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Category Archives: Wars & Rebellions


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Death of Paddy Daly, IRA Volunteer & National Army Officer

Paddy Daly, sometimes referred to as Paddy O’Daly, dies at his home in County Dublin on January 16, 1957. He serves in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) and subsequently holds the rank of major general in the Irish National Army from 1922 to 1924.

Daly is born in Dublin in 1888. He fights in the 1916 Easter Rising under the command of his namesake Edward Daly, leading the unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park. He is later wounded in the particularly vicious fighting near the Linenhall. He is subsequently interned in Frongoch internment camp for his part in the rebellion until 1918, when he is released as part of a general amnesty for Irish prisoners.

During the Irish War of Independence, Daly serves as leader of the “Squad,” Michael Collins‘ assassination unit.

On December 19, 1919, Daly along with Dan Breen lead an abortive ambush, at Ashtown railway station near the Phoenix Park, on the British Viceroy, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland, Lord French, as he returns from a private party which he had hosted the previous evening at his country residence in Frenchpark, County Roscommon. Lord French escapes the ambush, but Martin Savage is shot dead.

Daly and the men under his command are responsible for the killing of many British intelligence officers, in particular District Inspector Redmond, who had been putting increasing pressure on the Squad. Daly himself personally kills several people, including Frank Brooke, director of Great Southern and Eastern Railway, who serves on an advisory council to the British military, in June 1920. He does not directly lead any of the attacks on Bloody Sunday but is on standby in one of the Squad’s safe houses. In the aftermath, November 23, 1920, he is arrested and interned in Abercorn Barracks in Ballykinler, County Down.

Daly is released on parole from Ballykinler in March 1921, the British apparently being unaware of his senior position within the Dublin Brigade of the IRA. After his release, he, along with Emmet Dalton, is also involved in the attempt to free Seán Mac Eoin from Mountjoy Prison on May 14, 1921. He and his men hijack a British Army Peerless armoured car in Clontarf at the corporation abattoir, while it is escorting a consignment of meat to a barracks and shoot dead two soldiers in the process. The plan involves Dalton and Joe Leonard impersonating two British army officers and using forged documents to “transfer” MacEoin to Dublin Castle. They gain entry to Mountjoy but are discovered before they can free MacEoin and have to shoot their way out. They later abandon the armoured car after removing the Hotchkiss machine guns and setting fire to what they can. Toward the end of the war, in May 1921, the two principal fighting units of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade, the “Squad” and the “Active Service Unit” are amalgamated after losses suffered in the burning of the Custom House. Daly is named Officer Commanding (OC) of this new unit, which is named the Dublin Guard.

Daly’s own account of his activities during the Irish War of Independence is held at the Bureau of Military History in Cathal Brugha Barracks.

After the Anglo-Irish Treaty splits the IRA, Daly and most of his men side with the pro-treaty party, who go on to found the Irish Free State. He is appointed to the rank of brigadier in the newly created Irish National Army, which is inaugurated in January 1922. When the Irish Civil War breaks out in June 1922, he commands the Free State’s troops who secure Dublin, after a week of fighting.

In August 1922, during the Irish Free State offensive that re-takes most of the major towns in Ireland, Daly commands a landing of 450 troops of the Dublin Guard at Fenit, County Kerry, which goes on to capture Tralee from the anti-treaty forces. Acting with severe brutality in Kerry, he comments that, “nobody had asked me to take kid-gloves to Kerry, so I didn’t.” As the Civil War develops into a vicious guerrilla conflict, he and his men are implicated in a series of atrocities against anti-treaty prisoners, culminating in a series of killings with land mines in March 1923. Daly, and others under his command, claim that those killed were accidentally blown up by their own mines. Statements by the Garda Síochána, two Free State lieutenants on duty, W. McCarthy and Niall Harrington, and one survivor, Stephen Fuller, maintain the claims are fabricated.

Daly resigns from the Free State army in 1924 after an incident in Kenmare, County Kerry, concerning the daughters of a doctor. A court martial is held but collapses as no one is prepared to give evidence. He volunteers his services for the Irish Army again in 1940 and is appointed as a Captain to the non-combatant Construction Corps.

Daly is a carpenter by trade. He marries Daisy Gillies in 1910. His brother James (Seamus) marries Daisy’s sister Nora, a Cumann na mBan activist, in a joint wedding ceremony. After Daisy’s death in 1919, Daly marries Bridget Murtagh, also a Cumann na mBan activist, in 1921. Murtagh and Nora O’Daly carry out intelligence gathering for the planned attack on the Magazine Fort in 1916. She is a sister of Elizabeth Murtagh, the first wife of Commandant Michael Love who serves with Daly in the Collins Squad of the IRA, in the Irish Free State Army of the 1920s and during the Emergency period. Murtagh dies in childbirth in 1930. Daly subsequently marries Norah Gillies, his first wife’s niece.

On his death on January 16, 1957, Daly is buried with full military honours in Mount Jerome Cemetery. He is survived by his brothers, Comdt Seamus O’Daly and Capt Frank O’Daly, his sons Patrick and Colbert, and his daughters Brede and Philomena.


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Hugh O’Neill’s Army Defeated at the Battle of Kinsale

On December 24, 1601, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his Spanish and Irish allies are defeated by the English at the Battle of Kinsale, one of the most important battles in Irish history. With the able assistance of his main ally, Hugh Roe “Red” O’Donnell, he is fighting to defend Gaelic Ireland against the forces of Elizabeth I of England.

O’Neill, along with O’Donnell, train an army and before long they find a powerful ally, King Phillip III of Spain. King Phillip is more than keen to help the Irish for two reasons. Firstly, he wants revenge for the famous defeat of his Spanish Armada in 1588 and secondly, he sees Ireland as a terrific foundation from which he can invade England.

King Phillip agrees to the request of O’Neill and O’Donnell to send a large army to help them defeat the English. For several years prior they had held the English at bay from the strongholds in Ulster, beating them at Yellow Ford in 1598 and Moyry Pass in 1600. But if they are to ever drive the English back across the Irish Sea, they have to come out from the hills and passes and meet them in open battle. King Phillip eventually sends his army of 4,800 men to Kinsale in County Cork, thirteen miles south of Cork, arriving on September 21, 1601. They are surrounded by the English army, led by Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, and George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, the President of Munster.

The landing of the Spanish army is not where O’Neill would have hoped as he and O’Donnell are located in the northern county of Donegal. He had sent a message asking them to land further north, so they might join forces and march against the English, but that message either never arrives or arrives too late. Now O’Neill and O’Donnell face a long march to join with their allies, and the English are much closer to Kinsale than they.

Before the Irish can get there, Mountjoy’s army has laid siege to the Spaniards at Kinsale. To leave their northern strongholds holds many dangers for the Irish chieftains, but leave they do, marching their army 250 miles to Kinsale to put the future of Gaelic Ireland to the test on the battlefield, a march which many say is one of the greatest marches to date in Irish History.

On the morning of December 24, O’Neill moves to attack Mountjoy’s army. There is no coordination between O’Neill’s army and the Spanish in Kinsale, under Don Juan del Águila. The Spaniards make no attempt to attack in force or even create a diversion. O’Neill’s army, especially his cavalry, which perform badly, are not ready to meet the English in this sort of combat. The battle lasts only an hour, with Irish losses of 1,200 soldiers whereas the English lose only twenty. The critical battle of the Nine Years’ War has been lost.

Afterwards, O’Donnell flees to Spain where he lives comfortably until he dies a few months later, said to have been poisoned by a spy of Carew’s named Blake.

Hugh O’ Neill surrenders to the English in 1603 and later returns to Ulster, where Lord Mountjoy treats him respectively well. However, most of his lands and authority are non-existent. In 1607, he goes to Spain with a number of family members and supporters, most of whom are lesser chieftains, and this becomes famously known as the Flight of the Earls. The power of the Gaelic chiefs in Ireland become a thing of the past.


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The Burning of Cork

The burning of Cork by British forces takes place on the night of December 11, 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It follows an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, which wounds twelve Auxiliaries, one fatally.

IRA intelligence establishes that an Auxiliary patrol usually leaves Victoria Barracks (in the north of the city) each night at 8:00 p.m. and makes its way to the city centre via Dillon’s Cross. On December 11, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue receives intelligence that two lorries of Auxiliaries will be leaving the barracks that night and travelling with them will be British Army Intelligence Corps Captain James Kelly.

A unit of six IRA volunteers commanded by O’Donoghue take up position between the barracks and Dillon’s Cross, a “couple of hundred yards” from the barracks. Their goal is to destroy the patrol and capture or kill Captain Kelly. Five of the volunteers hide behind a stone wall while one, Michael Kenny, stands across the road dressed as an off-duty British officer. When the lorries near he is to beckon the driver of the first lorry to slow down or stop.

At 8:00 p.m., two lorries, each carrying 13 Auxiliaries, emerge from the barracks. The first lorry slows when the driver spots Kenny and, as it does so, the IRA unit attacks with grenades and revolvers. The official British report says that 12 Auxiliaries are wounded and that one, Spencer Chapman, a former Officer in the 4th Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), dies from his wounds shortly after. As the IRA unit makes its escape, some of the Auxiliaries fire on them while others drag the wounded to the nearest cover: O’Sullivan’s pub.

The Auxiliaries break into the pub with weapons drawn. They order everyone to put their hands over their heads to be searched. Backup and an ambulance are sent from the nearby barracks. One witness describes young men being rounded up and forced to lie on the ground. The Auxiliaries drag one of them to the middle of the crossroads, strip him naked and forced him to sing “God Save the King” until he collapses on the road.

Angered by an attack so near their headquarters and seeking retribution for the deaths of their colleagues at Kilmichael, the Auxiliaries gather to wreak their revenge. Charles Schulze, an Auxiliary and a former British Army Captain in the Dorsetshire Regiment during World War I, organizes a group of Auxiliaries to burn the centre of Cork.

At 9:30 p.m., lorries of Auxiliaries and British soldiers leave the barracks and alight at Dillon’s Cross, where they break into houses and herd the occupants onto the street. They then set the houses on fire and stand guard as they are razed to the ground. Those who try to intervene are fired upon and some are badly beaten. Seven buildings are set on fire at the crossroads. When one is found to be owned by Protestants, the Auxiliaries quickly douse the fire.

British forces begin driving around the city firing at random as people rush to get home before the 10:00 p.m. curfew. A group of armed and uniformed Auxiliaries surround a tram at Summerhill, smash its windows, and forced all the passengers out. Some of the passengers, including at least three women, are repeatedly kicked, hit with rifle butts, threatened, and verbally abused. The Auxiliaries then force the passengers to line up against a wall and search them, while continuing the physical and verbal abuse. Some have their money and belongings stolen. One of those attacked is a Catholic priest, who is singled out for sectarian abuse. Another tram is set on fire near Father Mathew‘s statue. Meanwhile, witnesses report seeing a group of 14–18 Black and Tans firing wildly for upwards of 20 minutes on nearby MacCurtain Street.

Soon after, witnesses report groups of armed men on and around St. Patrick’s Street, the city’s main shopping area. Most are uniformed or partially uniformed Auxiliaries and some are British soldiers, while others wear no uniforms. They are seen firing into the air, smashing shop windows and setting buildings on fire. Many report hearing bombs exploding. A group of Auxiliaries are seen throwing a bomb into the ground floor of the Munster Arcade, which houses both shops and flats. It explodes under the residential quarters while people are inside the building. They manage to escape unharmed but are detained by the Auxiliaries.

The Cork City Fire Brigade is informed of the fire at Dillon’s Cross shortly before 10:00 p.m. and are sent to deal with it at once. On finding that Grant’s department store on St. Patrick’s Street is ablaze, they decide to address it first. The fire brigade’s Superintendent, Alfred Hutson, calls Victoria Barracks and asks them to tackle the fire at Dillon’s Cross so that he can focus on the city centre. The barracks take no heed of his request. As he does not the resources to deal with all the fires at once, he has to prioritize the order in which the fires are addressed. He oversees the operation on St. Patrick’s Street and meets The Cork Examiner reporter Alan Ellis. He tells Ellis that “all the fires were being deliberately started by incendiary bombs, and in several cases, he had seen soldiers pouring cans of petrol into buildings and setting them alight.”

British forces hindered the firefighter’s attempts to tackle the blazes by intimidating them and cutting or driving over their hoses. Firemen are also shot at, and at least two are wounded by gunfire. Shortly after 3:00 a.m. on December 12, reporter Alan Ellis comes upon a unit of the fire brigade pinned down by gunfire near City Hall. The firemen say that they are being shot at by Black and Tans who have broken into the building. They also claim to see uniformed men carrying cans of petrol into the building from nearby Union Quay barracks.

At about 4:00 a.m. there is a large explosion and City Hall and the neighbouring Carnegie Library go up in flames, resulting in the loss of many of the city’s public records. According to Ellis, the Black and Tans had detonated high explosives inside City Hall. When more firefighters arrive, British forces shoot at them and refuse them access to water. The last act of arson takes place at about 6:00 a.m. when a group of policemen loot and burn the Murphy Brothers’ clothes shop on Washington Street.

After the ambush at Dillon’s Cross, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue and volunteer James O’Mahony make their way to the farmhouse of the Delaney family at Dublin Hill on the northern outskirts of the city, not far from the ambush site. Brothers Cornelius and Jeremiah Delaney are members of F Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Cork Brigade IRA. O’Donoghue hides some grenades on the farm and the two men go their separate ways.

At about 2:00 a.m., at least eight armed men enter the house and go upstairs into the brothers’ bedroom. The brothers get up and stand at the bedside and are asked their names. When they answer, the gunmen open fire. Jeremiah is killed outright, and Cornelius dies of his wounds on December 18. Their elderly relative, William Dunlea, is wounded by gunfire. The brothers’ father says the gunmen wore long overcoats and spoke with English accents. It is thought that, while searching the ambush site, Auxiliaries had found a cap belonging to one of the volunteers and had used bloodhounds to follow the scent to the family’s home.

Over 40 business premises and 300 residential properties are destroyed, amounting to over five acres of the city. Over £3 million worth of damage (1920 value) is caused, although the value of property looted by British forces is not clear. Many people become homeless and 2,000 are left jobless. Fatalities include an Auxiliary killed by the IRA, two IRA volunteers killed by Auxiliaries, and a woman who dies from a heart attack when Auxiliaries burst into her house. Several people, including firefighters, are reportedly assaulted or otherwise wounded.

Irish nationalists call for an open and impartial inquiry. In the British House of Commons, Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, refuses the demand for such an inquiry. He denies that British forces had any involvement and suggests the IRA started the fires in the city centre.

Conservative Party leader Bonar Law says, “in the present condition of Ireland, we are much more likely to get an impartial inquiry in a military court than in any other.” Greenwood announces that a military inquiry would be carried out by General Peter Strickland. This results in the “Strickland Report,” but Cork Corporation instructs its employees and other corporate officials to take no part. The report blames members of the Auxiliaries’ K Company, based at Victoria Barracks. The Auxiliaries, it is claimed, burned the city centre in reprisal for the IRA attack at Dillon’s Cross. The British Government refuses to publish the report.

(Pictured: Workers clearing rubble on St. Patrick’s Street in Cork after the fires)


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Irish Regiments Fight with Spain in the Battle of Villaviciosa

Three Irish regiments in the service of Spain fight in the Battle of Villaviciosa on December 10, 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession. The regiments are commanded by Colonel Don Demetrio MacAuliffe, Colonel Don John de Comerford, and Colonel Don Reynaldo Mac Donnell. This last becomes known as the Hibernia Regiment.

The Battle of Villaviciosa is a battle between a Franco-Spanish army led by Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme, and Philip V of Spain and a Habsburg-allied army commanded by Austrian Guido Starhemberg. The battle takes place one day after a Franco-Spanish victory at Brihuega against a British army under James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope. Both Philip V of Spain and the Archduke Charles of Austria claim victory, but the number of dead and wounded, the number of artillery and other weapons abandoned by the Allied army and the battle’s strategic consequences for the war confirm victory for Philip.

The battle is largely determined by the Spanish dragoons commanded by the Marquis of Valdecañas and the Count of Aguilar, which far exceeds the opposing forces. The Austrian forces retreat, pursued by Spanish cavalry, and the allied army is reduced to 6,000 or 7,000 men when it reaches Barcelona, one of the few places in Spain still recognizing Charles’ authority, on January 6.

After victories in the Battle of Almenar on July 27 and the Battle of Saragossa on August 20, the Habsburg allies supporting Archduke Charles capture Madrid for the second time and Charles enters Madrid on September 21. The 1710 invasion is a repetition of the one in 1706, and the 23,000-strong allied army is reduced at Almenara and Saragossa and in skirmishes with the Spanish-Bourbon militia. The allied troops are unable to maintain an occupation.

The allied position in Madrid is dangerous. On November 9, the city is evacuated and the retreat to Catalonia begins, pursued by Spanish cavalry led by the Marquis of Valdecañas. The archduke leaves the army with 2,000 cavalry and rushes back to Barcelona, while the rest of the army marches in two detachments. Austrian general Starhemberg and the main body of 12,000 men are a day’s march ahead of the 5,000 British troops under Lord Stanhope. The British force, surprised, is defeated at Brihuega on December 9, 1710. The British are taken prisoner, including Stanhope, who finally surrenders.

When General Starhemberg is informed of the attack on the British column, he moves his troops to help Stanhope’s army, unaware that the latter had capitulated. The next morning, December 10, the Franco-Spanish army is waiting on the plain of Villaviciosa. Compared to the Austrian general’s 14,000 troops, the Duke of Vendôme deploys about 20,000 men, including King Philip and other troops who had joined the duke that morning. The armies deploy in two lines on parallel ridges.

The battle begins during the afternoon, lasting until midnight. Each army has 23 pieces of artillery, deployed in three batteries. The artillery fire begins simultaneously, damaging both armies. The Marquis de Valdecañas, commanding the cavalry in the Bourbon right wing, begins the attack. Valdecañas sends his cavalry against the allied left wing, composed of German infantry and Portuguese and Spanish cavalry under Imperial General von Frankenberg. The German infantry and Portuguese cavalry try to stop the Bourbon charge before yielding, and the left wing is destroyed. The Spanish capture the artillery pieces, killing the Anglo-Dutch troops sent to aid the left wing. With the allied left wing defeated, the archduke’s infantry advances toward the Franco-Spanish center and drives back the Bourbon infantry. The Marquis of Toy tries to prevent losses in the center and avoid the division of the army, but most of his men are taken prisoner by the Portuguese.

Although the Bourbons in the center are in difficulty, the Count of Aguilar throws his cavalry against the archduke’s right wing, commanded by General Starhemberg and comprising the best grenadiers and cavalry squadrons of the allied army. The allies are unable to stop the Count of Aguilar’s cavalry. The archduke’s right wing is saved from disaster by support from the center, led by the Spanish general Antoni de Villarroel. Starhemberg regroups his forces, repulses the Count of Aguilar’s cavalry and charges the Bourbon left wing. After capturing the left-wing cannons, Starhemberg launches his army against the center.

The Bourbon center and left wing begin to retreat, and the right-wing cavalry pursues the allied left wing. The Count of Aguilar then attacks against the archduke’s right wing with his dragoons. Although the German and Portuguese cavalry, under Pedro Manuel de Ataíde, 5th Count of Atalaya, resist the first charge, Aguilar’s cavalry breaks the allied right wing. Valdecañas’ cavalry also deals a severe blow to the allied army, and Lt. Gen. Mahony and Field Marshal Amezaga’s troops charge from the right wing. Starhemberg in return launches three cavalry charges against them. During the fighting, Amezaga is wounded in the face. Starhemberg’s forces retreat to a nearby forest to escape the Franco-Spanish cavalry, and the allied forces begin their withdrawal under cover of night. The British regiments suffer heavy losses. Brigadier-General Lepell, the senior British officer, reports two regiments have been cut off while over 107 men are missing from his own and he has only two squadrons still available.

Although Philip V of Spain and the Archduke Charles both claim victory, the number of dead and wounded, the weapons abandoned by the allied army, and the strategic consequences in the war confirm French domination.

Starhemberg continues his retreat, harassed by Spanish cavalry. His army is reduced to 6,000 or 7,000 men by the time he reaches Barcelona. The Spanish throne is finally secured for Philip when Charles leaves Spain in April 1711 to become Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his older brother.

(Pictured: “Battle of Villaviciosa, December 10, 1710,” oil on canvas by Jean Alaux, Museum of the History of France)


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Execution of IRA Volunteer Richard “Dick” Barrett

Richard Barrett, commonly called Dick Barrett, a prominent Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer, is executed by a Free State forces firing squad on December 8, 1922. He fights in the Irish War of Independence and on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War, during which he is captured and later executed.

Barrett is born on December 17, 1889, in Knockacullen (Hollyhill), Ballineen, County Cork, the son of Richard Barrett, farmer, and Ellen Barrett (née Henigan). Educated at Knocks and Knockskagh national schools, he enters the De La Salle College, Waterford, where he trains to be a teacher. Obtaining a first-class diploma, he first teaches at Ballinamult, County Waterford but then returns to Cork in early 1914 to take up a position at the St. Patrick’s Industrial School, Upton. Within months he is appointed principal of Gurrane National School. Devoted to the Irish language and honorary secretary of Knockavilla GAA club, he does much to popularise both movements in the southern and western districts of Cork. He appears to have been a member of the Cork Young Ireland Society.

From 1917, inspired by the Easter Rising, Barrett takes a prominent part in the organisation and operation of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). By this time, he is also involved with Sinn Féin, in which role he attends the ardfheis at the Mansion House in October 1917 and the convention of the Irish Volunteers at Croke Park immediately afterwards.

Through planning and participating in raids and gunrunning episodes, Barrett comes into close contact with many GHQ staff during the Irish War of Independence, thereby ensuring his own rapid promotion. He is an active Irish Republican Army (IRA) brigade staff officer and occasionally acts as commandant of the West Cork III Brigade. He also organises fundraising activities for the purchase of weapons and for comrades on the run. In July 1920, following the arrest of the Cork III Brigade commander Tom Hales and quartermaster Pat Harte, he is appointed its quartermaster. He is arrested on March 22, 1921, and imprisoned in Cork jail, later being sent to Spike Island, County Cork.

As one of the senior officers held in Spike Island, Barrett is involved in many of the incidents that occur during his time there. After the truce is declared on July 11, 1921, some prisoners go on hunger strike, but he calls it off after a number of days on instructions from outside as a decision had been made that able-bodied men are more important to the cause. In November, Barrett escapes by rowboat alongside Moss (Maurice) Twomey, Henry O’Mahoney, Tom Crofts, Bill Quirke, Dick Eddy and Paddy Buckley.

Following the Irish War of Independence, Barrett supports the Anti-Treaty IRA‘s refusal to submit to the authority of Dáil Éireann (civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919). He is opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and calls for the total elimination of English influence in Ireland. In April 1922, under the command of Rory O’Connor, he, along with 200 other hardline anti-treaty men, take over the Four Courts building in the centre of Dublin in defiance of the new Irish government. They want to provoke British troops, who are still in the country, into attacking them. They hope this will restart the war with Britain and reunite the IRA against their common enemy. Michael Collins tries desperately to persuade O’Connor and his men to vacate the building. However, on June 28, 1922, after the Four Courts garrison had kidnapped J. J. O’Connell, a general in the new National Army, Collins’s soldiers shell the Four Courts with British artillery to spark off what becomes known as the Battle of Dublin. O’Connor surrenders following two days of fighting, and Barrett, with most of his comrades, is arrested and held in Mountjoy Gaol. This incident marks the official outbreak of the Irish Civil War, as fighting escalates around the country between pro- and anti-treaty factions.

After the death of Michael Collins in an ambush, a period of tit-for-tat revenge killings ensues. The government implements martial law and enacts the necessary legislation to set up military courts. In November, the government begins to execute Anti-Treaty prisoners, including Erskine Childers. In response, Liam Lynch, the Anti-Treaty Chief of Staff, gives an order that any member of the Dáil who had voted for the ‘murder legislation’ is to be shot on sight.

On December 7, 1922, Teachta Dála (TD) Sean Hales is killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he leaves the Dáil. Another TD, Pádraic Ó Máille, is also shot and badly wounded in the incident. An emergency cabinet meeting is allegedly held the next day to discuss the assassination of Hales. It is proposed that four prominent members of the Anti-Treaty side currently held as prisoners be executed as a reprisal and deterrent. The names put forward were Barrett, O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey. It is alleged that the four are chosen to represent each of the four provinces – Munster, Connacht, Leinster and Ulster respectively, but none of the four is actually from Connacht. The executions are ordered by Minister for Justice Kevin O’Higgins. At 2:00 AM on the morning of December 8, 1922, Barrett is awoken along with the other three and informed that they are all to be executed at 8:00 that morning.

Ironies stack one upon the other. Barrett is a member of the same IRA brigade as Hales during the Anglo-Irish War, and they were childhood friends. O’Connor had been best man at O’Higgins’ wedding a year earlier. The rest of Sean Hales’ family remains staunchly anti-Treaty, and publicly denounces the executions. In reprisal for O’Higgins’ role in the executions, the Anti-Treaty IRA kills his father and burns his family home in Stradbally, County Laois. O’Higgins himself dies by an assassin’s hand on July 10, 1927.

The executions stun Ireland, but in terms of halting the Anti-Treaty assassination policy, they have the desired effect. The Free State government continues to execute enemy prisoners, and 77 official executions take place by the end of the war.

Barrett is now buried in his home county, Cork, following exhumation and reinternment by a later government. A monument is erected by old comrades of the West Cork Brigade, the First Southern Division, IRA, and of the Four Courts, Dublin, garrison in 1922 which is unveiled on December 13, 1952, by the Tánaiste Seán Lemass.

A poem about the execution is written by County Galway clergyman Pádraig de Brún.


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Oliver Cromwell Abandons the First Siege of Waterford

Oliver Cromwell abandons the First Siege of Waterford on December 2, 1649, and goes into winter quarters at Dungarvan. Waterford is besieged twice during 1649 and 1650 during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. The town is held by Confederate Ireland, also referred to as the Irish Catholic Confederation, under General Richard Farrell and English Royalist troops under General Thomas Preston. It is besieged by English Parliamentarians under Cromwell, Michael Jones and Henry Ireton.

Waterford is a Catholic city and like most other towns in southeast Ireland, the populace has supported the Confederate Catholic cause since the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Late in 1641, Protestant refugees, displaced by the insurgents, begin to arrive in the town, creating tension among the Catholic townspeople. The city’s mayor wants to protect the refugees, but the recorder and several of the aldermen on the city council want to strip them of their property and let in the rebels, who arrive outside the walls in early 1642. At first, the Mayor’s faction is successful in refusing to admit rebel forces, but by March 1642, the faction in the municipal government sympathetic to the rebellion prevails. The Protestants in Waterford are expelled, in most cases put on ships to England, sometimes after having their property looted by the city mob. In 1645, Confederate troops under Thomas Preston besiege and capture nearby Duncannon from its English garrison, thus removing the threat to shipping coming to and from Waterford.

Waterford’s political community is noted for its intransigent Catholic politics. In 1646, a synod of Catholic Bishops, based in Waterford, excommunicate any Catholic who supports a treaty between the Confederates and English Royalists, which does not allow for the free practice of the Catholic religion. The Confederates finally agree to a treaty with Charles I of England in 1648, in order to join forces with the Royalists against their common enemy, the English Parliament, which is both anti-Catholic and hostile to the King. The Parliamentarians land a major expeditionary force in Ireland at Dublin, under Cromwell in August 1649.

The English Parliamentarian New Model Army arrives to besiege Waterford in October 1649. One of the stated aims of Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland is to punish the Irish for the mistreatment of Protestants in 1641. Given Waterford’s history of partisan Catholic politics, this provokes great fear amongst the townspeople. This fear is accentuated by the fate of Drogheda and nearby Wexford which had recently been taken and sacked by Cromwell’s forces and their garrisons massacred.

Waterford is very important strategically in the war in Ireland. Its port allows for the importation of arms and supplies from continental Europe and its geographical position commands the entrance of the rivers Suir and Barrow.

Before besieging Waterford, Cromwell has to take the surrounding garrisons held by Royalist and Confederate troops in order to secure his lines of communication and supply. Duncannon, whose fort commands the sea passage into Waterford, is besieged by Parliamentarians under Ireton from October 15 to November 5. However, due to a stubborn defence, the garrison there under Edward Wogan holds out. This means that heavy siege artillery cannot be brought up to Waterford by sea.

New Ross surrenders to Cromwell on October 19 and Carrick-on-Suir is taken on November 19. A counterattack on Carrick by Irish troops from Ulster under a Major Geoghegan is repulsed on November 24, leaving 500 of the Ulstermen dead.

Having isolated Waterford from the east and north, Cromwell arrives before the city on November 24. However, Waterford still has access to reinforcements from the west and up to 3,000 Irish soldiers from the Confederate’s Ulster Army under Richard O’Farrell are fed into the city in the course of a week. O’Farrell, having been a successful officer in the Spanish Army, is highly trained and experienced in siege warfare from battles in Flanders. Cromwell has come up against a superior minded soldier and commander. The weather is extremely cold and wet, and the Parliamentarian troops suffer heavily from disease. Out of 6,500 English Parliamentarian soldiers who besiege Waterford in 1649, only 3,000 or so are still fit by the time the siege is called off. Added to this, Cromwell is able to make little headway in taking the city. The capture of a fort at Passage East enables him to bring up siege guns by sea, but the wet weather means that it is all but impossible to transport them close enough to Waterford’s walls to use them. Farrell proves tactically superior in defending Waterford and repels Cromwell’s attempts. Eventually Cromwell has to call off the siege on December 2 and go into winter quarters at Dungarvan. Among his casualties is his commander Michael Jones, who dies of disease.


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Death of Thomas Clarke Luby, Author, Journalist & Founding Member of the IRB

Thomas Clarke Luby, Irish revolutionary, author, journalist and one of the founding members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, dies in Jersey City, New Jersey, on November 29, 1901.

Luby is born in Dublin on January 16, 1822, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman from Templemore, County Tipperary, his mother being a Catholic. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin where he studies law and puts in the necessary number of terms in London and Dublin where he acquires a reputation as a scholar and takes his degree. He goes on to teach at the college for a time.

Luby supports the Repeal Association and contributes to The Nation newspaper. After the breach with Daniel O’Connell, he joins the Young Irelanders in the Irish Confederation. He is deeply influenced by James Fintan Lalor at this time. Following the suppression of the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, he with Lalor and Philip Gray attempt to revive the fighting in 1849 as members of the secret Irish Democratic Association. This, however, ends in failure.

In 1851 Luby travels to France, where he hopes to join the French Foreign Legion to learn infantry tactics but finds the recruiting temporarily suspended. From France he goes to Australia for a year before returning to Ireland. From the end of 1855 he edits the Tribune newspaper founded by John E. Pigot who had been a member of The Nation group. During this time, he remains in touch with the small group of ’49 men including Philip Gray and attempts to start a new revolutionary movement. Luby’s views on social issues grow more conservative after 1848 which he makes clear to James Stephens whom he meets in 1856.

In the autumn of 1857 Owen Considine arrives with a message signed by four Irish exiles in the United States, two of whom are John O’Mahony and Michael Doheny. The message conveys the confidence they have in Stephens and asks him to establish an organisation in Ireland to win national independence. Considine also carries a private letter from O’Mahony to Stephens which is a warning, and which is overlooked by Luby and Stephens at the time. Both believe that there is a strong organisation behind the letter, only later to find it is rather a number of loosely linked groups. On December 23, Stephens dispatches Joseph Denieffe to America with his reply which is disguised as a business letter dated and addressed from Paris. In his reply, Stephen’s outlines his conditions and his requirements from the organisation in America.

On March 17, 1858, Denieffe arrives in Dublin with the acceptance of Stephens’s terms by the New York Committee and the eighty pounds. On that very evening the Irish Republican Brotherhood is established in Peter Langan’s timberyard in Lombard Street.

In mid-1863 Stephens informs his colleagues he wishes to start a newspaper, with financial aid from O’Mahony and the Fenian Brotherhood in America. The offices are established at 12 Parliament Street, almost at the gates of Dublin Castle. The first issue of the Irish People appears on November 28, 1863. The staff of the paper along with Luby are Charles J. Kickham and Denis Dowling Mulcahy as the editorial staff. Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa and James O’Connor have charge of the business office, with John Haltigan being the printer. John O’Leary is brought from London to take charge in the role of Editor.

On July 15, 1865, American-made plans for a rising in Ireland are discovered. Superintendent Daniel Ryan, head of the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police at Dublin Castle, has an informer within the offices of the Irish People who supplies him with an “action this year” message on its way to the IRB unit in Tipperary. With this information, Ryan raids the offices of the Irish People on Thursday, September 15, followed by the arrests of Luby, O’Leary and O’Donovan Rossa. Kickham is caught after a month on the run. Stephens is also caught with the support of Fenian prison warders. The last number of the paper is dated September 16, 1865.

After his arrest and the suppression of the Irish People, Luby is sentenced to twenty years of penal servitude. He is released in January 1871, but is compelled to remain away from Ireland until the expiration of his sentence.

Upon his release Luby goes first to the Continent and later settles in New York City. He lectures all over the country for years and writes for a number of Irish newspapers on political topics. At the memorial meeting on the death of John Mitchel, he delivers the principal address in Madison Square Garden.

Thomas Clarke Luby dies at 109½ Oak Street, Jersey City, New Jersey of paralysis, on November 29, 1901, and is buried in a grave shared with his wife in Bayview Cemetery in Jersey City. His epitaph reads: “Thomas Clarke Luby 1822–1901 He devoted his life to love of Ireland and quest of truth.”


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Birth of Liam Tobin, Irish Army Officer

Liam Tobin, officer in the Irish Army and the instigator of the Irish Army Mutiny in March 1924, is born William Joseph Tobin at 13 Great Georges Street in Cork, County Cork, on November 15, 1895. During the Irish War of Independence, he serves as an Irish Republican Army (IRA) intelligence officer for Michael Collins‘ Squad.

Tobin is the eldest son of Mary Agnes (nee Butler) and David Tobin, a hardware clerk. He has two younger siblings, Katherine and Nicholas Augustine Tobin, also born in Cork. His family moves to John Street in Kilkenny and then to Dublin. He goes to school in Kilkenny and is an apprentice in a hardware shop at the time of the 1916 Easter Rising. As a participant in the Rising, he fights in the Four Courts garrison under Edward Daly. He is arrested, court martialed, and sentenced to death but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. He is a prisoner in Kilmainham, Mountjoy, Lewes, Dartmoor, Broadmoor and Pentonville prisons. He is released in June 1917.

In early 1919 Tobin becomes Collins’ chief executive in the Intelligence Directorate handling the many spies in Dublin Castle, including double agent David Neligan. Nancy O’Brien works for Under-Secretary for Ireland James Macmahon, decoding messages sent from London. Each day between 2:30 and 3:30 she passes any information acquired to either Tobin, Joseph McGrath, or Desmond FitzGerald. Tobin is involved in planning the assassinations of British soldiers, informants, members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and operatives of MI5. He constructs detailed profiles of everyone remotely connected to the British government, often using Who’s Who, The Morning Post, and The Times, a newspaper that describes him as “one of the most formidable of [the] Twelve Apostles.”

In October 1921, Tobin travels with the Irish Treaty Delegation as part of Collins’ personal staff.

Tim Pat Coogan and James Mackay have examined Tobin’s involvement in the assassination of British Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson. Wilson’s public tirades about Collins is evidence of mutual personal dislike between the two men. In May 1922 Collins tells Tobin “We’ll kill a member of that bunch” to the news of “bloody pogroms” in Belfast. Wilson is intimately involved with the Ulster loyalist cause, including the Curragh Mutiny and the establishment of the Ulster Special Constabulary. Just before the shooting, Coogan places Tobin in London. He meets courier Peig Ni Braonain at Euston Station collecting a document that has been sent from Dublin. Returning to Dublin before the incident, he is jubilant when he tells defence minister Richard Mulcahy about Wilson’s death. Mulcahy is appalled and threatens to resign.

Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Tobin is appointed deputy director of intelligence in the new state and assigned to the Criminal Investigation Department based at Oriel House. However Collins soon replaces him with Joseph McGrath. Tobin is placed on the Army Council and is Director of Intelligence from September 1922 until his appointment as Senior Aide-de-Camp to the new Governor–General of the Irish Free State, Tim Healy, in November 1922. The position provides an apartment in Viceregal Lodge.

In October 1922, Tobin’s brother Nicholas, a Free State captain, is accidentally shot dead by his own troops during the raid and capture of a bomb making factory at number 8 Gardiner’s Place, Dublin.

Tobin believes in the steppingstone doctrine which sees the Treaty as a stage towards full independence. With the outbreak of the Irish Civil War he remains loyal to Collins and takes the Pro-Treaty side. He leads in the fight against the Anti-Treaty IRA in the south. Disillusioned with the continuing hostilities and in the aftermath of the death of Collins, he forms an association called the IRA Organisation (IRAO) or “Old Irish Republican Army” to distinguish themselves from the anti-treaty insurgents.

Richard Mulcahy, the new Irish defence minister, proposes to reduce the army from 55,000 to 18,000 men in the immediate post- Civil-War period. Tobin knows his own position is to be affected and shares the perception that the Irish Army treats former British officers better than former IRA officers. On March 7, 1924, Tobin, together with Colonel Charlie Dalton, sends an ultimatum to President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State W. T. Cosgrave demanding an end to the army demobilisation. The immediate response is an order for the arrest of the two men on a charge of mutiny. The cabinet, already wary of the Irish Army, orders an inquiry and appoints Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy to the army command.

On March 18, the mutineers assemble with hostile intent at a Dublin pub. An order is made to arrest the mutineers and the cabinet demands the resignation of the army council. The generals resign, affirming the subservience of the military to the civilian government of the new state.

In later years, Tobin rebuilds relations with his Civil War foes and joins Éamon de Valera‘s Anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil party. He joins up with Joseph McGrath to form the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake in the 1930s. Many other former army comrades find work in this lottery. He leaves the Sweep in 1938. After World War II, he becomes Superintendent of the Oireachtas for the Irish Dáil.

On October 14, 1929, Tobin marries Monica “Mona” Higgins at the Church of the Holy Family, Aughrim Street, Dublin. They have two daughters, Máire and Anne Tobin. Following the death of his father, David, in 1956, Tobin’s health declines, resulting in his death in Dublin on April 30, 1963.

Tobin is portrayed by actor Brendan Gleeson in Neil Jordan‘s biopic Michael Collins.


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The Wellington Barracks Attack

During the early morning hours of November 8, 1922, the Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army (IRA) makes its most determined attack on Wellington Barracks in Dublin during the Irish Civil War.

The attack seems to be part of a general “hit-up” by the Republicans in the city. Other military barracks around the city are also attacked in the same week.

The Barracks’ orderly clerk is attending the morning parade, where National Army soldiers, mostly unarmed, are listening to the orders of the day, read by the regimental sergeant major. When he hears machine gun fire, the clerk first believes it to be practice firing. Then he sees puffs of dust spring up from the ground as bullets land around him. He throws himself to the ground.

Another soldier tells The Irish Times, “The first outburst crashed in on us just like a flash of lightning and did most of the damage. All of us that could crawled around for cover, it was simply death to walk in the square at that time.”

The IRA has occupied the upper stories and roofs of the houses across the Grand Canal, at the rear of the barracks. From there, they rake the parade square with gunfire. The sound is deafening to the stricken soldiers. One says, “It seemed as if marbles were being rained down from an immense height.”

A total of eighteen soldiers are hit. One is killed instantly and fourteen wounded, seven of whom require surgery. As the firing starts, a butcher’s van owned by one R. McGurk of Harold’s Cross is making a delivery to the barracks. The storm of bullets peppers the unfortunate deliverymen, killing their horse and mortally wounding the driver. According to the soldier, “the whole thing lasted about 15 minutes, the rest of the soldiers came out then and started some Lewis guns going.”

One hundred soldiers had been lined up on the square shoulder to shoulder. The National Army believes the IRA used a Lewis machine gun and tells the press there were up to forty attackers armed with rifles and machine guns. But in fact, IRA reports show that their squad, a party from the Dublin Brigade active service unit (ASU), led by William Roe, has only eleven men, broken up into four parties, with only two of the parties firing ninety rounds with a Thompson submachine gun and fifteen with a “Peter the Painter” Mauser automatic.

The IRA volunteers make their escape across country, through the villages of Kimmage and Crumlin, pursued by Irish Free State troops. They are seen carrying two badly wounded men of their own. The Army later claims the two were killed in the firefight, but there is no indication that this is true.

(From: “Wellington Barracks, Dublin, 1922 – A Microcosm of the Irish Civil War” by John Dorney, The Irish Story, http://www.theirishstory.com, June 2010)


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The Battle of Ballinalee

The Battle of Ballinalee takes place on November 4, 1920, during the Irish War of Independence.

Members of the North Longford Irish Republican Army (IRA) column, led by Seán Mac Eoin, drives a mixed group of Crown forces consisting of Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division personnel from the village of Ballinalee in County Longford.

Crown forces hope to burn the town of Ballinalee as a reprisal for the deaths of several Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) personnel in the preceding days. This includes the killing of an RIC inspector, Philip St. Johnstone Howlett Kelleher, the previous week and an RIC Constable, Peter Cooney, the previous day. Cooney had been suspected of being a spy and his execution is reputedly ordered by Michael Collins. At the time of his killing, Cooney is allegedly carrying coded dispatches with the names of Longford IRA men.

The Crown forces, numbering 100 men in eleven trucks, are defeated by about twenty-five IRA members, of which four are involved in the main battle. Mac Eoin had placed several groups at the roads leading into the village, including one at a house, Rose Cottage, on the approach to the village centre. This group, referred to in some sources as the “Rose Cottage Four,” engage the much larger RIC force using rifle fire and grenades, and force their retreat after a two and a half hour gunfight.

The IRA column remains in the village for a week.