3
Arms Acquisition in the Early Part of the War for Independence
The men who seized the explosives at Soloheadbeg risked their lives for Ireland in order to get war matériel to assist and defend Ireland’s freedom. In self-defence they had to slay two of the armed enemy.
—An t-Óglác, February 1919 Three
The late summer of 1916 saw one of the last of the large-scale would-be Irish gunrunners executed at HM Prison Pentonville in Islington by English master hangman John Ellis. The people of Dublin had suffered dramatically during the Rising—perhaps more so because they did not support it.1 The Irish Volunteers were interned or scattered after the Rising; their cause was in shambles, and there was little reason for hope. From this debacle came new leaders, new organizations, and new methods. Arguably, the most critical area requiring immediate attention was revamping the Irish Volunteers’ arms supply.
The State of Irish Volunteers’ Post-Rising Arms Supply
On average, the Irish Volunteers were pitifully armed before and after the Rising. Worse still, they surrendered 4,075 rifles and shotguns,2 leaving them with a harsh reality on release from prison in 1916 through 1918: they were an army without arms, which remained the overriding factor in their planning and tempered their actions throughout (see table 3.1). The situation was so severe that units had to borrow weapons from each other for mass training and to conduct actual combat operations.3 The new adjutant general, Michael Collins, would later write that the supply of weapons was “a matter of life and death.”4 By April 1921, this was still so important that IRA GHQ allowed the death penalty on Volunteers for “the treacherous surrender . . . or destruction of arms or war material.” Collins put it succinctly when he said that the “supply of stuff [weapons] is one of our greatest problems. It will be the main feature of overcoming the enemy.”5 He was correct.
Table 3.1. IRA Arms, 1917
| Magazine | Single-shot | Mauser & Mannlicher | Italian | Other | Total rifles | Shotguns | Pistols |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 262 | 355 | 78 | 40 | 167 | 902 | 727 | 742 |
Source: National Volunteers and Irish Volunteers, “Return of Arms for Month Ending 28 Feb 1917,” TNA CO 904/29/351–354.
In March 1918, the Irish Volunteers established a GHQ to act as a coordinating structure for the whole organization.6 Although there were antecedents, this was the first time the group attempted higher-level coordination to the depth and complexity of a real general staff. GHQ was varyingly successful, but for the duration of the War of Independence, it dominated the official governing body, the Volunteers Executive. This executive committee tried to reassert itself in 1922 and participated in the civil war on the antitreaty side. The period that became the first phase of the War of Independence, however, was primarily one of obtaining weapons and munitions. Much of this phase was organizational in nature, and although it had lower levels of violence, these arming activities were still dangerous and offensive in nature.
There are issues, however, concerning the Volunteers’ need to arm, which requires a brief examination of what these weapons meant to the individuals involved in the movement, as well as what the rifles indicated to the general populace. The government agencies, including the army and the police, also had views about the importance of these arms that varied over time based on the conditions then prevailing.
The Nature of Arms and the Irish Revolution
While the three large, militant Irish paramilitary groups in 1913 and 1914 had differing, sometimes opposing ideas of Ireland’s future,7 their short-term goals were, primarily, the same: they all sought military, social, and political legitimacy. In ascending order of importance, this meant the formation of a genuine military force, which gave credibility to political action, while fulfilling sociocultural expectations deeply rooted within the target populations. If the purpose of these volunteer organizations was more political or diplomatic, then their efforts to arm were too. As Ronan Fanning has said, the unionists in the north had little to fear from the army or even liberal governments forcing home rule upon them.8 With the advent of the UVF, however, home rule, if it was ever forced on the north, could only be implemented in the north by using the army. The UVF was not a military threat to the might of government; it was a political check on it. Thus, the rifle, as Ben Novick notes, became a political symbol.9
One cannot coerce without at least the threat of force, and one cannot have the ability to employ force on a large scale without arms. The Irish Volunteers demonstrated a keen desire to be “proper” soldiers in terms of organization, training, and uniforms, among others.10 The Volunteers identified early, that “to drill, to learn the use of arms, to acquire the habit of concerted and disciplined action” was its means of forming an army and set about this under reserve or ex–British army instructors.11
“Have Them We Must”
To have legitimacy, political or otherwise, the various volunteers needed popular support, part of which meant being armed. “Armed” meant rifles. The average Irish Volunteer preferred the old rifles of varying models—Lee-Metfords, Martini-Henrys, Martini-Metfords, and even Snider-Enfields,12 which were almost antiques—to a “farmer’s shotgun.” For the Irish Volunteer, a rifle made a soldier. Novick found that “rifles were originally seen by nationalists of all stripes as a unifying symbol of resistance to British rule,” and Fearghal McGarry has noted that manliness was caught up in military proficiency. When Volunteers received rifles in place of shotguns, it was a source of pride.13 Sean Macentee, reminiscing about seizing National Volunteers’ rifles in 1916 for the Rising, said of the old Lee-Metfords, “Those rifles had long been a source of secret heart-burning to us. Every time a man handled his old single-shot, short-range shotgun, he thought of those beautiful Lee-Metfords, firing their five shots and sighted up to two thousand yards. . . . The time was come now when it [seizing the rifles] could be deferred no longer: this Easter Sunday, have them we must.” Further, when it came time to prepare for an operation later in the revolution, the leaders had to decide who got the few rifles and to whom to assign the shotguns. When Sean MacEoin prepared his men to attack the Drumlish RIC Barracks at the beginning of 1920, he said, “We nearly had a mutiny over the distribution of the arms, as every man wanted a rifle, and we had but six, all told. No one wanted the shotguns.” Later, when the flying columns formed, they were invariably armed with rifles, while the local Volunteers units got the shotguns.14 Eventually, many of the brigades came around to using the shotguns in conjunction with the rifles. They put one rifleman with two shotgun men, instead of putting all the shotguns in one group and the rifles in another.15 This change in tactics to an almost “combined arms” system demonstrates that it took time to learn to be “good,” rather than just “proper,” soldiers. While it may seem rather obvious, this all became possible only with the exponential increase in firepower vested in the individual soldier over time.
The Quartermasters General
Walter Long, sometime first lord of the Admiralty and member of the cabinet, correctly identified in late 1919 that the “weak point of the I.R.A. is their equipment” and then described the rebel armament as “motley.” The QMG was the GHQ officer responsible for arming and equipping the IRA and, as Long implied, he had a difficult job. The QMG operated through and with quartermasters in each brigade, battalion, and company, who, although they were not subordinate to him, cooperated.16 Collins, as director of organization, established a bureaucracy within several areas of GHQ; this included one to deal with the myriad of issues surrounding arms procurement and associated elements. The structure of this bureaucracy was fluid and the lines of responsibility blurred, with varying degrees of ever-increasing maturity and sophistication. Collins, with the tacit approval of Chief of Staff Richard Mulcahy, partly assumed responsibility for arms smuggling in 1919, apparently as head of the IRB, although using his outside roles might have been to skirt the authority of Minister for Defense Cathal Brugha, with whom Collins had a stormy relationship. Regardless of the justification, he used assets from all his positions to support arms smuggling. Therefore, although the director of purchases technically worked for the QMG, he worked for Collins, and the correspondence went mostly through him.
The QMG performed the primary functions traditional to his role, especially acquiring, storing, and distributing the weapons, along with the manufacture of new matériel. The brigade, battalion, and company quartermasters’ duties were to obtain, store, maintain and repair, and issue the various arms, ammunition, and explosives needed by their units. Usually there were insufficient weapons for each Volunteer; that not all registered members of a unit regularly came out for any given operation only slightly alleviated this problem. Thus, performing the quartermaster role, while keeping the stores safe from British authorities, was a tall order.
The 1920 Volunteers handbook did not detail the duties of the QMG but did so for the unit quartermasters. All quartermasters were “responsible for the armament, equipment, transportation, quartering, and supply” of their area. At the brigade level, this was a full-time job, while at the battalion and company levels, this depended entirely on the units’ level of activity. Since the various commandants appointed many of the positions within their units, appointments frequently depended on sponsorship, patronage, or blood relation. To complicate matters further, Collins was not the only person who held multiple positions, making the lines of authority and responsibility somewhat opaque. As with personnel in any organization, some quartermasters were merely better than others. While the poor ones tended to leave, or be removed, good ones frequently had other skills needed elsewhere, so they, too, frequently moved on to positions of greater responsibility. This situation comes as no surprise during a time of rapid expansion, and there was a tremendous change in personnel, leading to lack of experience and continuity throughout many domains, not just the quartermaster field. Therefore, it is not possible to write about the QMG but, rather, one of several QMGs over the period of the war (see tables 3.2 and 3.3).17
Many of the unit quartermasters were known more for their exploits in battle than their abilities as quartermasters. Dan Breen was a quartermaster for the Third Tipperary Brigade, for example, which may also have added to the inadequate supply in Volunteer units.18 His appointment to that position was not the problem—he appears to have been quite capable—but he was performing tasks and duties that took him away from his quartermaster responsibilities. In the late spring of 1921, as parts of the IRA transitioned to divisional structure, the QMG, Sean McMahon, who appears to have been the best regarded of the QMGs, issued a memorandum in which he detailed the existing deficiencies in the field. He began by stating that quartermasters were not known for “functioning in a manner which would suggest efficiency.” McMahon continued, saying that many quartermasters were a “nominal figure” in their units and that most of their duties fell to others.19 He went on to decry quartermasters spending little time in the areas of most importance: “Transport, Production of War Materials, care of arms and Equipment, systematic control of Materials and Funds, repair of arms, recordings of captures, losses, etc.” While these were damning accusations, and undoubtedly true in many localities, the remarkable truth is the system still worked at certain levels but was starting to show the strain. Moreover, although McMahon wanted to assert authority, the commandants appointed the quartermasters.
Several issues within the GHQ staff make analysis of its functions difficult. One of these was its actual organization. As C. Desmond Greaves noted, there was a reorganization in late 1920 meant to streamline the staff, and it appears this dealt mostly with issues surrounding supply.20 Up to the time of the reorganization, the fluidity in GHQ meant that Collins used whomever he thought would succeed regardless of position.21
To some, it appeared Collins created new positions to reward people, but this impression likely came from the 1920 reorganization and confusion over responsibilities in GHQ. Sean MacBride, involved in purchasing, later expressed his confusion, saying he “never knew what the distinction between Purchases and Munitions was.”22 The 1920 reorganization simplified the lines of effort and responsibility (see figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1. Quartermaster General Department
Sources: General Staff, Irish Command, Record of the Rebellion, vol. 2, 17; Greaves, Liam Mellows, 223; “Evidence of Mr. O’Hegarty (Sworn),” 20 April 1945, MAI MSP 34/Ref.1590; Thomas Young, Form MSP 1, 2 October 1925, MAI 24/SP.11159; Joseph Dunne, Form MSP 1, 24 January 1925, 6, MAI 24/SP.6259.
The QMG Department was well organized, and the people working in it were capable. Within it were five directorates throughout the war: Chemicals, Munitions, Purchase, Telegraphs, and Transport. Not all of these directorates remained for the duration of the war, and it appears they did not reach their final structure until after November 1920. At the same time, each of their functional areas existed from the beginning in some manner. The men who worked in these areas are well known in the history of the war: Peadar Clancy, Liam Mellows, James Laurence O’Donovan, Mick Staines, and Joseph Vize, to name a few. While the resident capabilities and focus of GHQ improved the overall situation for the IRA in Dublin,23 the munitions needed to be stored.
Table 3.2. Key Leaders in the Quartermaster General Department
| Tenure | Name | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Quartermaster General Department | ||
| 1913 | Michael O’Hanrahana | QM |
| 16 March 1916 | Michael Staines | QMG |
| 1917–1920 | Michael Staines | QMG |
| 1918 or 1919 | Fintan Murphy | QMGb |
| 1920–1921 | Sean McMahon | QMG (Acting) |
| June 1921 | Michael Staines | QMG |
| Aug. 1921 | Fintan Murphy | QMG (Acting) |
| Oct. 1921 | Sean McMahon | QMG |
| Thomas Cullen | Assistant QMG | |
| Patrick Daly | Assistant QMG | |
| Leo Duffy | Assistant QMG | |
| Frank Harding | Assistant QMG | |
| Fintan Murphy | Assistant QMG | |
| D. P. Walsh | Assistant QMG | |
| Directorate of Munitions | ||
| 1918–1920 | Michael Lynch | Director of Munitions |
| Sept. 1920 | Peadar Clancy | Director of Munitions |
| ca. Dec. 1920 | Sean Russell | Director of Munitions |
Sources: General Staff, Irish Command, Record of the Rebellion, vol. 2, 17; Greaves, Liam Mellows, 223; “Evidence of Mr. O’Hegarty (Sworn),” 20 April 1945, MAI MSP 34/Ref.1590; Thomas Young, Form MSP 1, 2 October 1925, MAI 24/SP.11159; Joseph Dunne, Form MSP 1, 24 January 1925, 6, MAI 24/SP.6259.
a There was a controversy in the 1930s about who was the first QMG, but Michael O’Hanrahan was acting in that capacity from the foundation of the Volunteers. Conor Kostick, 16 Lives: Michael O’Hanrahan (Dublin: O’Brien, 2015), 145, 151.
b Fintan Murphy serving as QMG is unsubstantiated but claimed by Murphy and reported by Plunkett. See John Plunkett, BMH WS 865, 16. See also Noonan, IRA in Britain, 27. Murphy was likely an assistant QMG based on his later service in that position.
One important duty of each quartermaster was to provide armories or depots. To maintain security, most of these facilities had to move several times throughout the war. The IRA’s Dublin Brigade appears to have been the most sophisticated, or at least the best documented, in choices of arms dumps compared to other areas, perhaps due to the urban environment and the concentration of forces there.
The Depots of Dublin
The quartermaster business required two opposing capabilities for storage: security and accessibility. It appears that most Volunteers did not keep weapons with them until going into action. This was likely due to safety; possession of weapons or ammunition in one of the martial law areas was a capital offense. The Volunteers may have reasoned that the British were less likely to execute a woman for this, and, indeed, the British did not execute any women for republican-related offenses during the revolutionary era. Further, the British soldiers were reluctant to search women during this period. Thus, Cumann na mBan members frequently issued weapons to Volunteers and sometimes carried the weapons to the place of the action and gave them to the men. Mary Alleway took the pistols used in the attempted assassination of HC Thomas Ruddock in August 1920, while Agnes O’Boyle provided the weapons for the assassination of Deputy Inspector (DI) Oswald Ross Swanzy, also in August 1920. Aine Fitzgerald kept the weapons for Collins’s counterintelligence assassination team called, the Squad and for the Bloody Sunday killings. Afterward, the women collected the weapons used, and any captured, and took them back to the arms caches.24
Security necessitated the clandestine arms depots be readily accessible for arming and disarming for combat operations. The situation was particularly tricky in Dublin because the Dublin Brigade and each of its battalions, along with the QMG Department itself, maintained separate armories within the city limits. Sometimes the groups clashed. For instance, after the Third Battalion became irate at the presence of the QMG’s depot on the same lane, the QMG moved it to another location, and the Third Battalion took over the site, but the police raided the place within a month, presumably because the battalion had drawn too much attention to it.25 The number of suitable sites in Dublin was finite.
The other brigades faced the same challenges. Indeed, a rural setting did not necessarily lessen the problems for a brigade for while it did not have to contend with the overlap of other units, the issues of accessibility remained. Further, having battalions disbursed, as in rural areas, meant greater difficulty in borrowing arms from one another for training and combat operations. Various levels of IRA units rotated arms.26 Of course, this increased security concerns; a remote location with higher traffic heightened suspicions.
The rebels initially stored individual or small numbers of arms wherever there was room and reasonable security. Growing stockpiles necessitated dedicated storage sites. They used three types of arms storage sites, which one may classify (borrowing some of the Volunteers’ imprecise usage) as dumps, armories, and depots. The most common description of arms storage one reads in the various documents about the war, especially the Bureau of Military History (BMH) witness statements and military service pension records, is “dump” or “arms dump.”27 This type was a simple arms cache and was generally a primitive place prepared to hold arms. In an urban environment, this frequently meant a private home, such as that of Belfast Brigade quartermaster Thomas McNally’s mother, which sometimes “was like a minor arsenal.”28 In Dublin, 67 Connaught Street, 384 North Circular Road, and 41 Parnell Square, the homes of Eily O’Reilly (née O’Hanrahan; sister of the executed Michael O’Hanrahan) and of armorer James Norton, all served as arms dumps. Frequently, the quartermasters used shops of members or supporters, such as the Kincora Dairy, 74 North Strand, the shop of Margaret O’Carroll, a member of Cumann na mBan. In the North Riding of County Tipperary, Volunteers used the Roscrea District Hospital as an arms dump.29 In the countryside, arms dumps were frequently disguised in buildings or camouflaged sites out in fields. The latter were usually “dugouts” that the Volunteers prepared by lining the hole with wood or concrete for greater protection against dampness and cold. These dugouts were usually about three to four feet wide by five to six feet long and several feet deep, although there are accounts of larger ones.30
Within villages, towns, and cities, arms dumps took the same form as those in rural areas, homes, farmhouses, and outbuildings. Unlike rural areas, commercial locations of all types were available too. In each instance, the best places for arms dumps were in locations unrelated to the republican cause.31
The women of Cumann na mBan frequently allowed the IRA to store weapons in their homes or on their property. For example, Stasia Byrne stored weapons in her home at 88 Phibsboro Road, Dublin, for the duration. These women were frequently related—QMG Sean McMahon’s sisters assisted him—while others, such as Margaret O’Carroll, simply volunteered.32 The practice was so common for Cumann na mBan that it is impossible to know how many homes the IRA used.
The armory was the next level of storage, which was a site with facilities for storage and limited repair. Room for storage and space and equipment for weapon repair were vital. Further, the sites needed greater security for the higher number of workers.33 Due to the unique nature of the repairs and the scarcity of armorers, these facilities were rare.
Table 3.3. Some Arms Dumps in Dublin
| Address | City/Town | County | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boyne Street | Dublin | Dublin | Unknown |
| 34 Camden St. | Dublin | Dublin | Shop |
| 384 N. Circular Rd. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| 67 Connaught St. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| Denzil Ln. | Dublin | Dublin | Shop |
| Donore Ave. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| Fitzwilliam St. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| Merrion Row | Dublin | Dublin | Unknown |
| 41 Parnell Sq. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| 125 Parnell St. | Dublin | Dublin | Kennedy’s Bakery |
| 80 Pearse St. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| 144 Pearse St. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| 188 Phibsboro Rd. | Dublin | Dublin | House |
| 5 Lower Sandwith St. | Dublin | Dublin | Plunkett’s Malt House |
| Rutland Pl. | Dublin | Dublin | Alley |
| York St. | Dublin | Dublin | Unknown |
One could best describe the final facility as an arms depot, where the rebels stored, repaired, and even manufactured arms. Due to these capabilities, these sites needed all the necessary machinery, foundries, and other facilities, in addition to, space for storage and repair. Due to the size and power requirements, these locations were also uncommon. Further, as with armories, the workers needed to be extra cautious, which usually meant having a cover story for an otherwise legitimate business. For example, even before the Rising, Michael O’Hanrahan had at least four depots in Dublin.34 Later in the War of Independence, the Dublin Brigade’s bomb factory on Parnell Street was in the basement of a bicycle shop and produced bicycles, while the Baker Iron Works on Crown Alley, Ballsbridge, was a legitimate business that performed revolutionary work on the side (see chapter 4).
Sometimes the rebels did not choose the best locations for their arms dumps. The Fourth Battalion, Dublin Brigade, had dump located in a summerhouse in Herbert Park in Donnybrook. Concerning access, the site was ideal because the Volunteers could come and go quickly at night, but some children discovered it, and police raided the place a short time later, capturing grenades and ammunition. The battalion leadership court-martialed the Volunteers responsible, convicted them of dereliction of duty and carelessness, and punished them with a reprimand.35
Even when the rebels exercised all possible caution, there was still the chance of compromise and discovery, capturing men, equipment, and weaponry. When security, good location, and good fortune were insufficient, British forces raided the dumps. Sometimes, however, the Irish Volunteers’ intelligence network received an advance warning and preempted authorities by moving the stores. Frequently, just paying attention to the police or military activities in the local area indicated a pending raid. For instance, when the Second Battalion, Dublin Brigade, received word that the police were about to raid its depot at St. Michael’s Hill, Jamestown, the Volunteers mobilized and removed everything just hours before the police arrived.36
However, in most cases, it was possible to conceal the storage space sufficiently to prevent discovery by all but the most intensive searches. Tipperary Volunteer Tom Carew hid the gelignite taken at the Soloheadbeg ambush at his Greenane farm “so well,” he claimed, “that it was never discovered tho’ every inch of ground was searched and poked for miles around including the place where it was hidden.” From there, John Ryan, quartermaster of the Third Battalion, Third Tipperary Brigade, along with Ned O’Reilly and a man named O’Keefe, moved the explosives to Carhue, where they buried it near the gate to Ryan’s property. From there, Ryan and Con O’Dwyer moved it yet again, to a spot in a valley nearby.37 In Dublin, on Blackhall Street, Smithfield, the First Battalion had a depot hidden under a basement floor in a building that police raided many times, yet the police and military never found it.38
Although the British forces captured arms dumps, such as in Herbert Park, Mountjoy Square, and elsewhere, the Irish Volunteers then obtained more arms and opened new depots in other locations. Interestingly, the security concern was not only necessary to thwart the ambitions of the enemy but local IRA leaders and individual Volunteers too; it was common for them to steal arms.39 The problem with munitions supply was that the rebels never had enough for everyone, and everything depended on having weapons.40 The next task was getting the arms.
Arms Acquisition
There were just three ways to obtain arms: purchase, theft, or capture.
Theft could range from merely grabbing the weapon and running away to burglary or armed robbery. Capturing guns in combat eventually overtook stealing, but in many ways it was not discernible from simple, if sometimes violent, theft.
From 1917 through the early months of the war in 1919, arms thievery seems to have become almost a game to many young Volunteers. They were not out to kill—just to get the weapon by any means necessary. Merely snatching a rifle propped for a moment against a wall by a careless soldier or policeman and making off into a crowded street could suffice. Assuming the soldier could not outrun the thief, the technique was relatively safe and successful.41 For example, Cork Volunteer Michael Burke said that in 1919 he and his comrades quietly walked up to where three soldiers had carelessly left their rifles in a train station in Cobh and took them away in “a bread basket which was on the platform.” Incidents such as this were commonplace from late 1917 to 1919. Sometimes Volunteers enjoyed the excitement these activities brought, and gaining a reputation for audacity was an incentive among the younger men, especially at a time when violent offensive operations were still somewhat rare.42 Of course, soldiers usually carried bullets only when on duty, so the rebels got little ammunition with this method.
The other means of taking weapons from soldiers and policemen involved more risk, but merely distracting a sentry or rushing him worked well. For instance, in the early morning hours of 24 August 1918, a woman approached a soldier on guard at Maryboro Station, Queen’s County (County Laois), and asked him a question about the train schedule. While distracted, two men with weapons drawn came over and bound the soldier, then took his rifle and gear. As the frequency of these incidents increased, commanders ordered British soldiers on leave in Ireland not to take their service rifles with them as was the practice in Britain. Further, losing ammunition became a punishable offense for soldiers.43
Arms Raids
The Irish Volunteers were left with just two ready sources to exploit: “enemy” civilians and British forces. They considered the latter to be “non-Irish foreigners” and any Irish who helped the British to be “traitors” and therefore valid targets. There were 502 arms raids on civilians reported to police from May 1916 to December 1919. Although this continued throughout the war, it began to taper off by 1920 as other sources became available.44
At 2100 hours on 30 October 1917, twelve men entered the offices of a Thomas Francis Crozier & Sons, Solicitors, Ballsbridge, and demanded weapons they believed were stored there from the caretaker, a William Henry McKeown. Although the intruders found no arms, a policeman wrote in the margin of the report, “It might be advisable to ask the Public to surrender for safe custody all rifles & guns & ammunition likely to be of use to the extremists?” The chief commissioner agreed and recommended this to the undersecretary, Sir William Patrick Byrne.45 Authorities implemented this plan in late 1917.46
Although possession of firearms was illegal without a permit, people widely ignored this. One reason was perhaps a growing feeling that the government could not protect the people. Although the Volunteers found a fertile environment for home invasion, the army, at least, was unconcerned about the potential for general rebellion because it correctly estimated that the number of arms in the Volunteers’ possession was small. Further, this exposed a critical point of failure with Volunteers: the army also understood that without ammunition, the few firearms the rebels had were useless.47 While the Volunteers tried desperately, they never solved this problem.
Although there were exceptions, raids on private homes primarily occurred at night, not only for the cover the darkness provided but also because most Volunteers had day jobs. The Volunteers, some with firearms, would surround the house and send a group forward to search. As many people in rural districts knew each other, the rebels frequently wore masks, usually made by Cumann na mBan. On reaching the house, the Volunteers would gain entry; the mode of entrance depended on the reception they expected from the occupants. Arms raids, by the nature of the commodity sought, were dangerous, and some Irish Volunteers were wounded or killed by the homeowners’ defense. When rebels expected a confrontation, they were likely to rush in and use surprise to minimize the risks. Sometimes raiding parties got caught in the open on the approach and were attacked. There were several instances where this fire became so fearsome it prevented safe movement to the house and the rebels abandoned the raid altogether. These circumstances were undoubtedly embarrassing for the raid members, and retribution against homeowners was a genuine possibility. However, once inside, the Volunteers simply searched room by room.48
Raids on homes were not an exact science. For example, in the first few months of 1919, the Derry Brigade tried to raid a UVF arms cache stored in a house some ten miles east of Limavady. On their first attempt, the raiding party masked its movement by bicycling on multiple axes of approach at night. Such movements by trained and experienced troops at night would have been complicated, and the raiders were neither trained nor experienced. During the journey to the rally point, half of the group got lost. The whole party did not come together until almost first light the next morning. Even with all this movement, the retired army colonel who owned the house did not know they were there until they demanded entrance. The old soldier then fired on them from two windows. It is not clear if he was alone, but the Volunteers did not stay to find out.49
During the next attempt a week later, the raiders wanted to reduce the distance by sailing across Lough Foyle instead of going around. They had two Donegal Volunteers who were fishermen examine a beached fishing boat as possible transportation. The pair decided it was seaworthy but did not participate in the raid. The raiders set out on a stormy night. Once on the Lough, the six Volunteers in the boat found that it leaked and took turns bailing until one of them “knocked out the sea peg in the bottom of the boat.” Plugging the hole with anything they could, they turned back. From there the situation worsened when they lost an oarlock and then an oar. When they washed ashore exhausted, having swum the last two hundred yards, they found the current had taken them six miles north of their starting point, and they had to walk for five hours to get back to it.50
Undeterred by their first two failures, the rebels tried again the following Saturday night. Two of them stole a car from a well-known unionist but did not know it tended to cut off suddenly. Just as they were passing an RIC barracks, the car suddenly died, and they could not get it started. With considerable nerve, they convinced two constables that the car belonged to their uncle, and the constables helped them push-start it. Once they finally got to the colonel’s house, the rebels found the owner gone, so they entered without resistance, searched the place, and, after all their travails, found only a single rifle, a shotgun, and some swords.51 It is likely that their first attempt had prompted the UVF to move any weapons stored there.
Periodically homeowners were the victims of actual physical violence by the Volunteers as well,52 especially if the owner resisted after the rebels gained entry. In the heat of shootouts, several homeowners, some of whom were elderly, were killed or wounded; others were beaten. On 2 January 1918, for instance, three masked Volunteers raided the home in Nenagh, County Tipperary, George Sheehan, a former soldier aged seventy-four, whose soldier son was home on furlough but not present, and demanded that he turn over his son’s service rifle. Sheehan refused, and a struggle ensued. Sheehan said that her husband had one of the men on the ground, holding him by the throat when the Volunteer shot him twice. Sheehan died of his wounds two days later. On 12 January, three brothers were arrested and charged with the murder.53 In another instance, in Ballagh, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, on 14 February 1920, Ellen Morris was murdered in her house during an arms raid.54 Such incidents were one of the reasons GHQ ordered a halt to these activities. Attacking private homes brought the movement into disrepute by killing people in their homes, which raised the question, who were the real aggressors?
Although continuously proscribed throughout 1919 and 1920 in An t-Óglác, the official organ of the Irish Volunteers, the raids on private homes continued. This brings up the issue of who authorized the incursions. They may have been the actions of individual groups of Volunteers acting on their own, in line with the adage that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Or company and battalion leaders may simply have ignored the directives from their brigades and GHQ.55 If the latter was the case, this adds to the debate over how much control GHQ exercised over the field units. While the brigades obeyed other orders, it appears they did not obey those against raiding homes. Perhaps this was an issue of arms being so critical that they felt disobedience warranted, or perhaps they questioned GHQ’s competence in bringing in arms or believed that GHQ merely wanted greater control over the county units by controlling the arms traffic. Unfortunately, with little evidence, it could also be a combination of those. Finally, the role of the brigade leadership in those areas where this occurred is unclear.
As the war began to intensify in 1920, with the RIC having retreated from its more exposed barracks beginning in late 1919 and continuing for the next year, increasing rebel attacks, the government’s recruitment of the Black and Tans starting in the spring, and the formation of the RIC’s Auxiliary Division (ADRIC) in the summer, the rebels’ need for weapons increased.56 On 31 August 1920, the Monaghan Brigade conducted a general raid for arms in its area near Castleblayney. According to company captain P. V. Hoey, he sought and received permission from GHQ to conduct this raid,57 but his unit only found a few weapons while incurring significant losses in the action, with four killed and several wounded.58 The Volunteers sometimes raided outside districts to avoid identification, which was a good security plan, but meant they did not know the local area, could not exploit the terrain to advantage, and risked getting lost. Interestingly, they raided both unionist houses and those of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (a fraternal organization that sometimes physically protected the Volunteers’ interests, particularly the Catholic Church), with the unionists putting up fierce defenses in some instances.59 In one case, they entered the house of a unionist named Jock Hazlett at Kilnadrean, near Monaghan. He shot and wounded Volunteer Paddy McCluskey and was in turn wounded, although a witness statement placed the gun in the hands of a man called “Hazlett. The remaining Volunteers fled the house because they were out for weapons, not a fight. In another incident that evening, Robert and Sarah Lister of Kilnacran put up such a determined fight in defense of their home that the Volunteers set fire to their thatched roof in an attempt to drive them out. The elderly couple then quickly surrendered, whereupon the Volunteers helped put out the fire.60 At this point in the war, the Volunteers had little cause to be vindictive.
The Volunteers’ equanimity notwithstanding, these raids were still a violation of the home, the same crime the Sinn Féin decried of British forces. However much they tried to link these incursions with the idea these homeowners or occupants were somehow enemies or traitors, this activity exposed a weakness in the propaganda war.61 The chances of the situation becoming unacceptably violent seemed to increase over time, with more homeowners coming to harm. It was difficult to reconcile the raids with the image of the Volunteers as working for the people’s interests. After the 1920 prohibition, brigade commandants had to submit detailed plans to GHQ and justify what they expected to find.62 There were, after all, other targets that the Volunteers could attack.
Corporate
Commercial entities were also vulnerable to attack by the Volunteers, especially those in mining, construction, and railways, which all used explosives. As mentioned in the introduction, the Soloheadbeg ambush was an ambush of a commercial shipment of high explosives en route to a quarry. Soloheadbeg was not the first Volunteers’ seizure of high explosives after the Rising: as early as mid-1918, the Dublin Brigade captured several thousand pounds of gelignite at the Amiens Street Station.63
The Dublin Brigade appears to have been the most active one against corporate targets during the war. This was due in part to the greater concentration of corporations in the city. When compared to Belfast, its only civil and commercial rival, Dublin was particularly vulnerable and, counterintuitively, relatively undefended.
Belfast had considerable official and unofficial protective entities unavailable to Dublin. The two cities were roughly equal in terms of police presence: about thirteen hundred RIC officers in Belfast under city police commissioner Thomas J. Smith and approximately the same number of DMP policemen in Dublin under Chief Commissioner Walter Edgeworth-Johnstone. As part of the reorganizations of early 1920 that changed some of the leadership and personnel at Dublin Castle, the Irish Command likewise reorganized.64 The army reinforced the Dublin District by creating the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Provisional Brigades. In the summer, the Belfast Brigade and the Londonderry Brigade came together to form the short-lived First Infantry Division, headquartered in Belfast.65 Belfast, however, had considerable unofficial resources Dublin could not match.
Belfast, as with much of Ulster, had large concentration of Orangemen (members of the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization) and members of the old UVF.66 These groups had sufficient resources that they could have conducted an insurgency against the IRA—a counterinsurgency in the truest sense. Those who were not formal members of either organization were still more likely to be sympathetic to the unionist cause than not, so the IRA had its hands full in Ulster, which showed in its limited operations throughout the war. Finally, by the end of 1920, the cabinet had established the Ulster Special Constabulary to augment the RIC, hoping to free soldiers of the First Infantry Division to move to more troubled areas.67
The men of the DMP did not carry firearms and the effectiveness of their immediate and unaided intervention was considerably less threatening. While the regular RIC also worked in a limited capacity within Dublin City, this was restricted mostly to the area around the RIC Depot at Phoenix Park. After the summer of 1920, there were five companies of ADRIC inside the city, with Depot Company at Beggars Bush Barracks on the central east side of the city acting as an administrative and training unit. Considering its regular functions in those roles and combined with guard duty for the barracks, it did not have many men to send on other details. Dublin Castle had F Company, which had sufficient men to conduct limited patrols. By late January 1921, O Company formed to protect Mountjoy Prison and was billeted at the London and North Western Railway Hotel (L&NWR Hotel). In March of that year, Q Company formed and was billeted at the L&NWR Hotel too. There was also S Company to handle communications and Z Company for intelligence work, both stationed at the Castle. Furthermore, F, O, Q, S, and Z Companies were special units with specific missions. As a result, they were not at the same strength as their regular ADRIC brethren, which, in turn, limited their abilities for intervention.68
The last line of defense against the Volunteers’ raids was the private guards of varying types hired by companies and businesses to protect their properties and goods. For instance, at the end of 1919, the Fourth Battalion, Dublin Brigade, raided the Dublin Dockyard Company. According to Lt. Michael Breslin, the “time-keeper did not seem inclined to let us in, but, was soon persuaded” and guarded during the rest of the raid.69 These men were the weakest part of that defense too, for if one considers the possible consequences if they resisted, it was just not worth the risk, whereas, a military or police member might have put up a greater struggle since he knew he and his comrades would be at higher risk if the IRA took what it needed. Thus, the authorities could not provide increased security without more men, but the British army, amid a demobilization, was short of men.70
Although Dublin was the hub of corporate raids, such actions occurred in other areas too. To the south, the Wexford Brigade conducted an attack on the Hook Peninsula, which netted them over one thousand pounds of the explosive guncotton.71 In Derry in 1919, the local battalion discovered that Craig’s Foundry on Strand Road had an abundant supply of Mills bombs left over from a production contract during the war. The Volunteers acquired keys to the warehouse and somehow found that the grenades were not inventoried. After taking half a dozen boxes back to the battalion dumps, the men used them in operations against fortified blockhouses and jails but were disappointed with their effectiveness. One reason could have been employment; if the rebels were expecting Mills bombs to breach walls, they were bound to fail because Mills bombs were antipersonnel weapons, not breaching charges. Still, when other Volunteer units throughout Ireland learned the Derrymen had access to a vast store of professionally manufactured Mills bombs, they begged for them, so the Derry Volunteers went back for more. In all, they took about a thousand grenades and sent them to various brigades and to the IRA QMG.72
As with raiding private residences, there were potential drawbacks to attacking large businesses, which could be economically devastating to the local population. In one instance in May 1920, a group of Queen’s County (Laois) coal miners petitioned the local IRA to intercede with GHQ to place their mine and its equipment and supplies off-limits. They stated that all 250 of them were Irish-born and that three thousand people depended on employment at the mine. They could not carry on their work without explosives and feared that the Home Office would cease issuing further explosives permits if the IRA interfered, and the mine owner had said he would close the mine if this happened. The effect on the local economy would have been catastrophic.73 The incident upset Collins, who asked why the IRA should even consider the issue when it was fighting for their freedom.
Table 3.4. RIC in Dublin
| RIC Depot | Phoenix Park RIC Depot |
|---|---|
| ADRIC HQ & Depot Coy | Beggars Bush Barracks |
| ADRIC F Coy | Dublin Castle |
| ADRIC O Coy | L&NWR Hotel |
| ADRIC Q Coy | North Dublin Union / L&NWR Hotel |
| ADRIC S Coy | Beggars Bush Barracks |
| ADRIC Z Coy | Beggars Bush Barracks |
This episode, and others like it, clearly demonstrated that many of those not directly involved in the struggle simply wanted to be left in peace.74 It also demonstrated a weakness in this method of obtaining war matériel, potential harm to the local populace.
“Official” Targets
While raids on civilians never ceased altogether, the most obvious sources of weapons were the security forces. Although the police and army were easy to find, they were more than capable of resistance. In some revolutionary guerrilla theories, the people may rise spontaneously with whatever weapons are at hand and obtain modern weapons from the enemy soldiers through sheer weight of numbers.75 This would not have worked in Ireland, as the rebel leaders well knew; the Rising had taught them to be suspicious of the fickle nature of popular support. A mass rising would not necessarily have yielded the results they sought and would not guarantee the republic they wanted. Further, the republican leaders knew well they would not have been able to control such forces once loosed. Finally, people may just not have been ready for such sacrifices. The 1918 general election demonstrated the desire for self-determination of the Irish people; one might say this meant establishing a republic, but, as multiple researchers have noted, it was not necessarily a mandate to start a war.76 Although the Volunteers conducted many arms raids against civilians, the British recorded that only twenty weapons were taken from the RIC throughout Ireland from 1916 to 1919, and only sixty-seven from the military during the same period.77 This trend of low-level activity did not continue, and the numbers increased dramatically after Soloheadbeg. The Irish Volunteers used several ways to do this.
Ambushes
When, precisely, a holdup by several men becomes an ambush is challenging to determine, but over time the rebels became more daring in their attempts to arm and eventually turned to ambush. In several instances, Volunteers accosted soldiers and police on trains and elsewhere while traveling. One must remember that surprise is usually a powerful tool in conventional military operations; in the guerrilla’s war, it is crucial. Just as today’s so-called flash mob may overwhelm the resources of a given location, the guerrilla band uses surprise and speed to bring his elements together to achieve temporary local superiority using the military principles of surprise and mass. In an ambush, this is important because the rebels do not have to be superior in every way, just enough to overwhelm the enemy at that time and location. This superiority is only temporary and lasts until the force disperses so it may materialize elsewhere at the appropriate time.
On 12 October 1919, four or five Cobh Volunteers waylaid three soldiers on a train while returning from a hurling match in Cork City. The unarmed rebels took three rifles away from the soldiers without difficulty. Although the Volunteers left the train, police found one gun later and arrested ten men, but when the soldiers were unable to identify them, the men were released. In a pattern that became common throughout Ireland, rebels surprised a group of fifteen Shropshire Light Infantry men going to Sunday services on 7 October 1919. The soldiers carried rifles but had no ammunition. The rebels fired into the group outside the Wesleyan Church in Fermoy, killing Pvt. William Jones. The shooting was unnecessary but was more likely a matter of nerves than murderous intent since the Volunteers could not have known the soldiers had no ammunition. Although the army no longer allowed soldiers to take their rifles with them on leave, about eighty rebels ambushed the Cork-Rosslare train in the station at Ballycullane, County Wexford, in November 1920, taking other needed equipment, especially bandoliers, from twenty-five soldiers on leave.78
An RIC patrol was a particularly lucrative target for the Volunteers,79 especially when on foot or bicycle and therefore unable to escape quickly or take cover easily. Although patrol times and routes were known, these small patrols could also be targets of opportunity. There were just two methods of attacking these men: meeting them in the open or lying in wait along their routes. These methods were equally effective against the appropriate target. With the former, the Volunteers would find a lone constable or small group in an isolated location, preferably in the countryside away from possible assistance and witnesses. They approached unobtrusively or unthreateningly, then sprang quickly upon the unsuspecting men with weapons drawn, depending on surprise to carry the day. These attacks usually ended soon with the constables surrendering or being pummeled into submission. This method permitted greater flexibility and spontaneity due to its mobility.80 It did not differ much from any of the similar methods described earlier; the only real distinctions were preparation and numbers.
The second method required more men and greater planning and information about the target. The rebels needed to assemble and wait along the route. This method was particularly effective against larger armed parties and, later in the conflict, those using motor vehicles (see below). During this period of the war, 1919 to mid-1920, the rebels might call out for the policemen to surrender. The rebels mostly sought to avoid shooting, if for no other reason than to save ammunition. In this, the Soloheadbeg ambush failed, although there is evidence to suggest some of the men intended to kill the constables regardless of their response.81 However, by early autumn 1920, the reinforced RIC began moving back to many of the places it had abandoned earlier in the year. This new offensive hounded the IRA, and the police and army readily adapted to IRA tactics. The patrols into “hostile” territory became more alert and stronger in number and, in many instances, carried greater firepower.82
Military and police supply convoys, especially in outlying districts, were lucrative targets for the Volunteers. Early in the war, the rebels avoided attacking motor vehicle patrols because they moved at higher speeds and were usually better armed than the other means of transportation. The speed allowed the vehicles to drive through most areas rapidly and to escape danger, while even unarmored vehicles offered some degree of protection. However, supply convoys were in a different class because they did not carry large numbers of armed troops. While the IRA learned to attack vehicles, the British responded by “up-armoring” many of these vehicles with steel plate, reducing some of their vulnerability to small arms fire and grenades, but the Volunteers continued to ambush convoys and raid their stores.83 The Volunteers were not entirely focused on just ambushes to get weapons.
Barracks Assaults
The RIC had several types of police stations, most of which contained offices, sleeping quarters, holding cells, and other work spaces. The largest of these was the barracks, which were also symbols of government power. Earlier in the war, raids on police stations provided weapons and blooding for the Volunteers. Further, since these actions required more men and greater planning, training, and courage, an increase in their frequency generally indicate an increase in the capability of local IRA units. The police responded by fortifying the sites or closing them until the arrival of the Black and Tans (non-Irishmen recruited to alleviate personnel shortages) starting in March 1920 provided needed reinforcements.84
Arms Sold by British Soldiers and Police
An unexpected source of weapons for the rebels was members of the British forces. Before 1919, some soldiers in Ireland sold their rifles to the IRA. The first reported incidents of this were soldiers on furlough at home selling their guns during the war. In November 1917, there were five cases in Waterford and an undisclosed number reported in Cork. All were to be tried by court-martial, but in several instances the soldiers were not tried because they had already returned to the fighting in France. There is no indication in the record how they army knew the men had lied about being attacked or robbed, although they may have been caught with the money. For instance, Capt. J. O’Dwyer, First Battalion, Cork First Brigade, said he procured weapons from “students of University College, Cork, who had served in the European War and had returned to the College to resume their studies.”85 Lt. Peadar Breslin, then of the QMG staff, claimed to have acquired arms from British soldiers from the Wellington, Portobello, and Royal Barracks in Dublin. Most of these incidents appear to have occurred before 1920, yet also seem to have been motivated by greed.86
The Dublin Brigade, as an organization, appears to have matured more quickly than the rest of the brigades. As units developed, their willingness to engage in significant operations increased. For instance, the Dublin Brigade raided the King’s Inns on 4 June 1920 and netted great amounts of arms and ammunition. Dublin’s first offensive operation, as a brigade, was a raid that, in many ways, was unsurpassed by any of its future activities. Two points merit mention from the start: it was not an urban operation, and it was bloodless.
The RAF Collinstown Raid, Wednesday, 19 March 1919
The Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Royal Navy were also targeted by the IRA. The Dublin Brigade conducted its first significant military action since the Rising by raiding the RAF Aerodrome at Collinstown (County Dublin) for arms. Volunteer Michael J. Lynch first heard about the impending raid when he ran into the officer commanding (OC) of the First Battalion, Tom Byrne, who told him the aerodrome had a good supply of rifles they could seize.87 The battalion staff planned the operation, but it was delayed twice. Brigade OC Richard “Dick” McKee caused the first to ensure proper planning for such a significant undertaking, so he assigned brigade staff to assist. The second delay was that the date chosen was the same as de Valera’s return to Ireland after escaping from prison in England, and Collins wanted the brigade’s full strength available.88
The preparations for the raid began two months earlier when the brigade leadership had Volunteer Paddy Houlihan apply for work at the aerodrome. He got a position and looked for opportunities for “helping ourselves to the enemies’ supplies.” Knowing that they could not seize the full armory due to the strength of the garrison and the number of weapons the brigade could move, the staff decided to take the main guardhouse, which had just under a hundred rifles. Stealth was key to seizing the guardhouse, which had about two dozen soldiers, without rousing the five hundred soldiers quartered in barracks about six hundred yards away.89
Another problem to solve was how to move the raid force, some twenty-five Volunteers, the ten miles from Dublin’s city center to the aerodrome and get it away safely with the rifles.90 Patrick McCrea was the brigade transportation officer, so he went to the Second Battalion, which had assigned Lynch to this problem; together they scoured Dublin and found sufficient motor vehicles from Volunteers and republican sympathizers. This method was demonstrative of their standard method: only resort to theft when there was no alternative. Although they had initial trouble with a flat tire, there were no significant difficulties with transportation during the raid.91
The operation began around at around 1600 hours when Houlihan and a coworker, who was also a Volunteer, donned British army uniforms, just walked up to the guard dogs at the site, and fed them raw meat laced with morphine. By around 2200, about thirty raiders gathered at Parnell Square and drove to the aerodrome. Slowed by the tire trouble, they did not arrive until 0200.
Once in position at the air base, they rushed into the moonlit guardhouse, catching the entire guard by surprise. The sentry who should have been outside was alone inside an anteroom warming himself by the fire.92 Then they rushed into the second suite, catching the others by surprise as well. The brigade gave the raiders strict orders to avoid bloodshed if possible to avoid being labeled “murderers,” but most of them carried “knuckle dusters,” a type of trench knife with brass knuckles on the handle, in addition to firearms. Further, the raiders did not speak and obscured their faces to avoid identification. They gathered weapons and equipment in the guardhouse and tried to steal several military trucks but could not start them, so they sabotaged their engines. They also found fourteen Lewis guns locked in a weapons’ rack but to avoid the noise of breaking them free left them there. Then they set off northwest, one group stopping at The Ward and the other heading on to Naul. The Volunteers who worked at the aerodrome, after a long night out, arrived back there on time in the morning to avoid arousing suspicion.93
The authorities searched but found no trace of the weapons, which the Volunteers ultimately moved to a dump supplied by the Fingal Brigade. The Volunteers maintained strict noise discipline, for the newspapers described the raiders as “a set of mummies who did not speak.”94 Due to the capture of seventy-five rifles, four thousand rounds of .303 rifle ammunition, and some other equipment, without firing a shot, or sustaining or inflicting casualties, this ranks as one of the most brilliantly executed raids of the war.
Collinstown was the first such raid during the war but not the last. For example, Volunteers raided RAF Baldonnel, County Dublin, on 28 August 1920 by sneaking in, rifling a safe, and stealing papers, codes, and ciphers, as well as some weapons and ammunition, all without rousing the guards. Unfortunately, the raids were not always bloodless. On 19 November 1920, at RAF Landing Ground Bawnmore, County Limerick, the raiders killed a sentry and wounded another during a raid for arms.95
As mentioned earlier, the Royal Navy also had difficulties with the IRA, albeit less frequently. While the Volunteers raided coastguard stations and attacked various detachments of Royal Marines during the war, these attacks took on a different flavor, being more to hamper logistics than to gain arms. However, in one instance akin to the Collinstown raid, Volunteers boarded a small British vessel and stole weapons, all while the crew was aboard and with an infantry barracks within two hundred yards. The action took place alongside a pier in Bantry Bay (County Cork), in November 1919, where an antisubmarine patrol sloop had tied up. Thoroughly warned by both the local military commander and the RIC, the sloop’s captain initially anchored well out in the bay, but over time complacency moved him to moor at the New Pier one night. A Volunteer McCarthy who worked on a local steamship, the Princess Beara, surveilled the target. The ship’s officers frequently went out on the town, leaving only a lone sailor with a sidearm standing watch. Silence was crucial as a battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment was just 180 yards away across the square.96
When the time came, the Volunteers noticed as they approached the craft that the sailor standing watch went below. They rushed aboard and down the hatch after him with weapons drawn where they took the crew of about a dozen unarmed and by surprise. The crew offered no resistance. They broke through the door to the armory and took ten Ross Mark IIIb .303 service rifles,97 which had a reputation for being highly accurate and thus were great as sniping rifles, although prone to difficulties under field conditions when not cleaned regularly. They also took ten pistols, assorted ammunition, and some general equipment. The raiding party made a clean getaway even though the sailors raised the alarm quickly.98
In the early part of the new, or renewed, war, these were the means open to the Irish Volunteers for obtaining arms. Others would open but necessarily took time to bear fruit. The Volunteers’ supply campaign approached comprehensiveness but never yield fantastic results. Arms raids and theft helped with these issues but were not going to provide sufficient weapons to fight this revolution. The Volunteers needed to approach their problem on several fronts, including manufacturing and smuggling. Manufacturing explosive devices, what today are called “improvised explosive devices,” or IEDs, was necessary for any combat operations they would have to conduct. At the same time, the Volunteers had to make their high-explosive compounds.