Against his father’s wishes, Neligan joins the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) – also in 1917. Picking up travel documentation from the local Royal Irish Constabulary barracks, he declines a suggestion that he enlist in this armed rural force. After service as a uniformed constable with the DMP, he is promoted to Detective and transferred into the Department’s widely hated counterintelligence and anti-political-subversion unit, the G Division, in 1919. In May 1920, his elder brother Maurice (1895–1920), an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member and friend of Michael Collins, persuades him to resign from the DMP.
After his resignation, Neligan returns to his native County Limerick with the intention of joining the Limerick IRA. Shortly afterward, Maurice is killed in a motorcycle accident, near their home in Templeglantine. In the meantime, Neligan also receives word from a family friend that Michael Collins wishes to meet with him in Dublin. Collins is outraged that Neligan has been allowed to resign and persuades him to rejoin the DMP as a mole for the intelligence wing of the IRA. Along with Detectives Eamon Broy and James McNamara, Neligan acts as a highly valuable agent for Collins and passes on reams of vital information. He leaks documents about the relative importance of police and military personnel and also warns insurgents of upcoming raids and ambushes. There are unconfirmed rumors that Neligan might be a double agent working for British interests.
In 1921, Collins orders Neligan to let himself be recruited into MI5 and he uses the opportunity to memorise their passwords and the identities of their agents. All of this is passed on to Collins. After Broy and McNamara are dismissed in 1921, Neligan becomes Collins’ most important mole inside Dublin Castle.
In 1924, Neligan hands over his post to the youthful Colonel Michael Joe Costello and takes command of the DMP, which still continues as a force separate from the newly established Garda Síochána, with the rank of Chief Superintendent. The next year he transfers to the Garda when the two police forces are amalgamated, and is instrumental in the foundation of the Garda Special Branch. When Éamon de Valera becomes head of government in 1932, his republican followers demand Neligan’s dismissal. Instead, Neligan is transferred to an equivalent post in the Irish Civil Service. In June 1935, he is married to fellow civil servant Sheila Maeve Rogan. They have one son and three daughters, and reside at 15 St. Helen’s Road, Booterstown, Dublin.
Neligan draws pensions from the DMP, the British MI5, the Garda Síochána and the Irish Civil Service. He also receives an “Old IRA” pension through the Department of Defence.
Hayes-McCoy is born to Thomas Hayes-McCoy and Mary Kathleen Hayes-McCoy (née Wallace). His grandfather, Thomas Hayes-McCoy, is a Dubliner who as a child came to Galway in 1834 and is later a well-known Parnellite. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Burke, is a Galway artist. He grows up on Eyre Square where his father runs a gentleman’s hairdressing business. His two older siblings are Ignatius and Marguerite. The latter receives a PhD-degree in History at University College Galway (UCG), and later teaches at the Galway Technical School.
Hayes-McCoy receives his early education from the Patrician Brothers, Galway. His earliest notebook of 1927 and a manuscript history of Poland of the same year, now at the National Library of Ireland (NLI), testify to an early interest in history and heritage. From 1928 to 1932 he is a student scholarship holder at University College Galway, graduating in 1932 with a Bachelor of Commerce, and a Bachelor of Arts, with first-class honours in both, and a specialisation in “History, Ethics, Politics” for the latter. Mary Donovan O’Sullivan is one of his professors of history, and Liam Ó Briain, professor of Romance languages, is a stimulating influence. At this time, Hayes-McCoy is a member of the Republican Club, a committee member of the Literary and Debating Society, and in 1931 he is one of the founding members of a new Irish Students’ Association.
Hayes-McCoy pursues his PhD at the University of Edinburgh, and then spends two years at the Institute of Historical Research, London, in the Tudor seminar of J. E. Neale, rewriting his PhD and eventually publishing it as Scots mercenary forces in Ireland, 1565–1603 (Dublin and London, 1937), with a foreword by Eoin MacNeill. This is characterised by meticulous archival research, and it anticipates by sixty years the much-vaunted New British History of the late twentieth century by tracing the interconnections between events in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
In the absence of an academic post, Hayes-McCoy becomes an assistant keeper in the Art and Industrial Division at the National Museum of Ireland (1939–1959), with a responsibility for the Military History, and the Irish War of Independence collections. One of his first tasks is to prepare a standing exhibition on Irish history before 1916. His research, long-standing personal interest in the military, and his curatorial experience, helps form an expert knowledge of historical Irish warfare. This leads to his role in co-founding The Military History Society of Ireland in 1949 whose journal, The Irish Sword, he edits. He describes the vagaries of setting up such a body, its reception, and the historiographical considerations attendant on it, in a paper published posthumously in The Irish Sword.
On August 19, 1941, Hayes-McCoy marries Mary Margaret “May” O’Connor, daughter of C.J. and M.B. O’Connor of New Ross/Enniscorthy. They have three daughters and two sons: Mary, Ann, Ian, Robert, Felicity. The family home is in Dublin.
Earning high reputation by continued research and by publishing leads to Hayes-McCoy’s receipt of the D.Litt. degree from the National University, and to his membership in the Royal Irish Academy in 1950. In his professional career, apart from the broad spectrum of press publications, he publishes prolifically. The works that are judged most influential, are his Scots mercenary forces in Ireland 1565–1603 (1937), the papers “The early history of guns in Ireland” (1938–1939), “Strategy and tactics in Irish warfare, 1593–1601” (1941), “The army of Ulster, 1593–1601” (1951), the controversial “Gaelic society in Ireland in the late sixteenth century” (1963), and the monographs “Irish battles” (London 1969), and “A history of Irish flags from earliest times” (Dublin 1979). A member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, his most notable contribution is the publication “Ulster and other Irish maps, c.1600” (Dublin 1964).
In 1946, Hayes-McCoy is appointed to a committee of eight historians to advise on setting up the Bureau of Military History, a body established for the creation and compilation of material on the history of the Irish movements for independence, 1913–1921, specifically from witness statements. The committee is also to further offer guidance and oversee progress of the Bureau in coordination with the Ministry of Defence. It subsequently expresses concerns about the state’s role and methods in the collection of statements.
Having begun writing for the press at an early stage, Hayes-McCoy’s public position at the Museum encourages him to go further. He has broad involvement with local history groups to whom he presents papers, and also works for newspapers and for radio and television. To the national and Galway press he usually contributes articles on military aspects of Irish history, as well as book reviews, but he also uses them as a platform to engage with what he sees are flaws in the education of history in Ireland which during his lifetime is constrained by a certain degree of political and cultural state control.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Hayes-McCoy becomes involved in a number of paratheatrical events of national significance one of which – the “Pageant of St.Patrick” for which he writes the script (An Tóstal 1954) – is realised on an immense scale. He scripts these works to begin with and is later principally engaged as historical consultant. In that capacity, he collaborates in 1955 and 1956 with Micheál Mac Liammóir and Denis Johnston on their scripts for pageants on St. Patrick and on the Táin Bó Cuailgne, at times finding it difficult to square the historical liberties taken by these artists with his own role.
On Irish radio and television Hayes-McCoy is most active in the mid-1960s, editing and contributing to Thomas Davis lectures series, writing scripts for a series of thirty children’s programmes on all aspects of Irish history, and preparing/contributing on air to the television series “Irish battles” and “The long winter.” As well as writing for RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, he contributes scripts to BBC Northern Ireland‘s schools radio programmes.
In 1959, Hayes-McCoy succeeds to the chair of his former history professor at UCG with the full remit of lecturing, administering examinations to undergraduates, and supervising postgraduate theses. Among his students who continue in the field of history are Nicholas Canny, Martin Coen, Patrick Melvin, Peter Toner, Tony Claffey, and Breandán Ó Bric. After his appointment to UCG, the family home remains in Dublin, and he commutes to Galway weekly during term time.
In the early 1960s, Hayes-McCoy becomes a spokesperson for the movement rekindled by the Old Galway Society to preserve the landmark “Lion’s Tower” in the city. The ultimate failure of the campaign informs his regret, expressed a year later, that Ireland is forgetful about its past and that “we don’t bother to find out about it or to maintain our ancient heritage,” and, on a perceived spirit of conformity, “take my own city of Galway, it is now more prosperous than it was, but it is no longer distinctive. I do not believe that it is essential for progress that we should lose our heritage.”
While at one time member and secretary of the London Sinn Féin office and informed by a pride of country and place, Hayes-McCoy’s professional and private outlook are marked by a distrust of nationalism or of any antagonising national agendas compromising genuine scholarship. In a paper drafted on tendencies in modern historical studies, he criticises the two historiographical extremes, each to be avoided, each unfortunately characteristic of the moment – extreme de-bunking and extreme “adding for effect.” “A history is a record of fact; to add pseudo-facts is as grave a sin as to leave out real facts that may change the colour of the whole.”
Hayes-McCoy’s abiding pastime is drawing. Among his papers in the James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway are approximately 40 items with predominantly maritime subjects, and he has a special regard for the history of ships, and a romantic liking of the sea. He also has a lifelong interest in Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, and their works, and in the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Hayes-McCoy’s middle age is marked by intermittent ill health. He dies on November 27, 1975, in his room at the Great Southern Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway.
Hayes-McCoy’s papers are held at the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway.
The McMahon murders occur on March 24, 1922 when six Catholic civilians are shot dead at the home of the McMahon family in Belfast. Police officers break into their house at night and shoot all eight males inside, in an apparent sectarian attack. The victims are businessman Owen McMahon, four of his sons, and one of his employees. Two others are shot but survive, and a female family member is assaulted. The survivors say that most of the gunmen wore police uniforms and it is suspected that they were members of the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It is believed to be a reprisal for the Irish Republican Army‘s (IRA) killing of two policemen the previous day.
The McMahon killings are believed to be a reprisal for the IRA’s killing of two USC policemen in Belfast. On March 23, 1922, USC officers Thomas Cunningham and William Cairnside are patrolling Great Victoria Street in the city centre when they are approached by a group of IRA members and shot dead. Two Catholics, Peter Murphy (61) and Sarah McShane (15), are shot dead in a suspected reprisal attack several hours later in the Catholic Short Strand area by unidentified gunmen. The McMahon family has no connection to any paramilitary violence.
At about 1:00 a.m. on March 24, 1922, two men wearing police uniforms seize a sledgehammer from a Belfast Corporation workman, who is guarding a building site at Carlisle Circus. A curfew is in place at the time, due to the daily violence in the city. At nearby Clifton Avenue they meet three other men and the party of five proceed to the home of Owen McMahon. Eight males and three females are in the house that night. The males are Owen, his six sons, and Edward McKinney, a parish just north of Buncrana in Inishowen, County Donegal. He works for the McMahons as a barman. The women are Owen’s wife Eliza, her daughter and her niece. At about 1:20 a.m., the gang uses the sledgehammer to break down the door of the McMahon residence.
Owen’s wife, Eliza, says that four of the men wore police caps and carried revolvers while another wore civilian clothes. John McMahon, one of Owen’s sons, says, “Four of the five men were dressed in the uniform of the RIC but, from their appearance, I know they are Specials, not regular RIC.” All of the men hide their faces. The four men in police uniform rush up the stairs and herd the males into the dining room. The women are taken into another room. When Owen asks why his family is being singled-out, one of the gunmen says it is because he is “a respected papist.” The gunmen say “you boys say your prayers,” before opening fire. The shooting continues for five minutes. Five of the men are killed outright and two are wounded, one fatally.
Owen McMahon (50), Gerard McMahon (15), Frank McMahon (24), Patrick McMahon (22) and Edward McKinney (25) are killed outright while Bernard McMahon (26) dies later. The youngest McMahon son, 12-year-old Michael, survives the attack by hiding behind furniture and pretending to be hit. John McMahon (30) survives despite serious gunshot wounds. Eliza McMahon raises the alarm by opening the drawing room window and shouting “Murder! Murder!” A matron at an adjoining nursing home is alerted and phones the police and an ambulance.
It is alleged that a group of policemen operating out of Brown Square Barracks in the Shankill Road area are behind the killings. This has never been proved, but historian Eamon Phoenix, of Stranmillis University College in Belfast, has said there is “strong circumstantial evidence” that District InspectorJohn Nixon was responsible. Historian Tim Pat Coogan believes the police were responsible. An inquiry is carried out by the Department of Defence of the Irish Free State, but not by the Northern Irish authorities. A 1924 Free State report alleges that twelve policemen, whom the report identifies by name, had carried out the McMahon murders, as well as several other attacks on Catholics.
The killings cause outrage among Belfast’s Catholic population and over 10,000 people attend the funerals of those killed.
David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, worried that the violence could collapse the new Northern Ireland administration, organise a meeting in London between Irish republican leader Michael Collins and Sir James Craig, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, both to try to stop the IRA violence which Collins has been tacitly encouraging and supporting, and to pressure Craig to provide more protection for Catholics. Craig denies the nationalist assertion that the McMahon killings were part of an anti-Catholic pogrom on behalf of state forces.
No one is ever prosecuted for the killings but District Inspector John Nixon of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) is strongly suspected of being responsible. Nixon is later forced to step down from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the force that succeeds the RIC in June 1922, albeit on full pension, in 1924 after being heard giving (in breach of police regulations) a political speech to an Orange Order meeting saying that, “not an inch of Ulster should be yielded” to the Free State.
Born Charles William St. John Burgess, Brugha is the tenth of fourteen children and is educated at the JesuitBelvedere College but is forced to leave at the age of sixteen because of the failure of his father’s business.
In 1899 Brugha join the Gaelic League, and he subsequently changes his name from Charles Burgess to Cathal Brugha. He meets his future wife, Kathleen Kingston, at an Irish class in Birr, County Offaly and they marry in 1912. They have six children, five girls and one boy. Brugha becomes actively involved in the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and in 1913 he becomes a lieutenant in the Irish Volunteers. He leads a group of twenty Volunteers to receive the arms smuggled into Ireland in the Howth gun-running of 1914.
He is second-in-command at the South Dublin Union under Commandant Éamonn Ceannt in the Easter Rising of 1916. On the Thursday of Easter Week, being badly wounded, he is unable to leave when the retreat is ordered. Brugha, weak from loss of blood, continues to fire upon the enemy and is found by Eamonn Ceannt singing “God Save Ireland” with his pistol still in his hands. He is initially not considered likely to survive. He recovers over the next year but is left with a permanent limp.
Brugha is elected speaker of Dáil Éireann at its first meeting on January 21, 1919, and he reads out the Declaration of Independence in Irish, which ratifies “the establishment of the Irish Republic.” On the following day, he is appointed president of the ministry pro tempore. He retains this position until April 1, 1919, when Éamon de Valera takes his place.
Brugha has differences with Michael Collins, who, although nominally only the IRA’s Director of Intelligence, has far more influence in the organisation as a result of his position as a high-ranking member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an organisation that Brugha sees as undermining the power of the Dáil and especially the Ministry for Defence. Brugha opposes the oath of allegiance required for membership of the IRB and, in 1919, his proposition that all Volunteers should swear allegiance to the Irish Republic and the Dáil is adopted.
At a top-level IRA meeting in August 1920, Brugha argues against ambushes of Crown forces unless there is first a call to surrender, but it is dismissed as unrealistic by the brigade commanders present. Brugha also has the idea of moving the front line of the war to England but is opposed by Collins.
In the months between the Treaty debates and the outbreak of Civil War, Brugha attempts to dissuade his fellow anti-treaty army leaders including Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey from taking up arms against the Free State. When the IRA occupies the Four Courts, he and Oscar Traynor call on them to abandon their position. When they refuse, Traynor orders the occupation of the area around O’Connell Street in the hope of easing the pressure on the Four Courts and of forcing the Free State to negotiate.
On June 28, 1922, Brugha is appointed commandant of the forces in O’Connell Street. The outbreak of the Irish Civil War ensues in the first week of July when Free State forces commence shelling of the anti-treaty positions.
Most of the anti-Treaty fighters under Oscar Traynor escape from O’Connell Street when the buildings they are holding catch fire, leaving Brugha in command of a small rearguard. On July 5, he orders his men to surrender but refuses to do so himself. He then approaches the Free State troops, brandishing a revolver. He sustains a bullet wound to the leg which severs a major artery.
Cathal Brugha dies on July 7, 1922, eleven days before his 48th birthday. He has been re-elected as an anti-Treaty Teachta Dála (TD) at the 1922 Irish general election but dies before the Dáil assembles. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
seamus dubhghaill 