Chapter 28

Joseph O’Sullivan and Reginald Dunne

1922

The early 1920s was a troublesome time for politicians in Britain. Ireland had, for some time, been arguing for independence and, in 1918, a sign of the intense Irish feeling could be seen in the general election results. The vast majority of the Irish seats had been taken by Sinn Fein, who demanded Home Rule for Ireland.

Britain resisted all such overtures and an undeclared war then broke out between the British and Irish nationalists. The troubles dragged on for the best part of three years before a treaty was signed, in 1921, granting Ireland dominion status within the British Empire.

The Treaty provided an Irish Free State and a separate Loyalist area in Northern Ireland but this in turn led to other problems. There were many Catholics in the north who supported Home Rule, and this led to clashes between them and the Protestant loyalists. During this bloody period more than 500 Catholics in Northern Ireland were murdered and, in many cases, the police seemed to do little to bring the killers to justice.

If the British authorities would do little to protect the Catholics in the north, then the government in the new Irish Free State would have to do what it could. The new prime minister of the State, Michael Collins, decided that the best way to protect Catholics would be to send aid and arms to the north. This would have the added advantage of destabilising the Unionist government and, possibly, lead to a true unification of Ireland.

To every action, there is a reaction. The British government was not prepared to sit back and watch the new Irish state arm dissidents in the north. They would have to send their own agents to the north in order to infiltrate nationalist groups and gather information. The only decision now was who could they put in charge of this operation?

Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson knew Irish politics very well indeed. He had been the Chief of the British Imperial Staff and a member of parliament for North Down. A vociferous opponent of nationalism, he had made many speeches attacking not just the idea of a free Ireland, but also attacking Catholics in general. He had even made speeches and comments attacking Michael Collins himself. By 1921, Sir Henry’s name had been placed on an IRA death list.

Thursday, 22 June 1922, was a warm, pleasant day in London. At around noon, fifty-eight-year-old Sir Henry attended a ceremony at Liverpool Street railway station, where he unveiled a war memorial. Sir Henry made a speech and, once the ceremony had finished, climbed into a taxi to take him home to Eaton Place, in Chelsea.

The taxi finally pulled up outside 36 Eaton Place and Sir Henry paid the fare. The cab pulled away and Sir Henry walked to his front door and began fumbling for his keys. Two men then stepped forward, drew revolvers, and began firing at the Field Marshal.

In all, Sir Henry Wilson received several wounds. One bullet struck him in the left forearm. Two more hit him in the right arm, and two more in the right leg. Another two bullets caused injuries to his left shoulder but the fatal wounds pierced Sir Henry’s lungs; chest wounds fired from opposite sides of his body.

Having achieved their objective, the two assassins tried to make good their escape. There had, however, been a number of witnesses to the shooting. A group of men were working in the street nearby and a couple of police constables who were on patrol in the area, heard the shots. A chase began and, at that point, the two gunmen saw a passing taxi cab and tried to hail it. The driver of that cab saw the two men and, thinking that they were nothing more than ordinary fares, pulled in to the kerb and opened his rear door. Some of the witness who had been giving chase shouted, ‘Stop them!’ and the driver, thinking that there might have been a robbery, pulled his door shut and began following the two men along the street.

One of the two gunmen seemed to be moving slower than the other, and the crowd soon caught up with him and held him. His companion, seeing him seized, turned and went back to offer assistance. More shots were fired and, in all, three more men received wounds, though none of them were fatal. Constable Marsh, Constable Sayer and a man named Alexander Clarke were all injured but, eventually, the two men were overpowered and taken into custody.

The men readily identified themselves as twenty-five-year-old James Connelly and twenty-four-year-old John O’Brien; and both admitted that they were members of the IRA and had shot Sir Henry in reprisal for his actions in Northern Ireland. They were then both charged with murder.

It soon transpired that both men had given false names to the police. Connelly was actually Joseph O’Sullivan and his companion, O’Brien, was Reginald Dunne. Both had served in the British Army in the Great War and both men had been wounded in France. Indeed, O’Sullivan had lost his right leg below the knee, at Ypres, thus explaining why he had been slower than the other gunman, during the chase. At the time of their arrests, Dunne was the second in command of the London branch of the IRA and had previously attended St Ignatius’s College. Now he was at St Mary’s College, where he was training to be a teacher. As for O’Sullivan, he had been working at the Ministry of Labour.

The assassination of Sir Henry led to a massive public outcry. The newspapers of the day bayed for the blood of the two killers. The coalition government came under increasing pressure to stop any policy of compromise with Michael Collins and his Irish Free State and, at one stage, it even looked as if war might break out between Britain and Ireland.

The trial of O’Sullivan and Dunne took place at the Old Bailey on 18 July 1922, before Mr Justice Shearman. O’Sullivan was defended by Mr Artemis Jones whilst Dunne was represented by Mr Jeremiah McVeagh. The prosecution case was led by Sir Ernest Pollock, who was assisted by Mr Eustace Fulton, Mr Travers Humphreys and Mr Giveen. The proceedings would last for just three hours.

The trial opened with the charges being read out and both men were then asked how they wished to plead. Dunne replied, ‘I admit shooting Sir Henry Wilson.’ That, of course, was not a plea so the Clerk of Arraigns asked, ‘Are you guilty or not guilty of the murder?’ Dunne replied, ‘That is the only statement I can make.’ After O’Sullivan had replied to the charge in a similar manner, a formal plea of not guilty was entered and the prosecution then outlined its case.

There could be little doubt that the jury would return guilty verdicts, but at the end of the trial, both men were asked if they had anything to say in their defence. Dunne’s defence then handed the judge a written statement, which Dunne wished to be read out in court. The judge read through the document and then said, ‘I cannot allow this to be read. It is not a defence to the jury at all. It is a political manifesto. It is a justification of the right to kill.’

Though it was not read out in court at the time, the text of that statement is available in The National Archives, and deserves to be quoted in full. It read:

Lord and Members of the Jury. My friend and I stand here before you today charged with the offence of murder; and I have no doubt that, from the evidence placed before you by the prosecution, you will find us both guilty. With respect to the charges of attempted murder, we merely tried, as everyone must know, to try and escape arrest.

The offence of murder is a very serious matter; so much so, that any act which results in loss of human life requires very grave and substantial reason. We have never until now been charged with any crime. As you have heard from the police officer, who gave evidence as to our character and our previous records, we have both been in the British Army.

We both joined voluntarily, for the purpose of making Europe safe in order that the principles for which this country stood, should be upheld and preserved. These principles, we were told, were self-determination and freedom for small nations. We both, as I have said, fought for these principles, and were commended for doing so; and I imagine that several of you gentlemen of this jury did likewise.

We came back from France to find that self-determination had been given to some nations we had never heard of, but that it had been denied to Ireland. We found, on the contrary that our country was being divided into two countries; that a Government had been set up for the Belfast district, and that under that Government outrages were being perpetrated, that are a disgrace to civilization.

Many of the outrages are being committed by men in uniform and in the pay of the Belfast Government. We took our part in supporting the aspiration of our fellow countrymen, in the same way as we took part in supporting the nations of the world who fought for the right of small nationalities.

Who was Sir Henry Wilson? What was his policy, and what did he stand for? You have all read in the newspapers lately, and been told, that he was a great British Field Marshal; but his activities in other fields are unknown to the men of the British public.

The nation to which we have the honour to belong, the Irish nation, knows him, not so much as the British Field Marshal, but as the man behind what is known in Ireland as the Orange Terror. He was at the time of his death the Military Advisor to what is colloquially called the Ulster Government, and as Military Advisor he raised and organised a body of men known as the Ulster Special Constabulary, who are the principle agents in his campaign of terrorism.

My Lord and Members of the Jury, I do not propose to go into details of the horrible outrages committed on men, women and children of my race in Belfast and other places under the jurisdiction of the Ulster Government. Among Irishmen it is well known that about 500 men, women and children have been killed within the past few months, nearly two thousand wounded, and not one offender brought to justice.

More than 9,000 persons have been expelled from their employment; and 23,000 men, women, and children driven from their homes. Sir Henry Wilson was the representative figure and the organiser of the system that made these things possible.

My Lord and Members of the Jury, you can condemn us to death today, but you cannot deprive us of the belief that what we have done was necessary to preserve the lives, the homes, and the happiness of our countrymen in Ireland. You may by your verdict find us guilty, but we will go to the scaffold justified by the verdict of our own conscience.

Once Mr Justice Shearman had refused to read out that statement, both defendants withdrew their instructions from their counsel and no further defence was put forward. The jury having duly reached the only verdict really open to them, both men were then sentenced to death. Before he was taken down to the cells, O’Sullivan announced, ‘You may kill my body, my Lord, but my spirit you will never kill.’

It has been said that in the days the two men spent in the condemned cell, they were subject to regular and brutal beatings from the prison staff. The truth of that can never, now, be verified but what is true is that O’Sullivan received a letter from a distant family member. That letter read:

I am proud of the honour of being a cousin of yours. It is with pride that I can hold up my head and say that I had a cousin who died for Ireland. It was a good day for Ireland the day yourself and your hero of a companion went out and laid the second Cromwell dead at your feet. You need not be afraid to meet your God.

On 8 August, the Irish government made an official request for mercy for the two killers. The plea was rejected out of hand. The fate of the two men was now sealed.

On the morning of Thursday, 10 August 1922, Joseph O’Sullivan and Reginald Dunne were hanged at Wandsworth prison by John Ellis, who was assisted by Edward Taylor and Seth Mills. Less than two weeks later, on 22 August, Michael Collins, the leader of the Irish Free State, was ambushed and shot dead in his County Cork home, by men who were against the IRA.

For many years, the bodies of the two men held as cold-blooded killers in England, and heroes in the Irish Republic, lay in unmarked graves in the prison where they died. However, in 1968, the bodies were exhumed and transferred to Ireland where they were reburied in Dean’s Grange cemetery, in Dublin.