Lord John French was the King’s representative in Ireland and the day-to-day ruler of the island. An army officer back from the Great War bloodbath, he gradually introduced into Ireland a succession of belligerent military methods which effectively hampered the burgeoning insurgency. Collins was determined to assassinate him on both practical and public relations grounds. There were at least twelve serious attempts to kill him and Volunteers from the country were regularly recruited for these endeavours.
Paddy O’Dwyer, one of the Soloheadbeg team, was approached by Maurice Crowe and asked if he would be prepared to go to London to take part in an attack there on French. ‘He was not prepared to give me any details,’ said O’Dwyer, ‘nor would he disclose to me at that stage the names of any other men who were being invited to travel … This conversation with Maurice Crowe took place some months before the attack on Lord French at Ashtown.’
Frank McGrath, commandant of the north Tipperary IRA, was also sounded out: ‘Some time before the attack on Lord French at Ashtown … I was called to GHQ. There I met Michael Collins, who directed me to a room in which were Cathal Brugha and Dick Mulcahy. I learned from Brugha and Mulcahy that it was proposed to make an attack on Lord French and they asked me if I was in a position to supply a number of men to assist in the operation and, if so, how many. I replied that I was confident that the men could be got but that offhand I could not give the number. I undertook that on my return home I would find out definitely and furnish the names of men agreeable to take part. This was considered satisfactory and they asked me to communicate the information within four days. No mention was made of where the proposed attack was to take place or of how the men were to be armed, but I assumed that GHQ would provide the arms. On leaving the room I met Liam Deasy from Cork, who was evidently required on a similar mission to mine, for Michael Collins sent him into the room I had just left.
‘On my return home, I interviewed members of the brigade and, as a result, I sent forward to GHQ a list of some fifty names (including my own) of men who were prepared to take part in such an engagement at any time.’
It seems that GHQ favoured country men for a job which, in all likelihood, would have to be done in Dublin. Being the King’s plenipotentiary in a territory more or less at war, French was heavily guarded wherever he went. In Dublin, however, he performed a number of semi-public ceremonial duties necessary to maintain the ‘business as usual’ stance favoured by the British.
The several Dublin attempts to eliminate him fell within the remit of the Squad and members of the Big Four were normally involved. Dan Breen said that: ‘We all arranged to stay somewhere that we could be easily reached by phone, but Robinson, who was staying in Heytesbury Street, could not be contacted by phone. So I went on one of these occasions to warn him of a proposed attack, but he informed me that he was having nothing to do with it and that he was not taking part in any more of these Dublin exploits. I told Treacy about this and actually we did get him to come with us to Ashtown when the actual attack on French took place but from this on Robinson was no longer proving amenable and, on quite a number of occasions after this, he upset the applecart rather badly by giving countermanding orders when we had something arranged in Tipperary.’
One of the abortive attempts to catch French involved a plan to ambush his car as it crossed over Grattan Bridge from the viceregal lodge in the Phoenix Park, en route to an armistice banquet at Trinity College on 11 November 1919.
Seán Hogan was told the exact time that French’s car was due to pass by his vantage point near Dublin Castle. At that specified time on an icy cold night Hogan pulled the pins out of the two grenades he’d been given and threw the pins away. French never showed up and Hogan ended up walking through a crowded city centre nervously bearing a live grenade in each hand, his freezing fingers anxiously clutching the grenade’s taut springs.
The Ashtown attack had, of necessity, to be organised at short notice. Squad member Vinnie Byrne was socialising on the night of 18 December 1919, when he heard, via the son of a train guard, that Lord French was due to travel up to Dublin from Frenchpark, his Co. Roscommon home, the following morning. Byrne asked his companion what time his father – who was working on French’s train –would get back to Dublin and the son told Byrne that the father would be home around eleven or twelve o’clock.
Being a prime target, French’s movements had been diligently noted and it was known that he would disembark from his train at Ashtown Station, near his Phoenix Park residence.
‘I immediately went to Mick McDonnell’s house, which was in Richmond Crescent and reported to him what I had heard,’ said Byrne. ‘Mick said: “That’s the best bit of news I’ve had for a long time.” The next thing he said was: “You had better be here in the morning at about ten o’clock, as we might have a go at French.” As it was getting late, I said to him: “I had better be off. I will see you in the morning, please God.”
‘The following morning I reported to Mick McDonnell on time. There was a group of men in the front room of his house and, as I went in, Mick said: “Byrne, you had better go up to the dump and bring down any grenades that are there”.’
When Byrne came back with the grenades they were distributed to some of the men. Byrne was then told exactly who was present. He already knew Martin Savage (a handsome young Sligo man who’d been in the GPO in 1916), Tom Keogh (an expert marksman), Paddy Daly and Joe Leonard. McDonnell introduced him to the others in the room: Breen, Robinson, Treacy and Hogan. The would-be assasins headed off in the direction of Ashtown.
Byrne continued: ‘We halted at Kelly’s pub. Mick McDonnell, Dan Breen, Seán Treacy and Paddy Daly stood in a group and were having a conversation together. After a few minutes we all went into the pub. Minerals, as far as I remember, were ordered. When I had finished my glass, Mick called me and told me to get my bike, cycle towards the station and see if there was any sign of the train, or if there were any military or police there … I had only gone about two hundred yards when I heard the sound of motor cars behind me. A motor horn sounded and I pulled into the side and let them pass. There were four cars in all. I wheeled round, cycled back as hard as I could and reported to Mick McDonnell about the military passing me going to the station.’
They began, at that moment, to hear French’s train approaching. Daly, Leonard, Robinson, Treacy and Hogan went to the back yard of the pub, making their way into a field where they took up positions behind a hedge which looked out over the station road.
McDonnell, Breen and Keogh commandeered a large farm cart in the yard and attempted to move it out onto the road. The cart proved heavier than expected and it got stuck. At this moment two traffic police showed up on foot, heading in the direction of the station. The ambushers scarcely had time to register their presence when they heard the convoy of cars coming from the station. Before they knew it, French and his protectors were drawing perilously near.
‘As the cars approached, the men behind the hedge opened fire with revolvers and grenades,’ Byrne said. ‘The first car to come was a dark blue one. Sitting beside the driver was a man in civilian clothes who, we learned afterwards, was Detective Officer Nalley. He was firing from a revolver. As the car came clear of the corner, I let fly a grenade which hit the back of the car and exploded. The next thing I saw was the peeler being blown across the road. The second car was stopped right opposite to our men behind the hedge. This car was a closed one – khaki-green in colour. The third car was a box Ford type, with a canvas roof, which flew by with a continuous fire on it. The fourth car which came along was an open Sunbeam car and in it were a soldier driver and a sergeant. The sergeant was lying across the back of the car and firing from a rifle. Where we were standing we were an open target for him. In fact you could hear the bullets whistling by, finding a billet in the wall behind us. As this car was disappearing around the wide bend of the road leading to the Ashtown Gate of the Phoenix Park, I heard Martin Savage saying something and it sounded like this: “Oh, lads, I am hit”. The next moment he was dead, lying on the road.’
Breen’s leg had been injured and he was bleeding copiously.The driver of the khaki-green car climbed out of his vehicle waving a handkerchief. McDonnell accepted his surrender and asked him where Lord French was. The soldier – Corporal Appleby – said that the lord lieutenant had been blown to pieces in his car. Appleby’s false information was accepted, in the heat of battle, at face value. In reality, French got away unscathed. Some of the ambushers wanted to shoot Appleby but McDonnell decided to let him go.
‘As we had only bicycles, we could not get Martin Savage’s dead body away,’ said Byrne. ‘The next thing is we were told to get back into town and to travel in twos. I was about to get away when I was told to act rearguard action to Dan Breen who, after mounting his bicycle, had to lean on Paddy Daly’s shoulder … We travelled along until we came to the Cabra Road and proceeded down as far as St Peter’s church, Phibsboro, where we turned to the left, then to the right and along down Connaught Street on to the Phibsboro Road.
‘At this time, I was cycling near Paddy Daly and Dan Breen. Paddy said to me: “You carry on Vinnie. We are all right now, I’ll look after Dan” … Needless to say, on the night of the attack, I called over to Mick McDonnell’s and met Tom Keogh there. The whole conversation was about the loss of poor Martin Savage and having to leave him behind us. Perhaps while on this subject, it might be well to mention that Martin Savage was a grocer’s assistant, working in Kerr’s of the North Strand. On the morning of the ambush, he left the shop to bank some money for his employer. Instead of going to the bank, he came out to the job. It was, I believe, stated in the newspapers that a large sum of money was found in his possession.’
Paddy Daly, who during the Civil War played a critical part in the defeat of the anti-Treaty forces, eventually became something of a republican bête noir. There were Civil War stories – perhaps apocryphal – about Daly mistreating republican prisoners, manhandling women, and indulging in conduct unbecoming of an officer. Although Daly clearly helped save Breen after the Ashtown ambush, Breen eventually disapproved of him: ‘While I have no time for Daly, he stood by me. I was all blood, staggering on foot and they pushed me along. I tied the leg of my trousers to hide the blood and I tried to cover my head, which was also bleeding … The most dastardly thing against Daly and Dick Mulcahy was the unfortunate boy they led to the gallows in 1924. They told this boy that his trial was only a farce and that they would get him away out of the country. This boy was tried and convicted and put into his “condemned” cell. He remarked, “I will be off to America in a few days” and it was only the day before his execution he realised it was serious. When going out to his execution he said, “There will be two men, Mulcahy and Paddy Daly, pleased that I am dancing on the trap door this morning”. Kevin O’Higgins* was insisting on trials at this time.’
After Ashtown, French tended to spend most of his time in his viceregal lodge. His assailants hadn’t killed him but they had – literally – confined him to barracks. They’d scored a political point. Ireland was supposed to be a regular part of the British state, but from then on the King’s man in Dublin couldn’t come and go as he pleased.
The intimacy of the Dublin radical scene was illustrated, the year after Ashtown, by a chance encounter between Breen and two of the city’s finest revolutionary women; he ran into Maude Gonne MacBride, the most flamboyant of the Irish activist women, and her then live-in constant companion, Charlotte Despard. Mrs Despard, an ardent feminist and socialist, was one of those somewhat eccentric upper-class protestant women who, from time to time, attached themselves to the Irish ‘cause’. She was also Lord French’s sister.
‘I met Mrs Despard and Mrs MacBride in O’Connell Street in 1920,’ said Breen. ‘Mrs Despard was very annoyed with me for attacking her brother, John. But I said the only thing I was sorry for was that we did not get him. She said he was a good Irishman; but I did not discuss that with her. “Poor John dead!” said she.’