meantime tunnels were being
prepared; the shaft for them went down through the prison
wall to the basement, and men worked harder than ever as
officers might be sent to other jails in an attempt to destroy
our organization. Fighting our way out appealed to many.
Jail had weakened the men physically, and on some the strain
of the past six years was beginning to show. It was thought a
better thing to die fighting than to die on hunger-strike, yet
this had to be ruled out. In the action, Staters would be
killed, and reprisals would assuredly be taken against the
unfortunate prisoners remaining.
A hunger-strike was discussed informally. I had always dis-
liked such an idea because I was afraid of it, and also to me it
was an unsoldierly way to die, or to face death.
I had been sick for over six weeks, and was confined to bed
practically all day. I could eat but little of the prison fare, and
I seemed to be letting go hold on life, for it had been a con-
tinuous fight to attempt to regain health under prison con-
ditions. I had learned to doctor myself: at night, when I could
not sleep, to relax all my muscles, leave my body passive, and
allow my mind to rest. This seemed to compensate as much
as sound sleep would. To lie quiet and let the pain flow
through, not to resist it by tension and muscular activity.
Learning to get rid of serious thought; avoid any unnecessary
movement; never to get into an argument; to lower the pitch
of the voice. Most of all it was important to control one's
temper. For any expression of irritability or of ill humour
meant exhaustion and prostration, so my physical condition
helped to produce some form of equanimity.
Other officers opposed hunger-striking, perhaps because
they were afraid of it, but more likely because we had since
the death of Terence MacSwiney regarded it as an obsolete
weapon. In the jail phraseology, 'it had died of wounds'. We
knew what mercy we might expect from our enemy. A strike
for prisoner-of-war or political treatment was one thing. A
strike for unconditional release was another. Yet a cease fire
order had been issued in May, and it was now October. The
Free State had little excuse for still keeping large numbers of
men in prison.
It was finally decided to declare a strike for unconditional
release, and volunteers were asked for. It would have been
better to have selected a number of really determined men,
who might have been more fitted for such an ordeal than the
heterogeneous complement of the four wings.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OCTOBER--NOVEMBER 1923
THE jail went on strike on 13 October. Practically all volun-
teered; some were exempted, including myself, but I refused
this concession.
Any action was good, it seemed, and everyone was more
cheerful when the hunger-strike began. We listened to the
tales of men who had undergone previous strikes and we, who
were novices, wondered what it would be like. We laughed
and talked, but in the privacy of our cells some, like myself,
must have thought what fools we were, and have doubted our
tenacity and strength of will. I looked into the future of
hunger and I quailed. I had been without food often enough;
I had been sick from lack of it, but hunger itself was a gaunt
thought built up by the desperate associations of other
people's experiences.
What would it be like at the end of two or three days, then
when a week had gone by? Hunger-striking was an unknown
quantity for me; I did not approve of it; I was frankly afraid,
but I could not see young boys of sixteen and eighteen take
their chance whilst I could eat and be excused. The first four
or five days were bad, violent headache and nausea, yet all,
except those bedridden like myself, were able to walk about
and keep their thoughts off food, while reading or yarning in
one another's cells.
Father MacMahon came in to see me. He shook his head
when he talked of the hunger-strike and wondered if any
agreement could be reached, but he was surprised when he
found that I was on hunger-strike also and withdrew, per-
turbed. A month before, men were permitted to receive the
Sacraments but few did so, prisoners at any time by signing
the form could have gone to Communion. Some men had
become violently anti-clerical, but many thought the whole
greater than the part, and that a Church should be judged by
its spirit rather than by its ministers. We had learned to
interpret the Catholic faith in terms of our daily life. I had
told the chaplain that the men were very embittered; they
would remember his sermons at Mass, and his visits to cells
only when he heard they were reading the King James Bible.
If he really wanted the men to go to the Sacraments and had
the interests of the Church at heart, he should leave the jail
and ask for a successor. He withdrew officially from the
prison. I liked him for that.
We learned that other jails and camps had decided to strike
out of sympathy with us, and that soon thousands of men
were depriving themselves of food. This weakened our chance
of success. We had not meant to make a gesture, but knowing
the enemy we had counted the cost and were prepared to face
death if release was not granted.
I wondered how long I could last; two weeks, I thought,
since I had been sick for the past month, seldom out of bed. I
had become thinner. The favourite end of an argument was
my being lifted up and carried around. That made me power-
less, speechless, and I had to keep quiet. Jail had been a con-
stant struggle, a determined effort to recover health, a fight
against the drabness, the lack of colour, the oppressive
brutality of the very stones. Jail life is a slow poison even in
the case of a healthy man, a poison more of the mind than the
body. I had been drifting; the sense of struggle was beginning
to be absent. Now, even though one thought one's death
would be of use, there was no passive acceptance. It was a
challenge, a fight, and again resistance was built up. The
slow adjustment of the body to the new conditions was pain-
ful, but the body seems to have an infinite power of
adjustment.
I felt that it would not always be as it was at first. Soon the
mind with its fears would begin to make its influence felt more
and more. The mind would suffer more than the body. The
struggle in the end would be between mind and spirit.
Perhaps the suffering of the past years would now provide a
reserve of strength. In our cells, we discussed these aspects;
men wrapped in blankets squatting on the floor around my
bed like Bedouins. There was no morbidity, no vain regrets.
Often the conversation partook of a Socratic dialogue. We
were like eager searchers for the truth of things.
A doctor from the outside, a heart specialist, visited the
prison and examined me. He had evidently been sent in by
my people. I refused to be examined at first, then permitted
him to sound and percuss, for his conclusions would not
interfere with my decision.
He said that I was in a very weak condition, under-
nourished, and that a hunger-strike would prove fatal in a
very short time. I asked him not to visit prisoners again, as it
would serve no useful purpose but would impose an
additional strain on our relatives outside. His visit was
illogical; to inform a prisoner who intended to strike that he
was in poor condition, then tell his parents he would not
stand much of a chance if he continued, seemed to me a
stoking up of anticipatory fears.
One night, about a week after the commencement of the
strike, some of us were removed to Kilmainham jail. Mick
Price, our OC, and Sean MacBride escaped en route, from
their ambulance.
I was back again in the jail where the British had im-
prisoned me in 1921, but I was put in a different wing. There
were about sixty of us, mostly senior officers; our company
was good. Seoirse Plunkett, Austin Stack, Billy Pilkington,
Frank Gallagher, Bob de Courcy, Peader O'Donnell, David
Robinson, Mick Kilroy, Tom Derrig and Gerry Boland; we
renewed our acquaintance where we had left it, and discussed
events of the years or months we had been separated. I met
my friends in strange places. Here were confined some of the
men one would most like to associate with, if one had been
given one's choice of selecting companions. The Free State
had helped to bring together men who had been parted for
years, or to introduce them to each other, some who had up
to this been names merely. Now we could talk at leisure and
learn to know each other in ways we would not have dreamt
of, had we met outside prison walls.
At times the hunger was worse than at others. Then there
would be a peaceful interval, to be followed by a bad attack. I
was kept to my bed, my legs would not hold me, but the
majority of the others were able to walk around and pay
visits.
Our minds ran on food. I thought of all the houses, area by
area, in Ireland where I could have had good meals if I had
asked for them. I tabulated the places I could visit, if released,
and make amends for my previous reticence in eating. I
should tell them exactly what I liked and should have my
favourite dishes cooked in the way I suggested. I was full of
vain regrets about food. I analyzed menus, puzzled out the
recipes from soups to caviar, and what information I lacked
was supplied by some of the others, David Robinson, Frank
Gallagher or Seoirse Plunkett. Seoirse discussed fricasses and
omelettes, explained in detail how I could make homemade
sweets and candies; David told me of vintage wines and
champagne, of good food in general; Frank invented suc-
culent delicacies which might not stand the test of actual
preparation. We all invented dishes. The prison was like a
chef's research laboratory. The first man to visit me in the
morning learned the menu of my imaginary breakfast and
then supplied his own, striving to outvie mine. We laughed
and chafed each other and wondered how long we could last.
Billy Pilkington came with a Caesar in his hand. He was
trying to learn Latin; he intended to join a religious order on
release. I tried to remember my Latin, juggling the meaning
of a sentence when I felt I knew every word of it. Billy often
said: 'I think I know as much Latin as you do yourself.'
The hunger-strike was not approved of outside; the respon-
sibility was left to those inside, but once it began a bureau
was opened and a 'stop press' came regularly. Our publicity
was active and frequently we received copies of our papers
giving us an account of conditions in the other jails and
camps. The information was often inaccurate enough about
our own jail, Kilmainham; whoever was responsible for
forwarding reports, I do not know, but they provided us with
a laugh when we read of our exaggerated state, which was
generally described as extremely grave. Men who were
reported as dying, often came into my cell and laughed with
me. Sean Buckley, an elderly man, was bad. Paddy Fleming
had been released. Austin Stack and Bob de Courcy, of the
compressed-air gun, were losing their memories.
We had been refused the Sacraments whilst on hunger-
strike. Church and State were united in breaking us. Then
suddenly the priests decided to administer them, and some of
us were able to receive Holy Communion every morning.
That strengthened us. I had been reported as dangerously ill,
and was given Extreme Unction by one of the chaplains.
Their demeanour had changed. They had come to visit us
with adamantine minds; were we not criminals, looters and
robbers? But the personal contact had made a difference.
I read practically all the time. My chief difficulty was to
hold a book or lie at such an angle that I could read. I
chuckled with Mark Twain and adventured with Huckleberry
Finn and Tom Sawyer; admired that splendid villain from
Ballantrae; pilgrimaged with Chaucer; followed the Dutch
people in their stubbornly heroic wars in the Low Countries,
also the indomitable Cortez and Pizarro, exploring the
downfall of Spain. I laughed with Pickwick, and thought of
the food that had built his rotund form; selected proverbs
from Sancho Panzo, and wondered how the lean knight
would have tilted a hunger-strike. In Tartary and Thibet I
followed Abbe Huc, admiring his calm acceptance of reverse
and misfortune, and his unconquerable will. Doughty in
Arabia, sick, weary, hungry, unafraid. The archaic, stilted,
difficult English bouldering the epic of harsh gutted men and
the lean mawed beauty of the desert. Moby Dick, epic of the
sea and of the hunt for the soul of man. Suibhne Geilt, madness
in beauty, and the Tain Bo Cuailnge. Each of us had now to
face the ford of death, to keep away the hosts of fears and
worldly cravings. Could we hope for the gae bulga of courage
to shatter them at the last? I re-read those books I had always
loved. The Tain brought up Nannie; where she had learned
the story I could not guess. Seldom our people knew of it save
through books. There was a red-covered book which I tried to
remember, The Lost Cause; we had read it as children. It had
backed our ideas of kingly respect, gathered from fairy tales,
and made us take sides for a Stuart king against the
Cromwellians in a losing fight. Jane Austen's books I had
read and re-read as they seemed particularly suitable for
reading in bed. They were uneventful, quiet, peaceful; she
laughs gently at the snobs she often portrays, and gradually a
section of English society emerges.
Icelandic sagas gave a grim touch, an icy breath, a stark
nudity of clear incident; their lack of ornament suited the
bare cell walls. Hakluyt's Voyages, and Conrad, took me out
again to the sea I had loved. Costa made Spanish dominion
laughable, but the Dutch were rid of it; perhaps we, too,
could laugh in the same way at the English. Plutarch's Lives
brought back boyhood memories of Thucydides, Cato and
Brutus. Vasari told his biased, gossipy tales of Italian
painters. I went back to my old friends for comfort, for ease of
life, for amusement.
I could read in peace, anyhow, as one was seldom dis-
turbed. Doctors took blood pressures and examined us
occasionally. I objected, as it would serve no purpose as far as
I was concerned, yet the doctors came, and eventually I did
not refuse their tappings and examinations. I asked them to
take notes on our condition. It might be of use in the
physiology of starvation and its psychological effects, if they
were interested in that side of it. The medical men were not
interested; as individuals they did not want us to die.
'Why don't you smile?' one asked.
I did not see anything amusing in him, I might have
replied, but he thought I was stiffening against him because
he represented something hostile.
'I don't see anything to smile at,' I said.
I was given a heated water-bed; perhaps they were deter-
mined I would not die on land, but in a lukewarm way. Bed
sores had to be warded off, as we were gradually getting
thinner; I had become almost immune to them since I left
Portobello hospital. My hip was like a board. I was almost
immune to fleas.
Some days I found it hard to read. There was too much to
remember; shades of meaning in an action, the many-sided
implications of a situation or of a remembered state of mind,
the uncertainty of one's own actions, the little things that
determine those of others and the melancholy of individual
living. Books could not satisfy then; frustrations, incomplete-
ness, strivings, half shades, the fleeting perishable sense of
beauty and the inevitability of death.
The general strike in the camps had broken, but in every
prison and camp a nucleus remained, whose numbers were
daily being reduced. The women had gone on strike, too, and
we knew that there would be no faltering where they were
concerned. In the Joy, an officer in charge of a wing came off
strike and signed the form. He had been anxious for a strike
before it began.
Frank Aiken, the Chief of Staff, asked me to send a mes-
sage to the men in other camps and jails to encourage them. I
refused to do that. I was not responsible for the hunger-strike.
I was opposed to it; I did not know if I could maintain it
myself, and I was not going to ask other men to continue the
strike. That was for the individual to decide for himself. I did
send a message to say that I was glad to be of some use again,
and that men could not be beaten unless they were beaten in
their hearts.
Hunger seemed to come in spells, but concentration on
other things such as reading and writing helped to keep our
minds away from the most important subject, that of food.
We thought we would not be released until a good number
had died. We knew the type of enemy we were fighting, and
we felt that Kilmainham with its small number of prisoners
was in a better position than other jails to maintain the strike.
Already it had lasted more than four weeks; many of the men
were still able to walk around, to come in and chat with me,
but others were confined to their cells, some because they
were ill, others because they wished to conserve their energy.
As the days wore on, I could see that it became increasingly
difficult to refrain from taking food. The orderlies suggested it
in a compassionate way, and one found one's will beginning
to weaken. Water had become disagreeable, its taste was flat,
even metallic, although salt added to heated water seemed to
improve it. In the Joy we had at first added pepper, but the
monotony was deadly, always the same taste. If people who
spoke highly of their refreshing 'ale of Father Adam' had to
partake of nothing else for over twenty-eight days, they would
soon realize how unpalatable that beverage might become.
The unimportant tissues, seemingly, are first affected; the
unimportant muscles waste, then more vital organs are
attacked, memory and sight impaired. My people sent the
family doctor in to see me. I refused at first, then consented.
He had served in the European war, and afterwards had
attended clinics in Vienna after the ending of hostilities.
There, he had been able to observe the effects of the new war,
the organized hunger-blockade by the Allies on non-
combatants. Poverty-stricken students attended clinics; often
they had two books to a whole class; they were barely able to
walk, and their legs seemed to behave more like stilts than
living tissue.
'When muscle wastes too much it cannot repair,' he said.
'Your back and thigh muscles are far gone now.'
He examined me thoroughly, muttering between instru-
ments. 'What a constitution.'
He thought more of the ruin of a good constitution than of
anything else. This attitude I liked, and sitting up I laughed.
He looked surprised but chatted away.
'I can only give professional advice, but you won't take
that. It's hard on me to have to examine you. I wouldn't like
to be a soldier in your army,' he said, as he packed his bag. 'A
man is tested there in too many ways.'
My back was painful. I lay on my sides in turn as much as
possible until my arms became numb, then I turned face
downwards. Pieces of metal in my back pressed on tender
spots, on the small nerve links. Alternatively I lay on pins or
had the ache of bad teeth in my back. It was wearying, there
was little rest. There was the sense of fatigue, which is almost
pleasant in itself, but mentally one knew there would be no
end to it. The danger was in thinking of one's body in terms
of self-pity. Sentimentality had to be fought, as well as hunger
and the strife in the mind. I could laugh at myself, anyhow,
and jeer at my body. A sense of humour, a stark grimness, to
be cultivated.
The pains and aches might relieve somebody else who was
suffering outside; the sum total of misery might be decreased.
I might attract more than my share. Courage and fear can be
transferred; why not pain? Anyhow, pains are deserved for all
our misdeeds in thought and word and act.
The adjustment between mind and body had lost its har-
mony, there was disproportion. The mind was too clear, too
active. It ran ahead of itself while the body dragged along
plaintively. I had to attempt a constant readjustment; to tone
down the velocity of the mind which sprang freshly from one
hurried thought to another, or whirled them around together.
Sometimes I could concentrate clearly on an idea, then
restlessness would cease. A clarity that made me see the
futility of much previous thought would result. This was the
time to solve problems. Then some extraneous thought would
intrude and it would battle for possession; one's sense of
space widened out with the fight, but the result would mean a
leap forward in restless nervousness.
The attitude of our jailers changed; they had become more
kindly, the strike had affected them. The prison censor was
stout. He carried in parcels of books. He would stand and
look down at me, pity on his face.
'My God, I can't eat now. Why don't they release you? I've
only known you by hearsay; why don't they release you?'
There was now no difficulty in getting notes out, and often
our mail was bulky. It is cheering when sick to receive letters,
but to be given a pocketful of long letters written on thin
paper from friends one had not seen for years, was exciting
and delightful. David Robinson was adjutant of the jail and
had much work to do. Parcels continued to pour in, and he,
provided with a long list in hand, visited cell after cell and
saw that the office delivered everything due to the individual
person. He had been invalided for some years after the
European War by reason of wounds. Normally he was thin;
the strike had told on him, perhaps, more than it had on us,
for we had regarded it more or less as a weapon, but he had
never done so. Day after day he grew thinner and tottered
more as he walked, but he carried out his duties meticulously.
Halts to check his list became longer and longer in each cell
as the days wore on. We admired him most of all for we knew
he suffered additional pain.
A few prisoners had lost their memory; some seemed some-
what crazed. We looked, and wondered when our turn would
come.
Bob de Courcy, with a haggard grey face, came to my cell.
His hair looked grey. 'It's funny, but I can't remember any-
thing about the Tan war,' he said. He put his head between
his hands. 'Not a thing.'
I was yet able to read steadily and to think clearly during
the day, but I could not sleep. My eyes had become fixed and
staring from facing the bare gas-jet which had been turned on
at full pressure. I tried to count the nights I had been without
sleep, and remembered from physiology that a dog will die
more quickly from lack of sleep than from lack of food. Visi-
tors said I must sleep without knowing it.
The gas-jet danced and changed its outline. The twisting
shapes were not easy on the eyes for I had been turned to face
the door and the jet was above the sill. It threw shadows on
the whitened walls. The shapes became coloured. They leapt
forward at me; I felt I could hear them shriek, but it was the
gas noise. Fantastic thought-shapes came out of that jet until
I thought I was losing what reason I had left. You must not
eat, I'd say to myself, then say it aloud. 'Do you hear, you
must not eat.' I did not take sleeping draughts though some of
the prisoners advised me to try them.
I noticed the resistance had slackened somewhat. Men had
evidently become more depressed, and some, at this late
moment, had begun to realize that the Free State meant to
allow us to die. Some men talked to me of their wives. They
should have thought of them before the strike, I felt, but it
was no dishonour for a man to break strike. There would be
enough, I told them, to last out. Hunger-striking was not a
fair test, anyhow; it seemed to attack the spirit more than the
body, and the situation in the camps had obviously affected
our morale. The camps had practically all broken the strike,
although a few still held out strongly, as did numbers in
Mountjoy. David Robinson had been promised release if he
agreed to take food. This decision had been arrived at due to
pressure from some of his influential friends in England, one
of whom had visited Dublin and had interviewed Mulcahy,
but David was still refused release even after he had taken
food .
The chaplain came to see me one day and found me read-
ing Plato's Republic. He was very much distressed at the
continuance of the strike.
I said to him: 'It is strange, Father, that we who suffer for
our country, might not suffer for our spiritual development.'
'They are the same thing, my son.'
A Cork prisoner, Commandant Dennis Barry, died in
camp whilst on hunger-strike, and Andy O'Sullivan was
removed to hospital in a dying condition. Various public
bodies had petitioned for the release of the prisoners, but it
seemed that Barry's death had hardened the resolve of the
Free State Cabinet. Barry's body was refused entry to a
Cork church by Bishop Cohalan, who stated that:
Republicanism in Ireland for the last
twelve months has been a wicked and
insidious attack on the Church and on
the souls of the faithful committed to
the Church by the law of the Catholic
Church.
We had been informed that the Free State officials were
weakening but that this decided them to refuse any conces-
sions at all. Another prisoner was reported dangerously ill. I
was said to be in a very weak condition.
There did not seem to be any hope, but I think the greater
number of us did not very much mind. We had faced death
before, a quick death, now it was a lingering one, but we had
time to prepare, we had our good comrades near us, we were
able to receive Holy Communion daily, and we were content.
All carnal thoughts seemed to disappear after the first four
weeks. One could realize why the early Christians and the
priests of Eastern religions fasted and mortified the body. The
result seems to be a state of exultation in which one is
removed from worldly thoughts and cares, where one obtains
a clarity of mind difficult to realize when engaged in the
ordinary course of existence.
On 23 November, the commandant of the jail, Michael
Kilroy, consulted with some of the officers and decided to end
the hunger-strike. Tom Derrig and David Robinson were sent
to Mountjoy, to the girls in the North Dublin Union, and to
the Curragh camps, to inform the other hunger-strikers of
the decision.
After forty-one days the strike had collapsed without any
definite promise of release. We had been defeated again, and
although some wanted to continue the strike, yet they all
agreed to fall in with the majority. I expect many of us spent
the same miserable hours in our cells as I did, after the
decision had been arrived at.
Tom Derrig after his visit to the Joy, had a story. One of
the men there, on the last day of the strike, had said to a
doctor: 'What day of the strike is this?'
'The forty-first.'
'Be cripes, we bate Christ be a day.'
We were given a little beaten-egg and brandy at intervals;
then we passed through all the feeding stages of babyhood.
Neaves food, extracts of malt, arrowroot biscuits, and milk.
One had to be very careful now, as the discipline of the first
week or more was as firm as that when on hunger-strike: the
danger lay in over-eating. Some who had exercised their will-
power during the strike, now in defeat seemed unable to
control it as parcels of food came pouring in from all quarters.
They disregarded warnings and ate lavishly. Our conver-
sations would have delighted the members of a baby club:
discussions on the merits and demerits of predigested foods,
and of the building-up values of various types of liquid
nourishment.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
DECEMBER 1923--MARCH 1924
CHRISTMAS was coming, and friends and relatives sent
parcels and hampers of food. Hunger-strikers were to make
up for their fast by an indulgence against the future.
On Christmas Day in Kilmainham cells glistened with
holly, pine branches and the blood of oak; tables were taken
from cells and laid end to end on the ground floor. David
Robinson was busy ticking off lists of food. I could not leave
my bed, or eat, but I could hear the feasting through my open
door and watch the effect of bottles of wine on some of the
others. This was my third Christmas in jail: the first with the
Auxiliaries in Dublin Castle; the second in the hospital cell
of the Joy; next Christmas where would I be? The thought of
Christmas made me feel lonely.
On New Year's Day all prisoners were ordered to pack up.
Police said we were going to the Curragh internment camps.
Huge boxes were filled with food; Andy Cooney had a
hamper of gargantuan size. He sorted and repacked it,
stuffing in food, his chief worry was to wonder if it would get
through the smaller doors to the main gate. The men were
afraid of another spell of hunger.
I was not able to walk. The Free State officer in charge of
the escort wanted to have me removed in blankets, but after a
heated discussion I was left behind.
I was alone in the jail. My friends had cooked for me; now
my meals were scanty. A medical orderly came near me at
long intervals, but nobody cooked or heated my food.
Three days later I was handcuffed, then put on a stretcher to
St. Bricin's military hospital on the heights above the river
Liffey. I was kept in a private room for a short while, then
placed in a large ward with our own wounded and sick.
I heard one of them say as I was brought in: 'For God's
sake, what do they want with a poor ould man like that?'
It was Peter Hegarty who spoke.
My beard had grown since the beginning of the hunger-
strike, my hair was wild, unkempt, dull from lack of sun, and
my cheeks were sunken. I did not recognize myself when I
looked in a mirror.
One morning a French barber, in frock coat and silk hat,
came into the ward. He rolled up his sleeves, and without
covering his coat he began to operate and succeeded in get-
ting rid of my beard, seemingly by main force, as he was very
sparing in his use of soap. Half way through the ordeal I
asked him to stop, but as he seemed insulted, I allowed him
to continue. He told me, in French, that he had daily shaved
Eamon de Valera, who was imprisoned on his own and
guarded by CID. De Valera had been instructed by the
acting President, Padraig Ruttledge, not to go on hunger-
strike.
Peter Hegarty had a waxen yellow face, like old cheese in
the daytime, at night under the electric light it was ivory. His
hair was a sombre reddish-brown. He cursed steadily; his
pain was severe. 'Be jaysus' was the emphasis, and perhaps
his clarification, of every sentence. I told him his use of bad
language was unscientific. The edge of his anger and its relief
in cursing would be dulled, and in the end when he would
really want to curse, he would not know how.
He used to lift himself on his elbows, look at me in a perky
way, and say: 'Do you tell me that now?'
Wounded after surrender, his hip had been made bruscar
of by a rifle bullet. The wound had been neglected, now
recovery was thought impossible.
'Before I was hit,' he told me, 'I was that innocent I could
go into a field and ate grass with the lambeens.' Evidently he
thought his language depravity. In Athlone a priest had told
him that his suffering in the next life was atoned for; he had
suffered more than his share through the pain of wounds. 'So
I can curse me fill, now,' said Peter, 'and it won't be marked
agin me.'
Next bed to him was a Kerry boy, Foran. Hegarty and
Foran fought like the two old friends and enemies in The
Workhouse Ward. Peter had a quick, biting tongue. 'It'd raise
blisters on ye.' Foran had sudden anger, the lines of his high
cheek bones would glow, but compassion kept him quiet. He
had been newly married; he read his letters often under the
fire of Peter's shots.
Mulcahy, Free State Minister for Defence, had visited
Peter in Bricin's. Peter told the story.
'In he comes with all his trappin's and bends over me bed.
' "What happened to you, me man?" says he, as grand as
the Prince of Wales.
. "Shot with me hands up," says I, "be a bloody Stater,
and his rifle not ten fate from me, be jaysus." '
We laughed.
'What did he say then?' I asked.
'Divil a word,' said Peter. 'That knocked all his grand
sympathy out of him.'
In the corridor a military policeman was on duty. Two
armed Free State officers were appointed to guard me; they
sat in the ward, in turn, near my bed. At night the electric
light in my corner was left burning, so I found it difficult to
sleep. The officers had a boring time. To me they were as the
scene shifters in a Chinese play, who were supposed to be
invisible to the actors.
One had become so accustomed to the prison cell that it
was hard to realize the nature of one's present surroundings.
The ward was bright and airy, with many windows, painted
frames and chairs, floor waxed till it smelt efficiently, clean
sheets and blankets. The colour was gay when one remem-
bered jail, but the food was poor. In jail we could cook our
own food and give parties; here was regulation and organized
cleanliness.
Peter warned me about the nurse in charge of our ward.
'She's a voice like a bull-frog, and she's gintle as a jennet.'
She had a deep hoarse voice, a heavy step, and a brisk
metallic appearance. That was unfortunate; a womanly nurse
would have meant a good deal in a prisoner's life. She
objected to books on top of my locker; she reported me to the
medical officers for insubordination, but as I did not care
whether I left the hospital or not, it had no effect. I refused to
be awakened at five o'clock in the morning by the nurse going
off duty, to have my pulse taken and a thermometer stuck in
my mouth. It might help to fill a form, but it was difficult to
sleep again due to the electric light.
Operations were performed on the prisoners, and the
almost continuous atmosphere of banter was then changed
as in hushed silence we listened to the moans of our friends.
Bob de Courcy, who was now the Mayor of Limerick,
arrived. His memory was dim, his face still haggard.
'By golly, you mean to tell me I was on hunger-strike
forty-one days? I don't know how I did that. Are you serious
now?'
Slowly I led him back to the Tan war. He had forgotten
much, but he remembered his compressed-air gun; in time he
thought of incidents, but when I spoke of what had happened
only last year, his face had a puzzled, dull look.
Later he entertained us with stories, legends and ballads of
his native city; he seemed to know the very stones of it; he led
us through the streets of Irishtown and told us where the
remnants of the walls of the city could be yet seen. Soon we
knew the beauties of the reaches of the Shannon and its
tributaries, up towards Killaloe and the shores of Lough
Derg; we could talk of fishing and shooting along the banks. I
was able to supplement his knowledge of the river. When in
Co. Roscommon, I had walked the bank from Lough Allen
to Clonmacnois in Offaly, fifteen miles above Lough Derg; I
was shown fords not marked on the ordnance maps, the
bridge by which the French had crossed into Longford in
1798, the ford used by the Williamites before the Irish defeat
at Aughrim in 1691. He told us of the method of finding dead
bodies in the river, of lighted candles being floated down until
they were caught in the eddies where the corpse was most
likely to be found. We listened to amusing stories of land dis-
putes, as he was an engineer and had prepared the plans of
disputed territory. We heard about the faction fights in
Newport and vicinity, of the Coffeys and Reaskawallahs;
listened to legends of the siege of Limerick in Sarsfield's time,
and eventually we knew the outstanding characters in the
city. Some years ago, an officer of a Highland regiment
stationed at Limerick asked about land marks long since
destroyed. He had an intimate knowledge of Limerick in the
seventeenth century, and later he explained that he had read
a detailed account of the siege in manuscript at his home in
Scotland, written by an ancestor of his, an engineering officer
responsible for the defences.
Bob's laugh was as hearty as ever. His toothed grin would
interrupt his own stories.
I was X-rayed and soon afterwards operated on, twice, with
local anaesthetics which did not seem to work. I tried to
remember what muscles the surgeon was cutting through,
and recalled the anatomical relations, whilst the knife seared
like a red-hot iron, and the forceps and probe produced the
sensation of a hammer hitting me hard in the back.
They were afraid to give me a general anaesthetic, and
though I did not look forward to the further operations I was
promised, yet I would have been glad to have the metal
removed, but for some reason the operations ceased.
* * * * *
Unable to walk, I was removed to the Curragh hospital,
where the atmosphere was less depressing as the cases were
not so serious as in St. Bricin's. Tom Derrig was there, who
had been Adjutant of the Command, and then Adjutant-
General to Liam Lynch in Dublin. Tom's eye had been shot
out while he was a prisoner of the CID in Oriel House. 'The
bloody fools, they missed me,' he said. He told me of what
had happened down to his arrest. CID had increased. The
civilian intelligence department spread until there was an
agent on nearly every street. Our staff officers could move
about only after dark. Concealed rooms were made in greater
numbers; raids took place continuously; hiding-places had to
have supplies of food; often our officers remained hidden for
over twenty-four hours while the CID tapped the walls, took
measurements and dug up the floors. Noiseless typewriters
were used. It was difficult to find places to stay in; often the
children of a house did not know of the officers' presence. In
flats, the men and typists wore soft slippers so as to move
quietly. I could never have stood that slippered kind of life, I
thought. I would venture out anyhow and take my chance.
A mutiny threatening for some time in the Free State Army
had failed to make head; it was an offset from the men of the
IRB who had followed Collins and the Supreme Council of
the Brotherhood. Officers and ranks had formed a secret
oath-bound society and objected, so they said, to the angliciza-
tion of their army. Prominent officers had resigned, or had
been forced to resign, all over the country, but they had been
placed on the pension list. Fighting between the two sections
was almost brought about by the action of Mulcahy, who,
with the Adjutant-General, resigned after censure by the Free
State parliament. The result was insecurity, and rumours of
new combinations amongst our captors.
Our section of the Curragh hospital was by itself, less
influenced by regulation it was gayer. There were men from
Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, the midlands, Dublin, and they
told stories of their townlands, legends, bitter or droll
accounts of life and doings, and greed for land and money.
They talked most about eccentric characters. Then the con-
versation would veer to the Tan war, finally to the civil war
and jail.
A boy told us what they had to undergo in Kerry, and as
usual relieved the grim tale by a joke. A Kerry prisoner
arrived in Killarney, his face was swollen and bloody; he
motioned with his hand to the departing green uniforms of his
guard. 'Boys,' said he, 'the Tans are only a rumour.'
Tadhg O'Sullivan, Brigadier of West Cork, was in the
ward, and later Cooney from Tipp Three and others whom I
knew arrived. Paddy Quinn from the Fourth Northern was
near, very badly wounded; he had seen his brother die
through neglect in the bed beside him. Tadhg O'Sullivan,
who had been captured after the cease fire, related 'cap-in-
the-fisth' experiences, with his men hunted in the rough
mountains, and Staters everywhere as they had increased
their strength for the big round-up. Tired out after an all-day
tramp, in the night they would have to break through a fresh
encircling cordon. He had been in one of the camps during
the hunger-strike and told of the breakdown; how men, mad
with hunger, armed with knives, had rushed the quarter-
master's stores in the dark, slashing and hacking at raw meat
and flitches of bacon, fighting to get at food. They did not
wait to cook, but gorged it on the way back to their huts.
There was a prisoner from Longford who suffered from
sciatica, and when he heard a funny story he laughed
immoderately, his face at times screwed up with pain as a
twinge from his leg interrupted his laughter. We had learned
to increase his hilarity by shouting at intervals when his voice
had reached a certain pitch. Then his laugh which was dying
would again revive and he would go into another spasm of
laughter, interrupted by prayers and groans. By this time the
ward would be nearly in a similar condition; then came a
steady decline, until silence was restored and we recovered.
Cooney of Clonmel told me stories of Erskine Childers in
the south, of his going to bed without dinner because men
were expected to arrive during the night and he wanted to
ensure that a fighting man would not go hungry. He had a
good pair of boots at first, but he exchanged them for a worn
pair on the feet of a column man, and repeated the process
many times, until the once neat, naval lieutenant-commander
walked in very torn, ragged boots.
'In the Comeragh mountains below Clonmel,' said a man
from that town, 'there are parts that say you're not a
Catholic if you don't believe in the banshee.'
The ward told of ghost stories, and then lightened the eerie
silence by song.
The saying:
Ulster for a soldier,
Connacht for a thief,
Munster for learning,
And Leinster for beef
was always bound to provoke controversy, and men defended
their provinces at the expense of others. They were devoted to
their counties, in a way I could not feel myself. Some carried
a folklore memory that made them bitter about feuds of
which they were hardly conscious.
One night a boy arrived from the Curragh camp, a dazed
stare in his eyes. He seemed to look through and beyond the
walls, his mouth opened and shut blankly as if he was
repeating something to himself. He did not speak to any of us
while he undressed, but got into bed. An hour later he got up,
put his white shirt over his pyjamas and walking over to a
window, with his palms joined and held on high, he began to
conduct what was evidently a service, because we could hear
scraps of Latin, and once he turned and faced us and mur-
mured Pax vobiscum.
We watched him in amazement and spoke in whispers as
we did not wish to disturb him. Was he sleep walking? A
hospital orderly came in, and when he saw the boy at the
window he put a finger to his lips as if requesting silence;
then, moving over, told us that the newcomer was suffering
from religious mania. He had been accustomed in his hut in
the camp to say Mass, preach sermons, and hear confessions,
often getting up in the middle of the night to do so. We
wondered if he would read aloud any pastorals.
The new arrival, as he passed by me on the way back to his
bed, winked. Then I remembered his face; he had been
attached to one of the Dublin battalion staffs. In the night he
got out of bed again and awakened some of us by hearing
confession in a corner. We listened as he advised an
imaginary penitent. 'How many times did you do it? . . . You
must fight against such temptations, my child.'
Next day he talked a little, still appearing to be dazed. He
sat on my bed. Had I any message to take out, he whispered;
he was pretending to be mad and expected to be set free soon.
That evening he was released.
A man from Paddy Quinn's northern division, who was
now in the military police, had offered to help him escape but
he was too badly wounded to walk. A way of escape was open
for me if I was able to walk sufficiently, for a police uniform
was smuggled in and hidden in the lavatory, but I was unable
to utilize it as I could not walk far.
One day I had taken the uniform from its hiding-place to
brush it, when the officer in charge of prisoners walked in on
top of me. I sat on the floor, proceeded to take off my shoes
and began to practise toe exercises, talking to him to distract
his attention until I had managed to sit on the uniform.
I felt like a child's toy which had been taken to pieces and
wrongly readjusted. I applied for massage treatment; soon
my muscles would be too flaccid from lack of use. A masseuse
tried to restore tone to my muscles, but before she had made
my legs ready to bear me in an escape, I was moved to the
Curragh camp.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APRIL--JULY 1924
OUR medical officer sent me to the camp hospital, but some
hours later I was ordered to be removed by Free State police
who said that I could not remain there. The doctor protested,
but I had to go to a hut; evidently the hospital was not
regarded as being sufficiently safe. I had heard of camp life, of
the noise and bustle, the lack of privacy, and I looked forward
to it with dread.
The huts were of wood and each contained about thirty-six
men. The beds were in rows against the walls, with a passage
down the centre. Our hut was reasonably respectable; very
few windows had any glass, its place was supplied by strands
of barbed wire. There were gaps in the floor, all superfluous
woodwork having been removed for firewood. During the
night there was a tramp of heavy feet as the military police
unlocked the hut door and counted us; often they would flash
lamps on our sleeping faces, or pull down the clothes to
ensure that a bed was occupied.
In the morning the doors were opened at seven o'clock.
Men went outside for 'jerks' in the open and washed from
running water behind a street of huts. Orderlies carried in
breakfast or men prepared their own, using a tin can in which
holes had been punched as a brazier; cardboard and paper
supplied the fuel. Inspection of huts occurred about 10 am;
huts were expected to be cleaned and tidied, beds made up
and all men indoors. The men stood at ease at the foot of their
beds; at the command of the hut leader they sprang to atten-
tion and numbered off, while the Free State officers checked
the count. Each hut supplied orderlies for drawing food, for
the cookhouse, for fatigue work, and for the sanitary squad.
Rows of huts faced each other throughout the camp,
backed by the playing fields. The camp was surrounded with
heavy rows of barbed wire, with sentry posts on platforms at
intervals. At night powerful lamps lighted up the limits of the
camp and military police prowled around. Even in daytime
we could not walk within a certain distance of the barbed
wire entanglements, which were placed at a considerable
distance from the nearest huts, so as to lengthen the tunnels
which prisoners were expected to dig.
My hut contained two touts, as suspects or spies were
called; touts for the most part were criminals who instead of
being sentenced were forwarded to camps where they had to
supply a certain amount of information in return for not
being imprisoned in jails. On my right side was a Clare
farmer, 'a strong farmer', who smoked his pipe continually;
even at night he awoke to light it. He told me of the wild life
near his place. His eyes were far away when he described
lakes and wooded country. His pipe drew curves and spirals
to copy the startled flight of widgeon, woodcock and snipe.
Mostly at night we talked. He filled his pipe five or six
times and I could watch the glow flaunt his face out of the
darkness when he struck a match. We talked of hunting,
poaching and shooting; I had never shot unless I was hungry.
I could remember for him the night wait under a bridge for
jack salmon. A twisted piece of bog-deal held above
brightened the stream with quickly changing reflections in the
yellow light. A man with an upraised grip would wait to catch
the red shining eye of the Jack before he fanged its belly.
As the months passed we talked in pipe glow. When I came
through bogs there would be two sounds, the gurgling watery
bubble of mating curlews, now less wary, and the feathery
thrash of the jack-snipe as he came down in a curve with tail
outspread to make his goat sound. In Irish he was the 'airy
kid'. Then the mayfly gorged yellow bunting, whinchat and
trout. Trout would be too full to nip the water now. In the
evenings, further on, they would move out from their bank
shade to rise at dusk. He knew the ways, flights and feeding
grounds of birds and game as only countrymen or hunters do.
When the moon came through the barbed wire he'd talk of
lying out for geese. In strong wind and light they would come
high. That watching I had always liked best. The moon
would angle on patches of water, black clouds would furl up
and be undershot, light would drift through as in an El Greco
sky. Wild swan would come past in a thunderous wing-hum,
darkening out the light; widgeons's long pinion-spread added
to their speed. Then the gaggle and a distant heavy beat: wild
geese, maybe with a black gander leading their wedge. Shot-
guns would let loose; the geese would throw themselves back
into the wind and soar high.
In late summer he talked of long waits behind sheaves of
corn for duck. A heron might flap by with a harsh, disjointed
scream, its head on its shoulder; woodcock croak like distant
frogs, and redshank tube a thin, weary cry. Then at last the
sharp quack as wild duck circled the stubble before settling to
feed.
He had kept a pet fox which had caused some damage
around about his place. The neighbours traced the fox one
day and found the owner sitting behind it, with a rifle across
his knees. The crowd threatened to shoot the fox. He swore to
shoot the first man who fired a shot, and the crowd broke up.
That happened during the truce. 'And none of the crowd
were any good, anyhow,' he added. 'They spent all the time
watching their skins during the fight.'
I often awoke at dawn and watched his light brown eyes
shining as he looked at the greedy sparrows pick at crumbs
which he had left for them beside his bed. A noisy chirp of
fear, a hurried twist of the head, and a swoop. Often young
sparrows clung to the barbed wires of the window opposite,
squalled and squawked until their wants were satisfied. Their
parents and relatives rushed for food and dropped it down the
open mouths of the youngsters. Silence for a moment, then an
angry, peevish scold whilst their providers hurriedly flew
again for crumbs. 'The cunning little divils,' he'd remark,
smiling, 'the little divils.'
On my left was an ex-soldier from Westmeath, who had
served in France. He had been unspoiled by the war; he did
not carry that tough, military look around with him. He had
made it his business to look after my food and to cook for me.
I had not previously known anyone in my hut. I expect that
was why I had been sent there. Hardly any of the men had
been officers; that I liked best about them. There was a great
strength in the men, if it could have been properly directed. I
was told stories of myself, what I had said or done in different
places. I could not recognize myself for the legend. That was
a difficulty. The confusion between the legendary and the real
self. Time jumped a gap with us. People saw us as a myth,
which bore little relation to ourselves; and our real selves,
how could we find them? I could see the discrepancy between
myself in my own eyes, and myself through theirs. We were
expected to live up to that external evaluation; it often meant
that one had to represent a cross-section of other people's
minds. When I read Chaucer in the Joy, some had looked on
me as if I had become a deserter; I was going outside what
had been wished on me as a composite separatist. My radius
would be narrow indeed if I would only think or act as a
movement wished. If I had not been able to get outside of the
organization in the earlier Trouble, I could never have been
able to see even the fight, and now I would not be drawn too
closely by the web of a movement.
A few beds up on the opposite side was a lean, brown-faced
cow-puncher from the Argentine. His eyes were quiet and
resolute; he did not speak much; he was lithe and gentle,
dependable, I would say, in whatever he said or did. He
talked of savannas, skunks, snakes and gun fights, of life in
the cities and on the plains. Boys were restless when they
asked him questions, as some were already planning to go to
the Argentine when released.
Near him was our hut leader, a tall, well-built, serious
man, who had served in the RIC, the Irish Guards, the Civic
Guards, and who had progressed by successive stages to the
IRA. He seldom exerted his authority, but when he did he
was obeyed. He was slow enough in speech; police work had
increased his gravity.
A TGWU organizer, handsome, slightly built but hardy,
talked of the towns and districts he had worked in. He sang
for us at night, or performed gymnastic tricks.
At the far end of the hut was a one-eyed gunner from Co.
Cork, with a heavy beard. He stroked his beard. Hair was a
sign of strength, he said, and he should have been strong. The
one eye was very bright and smart. He was smart himself; he
could not be told much. He had a rough voice which quickly
deepened to a roar in argument; volume would clinch the
matter. He proudly showed the hair on his chest. It was
curly; he swung rights and lefts to it and to his resilient
abdomen with a tom-tom result. He swore strongly and with
ease. He could quickly be drawn by apparently innocent
questions about the prowess of Cork; then a burst of laughter
would show that his leg was being pulled.
It was hard to distinguish, as one walked around the camp,
the professions or occupations of the men. A doctor might
have ragged trousers and a nondescript shirt, while a labourer
might have a neat collar and tie. We were prisoners, it did not
matter about one's position or education, here all ranked
equally. Officers who had been in charge of divisions counted
no more than did the volunteer; no one was allowed to swing
his weight about. Men had been tested in the field, in jail,
and in the camps, and some had not withstood the test. In
Clare they said: 'Never trust a peeler till he is seven years
dead.' As a Republican one was evidently never sufficiently
tested until one had died in the Republican faith. A man was
judged not by his exploits in the past, but by his outlook at
the present.
Men had been taken from all that goes to build up a dis-
tinct environment and whatever tended to influence their lives
and their outlook, and here in camp they met. All super-
ficialities were stripped off, all appendages that disguised a
man's worth. Here were countrymen, townsmen, citizens,
with their different accents, the crisp, clipped, flat, even,
undulating, broad, singing. Flowing intonations of those who
had read well, the sturdy speech of the soilsman, Gaelic from
the Gaeltacht, Gaelic idiom in English, the slang of cities,
especially that of Dublin with its tongue stuttering against the
palate. There was no background into which men could
imperceptibly fit. We were particles in suspension waiting for
further tests of our properties. There was a recasting, a new
shaping of values. Some had nothing but the touch of earth in
their voice, but others carried a whole atmosphere with them,
the clay was yet on their feet. A few walked with a perpetual
sag and bewildered look; others with chins out, a 'damn
them, anyhow' expression. Often the schooled man was
stripped of his air of assurance, his dangerous little know-
ledge. The city man, away from factories, workshops, streets
and the excitement of movement, must have found himself
lost, but he was adaptable, more so than the country man
who was used to good food, and a bulk of it. Country bellies
cried the most.
Listening to the talk of men whose conversation is a part of
life and whose social sense is strong, one felt how little of real
living there was in towns and cities, just a series of incidents
strung together like their tram lines. Dublin was different to
the other cities in that its men were more sturdy but I did not
see much of that other Dublin that I had once sensed, with its
intellectual, communal spirit, and the talking out of ideas
which became an end in itself, to the loss of organized creative
force. I could see how discipline, technique, and form gave
way to the Irish curse of facility. But things mattered in the
country. They happened and were woven into the life. As
surely as the elements shaped the land and both shaped the
people, so surely did the people mould the accidents, the
minutiae of daily life. There was craft, cunning, caginess, a
bumptious disregard of applied or conventional knowledge,
often a know-all assertiveness, but there was a strong sense of
life and youthful vitality to compensate. The city, with one's
neighbours an enigma, a cipher, met the open book of the
countryside. Not so open, either; it needed understanding,
alertness and interpretation.
A simplicity that was seemingly gentle and disarming
could hide a store of satire and malice. There were layers of
intolerance and budding pastorship in the individual; he
would watch and comment on another's soul solution. There
must be a big dose of the school teacher in our race. Life was
dismissed too easily in terms of morality or lack of it, but
when talk stopped, there was singing. That was a definite
expression; nearly everybody sang. They put into it what they
would fail to convey in the speaking voice. Men who would
not speak of Ireland as they would of their sweethearts,
changed when they sang. Then she was Dark Rosaleen, the
Dear Dark Head, Grainne Uaile, Silk of the Kine, and the older
names, Erin, Banba, Fodhla, Inisfail, the Isle of Destiny.
The provinces could be distinguished. Connacht, more out
of the way, less visited, more of the why and where and what
was his father; neighbourly and gabby; the quickness of the
sky change in them, and a hardness that was like the strange
lights there that defied distance; wild blood. Ulster, quieter,
with a droll humour, a swarthy anger, more men of action.
Leinster, more anglicized, stabler, flatter in speech, a little
introspective because of the cities, chiller in conversation, but
observant. Munster, loquacious, egotistic, quicker in mind;
the furthest south had remnants of the old learning, they
trimmed and adorned and brought forth swift arguments.
Men from the Gaeltacht had sometimes an impenetrable
aloofness; their bleak-coloured lands released imagination by
sense of space and the misted effects of changing light.
Ours was the country of broken tradition, a story of
economic, social and mental oppression, propped up by a
mythological introduction innocent of archaeological or his-
torical interpretation. To compensate for the submerged
centuries our early historical significance had been
emphasized. We were a nation of saints and scholars, we had
often been told, but our experience had disproved this cliche.
If sainthood was intolerance, we had a great share of it. If
scholarship was living on the unearned appreciation of people
who wrote or taught eleven hundred years ago, and whose
works were hardly known by us, then we were scholars. We
did not see through either the unbroken arrogance of chiefs,
or a purely literary tradition unsifted by literary criticism. We
saw France and Spain through retrospective glasses, when
they, to suit their ambitions, sent us expeditions that came
too late, landed in the wrong place, or were destroyed by
protecting English storms. The laws of aristocratic tradition
were in our teeth. We favoured the royalists in the English
civil war, the beaten South in America, and the Irish
battalion that had fought against Italian freedom in the
Risorgimento. Bookish fairy tales had the glamour of a feudal
tradition; bright resourceful kings and lily-skinned prin-
cesses; in print they ousted the verbal folklore that dealt with
heroic characters as human beings.
For Spain and France there was still a traditional friend-
ship. England we looked at through centuries of conquest and
the image of the Troubles. We expected sympathy from
nations who, past the stage where a diversion of their cam-
paigns to Ireland would help them, were now disinterested.
Cut off from scientific and intellectual eddies, we had built a
world of our own, an emotional life but no philosophy or
economic framework. Physically we had never had control of
the land in peace, save with the Grattan ascendancy men who
had made big economic changes which were then wiped out
by the Union with England. As an agricultural people, we
lacked scientific training. We were a ranch, sending bullocks
to England, boys and girls to America. The Catholic
Church, unlike the Empire, made use of both ends of the
social system, the very poor as well as the rich, but civil war
had given us a sense of reality about ourselves and about the
nation. It had taught us how Irish history had once worked in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The people had been written about often enough by those
who of the Pale looked over the fence. Why could we not have
submitted hundreds of years ago? Was there not something
inherent in our civilization, our experience, our outlook on life
and death? We had fought a civilization which did not suit
us. We had striven to give complete expression to the genius
of the race, in a fight against organized imperialism, the per-
sonal against the impersonal, but our old idea of life, the
stress on its human values, the awareness of natural things,
needed to be renewed. We wanted to solve our problems in
our way, in our own time, to release the effort that had been
frustrated, to readjust our warped sense of values.
It had been difficult to accustom myself to all the members of
my hut. Some made noise a virtue, others wished for quiet-
ness, some wanted to work, other to laze and play
interminable games of nap or twenty-one, some to rag con-
tinually. A few wanted to make the best use they could of
their time to prevent demoralization; the rest did not care, or
thought little of the directions to which their time could be
turned. Gradually I solved the problem of my hut in terms of
the occupants. I found that the spirit of comradeship
smoothed out many difficulties. I had time to study the men
to find out their little idiosyncrasies, whilst they discovered
mine. A spirit of good humour, of tolerance, pervaded. Most
of the men were light-hearted; though there were some
grousers, they did not affect the majority.
We were still not allowed to have visits from our relatives
and friends. Men had been separated from feminine influence
for years, the more intimate touches of living were absent,
and our huts were bare, stark in the way men prefer to live
when together, ornamented with the general air of comrade-
ship. The lack of possessions was lightening. Some books, a
carved chess set, a few bookshelves made from boxes; these
helped to maintain an evenness in the standard of living. We
had learned to cook, to wash our clothes and to sew; for the
first time some of the boys learned what they had most
scorned: household work. Many of the men had never made a
cup of tea in their lives. Morose individuals had almost to
simulate cheerfulness to avoid seemingly kindly, but really
barbed, inquiries. If one asked for more than his due he was
informed that he 'wanted jam on it'; if he complained of life
in general, he was told: 'Cheer up, you will soon be dead.
Everyone in the jails and camps seemed to carry around an
autograph album and to be able to recite a poem or ballad,
the ballad generally being 'Dangerous Dan McGrew'. A new
arrival to a hut would be asked if he could recite. Yes, he
could. What could he do? 'Dangerous Dan McGrew'. That
would be great, a real treat to hear, and thus encouraged, the
newcomer would begin, while the men sprawled around on
beds or on the floor in a semi-circle. Silence at first, covert
smiles, and lowing murmurs of approval. But at the lines:
Boys, said he, you don't know me,
And none of ye care a damn
a wild chorus would startle the reciter, and the hut would
continue the verse to the end.
A boy called 'Mabel', who had been in Mountjoy, helped
to entertain the camp. His name may have arisen from an
indiscreet confiding of his love affairs, or from some of the
songs he sang. His very walk was humorous. He wore baggy
trousers which wriggled at will. He was always ready to
recite, to sing, to begin with a wail.
I want to go home to see my mama,
I want to go home to see my ma.
Impromptu concerts in the night-time in the hut, the men
squatting on the floor or lying on their beds. Ballads, come-
all-yez, doggerel, old traditional songs, sometimes a song
which had been composed in camp, or Sean 0 Dwyer a Gleanna,
a song of the defeat of the Gael at Aughrim in 1691.
After Aughrim's great disaster,
When our foes in sooth were master,
It was you who first plunged in and swam
The Shannon's boiling flood.
Still Sean O Dwyer a chara,
We're worsted in the game.
Long, long we kept the hillside,
Our couch hard by the rillside,
The sturdy knotted oaken boughs
Our curtains overhead.
The summer's blaze we laughed at,
The winter's snow we scoffed at,
And trusted to our long steel swords
To win us daily bread.
And though we part in sorrow,
Still Sean O Dwyer a chara,
Our prayer is: God save Ireland
And pour blessings on her name!
May her sons be true when needed,
May they never feel as we did,
For Sean O Dwyer a gleanna,
We're worsted in the game.
Often I watched their faces around me become tense, some
men clenching their knuckles hard till the white sinews
gleamed. They were again keeping the hillside. Defeat was as
bitter in 1924 as it was in 1691. A long silence always
followed the singing of this song, to be broken by a facetious
remark or a forced laugh, but some of the men with their
knees clasped, or their hands under their heads as they lay on
the beds, remained silent till 'lights out'.
The northern men had their own ballads. They sang or
recited the Orange songs with vigour. 'Dolly's Brae', 'The
Protestant Boys', 'The Battle of the Boyne', and those which
many ancestors of the present Orangemen had sung march-
ing in '98 when they carried their long-pikes against the red
coats. Some huts would take part in a Twelfth of July proces-
sion which would have edified their northern critics, although
none had learned to make drumsticks of their hands.
King William called his officers saying:
Gentlemen mind your station,
And let your valour here be shown
Before the Irish nation.
My brazen walls let no man break
And your subtle foe you'll scatter;
Be sure you show them good English play
As you go over the water.
When that King William did observe
The brave Duke Schomberg falling,
He reined his horse with a heavy heart,
On the Enniskillens calling:
What will you do for me, brave lads?
See yonder men retreating,
Our enemy encouraged
And Irish drums are beating.
He says: My boys, feel no dismay
At the losing of one commander,
For God shall be our King this day,
And I'll be general under.
There was a long bitter memory of King James.
Royal Seamus he has gone to France,
And left his crown behind.
Ill luck be theirs, both day and night,
Put running in his mind.
Mick Sheehan came from Tipp, a prisoner. He was now one
of the Army Executive, and perhaps proud of the importance
of his new dignity, he approached the cookhouse out of his
turn. He made demands but was refused.
'Do you know who I am?' he asked.
'No, nor don't care,' was the reply.
'I'm a member of the Executive.'
'Oh, you are, you bastard. You're the kind that keeps the
rest of us here. Get to bloody hell out of this.'
There were too many 'spare generals', as they were called,
walking about the camp for the rank to impress anyone. Jail
was a hard test of a man. He had to live intimately, in the
physical sense, in camps. He was tested in many ways,
probed at from different angles by circumstance, malice,
humour and his own lack or strength of worth. We saw unex-
pected and unforeseen glimpses of each other, heard peculiar
points of view. Some had fallen in the estimation of the men;
either active service or jail had discovered faults and flaws.
Often, with authority stripped from them, officers sank back
and haloes became smudged.
Some men had two sets of language: one for themselves,
plumbed with curses, which was on the increase. To their
senior officers, or to those for whom they had respect, they
spoke without decoration. Was the other language a relief?
Did they think we were womanly? Were there really two
languages, that which men used to men, and the other for the
rest of the world? What a man really thought, and what he
said.
Educational and Irish language classes were held, elemen-
tary and advanced; dramatic and musical societies were
formed, entertainments arranged and sports organized. Rival
teams from the different counties played football, and soon
the turf on the playing field was worn into a substance that
had more of the qualities of macadam. A wooden lathe had
been improvised and chessmen, amongst other articles,
manufactured, as many men played chess and tournaments
were constantly being held. Brush handles were sawn into
sections to make draughts and heated pokers burned out
squares on blocks of wood. Coloured wool provided material
for the making of rugs, designs for which were forwarded
from the outside or were invented. Handkerchiefs were
coloured by hand; macrame work of various kinds was
knotted out, and men knitted jumpers and scarfs. Ornaments
were made out of bone which was dug up in the camp
ground, and woodworkers tried their knives on whatever
wood there was. Committees were appointed to study
industrial and economic problems; officers' classes were held;
plans of escape were discussed, and the inevitable tunnels
were dug and discovered.
I was a philatelist; I found the earlier occupants had
decorated their huts with the surcharged stamps of the
Provisional Government and of the Free State by pasting
them on the walls. Accompanied by a group of boys carrying
tins of boiling water, I visited the huts and steamed the
stamps off the walls, to the surprise and general amusement
of the hut members, for we must surely be soft in the head to
waste our time collecting old stamps. Time and exposure had
bleached or torn most of the stamps, yet I was able to obtain
a few rare specimens.
It had been very cold in winter, I was told, in the bare huts
on the wind-swept, level Curragh, but in summer it was
pleasant enough, although a rainy day meant muddied, dirty
boots which occasioned extra work in keeping the huts clean.
Firewood was not as serious a problem as it had been in the
winter, yet we needed material for our braziers to cook our
own food. Coal might be obtained by taunting the orderlies
as they carried buckets of fuel to the ovens, as discreet
invective might result in lumps of coal being fired at his
tormentors by an exasperated orderly. Wood for the lathe was
more difficult to obtain, but a certain type of brush issued
from the store provided suitable wood so every artifice was
devised to extract brushes from a reluctant quartermaster.
One day a military gun-wagon entered the camp and its
soldiers and officers moved to the far end of the enclosure to
inspect the sewage system, which was faulty. The wagon was
hauled in between two huts and our men got busy with
improvised saws. A knife could be made into a saw by
hacking notches in it at intervals, forward for wood, backward
for metal, and soon not a trace of the wagon remained. The
parts were hidden or buried, and when the escort returned,
their gun-wagon had disappeared, nor could it be located.
Then there was a plentiful supply of fine material for the
wood-lathe.
I met men whom I had not seen for years. Boys who had
scouted the road for me and at whose houses I had stayed,
were now officers. I got to know men who had been names
only to me. We could talk about many things and our judge-
ments were varied, but I kept away from organized discus-
sions. I had not made much of my own responsibility. I could
not see a definite future and I could not pronounce on it. A
movement was not going to get under my skin so much that I
could not see life around me. The men I met were straight as
far as neglect of personal gain was considered, but not clear
for the future, for they were not trained in thought and were
loose in their standards of action. I could not see any leader-
ship. Our lives did not touch intimately save on the effort for
political separation.
It was difficult to define even to myself what I felt. I saw a
certain hardness in our idealism. It made us aloof from
ordinary living, as if we were above it. There was insistence
on principle, which often stood coldly out where immediate
feeling was needed. And of the men I fought with I could not
say I had an intimate friend, and yet we might fight again
together, bound by a common spirit. If I could find an
acceptance of the two lives, that of the struggle, and that of
one's own development in the feeling of beauty and all its
shades which I could not express--that would be an ideal.
The old discipline had broken, the last fight had shown
that. Perhaps it was because the people had stampeded; it
was they who had held us together in the Tan fight. Men
were more critical now. That was good if they would learn to
think for themselves. We discussed the breakdown of the
hunger-strike, and of the change in mentality, the element of
disillusion and of cynicism that was creeping in. Pooling our
experiences, we examined the months during the truce and
the period before the attack on the Four Courts, and in the
light of our present knowledge of men and events we saw
things in a different way. An incident, then seemingly
unimportant, was followed by a clue. The Headquarters Staff
of the Tan time, Mulcahy, Collins, O'Connell, O'Hegarty,
Price, Sean MacMahon, did not compare with the Easter
Week men, with Pearse, Connolly, MacDonagh, Sean
MacDermott, Plunkett. An element of intellect and
spirituality was absent. What made the Irish Republican
Brotherhood accept the treaty and force it through? Why
should men who suffered and planned through the years
break the back of their sacrifice? What did Collins mean to
himself? Did Mulcahy and Cosgrave carry out his
intentions?
The IRB had driven Sinn Fein under ground. Perhaps the
situation would have been different if Sinn Fein had been able
to develop slowly, if their main energies had not been put into
the electioneering side. Driving force was there, but no vision
or attempt at economic solution. There was an economic root
to the fight, though many on our side would not better their
position by a result in our favour. Freedom comes religious,
political, economic. We were at the political stage. We had
not the faculty for thinking things through sufficiently.
Some men were worn out. That was not the trouble, but
either they did not recognize the fact, or else would not face
up to it. Others would not again be active; they would,
several years in arrears, have to make a living. A few would
want to change the system of society by which empire in
exploited countries kept its control and fell back on its willing
allies. If there had been a definite, clearly defined objective to
fight for, people could never have deceived themselves by
thinking they could accept another system.
What had they fought for, I often thought, as I watched the
men in my hut. They were from country, city and small town,
and on the surface, all they seemed to have in common was
that they resisted economic, social and clerical pressure
together. It was an urge difficult to interpret, the right of a
people to its own soil so long as that people would not accept
domination. George Russell, who like other intellectuals had
been with the people only when their agony was recognized
abroad, had said:
If between myself and Heaven I had to confess
about Ireland, I would admit I know nothing
truly of its people, though I am of them. . . .
Why do they desire freedom? I think it is
because they feel in themselves a genius
which had not yet been manifested in a
civilization, as Greek, Roman and Egyptian
in the past have externalised their genius
in a society with a culture, arts and sciences
peculiar to themselves. Ireland, through Sinn
Fein, is fighting for freedom to manifest the
Irish genius.
But that was in 1921.
The padre in the camp was liked by the men but he was not
popular in the sense that he was invited to the huts for a chat.
The Protestant chaplain visited us from time to time, and we
invited him to tea and produced our best ware and food for
the occasion. He had been born near my mother's place in
Roscommon and had known some of the family. His com-
ments on the Free State officials occasioned many a laugh as
we uncharitably listened to their incursions into Society.
Socially they had little status. Instead of building their own
background, they often tried to ape the mannerisms of the
relicts of the garrison, and to develop the ambition to belong
to a class which had another social fabric to their own.
Once while standing in a row awaiting confession, I saw
written in pencil on the board outside the room which served
as a confessional:
May the gates of Hell never screech for
want of grease whilst there is marrow
in the bones of a traitor.
During the summer months men were released slowly, yet
their absence was hardly noticeable. Other camps and jails,
however, had begun to release men in batches, and there was
always hope, though some felt that the senior officers would
be interned as long as possible. In some instances officers
were released while the men were kept; we suspected that this
was to make the men discontented. Classes continued,
though there was an air of restlessness as releases increased.
A play was produced successfully, The Singer, by Pearse, and
an acrobatic and vaudeville troupe staged performances.
I lectured to an officers' class in one of the end huts, while
scouts were posted to warn us of enemy approach. I had an
engineer prepare a map of the river Shannon, which I placed
on the back of a box, intending if interrupted to lecture on the
river itself. Once, whilst lecturing on musketry, I looked up
during a pause to find two Free State officers at the doorway.
I spoke about the river, tracing its course, talking of the
tributaries. The officers remained. I asked the audience if
they had any questions to ask. Nobody spoke. I spoke of
seventy miles of river boundary; I remembered fords I had
talked about with old people, and the stretch where
O'Sullivan Beare must have rafted in 1603. The officers
stayed on. I developed the possibilities of communications by
light steamers. The audience kept quiet when I tried to entice
them to questions. I cursed them with hard sentences as I
blamed the lack of transport on the river. I thought of wild
birds, fisheries and game that made me talk on. The class
eventually began to ask questions, but the officers remained
to the hour's end. I would damn well study my auxiliary sub-
ject and prepare my notes before commencing to lecture in
future. That evening I was told that one of the officers had
been a school teacher and had been born near the Shannon
Pot, the source of the river.
Attempts to escape were frequently plotted. I had another
uniform given to me, and for many nights in succession
dressed in it whilst the others slept. I lay awake waiting for
my companions from another hut, but Michael Kilroy of the
Fourth Western escaped by himself one night, without being
able to get to me. Anyhow, I would have been a danger. I was
able to walk a little, the arches of my feet had dropped and
I was lame, yet I felt sure that the excitement of an attempt
to escape would overcome my physical disabilities.
Extra precautions were taken. Military police now visited
the huts practically every hour during the night, to count the
prisoners and shine lights on the faces of a few.
The summer wore on, slowly enough for some. I was con-
tent in a way. I had been ground to quietness by wounds and
bed. Irascibility and impatience had been replaced by
nervous irritability, but camp life swung me back to some
kind of evenness. I liked the men in my hut, and I had ample
time to read and to make good my lack of books from the year
1918 onwards.
We endeavoured to induce the organizations outside to
found camp libraries. Some people had industriously col-
lected books and forwarded them, but the books were utterly
useless as a means of persuading men to read and to develop
themselves. The majority of us were aimless and loafing. The
Staters by keeping us interned were endeavouring, con-
sciously or unconsciously, to make us waste time, to
impoverish families and dependents, to use up the money of
individuals as well as that of organizations. Released
prisoners crowded to the United States. It is difficult, per-
haps, to conduct a political campaign, but the amount of
money spent on one constituency during an election would
have equipped a camp or jail with a supply of thought-
provoking books and textbooks. One realized that the
movement had too much of a political rather than a national
bent, and that vote-snatching counted more than the building
up of an independent point of view. I found that most of the
men read Zane Grey or Nat Gould because they had nothing
else to read. When one gave them a decent book they
invariably read it and asked for another by the same author,
or another on the same subject. I gave them my books. Moby
Dick was a favourite. I had copies of it sent in to me for the
men. I had re-read it many times, now I knew some of it by
heart. Was not the white whale the whale of empire which
devoured us, or was it the idea of freedom, which would make
brus of us until we could improve the harpoon of a social
system that would bring it alongside. The feeling of the men
was instinctively for what was good in subject matter. It
seemed a pity that their time was wasted. Reading, to them,
was an escape from life, rather than an approach to it. It did
not enhance, enrich, and enlarge their experiences of the last
six or eight years.
Some of us decided to crawl from our huts one night, advance
to the barbed wire, cut it, and then worm our way through. It
seemed impossible, as we would have to advance very slowly
and in succession, but there did not seem to be any other
means of escape now. We waited for a dark night.
Suddenly the Free State decided to release prisoners. We
saw a batch of tall, lithe Kerry men march away. Releases
continued, but the senior officers remained; soon there were
about one hundred left. Our numbers lessened daily until
there were forty. Then men were released in twos.
The enemy could not be gracious, even after two years of
imprisonment, and we cursed them heartily as we waited.
They wanted to avoid an organized welcome to the prisoners;
that could mean they were losing ground.
Sean Russell and I were the last to visit the office, and
together we made our way to Kildare station, where we found
Gerry Boland, Billy Pilkington, Tom Derrig and others. We
laughed as we eyed our clothes; it was easy to pick out our
men on the platform. People looked at us timorously. A few
came to shake our hands. At last the train puffed in to the
shout of 'Here she is'.
Later, our group of officers reached the Kingsbridge
station, Dublin, where, after many firm hand grips, we, who
had been beaten in the fight, who had withstood the jail war,
parted to take up the threads of inscrutable destiny; some to
begin life over again.