By 1921, the flying columns had become the backbone of the IRA campaign, with ambushes on barracks and convoys serving not alone to strike at the British but also to seize their much-coveted arms. Tom Barry of the Third West Cork Flying Column was one of the most successful of all the flying column leaders. It was he who was in command when, as outlined below, the British very nearly captured his entire flying column of over one hundred IRA Volunteers at Crossbarry on 19 March. Instead, despite their superior firepower, the British ultimately lost their opportunity to achieve a major triumph against the IRA flying columns. Arms were always an issue for the IRA, who relied heavily on attacks on barracks to seize much-needed weaponry. The Thompson submachine gun (tommy-gun), the development of which was funded by the IRA, could have changed the course of the war if the shipment ordered had arrived in time; such an effective weapon would have bolstered the IRA and destroyed the morale of the British forces in Ireland.
Elections were held in Ireland on 2 May 1921. These elections were supposed to be for seats in the British-mandated houses of commons in Belfast and Dublin, as established by the Government of Ireland Act (see Chapter Nine). However, Sinn Féin, rather than boycott them, treated the elections as being for seats in the illegal Dáil Éireann; the results, as outlined below, were unsurprising. Later that same month, the Dublin Brigade of the IRA set fire to one of the economic symbols of British rule in Ireland, the Custom House, where hundreds of thousands of taxation records were stored. There was a fierce fight between the IRA and the British, and many IRA men were taken prisoner, leaving numbers depleted. Both sides were now being pushed towards negotiation. Lloyd George, having concluded that, for various reasons discussed in this chapter, the British military campaign could not continue, decided to drop his precondition of arms surrender before any negotiation could take place. This made it possible for peace talks to begin and, on 11 July 1921, the British offered a truce, the details of which are discussed below. Even in the last hours before the truce, the bitter hostilities continued. Margaret Keogh, a member of Cumann na mBan, was fatally wounded in a raid on her house by the British. Meanwhile, four British soldiers were apprehended and killed by the IRA.
BATTLE AT CROSSBARRY
In the run up to St Patrick’s Day, Tom Barry, Commandant of the Third West Cork Flying Column, Liam Deasy (Brigade Adjutant), and Tadhg O’Sullivan (Brigade Quarter Master) asked the piper Florence Begley (Assistant Brigade Adjutant) to join their flying column and help celebrate the national feast day in style by ambushing some lorries to the accompaniment of his uilleann pipes (Irish bagpipes pumped with the elbow).1 However, the planned ambush at Shippool, Innishannon, on 17 March 1921 did not come to fruition as the British were informed of the plans and returned to their barracks at Kinsale. The IRA flying column marched north towards its Ballymurphy HQ.
The British Army in Cork, under Lieutenant General Strickland, had captured an IRA company captain, Patrick Coakley, during the Upton Ambush (see Chapter Ten). Coakley divulged the whereabouts of the Third Cork Brigade HQ.
After a day of resting, the IRA flying column arrived in Ballyhandle, beside Crossbarry, County Cork, at 1.30am on 19 March, and retired to billets, which were basically beds provided by people in the local area. After about half an hour, the alarm was raised. British lorries were reported to be slowly approaching their position from various directions. An area of about four miles in circumference was taken in by the British troops, whose plan was to arrest every man and boy they came across in all the houses in the district, moving slowly but thoroughly.
The IRA officers decided to wait in ambush for the British at Crossbarry, eight miles from Bandon and twelve miles from Cork. The column was divided into sections of fourteen men. Seán Hales, John Lordan, Mick Crowley, Denis Lordan, Tom Kelleher, Peter Kearney and Christy O’Connell were each in command of a section. The residents of the area were sent to safety while barricades were built, mines laid down and positions allocated to each section. Soon the lorries were spotted on the Bandon–Crossbarry road but the British were also coming from other directions. No fewer than twenty-four lorries of military left Bandon, six hundred military came from Cork and Ballincollig, and three hundred from Kinsale.2
The IRA flying column lay in position from about 4.30am and at about eight o’clock a long line of British lorries drove slowly towards their positions. Michael O’Driscoll recalled in his witness statement: ‘When the first lorry was opposite our position … soldiers started to get out of the lorries. We got orders to open fire and we gave it to them at point blank.’3 Florence Begley proceeded to play the uilleann pipes and continued to do so whilst the firing lasted. O’Driscoll recalled that the pipes had a great effect on the IRA and he felt that they could have tackled the whole British Army. The superior firepower of the British did not come into play, though, as the IRA men were very fortunate that a bullet penetrated the drum of an enemy machine gun, which was in a position on a lorry, thereby jamming it. Edward White, a civilian prisoner in one of the lorries, managed to escape during the battle and carried the machine gun away. When the firing ceased, the IRA went onto the road to collect arms and set fire to the British vehicles.
The second wave of attack came from two hundred British on the left flanks of the IRA, but they were tackled by the section under the command of Denis Lordan. Peter Kearney’s section was moved up to reinforce this position. A third attack came when a platoon of British who had come from the Bandon direction was engaged by Christy O’Connell’s men who forced the British to withdraw. The fourth assault was dealt with by Tom Kelleher’s section at the rear of Crossbarry, where two IRA men were killed. Tom Barry reinforced this section and the men succeeded in shooting an officer, whereupon the remaining British turned and ran.
As Barry rounded up his men, he congratulated them and explained that they would have a twenty-mile march ahead of them. Just as they were about to move out, though, the IRA spotted groups of disorganised British soldiers in the distance. They appeared to be leaderless, as they were standing around in the centre of a small field on the sloping hillside east of Crossbarry. Barry ordered all of his men to line up and prepare to fire. Tom Kelleher remembered that the sound of a hundred IRA rifles firing in three successive moments, and all at the same time, was very effective as ‘helter-skelter the English broke in all directions … The Battle of Crossbarry was over.’4
By attacking the British at Crossbarry, the IRA had succeeded in breaking up the enemy’s encircling movement, but there were some losses. Jeremiah O’Leary, Con Daly and Peter Monahan (who had joined the IRA after deserting the British Army) were killed during the fight.5 Ten British soldiers were killed in the fight. The lost chance of capturing Barry’s flying column was a big blow to the British who had been very close to achieving a major coup.
The IRA captain, Patrick Coakley, who had divulged the position of the IRA to the British was court martialled by the IRA and sentenced to death but this was commuted and he was exiled from Ireland instead.
SHOOTING OF CHARLIE HURLEY
Not far from Crossbarry, the Third West Cork Brigade O/C, Charlie Hurley, wounded at the Upton Ambush (see Chapter Ten), had been trapped and killed by British forces. He was recuperating in Forde’s farm in Ballymurphy, which was Brigade Headquarters, when he was killed by men of the Essex Regiment under Lieutenant General Arthur Percival. Barry recalled that they could hear the gunfire as they lay in wait for the British at Crossbarry and in his memoirs he was effusive in his praise of Hurley.
AMBUSH AT BALLYTURN (BALLYTURIN) GALWAY
Brigid Ryan, a Cumann na mBan member in Galway, reported to the South West Galway Brigade of the IRA that RIC District Inspector Cecil Blake was going to be at a party at John Baggot’s Ballyturn House, near Gort, County Galway. Blake had been involved in a raid on a Catholic church during mass, in which shots were fired. He had a reputation for producing his pistol in shops to demand service, and his wife Eliza also carried a gun; she once produced it in a shop in Gort and threatened to shoot the proprietor if anything ever happened to her husband.
The Brigadier of the South West Galway Brigade, Joseph Stafford, and Patrick Glynn, Vice-O/C of the Gort Battalion, together with seven other IRA men took over the gate lodge of Ballyturn House on 15 May 1921. They lay in wait there for seven hours while Blake and other guests enjoyed the party.
At seven o’clock, Blake and his friends drove to the exit, only to find the gate locked. British Army Captain Fiennes Wykeham Mann Cornwallis got out of the car to attend to the gate and the IRA ambushers, who had locked it, shouted, ‘Hands up!’ Cornwallis dodged out of the way and managed to fire a number of shots. The IRA poured fire on the car. Cornwallis, Lieutenant William McCreery and Eliza Blake and her husband Cecil were all killed.6 Margaret Gregory, a daughter-in-law of the famous Irish writer Lady Augusta Gregory, was in the car but unharmed; she was brought by the IRA down to Ballyturn House where a note was handed to the Baggots to tell them that if there were reprisals, the house would be burned down.
An RIC man, John Kearney, was shot dead by his comrades when they arrived at the scene of the ambush later. Kearney had been passing information to the IRA, and his fellow officers, suspecting as much, took the opportunity to kill him and blame the IRA. There were wide-scale reprisals in the area, and a number of homes were burned by the Black and Tans and RIC.
THE THOMPSON SUBMACHINE GUN
The Thompson submachine gun was designed by General John T. Thompson in the United States during the First World War but was first produced in 1921. The weapon is also known as the tommy-gun or simply T Gun, but because of its association in the early years with the IRA it also gained the respectful nickname ‘Irish Sword’.
Thomas Fortune Ryan, an American tobacco, insurance and transportation magnate, was a Clan na Gael stalwart who realised that this portable weapon might prove useful to the IRA back in Ireland. While the weapon was in the development phase, Ryan made contact with Harry Boland who was in the US with Éamon de Valera. Thompson and Ryan formed a company called Auto-Ordnance Corporation, and Harry Boland ordered the first 250 guns. Although there were prototypes, the first factory-made weapon came off the production line in March 1921 with the serial number 41. The first tommy-guns were brought to Ireland in May 1921 to be shown to the IRA by two US Army men representing the Thompson Corporation, Major James Dineen and Captain Patrick Cronin.7 Having tested the weapons in tunnels under the Casino at Marino (a folly in north Dublin), Collins and the IRA leaders were impressed. The guns could fire a magazine of twenty rounds but the bulkier circular drums could carry a hundred rounds.8 A weapon of this magnitude would strike fear into the British in Ireland, and Collins, never one to be cautious, ordered 653, which were priced at $225 each. This made up a total of 903 weapons (if we include those ordered by Boland), an order amounting to over $200,000. Money was not in short supply; weapons were.
The first large shipment of nearly five hundred weapons, mostly with serial numbers obliterated, was loaded on-board the East-Side bound for Ireland. However, the ship was raided by the US Customs and Justice Department on 15 June 1921 and the illicit cargo was seized.9 Coincidentally this was also the day on which one of the sample tommy-guns was used in action by the IRA when a train carrying British troops from the West Kent Regiment was riddled in Drumcondra, Dublin.
RESTRUCTURING OF THE IRA
In May 1921, the IRA was restructured and split into sixteen divisions all around Ireland. Each division was split into brigades, which numbered sixty-seven in total. These sixty-seven brigades were subdivided into battalions and then further divided into companies. This was an effort by GHQ to control the IRA and restructure the chain of command. However, the changes met with little success and, in some cases, active resistance especially from the Southern brigades, most notably Cork and Kerry. In fact, the IRA from the First Kerry Brigade did not attend the meeting to structure the First Southern Division. The changes had little time to make a quantifiable difference, but the resistance to what was seen as ‘interference’ from the ‘pen-pushers’ in Dublin is an example of the divide between country and city, which would later contribute to, but was not the cause of, the Civil War.
ELECTIONS, 1921
The Government of Ireland Act (see Chapter Nine) divided Ireland into two separate parliamentary regions. Elections for the new parliaments were held in both regions on 22 May 1921. Of the fifty-two seats in the Northern House of Commons, forty went to Unionist candidates, six went to Sinn Féin and six to Joe Devlin’s Nationalist Party, which was formed from the ashes of the Irish Parliamentary Party (Home Rule Party). The Southern House of Commons had 128 seats. There was no election as such, as Sinn Féin was unopposed in every constituency except Dublin University, which returned four unopposed Unionists. Just as in 1918, Labour decided not to contest the election.
The Sinn Féin candidates who were elected considered the elections to be for Dáil Éireann (which was illegal according to the British). Although invited to attend the Dáil, the four Unionists who had been elected attended the ‘official’ Southern House of Commons on 28 June 1921, which was the only time the Parliament met. Interestingly, the Parliament met in the Royal College of Science for Ireland, which later became Government Buildings, on Merrion Street.
The Second Dáil, convened on 16 August 1921, was made up of Sinn Féin candidates who had been elected for both the Southern and Northern Houses.
THE BURNING OF THE CUSTOM HOUSE
While the elections were taking place, the war plans continued. A memorial outside the Custom House in Dublin reads:
In proud memory of Edward Dorrens, Seán Doyle, Daniel Head & the brothers Patrick & Stephen O’Reilly who died in the Battle of the Custom House 25th May 1921; and of the officers and men of the Second Battalion & other units of the Dublin Brigade I.R.A. who gave their lives for Irish Freedom. They gave their all: may they rest in peace.
Liz Gillis, an expert on the burning of the Custom House, maintains that at least 270 Volunteers took part in an operation that was meticulously planned for months in advance.10
Éamon de Valera, who had returned from the US in time for Christmas 1920, presided over a meeting of the IRA Army Council held early in the New Year of 1921. The meeting was held at 40 Herbert Park, the home of Michael Joseph O’Rahilly who had been shot leading a charge against a British barricade on Moore Street in the final hours of the 1916 Rising. Oscar Trayor, O/C of the Dublin Brigade, recalled those present at the meeting besides himself and de Valera: Cathal Brugha, Minister for Defence; Austin Stack, Minister for Home Affairs; Dick Mulcahy, IRA Chief of Staff; J.J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell, Assistant Chief of Staff; Michael Collins, IRA Director of Intelligence; Diarmuid O’Hegarty, IRA Director of Organisation; Gearóid O’Sullivan, IRA Adjutant General (and a cousin of Michael Collins); Liam Mellows, IRA Director of Purchases; Seán Russell, IRA Director of Munitions; Seán McMahon, IRA Quarter Master General and Piaras Beaslaí, IRA Director of Publicity.11
De Valera suggested that a sensational IRA strike in Dublin was necessary in order to bring public opinion abroad to bear on the question of Ireland.
A decision was made to set fire to the Custom House, and Traynor began to draw up plans. Built in 1792 and considered one of architect James Gandon’s masterpieces, at three storeys over basement, it was an impressively large target. Although made of Portland stone, the building was packed with wooden presses, which contained numerous bundles of combustible papers and files belonging to the Department of Income Tax.
On the appointed day, 25 May, at 12.55pm, the Dublin Brigade IRA began the task of setting the Custom House on fire. Commandant Tom Ennis of the Second Battalion was in charge of the Volunteers who entered the building. They were joined by members of the Squad under Paddy Daly and the Active Service Unit (ASU). Their job was to hold up the entire staff and assemble them in the main hall and provide protection to the Second Battalion.12 Outside the building, the First Battalion provided protective cover to those inside. More importantly, the First Battalion and the Third and Fourth Battalions took over local fire stations and ensured that the fire brigade remained in situ. The engineers of the Fifth Battalion were involved in cutting telephone wires in manholes and on high telephone poles. A lorry load of paraffin arrived at the rear of the Custom House, and tins of the flammable oil were carried as surreptitiously as possible inside; the paraffin oil was used to saturate every office in the building thoroughly.
The first casualty was the caretaker Francis Davis who put up a struggle and was shot. He died later in the afternoon.13 Each floor of the building, or particular parts of the floors, was in charge of company O/C, and the signal for calling off the men was to be two sharp blasts on the battalion O/C’s whistle. By coincidence, two company O/Cs’ whistles were sounded almost together; some men mistook the signal and started to retire.14 One IRA officer reported that his men had not finished the job and they were sent back to their floor to finish it. But these few minutes were the difference between a successful retirement and the arrival of British forces at 1.25pm, five minutes after the allotted completion time.
Two Crossley tenders full of Auxiliaries turned onto Eden Quay, passing Liberty Hall into Beresford Place. The Auxiliaries jumped from their lorries and took positions behind the pillars that supported the railway. The First Battalion IRA engaged the enemy, firing from revolvers and throwing a number of grenades at them. Seán Prendergast recalled: ‘In a thrice all was excitement as rifles and revolver shots rent the air, and billowing smoke of the burning building and flashes of flames could be distinctly seen mounting.’15 Daniel Head threw a grenade into a British lorry and was shot five times by the Auxiliaries. A double-turreted armoured car driving around the area sprayed bullets from its Hotchkiss machine gun at the IRA men in the Custom House who returned fire with their revolvers.
Edward Dorrins (his name is incorrectly spelled Dorrens on the memorial) of E Company, Second Battalion, had been kidnapped by the Auxiliaries three months previously and thrown into the River Liffey. On this occasion, he was not so lucky as he was shot in the head during the fighting and died instantly. The Quartermaster of the Second Battalion, Paddy O’Reilly, was wounded badly during the battle and seems to have been shot dead afterwards. Harry Colley recalled seeing his corpse on the night before his funeral: ‘There was a small bullet entrance wound in the side of his nose, which plainly showed scorching, indicating that the gun, presumably an automatic, had been placed at his head when fired.’16 Paddy’s brother Stephen, who was Assistant Adjutant of the Second Battalion, was also killed in the battle.
One of architect James Gandon’s masterpieces, the Custom House in Dublin, having been set alight by the Dublin Brigade IRA. The building burned for five days.
A party of Black and Tans who were billeted in a hotel on the quays came running towards the Custom House. They came under fire from members of the ASU on Butt Bridge. The Tans took cover behind Guinness barrels where they engaged the IRA who eventually withdrew at 1.50pm when their ammunition was spent.
Inside the Custom House, the order was given that all guns were to be dumped and that all Volunteers were to mingle amongst the staff.17 However, some of the IRA men made desperate bids to run through the gauntlet of British fire. James Slattery recalled that he and Seán Doyle, whose brother Patrick had been executed by the British on 14 March 1921, felt that they ‘wouldn’t stand a chance’ if they were arrested. Both men charged out of the Custom House and were fired on by the British. They escaped but Doyle was shot in the lung and died five days later in the Mater Hospital.18 Tom Ennis was one of the last to leave the building and managed to escape despite suffering a horrendous bullet wound in the groin. Soon the Auxiliaries entered the Custom House where they shot a young civilian temporary clerk from the Local Government Board, Mahon Lawless, who died later.19 Two other civilians also died in the shooting; they were James Connolly and John Byrne. Eventually when people had been cleared out of the building, senior staff members helped the British to separate employees from the IRA. In all, 108 Republicans were captured.
When eventually the fire brigade came on the scene, it became clear to which side the firemen gave their allegiance. Upon entering the building, fireman including Michael Rogers ‘spread the fire into parts of it which had not previously been on fire’. In order to help a number of IRA men to escape, Rogers went to Tara Street fire station and brought back four spare uniforms for some Volunteers who were still in the Custom House.20
Despite the number of arrests and deaths, Oscar Trayor later described the destruction of the Custom House as an ‘outstanding success’ because it led directly to the arrangement of the Truce on 11 July 1921.21 Éamon de Valera, who had been missing for the majority of the War of Independence and had not been associated with a battle since 1916, could claim the attack as his victory because it had been his idea.
The fire brigade arrives at the Custom House, 25 May 1921.
THE TRUCE
A number of attempts to bring about a cessation of hostilities had been undertaken. For instance, Patrick Clune, the Archbishop of Perth in Australia, had been in communication with Collins and Griffith on the Irish side in late 1920. He also arranged meetings with the Joint Under-Secretary John Anderson and his assistant Mark Sturgis in Dublin Castle. Archbishop Clune’s nephew, Conor Clune, had been murdered in the Castle on Bloody Sunday, so he had a special interest in bringing peace to Ireland. However, when he met with Lloyd George in London, the Prime Minister, influenced by the military and by the Conservatives in his coalition government, insisted that any truce would have to involve a surrender of arms, something that the IRA could not countenance. Clune’s negotiations were in vain. British generals ‘insisted they could crush the IRA within six weeks’, which ensured that the British Cabinet rejected the notion of a compromise.22 The British preferred to wait and see how the establishment of two Parliaments worked out in May 1921. By April, though, even Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary, wanted the hostilities to end, stating at a Cabinet meeting that British forces had failed ‘in breaking the terror’ and that ‘the Irish question’ was not going to be solved by continuing the war.23 Lloyd George again rejected the notion of a truce before the May elections.
WHY THE BRITISH OFFERED A TRUCE
Besides the destruction of the Custom House there are a number of reasons why the British sought a truce. War weariness is one reason. The British had been at war since 1914 and there was only a brief interlude of a couple of months between peace in Europe and war in Ireland. The financial strain was also taking a toll. Admittedly, the IRA in England had cancelled an attack on the financial district of Liverpool, but they planned to increase their targeting of home addresses of Englishmen fighting in Ireland. The British government knew that the IRA could wreak havoc in England.
Tom Barry believed that the ‘startling upheaval in British policy was due, and due only, to the British recognition that they had not defeated and could not reasonably hope to defeat in the measurable future, the armed forces of the Irish nation’.24 Those in command of the British Army were beginning to realise that although they might quell Republicanism, they could not defeat it. First World War General Douglas Wimberley was Assistant Adjutant of the 2nd Battalion, Cameron Highlanders, stationed at Queenstown (Cobh). He felt certain that ‘the discontent would merely have smouldered underground. It would have burst into flames as soon as we withdrew.’25 The famous Field Marshal Bernard ‘Monty’ Montgomery was stationed in Ireland in 1920–21 as Brigade-Major of the 17th Infantry, also in Cork. In his memoirs, he wrote that the war in Ireland was ‘far worse than the Great War which had ended in 1918. It developed into a murder campaign in which, in the end, the soldiers became very skilful and more than held their own. But such a war is thoroughly bad for officers and men; it tends to lower their standards of decency and chivalry, and I was glad when it was over.’26 Montgomery also said the British ‘could probably have squashed the rebellion as a temporary measure, but it would have broken out again like an ulcer’ as soon as troops were removed from Ireland.27
Winston Churchill, Secretary of State for the Colonies and Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Irish Affairs, believed that the only way to win would be to raise a force of one hundred thousand new special troops and police. Churchill wanted a ‘tremendous onslaught’ against the Irish. His Cabinet colleagues Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead backed him. The Cabinet made a decision on 24 May that if the Southern Parliament did not meet by 12 July, martial law would be extended to all twenty-six counties.
Jan Smuts, who had fought the British in the Second Boer War and was now the Prime Minister of South Africa, was in touch both with Éamon de Valera and with Lloyd George. Smuts helped to draft the speech given by King George V when he opened the Northern Parliament on 22 June 1921. In his speech, the king appealed ‘to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget, and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill’. On that day, British forces raided a house in Blackrock, County Dublin, and arrested Éamon de Valera. Alfred Cope, the Assistant Under-Secretary, secured his release twenty-four hours later (much to de Valera’s bewilderment). Three days later, de Valera received a letter from David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, proposing a conference with a view to peace.
THE TERMS OF THE TRUCE
On 8 July 1921, Éamon de Valera met General Nevil Macready in the Mansion House in Dublin, in order to discuss the terms of a proposed truce between the British and the IRA. The British agreed not to bring any more troops or munitions into Ireland or to undertake military manoeuvres. There would be no provocative display of forces, armed or unarmed. There would be no pursuit of the IRA or their armoury by the British. The British also agreed that their secret agents would cease to operate and that the curfew would end. The Irish agreed to cease their attacks on crown forces and civilians. They too agreed not to have any provocative displays of force. The IRA would not interfere with British government property or indeed with private property. Finally, the IRA agreed not to take any action that might necessitate British military interference. The Truce came into effect at twelve noon on 11 July 1921.
THE EVE OF THE TRUCE
Josephine McGowan was the first Cumann na mBan member to be killed in the aftermath of the Rising, dying from injuries received at a protest against the internment of Republican prisoners (see Chapter Two). She is buried in Glasnevein Cemetery and was the posthumous recipient of a War of Independence Medal. Margaret Keogh, another active member of Cumann na mBan, was fatally wounded when her house in Stella Gardens, Ringsend, Dublin, was raided by British forces on 10 July 1921, the eve of the Truce. Margaret was a member of the Irish Clerical Workers Union and Captain of the Croke Ladies Hurling Club. She died of her wounds on 12 July 1921 and was buried in Glasnevin with full military honours.28
Four British soldiers who had been strolling around Bandon whilst off duty and unarmed were arrested by the IRA on the evening before the Truce. Their bodies were found in a field the following day; the men had been blindfolded and executed. They were Sappers Alfred G. Camm and Albert Edward Powell, Private Henry Albert Morris and Lance-Corporal Harold Daker.
AN tÓGLACH, JULY 1921
The organ of the IRA warned Volunteers to be cautious of the Truce but said they should observe the ceasefire for as long as it lasted.
Nothing has happened yet which should cause the Irish Republican Army to relax its vigilances … and whenever our own noble old Ireland requires them they will spring to her defence again as ready as ever to resist foreign aggression, whoever the aggressor.
A truce is not a peace; we desire peace as we desire freedom and know that one cannot come without the other.29
Notes
1. Begley, Florence, WS 1771, pg.1.
2. Kelleher, Tom, ‘Rout of the British at Crossbarry’, Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, pg.156.
3. O’Driscoll, Michael, WS 1297, pg.6.
4. Kelleher, ‘Rout of the British at Crossbarry’, Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, pg.161.
5. Calnan, Cornelius, WS 1317, pg.7.
6. McNamara, War and Revolution in the West of Ireland, pg.132–133.
7. The serial numbers on the guns were 46, 50 and 51.
8. They used .45 ACPs (Automatic Colt Pistol rounds).
9. Other shipments of tommy-guns did reach Ireland. Fifty were landed just before the Truce and on 29 July a further fifteen arrived. Over the course of the next few months, about a hundred arrived in various small batches and were used by both sides during the Civil War.
10. Gillis, Liz, Burning of the Custom House, Dublin: Kilmainham Tales, 2017, pg.82.
11. Traynor, Oscar, WS 340, pg.68.
12. Gillis, Burning of the Custom House, pg.84.
13. Ibid., pg.107–8.
14. Colley, Harry, WS 1687, pg.81.
15. Prendergast, Seán, WS 755, pg.519.
16. Colley, Harry, WS 1687, pg.84.
17. Harpur, James, WS 536, pg.14.
18. Slattery, James, WS 445, pg.16–17.
19. Gillis, Burning of the Custom House, pg.124.
20. Fallon, Las, Dublin Fire Brigade and the Irish Revolution, Dublin: South Dublin Libraries, 2012, pg.78.
21. Traynor, Oscar, WS 340, pg.67.
22. Ó Ruairc, Pádraig Óg, Truce, Cork: Mercier Press, 2016, pg.36.
23. Ibid., pg.39.
24. Barry, Guerilla Days in Ireland, pg.224.
25. Ó Ruairc, Truce, pg.54.
26. Montgomery, Bernard, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery, Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2005, pg.39–40.
27. Ó Ruairc, Truce, pg.54.
28. Ó Ruairc, Pádraig Óg, ‘The Women Who Died For Ireland’, History Ireland, September/October 2018, pg.37.
29. An tÓglach, 22 July 1921, pg.1.