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Tag Archives: J. J. "Ginger" O'Connell


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Birth of Liam Pilkington, IRA Member & Catholic Priest

Liam Pilkington, also known as William Pilkington and Billy Pilkington, is born in Sligo, County Sligo, on June 2, 1894. He is a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence. He is General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 3rd Western Division, IRA, from 1921 to 1923. After the conclusion of the war he joins the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War. He attempts to become a politician for a short while, but is ultimately unsuccessful. Disillusioned due to the Civil War, he becomes a Catholic priest for the remainder of his life. He serves as a priest in South Africa and Wales before retiring to Liverpool, England, where he spends his remaining days.

Pilkington is born to John Pilkington and Margaret Mary Pilkington (née Torsney), the second of twelve children born to the couple. Only nine of his siblings survive into adulthood. He receives his education at the local Marist Brothers convent school and the Day Trades Preparatory School. Later he is a student at the Department of Agriculture Forestry College in County Wicklow. When the Irish War of Independence begins, the college is closed and he is forced to return to Sligo. He then gains employment with Wehrly Brothers Ltd., a jewelry and watchmaking store in Sligo.

Several notable incidents occur in Pilkington’s military career. On October 25, 1920, at Moneygold, eight miles from Sligo (between Grange and Cliffoney), IRA men led by him ambush a nine-man Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) patrol, killing four (Sergeant Patrick Perry, Constables Patrick Keown, Patrick Laffey, Patrick Lynch) and wounding two others (Constables Clarke and O’Rourke). In January 1922, he makes clear his opposition to the IRAs General Headquarters (GHQ) support for the Anglo-Irish Treaty. “We intend to cut away from this headquarters, all of you (pointing to the staff and officers of the GHQ) want to build up a Free State Army so you can march in step into the British Empire. Do it openly. We stand by the Republic.” On April 6, 1922, a meeting addressed by Arthur Griffith in Sligo, is proclaimed illegal by Pilkington, who is the local Anti-Treaty IRA divisional commander. His troops take over a number of buildings in the town. Seán Mac Eoin brings Provisional Government troops from Athlone and on the day of the meeting, he is joined by further troops led by J. J. “Ginger” O’Connell. A tense situation ensues but, at the last minute, Pilkington backs down and the meeting goes ahead. On September 4, 1922, an Anti-Treaty IRA unit under Pilkington takes the Dromhaire barracks in County Sligo after the Free State garrison surrenders.

On August 27, 1923, Pilkington runs unsuccessfully in the general election for the 4th Dáil as a Republican candidate, polling 2,089 first preference votes.

Pilkington is a prominent member of the Anti-Treaty IRA for many years, but his most important role as part of the Anti-Treaty IRA comes on April 20, 1923. The Executive of the Anti-Treaty IRA meets in Poulacappal (four miles southwest of Callan and three miles from Mullinahone). Present in addition to Pilkington (who is replacing Liam Lynch) are Frank Aiken, Sean Hyde, Sean Dowling, Bill Quirke, Tom Barry, Tom Ruane (replacing Michael Kilroy), Tom Sullivan (replacing Sean Lehane), Sean McSwiney, Tom Crofts, P. J. Ruttledge and Sean O’Meara (substitute for Séumas Robinson). Frank Aiken is elected Chief-of-Staff and an Army Council of Aiken, Pilkington and Barry is appointed. Aiken proposes that peace should be made with the Pro-Treaty Government on the basis that “the sovereignty of the Irish Nation and the integrity of its territory is inalienable.” This is passed by nine votes to two.

Pilkington becomes a Catholic priest after his foray into politics and due to the disillusionment of the Irish War of Independence. He joins the Redemptorist Order and becomes known as Father William Pilkington CSsR. He serves as a priest in the Archdiocese of Cape Town, South Africa, priest of Monmouthshire, Wales, and retires to Bishop Eton Monastery, Liverpool.

In 1954, Pilkington is guest of honour at a dinner sponsored by Clan na Gael and the IRA Veterans of America in New York City where he says he is returning to the mission fields of Africa, but he remains faithful to the All Ireland Republic. He dies at Bishop Eton Monastery on March 26, 1977, and is buried in Liverpool.


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Assassination of William J. Twaddell, Unionist Politician

William John Twaddell, a Unionist politician from Belfast, Northern Ireland, is assassinated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Belfast city centre on May 22, 1922.

Twaddell is born in Belfast in 1884. He is a draper who is educated at a Belfast primary school.

Twaddell is a member of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and from 1910 he is a member of Belfast City Council. In November 1921, he and Robert Boyd organise the Ulster Imperial Guards as a paramilitary force of 21,000 men. He is elected to the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Belfast West in the 1921 Northern Ireland general election and sits until he is assassinated on May 22, 1922, by the Irish Republican Army. He is walking in Garfield Street off Royal Avenue, to his business, a short distance away, followed closely by his assassins.

Twaddell’s death precipitates a clamp-down on the IRA in Northern Ireland and 350 IRA members are interned. Seamus Woods, who is interned on HMS Argenta during the clampdown, is charged with his murder. Woods, who had joined the Irish National Army, is trying to control irregular elements within the IRA. By agreement with the government of Northern Ireland, two officers of the Irish National Army are given permission to travel to the trial. General J. J. “Ginger” O’Connell and Commandant Charles McAlister give evidence and Woods is found not guilty. A total of 724 people are interned in Northern Ireland up to the end of 1924.

Twaddell was buried at Drumcree Church cemetery, Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, where his headstone says that he was “foully murdered in Belfast.”


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Birth of Jeremiah Joseph “Ginger” O’Connell, Irish Revolutionary

Jeremiah Joseph “Ginger” O’Connell, Irish revolutionary, active in the Irish War of Independence, and later a senior officer in the Defence Forces, is born in Ballina, County Mayo, on December 21, 1887.

O’Connell is born to Jeremiah Ambrose and Winifred O’Connell. He is nicknamed “Ginger” because of his red hair. His father is a national school inspector, so the family lives in Sligo, Derry, Longford and Belfast, and he attends a succession of primary schools. He studies at University College Dublin (UCD) where he receives a BA and a first-class MA. He is a member of the Literary and Historical Society at UCD and has an interest in boxing.

O’Connell is living in Cavan with his father, his sister Mary Margaret, his brother John Aloysius and two servants, Mary Burke and Rose Anne O’Reilly, at the time of the 1911 census, when he is 23. He is working as a Solicitor’s Apprentice, can read and write as well as speak both English and Irish, and is single. His mother is not living as it is recorded that his father is a widower.

O’Connell spends some time in the United States Army, serving with the 69th New York Infantry Regiment between 1912 and 1914. He returns to Ireland in 1914 and joins the Irish Volunteers, becoming Chief of Inspection in 1915. He travels the country organising volunteer corps, as well as contributing to the Irish Volunteer’s journal and delivering lectures on military tactics to both the Volunteers and Fianna Éireann. He also delivers a series of lectures about the famous Irish battles to the Gaelic League in Dublin. He is not a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) as he believes that soldiers should not be a part of secret societies.

At the time the 1916 Easter Rising, O’Connell is operating in Dublin under instruction from Joseph Plunkett. He is dispatched to Cork by Eoin MacNeill to try to prevent the Rising. Following the Rising, he is arrested and held in Frongoch internment camp from April to July 1916. In 1918 he is again arrested and interned, spending time in Wandsworth Prison with Arthur Griffith for the alleged involvement in the fabricated German Plot.

During the Irish War of Independence, O’Connell is a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) headquarters staff, as Assistant Director of Training and, after the killing of Dick McKee in 1920, as Director of Training. He coordinates, and is the principal lecturer, for a training course for military officers. The course is run clandestinely in the premises of the Topographical Society on Gardiner Street in Dublin. A sympathetic doorkeeper allows the group in at night when the society is not present. Topics delivered by O’Connell include tactics, ordinance and engineering.

In the IRA split after Dáil Éireann ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty, O’Connell takes the pro-Treaty side. He is made Deputy Chief of Staff in the National Army. On June 26, 1922, he is kidnapped by anti-treaty forces in reprisal for the arrest of an anti-treaty officer. His kidnapping is a precipitating factor in the formal outbreak of the Irish Civil War, when government pro-treaty forces two days later attack anti-treaty forces occupying the Four Courts. He survives the fighting and spends the rest of the civil war as General Officer Commanding the Curragh Command.

Following the Irish Civil War, the National Army is reorganised, and as part of that O’Connell is demoted from general to colonel. He subsequently holds a variety of positions: chief lecturer in the army school of instruction (1924–1929); director of no. 2 (intelligence) bureau (1929–1932); OC Irish Army Equitation School (March–June 1932); quartermaster-general (1932–1935) and director of the military archives (1935–1944). He also publishes articles on Irish and foreign military history and tactics in his time as a military historian. He marries Gertrude McGilligan, and they have two children together – one son and one daughter.

O’Connell dies of a heart attack at the age of 56 on February 19, 1944.