Cork's Revolutionary Dead

Barry Keane

• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781781174968
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Irlande

In Part 1 Keane gives a brief introduction to the period and outlines the most important events that took place during the course of the fight against the British in Cork from 1916 to 1921 and during the Civil War of 1922–23. This includes the burning of Cork city, the ambush at Kilmichael (which is examined in great detail), Crossbarry and the story of Tom Barry's trench coat. In Part 2 Keane uses a wealth of new sources to reconstruct every death that can be ascribed to the war, including those caught in the crossfire and some accidental deaths that can be directly linked to one side or the other. Some individuals who did not die in the county, but who were central to the conduct of the war there, are also included. One such example is Terence MacSwiney, who died in Brixton prison in London in October 1920, but was both head of the IRA in Cork and lord mayor of the city, having assumed the role after his predecessor, Tomás MacCurtain, had been assassinated earlier that year.

Michael Collins: ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Be Killed’¹

Michael Collins

Everyone who has watched the 1996 film Michael Collins knows what happened to Michael Collins at Béal na Bláth on 22 August 1922. At approximately 8 p.m. he was shot in the head during an improvised ambush and died at the scene. He was thirty-one. However, the attack that day was neither unusual in the year leading up to his death nor should it have been surprising. Shocking certainly, but surprising no.

Collins had spent the time since the Easter Rising in prison in Stafford and in north Wales at Frongoch, then on the run, breaking various Sinn Féin leaders out of jails in England and Ireland, running the Department of Finance in the Sinn Féin government, leading the secretive IRB, managing the intelligence war against the British state and courting Katherine Kiernan. He did all this successfully while cycling around Dublin under the noses of the British military. Frank Thornton, who would know, commented afterwards ‘that he never carried a gun during these journeys, neither was he accompanied by a bodyguard’.²

Béal na Bláth was not the first time Collins was attacked in Cork. On 19 July 1921 he had taken the train from Dublin to Clonakilty. On the way he had applied for a permit to visit his brother Johnny, who was interned on Spike Island in the middle of Cork Harbour. Unsurprisingly, this was refused by a British military still smarting from the Truce.³ According to The Southern Star he was accompanied on his trip by Liam Deasy, Tom Barry, Gearóid O’Sullivan and Timothy O’Sullivan.⁴ When Collins arrived in Clonakilty he was immediately recognised by his neighbours and friends and inevitably the news of this favoured son’s return reached the British military in the town. One of them decided to deal with their most hated enemy. Armed with a rifle he approached the hotel where Collins was and started shouting for him to come out. In response Collins’ bodyguards came out onto the street armed with revolvers. The incident was diffused when a senior British officer arrived and ordered the soldier back to barracks.⁵ While Collins did not mention this incident in his letters to Kitty Kiernan, he did note that the military were being ‘arrogant and provocative’.⁶ On the trip he also visited the ruins of his family home at Woodfield, which had been burned a few weeks earlier by soldiers from the Essex Regiment.⁷

On 17 September 1921 another incident occurred in Clonakilty when a senior IRA officer was recognised by local people, who mobbed the car. This attracted the attention of a group of drunken Auxiliaries, who came over to see who the visitor was. The incident involved much swearing and abuse, but when the Auxiliaries tried to take photographs they were warned off by the men in the car. Sadly, no names were used so it is impossible identify this famous Irish republican who excited so much attention and abuse.⁸

In October Collins was sent to London, at Éamon de Valera’s suggestion, as one of the Irish delegates to negotiate with the British at Downing Street, arriving a day after the others, on 9 October 1921. Seven weeks later, between 2 and 2.30 a.m. on 6 December 1921, a treaty between the British state and the Irish revolutionaries, granting dominion status with full fiscal autonomy to three-quarters of Ireland, was signed. The granting of fiscal autonomy had been the final card in Lloyd George’s deck of concessions and a previous attempt at a settlement in November 1920 had been blocked by him because, as a former chancellor of the exchequer, he understood that if ‘this were done Ireland could not remain an integral part of the United Kingdom. The scheme put forward was not compatible with her so remaining. She could either support us or not, as she chose.’⁹

This was as far as the British prime minister and his government were willing to go in 1920: to do otherwise could fuel demands throughout the British Empire for similar concessions. So for Collins and Griffith to extract full fiscal autonomy in December 1921 was an Empire-shattering event, but as the concession was to delete references to a free trade area it went almost unnoticed by commentators at the time.¹⁰ In contrast, on 10 November 1921 Egypt had been offered (and rejected) independence in nothing but name.¹¹ At the same time Lord Curzon was fighting a rearguard action against Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu’s plans for ‘self-government’ in India.¹²

The main concession on the Irish side was that they had to concede faithfulness to the crown. Another problem with the Treaty was that they had failed to break off negotiations over the essential unity of Ireland (which they had said in advance would be their tactic) and instead accepted a Boundary Commission that they believed would return large parts of Northern Ireland to the south.¹³ The price to be paid for ‘real’ independence was that Ireland would simply have to swallow the imperial pill, although it had been made as sweet as possible.

The terms of the Treaty caused a split among Irish nationalists, chiefly over whether it was worth restarting the War of Independence because the oath of loyalty was to an Irish Free State and faithfulness to the crown, instead of an oath of allegiance to a republic. In January 1922 the Dáil decided by a narrow majority to accept the Treaty. Although its opponents eventually accepted, worked with and amended the settlement, Collins prophetically commented that he was ‘signing his actual death warrant’.¹⁴

Three months later Collins arrived in Cork to address a pro-Treaty monster meeting in the city scheduled for 12 March. Two platforms had been erected on Grand Parade and many of the most senior supporters of the Treaty were to speak. These included Collins, Seán Milroy, Liam de Róiste, J. J. Walsh, Fionán Lynch, Joseph McGrath, Seán Hayes, Seán Hales, Piaras Béaslaí, Patrick O’Keeffe and Seán MacEoin.¹⁵ The night before the speeches both platforms were dumped in the River Lee and white flags were erected along the street by anti-Treaty supporters, but by the time of the meeting the platforms had been fished out of the river and the flags removed. An enormous crowd filled the street, including some anti-Treaty supporters armed with revolvers, which they fired when any of the pro-Treaty speakers tried to speak. The event was on the verge of collapse until Collins took to the main stage and his bodyguards appeared in the crowd. He addressed the meeting through ‘a fusillade of shots’, but his speech was a success and he carried the crowd.¹⁶

In an era when manhole covers are routinely welded shut every time the United States president visits a city, it seems incredible that opponents with guns could have been let so close to Collins during a period of high tension. However, this was not the most serious incident that happened in the city that weekend. On the previous day Collins had gone to St Finbarr’s Cemetery to visit the graves of the Republican dead, including Terence MacSwiney and Tomás MacCurtain. As he approached the gates he was confronted by armed men, who ringed the plot and warned him that if he took another step forward he would be shot. After a brief stand-off, Collins and his party left. There is no doubt that he was upset by the events of the morning, as is clear from a photograph taken outside the cemetery immediately after the stand-off. That evening, as he approached the home of his sister Mary Collins Powell in Sunday’s Well on the north side of the city, a gunman stepped from the shadows saying, ‘Collins, I have you now.’ Before he could open fire Seán MacEoin set upon him and wrestled him to the ground.¹⁷

Cork was not the only place where Collins faced violence. On 16 April 1922 he exited his car outside Vaughan’s Hotel at 29 Parnell Square in Dublin and began walking down the street. Suddenly ten members of the ‘unofficial IRA’ rushed out of their headquarters around 100 metres away at No. 44 and opened fire on the car. Some were armed with rifles. Collins, who had been heading towards No. 44 with fellow IRB member Seán Ó Muirthile, returned fire. Gearóid O’Sullivan, who had been in the hotel, rushed out and joined the battle. The gunfight, which lasted about three minutes, resulted in the capture of one of the ‘unofficials’ by Collins. On being searched at nearby Mountjoy Prison, he was found to be carrying a grenade.¹⁸

The fundamental political problem remained: how to make the dominion of the Treaty into the republic the anti-Treaty IRA wanted. Collins had organised the writing of a republican Free State constitution which was presented to the British Treaty signatories for approval. The draft constitution resulted in tense negotiations between the two sides, with Lloyd George describing it as ‘a Republic with a thin veneer’.¹⁹ As a holding operation to stop outright war between the pro- and anti-Treaty IRA, de Valera and Collins had agreed a pact which stated that, however the Free State elections went on 16 June, seats would be allocated in cabinet between the pro...

Table of contents

• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Significant Incidents in the War
• The Irish Revolution and Civil War
• Cork 1916–1919
• The Murder of Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain and the ‘Stolen’ Jury
• The Death of Colonel Smyth
• The Disappearance of John Coughlan
• The Funeral of Terence MacSwiney
• The Kilmichael Ambush
• The Burning of Cork
• The Incident at Mallow Station
• Cascading Death
• The Clonmult Shootout
• 28 February 1921
• The Crossbarry Ambush
• The Destruction of Rosscarbery Police Barracks
• Tom Barry’s Trench Coat
• Massacre in West Cork
• Michael Collins: ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Be Killed’1
• The Door to Madness
• The Dead
• Possibles
• Addendum
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• About the Publisher