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Tag Archives: Volunteer (Irish Republican)


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Founding of the Auxiliaries Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary

The Auxiliary Division, generally known as the Auxiliaries or Auxies, a paramilitary unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21), is founded on July 27, 1920, by Major-General Henry Hugh Tudor. It is made up of former British Army officers, most of whom come from Great Britain and had fought in World War I.

In September 1919, the Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, Sir Frederick Shaw, suggests that the police force in Ireland be expanded via the recruitment of a special force of volunteer British ex-servicemen. During a Cabinet meeting on May 11, 1920, the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, suggests the formation of a “Special Emergency Gendarmerie, which would become a branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary.” Churchill’s proposal is referred to a committee chaired by General Sir Nevil Macready, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Ireland. Macready’s committee rejects Churchill’s proposal, but it is revived two months later, in July, by the Police Adviser to the Dublin Castle administration in Ireland, Major-General Henry Hugh Tudor. In a memo dated July 6, 1920, Tudor justifies the scheme on the grounds that it will take too long to reinforce the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) with ordinary recruits. Tudor’s new “Auxiliary Force” is to be strictly temporary with its members enlisting for a year. Their pay is to be £7 per week (twice what a constable is paid), plus a sergeant’s allowances, and are to be known as “Temporary Cadets.” At that time, one of high unemployment, a London advertisement for ex-officers to manage coffee stalls at two pounds ten shillings a week receives five thousand applicants.

The Auxiliary Division is recruited in Great Britain from among ex-officers who had served in World War I, especially those who had served in the British Army (including the Royal Flying Corps). Most recruits are from Britain, although some are from Ireland, and others come from other parts of the British Empire. Many have been highly decorated in the war and three, James Leach, James Johnson, and George Onions, have been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC). Enlisted men who had been commissioned as officers during the war often find it difficult to adjust to their loss of status and pay in civilian life, and some historians have concluded that the Auxiliary Division recruited large numbers of these “temporary gentlemen.”

Piaras Béaslaí, a former senior member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty, while paying tribute to the bravery of the Auxiliaries, notes that the force is not composed exclusively of ex-officers but contains “criminal elements,” some of whom robbed people on the streets of Dublin and in their homes.

Recruiting began in July 1920, and by November 1921, the division is 1,900 strong. The Auxiliaries are nominally part of the RIC, but actually operate more or less independently in rural areas. Divided into companies, each about one hundred strong, heavily armed and highly mobile, they operate in ten counties, mostly in the south and west, where IRA activity is greatest. They wear either RIC uniforms or their old army uniforms with appropriate police badges, along with distinctive tam o’ shanter caps. They are commanded by Brigadier-General Frank Percy Crozier.

The elite ex-officer division proves to be much more effective than the Black and Tans especially in the key area of gathering intelligence. Auxiliary companies are intended as mobile striking and raiding forces, and they score some notable successes against the IRA. On November 20, the night before Bloody Sunday, they capture Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, the commandant and vice-commandant of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade, and murder them in Dublin Castle. That same night, they catch Liam Pilkington, commandant of the Sligo IRA, in a separate raid. A month later, in December, they catch Ernie O’Malley completely by surprise in County Kilkenny. He is reading in his room when a Temporary Cadet opens the door and walks in. “He was as unexpected as death,” says O’Malley. In his memoirs, the commandant of the Clare IRA, Michael Brennan, describes how the Auxiliaries nearly capture him three nights in a row.

IRA commanders become concerned about the morale of their units as to many Volunteers the Auxiliaries seem to be “super fighters and all but invincible.” Those victories which are won over the Auxiliaries are among the most celebrated in the Irish War of Independence. On November 28, 1920, for example, a platoon of Auxiliaries is ambushed and wiped out in the Kilmichael Ambush by Tom Barry and the 3rd Cork Brigade. A little more than two months later, on February 2, 1921, another platoon of Auxiliaries is ambushed by Seán Mac Eoin and the North Longford Flying Column in the Clonfin Ambush. On March 19, 1921, the 3rd Cork Brigade of the IRA defeats a large-scale attempt by the British Army and Auxiliary Division to encircle and trap them at Crossbarry. On April 15, 1921, Captain Roy Mackinnon, commanding officer of H Company of the Auxiliary Division, is assassinated by the Kerry IRA.

Successes require reliable intelligence and raids often bring no result — or sometimes worse. In one case, they arrest a Castle official, Law Adviser W. E. Wylie, by mistake. In another, more notorious case, on April 19, 1921, they raid the Shannon Hotel in Castleconnell, County Limerick, on a tip that there are suspicious characters drinking therein. The “suspicious characters” turn out to be three off-duty members of the RIC. Both sides mistake the other for insurgents and open fire. Three people, an RIC man, an Auxiliary Cadet and a civilian, are killed in the shootout that follows.

The Auxiliary Division is disbanded along with the RIC in 1922. Although the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty requires the Irish Free State to assume responsibility for the pensions of RIC members, the Auxiliaries are explicitly excluded from this provision. Following their disbandment, many of its former personnel join the Palestine Police Force in the British-controlled territory.

The anti-insurgency activities of the Auxiliaries Division have become interchangeable with those conducted by the Black and Tans, leading to many atrocities committed by them being attributed to the Black and Tans. Nevertheless, both British units remain equally reviled in Ireland.

The Auxiliaries are featured in historical drama films like Michael Collins, The Last September, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

(Pictured: Cap badge design for F Company of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary)


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Birth of Sean P. Keating, IRA Volunteer & New York Politician

Sean P. Keating, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty and later becomes Deputy Mayor of New York City and Regional Director of the United States Postal Service, is born in Kanturk, County Cork, on July 14, 1903.

Raised in Kanturk, Keating is a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and fights for the Anti-Treaty Forces against the Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War. He moves to the United States, where he advocates for Irish nationalist causes and for British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. He is involved in Democratic Party politics and a close associate of Irish American political activist Paul O’Dwyer and his brother, New York City Mayor William O’Dwyer. He is involved in the campaigns of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Keating is the youngest of six surviving children of Michael Keating, baker, and his wife Johanna, a native of County Kerry. He was educated at a local school and was an active member of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), playing football and hurling. After the 1916 Easter Rising, he leaves school at the age of thirteen to join the Irish Volunteers, which later becomes the IRA, serving in the 4th Cork Brigade. He is arrested by British troops in November 1920 and badly beaten. He spends a month in the Cork jail and is then interned for a year in Ballykinlar internment camp until December 1921. While interned he participates in several hunger strikes and makes several escape attempts. Following his release, he opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty and serves in the Fianna Cork 4th Brigade on the Republican side under Seán Moylan during the Irish Civil War.

Keating emigrates to New York City in 1927 and becomes involved in Irish cultural organizations and Democratic party politics. He is a founder of American Friends of Irish Neutrality, which opposes Irish involvement in World War II, ostensibly fearing it will result in British re-occupation of Ireland.

Following World War II, Keating is chairman of the executive council of the 1947 Irish Race Convention and president of the American League for an Undivided Ireland, lobbying in support of the Fogarty Amendment, which unsuccessfully attempts to tie the release of Marshall Plan funds to British withdrawal from Northern Ireland.

Between the 1940s and 1960s, Keating serves as president of the County Corkmen Association, president of the United Irish Counties Association, and president of the Irish Institute. In 1956, he serves as Grand Marshal of the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Keating serves in various positions under New York City mayors William O’Dwyer, Vincent R. Impellitteri, and Robert F. Wagner, Jr., rising to the position of Deputy Mayor, under Wagner. He is reportedly the first to publicly introduce future President Kennedy as “the next President of the United States” at an Irish Institute event in 1957. He is appointed Regional Director of the United States Postal Service by President Kennedy and serves in that position from 1961 until his retirement in 1966.

Following President Kennedy’s assassination, Keating serves as National Chairman of the President Kennedy Memorial Committee, which secures the lands and raises the funds for the John F. Kennedy Arboretum in New Ross, County Wexford.

In retirement, Keating returns to Kanturk and continues to advocate for the reunification of Ireland. Keating dies at his home in Kanturk on July 2, 1976, and is buried in a local cemetery with military honors. He represents an emigrant political and social milieu which is often treated dismissively by later, more cosmopolitan Irish commentators, but his career reflects not only his own considerable talents but the ways in which this milieu sustains a generation of immigrants, and the contribution of Irish America to Irish development in the post-war decades.


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Birth of Ernie O’Malley, Republican Revolutionary & Writer

Ernest Bernard (Ernie) O’Malley, Irish republican revolutionary and writer, is born on May 26, 1897, in Ellison Street, Castlebar, County Mayo, the second child among nine sons and two daughters of Luke Malley, solicitor’s clerk, of County Mayo, and Marion Malley (née Kearney) of County Roscommon. Christened Ernest Bernard Malley, his adoption of variations on this name reflects his enthusiasm for a distinctively Irish identity – an enthusiasm that lay at the heart of his republican career and outlook.

In 1906, O’Malley’s family moves to Dublin, where he attends the Christian Brothers‘ School, North Richmond Street. In 1915, he begins to study medicine at University College Dublin (UCD). Having initially intended to follow his older brother into the British Army, he rather joins the Irish Volunteers in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, as a member of F Company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade. He becomes a leading figure in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence which the Easter Rising helps to occasion. In 1918, having twice failed his second-year university examination, he leaves home to commit himself to the republican cause. He is initially a Volunteer organiser with the rank of second lieutenant, under the instruction of Richard Mulcahy, operating in Counties Tyrone, Offaly, Roscommon, and Donegal. His work in 1918 involves the reorganisation, or new establishment, of Volunteer groups in the localities.

In August 1918, O’Malley is sent to London by Michael Collins to buy arms. During 1919 he works as an IRA staff captain attached to General Headquarters (GHQ) in Dublin, and also trains and organises Volunteers in Counties Clare, Tipperary, and Dublin. He has a notable military record with the IRA during the Irish War of Independence and is a leading figure in attacks on Hollyford barracks in County Tipperary (May 1920), Drangan barracks in County Kilkenny (June 1920), and Rearcross barracks in County Tipperary (July 1920). His IRA days thus involve him with comrades such as Dan Breen, Séumas Robinson, and Seán Treacy. In December 1920, he is captured in County Kilkenny by Crown forces. He escapes from Dublin’s Kilmainham Gaol in February 1921, to take command of the IRA’s 2nd Southern Division, holding the rank of commandant-general.

O’Malley’s republican commitment has political roots in his conviction that Ireland should properly be fully independent of Britain, and that violence is a necessary means to achieve this end. But the causes underlying his revolutionism are layered. Family expectations of respectable, professional employment combined with a religious background and an enthusiasm for soldiering provide some of the foundations for his IRA career. As an IRA officer he enjoys professional, military expression for a visceral Catholic Irish nationalism. He also finds excitement, liberation from the frequent dullness of his life at home, defiant rebellion against his non-republican parents, an alternative to his stalled undergraduate career, and, in political and cultural Irish separatism, a decisive resolution of the profound tension between his anglocentrism and his anglophobia.

O’Malley rejects the 1921 Anglo–Irish Treaty as an unacceptable compromise. He spends the 1921 truce period training IRA officers in his divisional area, in preparation for a possible renewal of fighting. He is, in the event, to be a leading anti-treatyite in the 1922–23 Irish Civil War. In the Four Courts in 1922, at the start of the latter conflict, he is captured on the republicans’ capitulation on June 30 but then manages to escape from captivity. Subsequently he is appointed assistant Chief of Staff of the anti-Treaty IRA and also becomes part of a five-man anti-Treaty army council, along with Liam Lynch, Liam Deasy, Frank Aiken and Thomas Derrig.

O’Malley is dramatically captured and badly wounded by Free State forces in Dublin in November 1922. Imprisoned until July 1924, he is during the period of his incarceration elected as a TD for Dublin North in the 1923 Irish general election and is also a forty-one-day participant in the republican hunger strike later that year. Following release from prison, he returns home to live with his parents in Dublin. He decides not to focus his post-revolutionary energy on a political career. During 1926–28 and 1935–37 he unsuccessfully tries to complete his medical degree at UCD, but increasingly his post-1924 efforts are directed toward life as a Bohemian traveler and writer. He spends much of 1924–26 on a recuperative journey through France, Spain, and Italy; and 1928–35 traveling widely in North America. During 1929–32 he spends time in New Mexico and Mexico City. In Taos, New Mexico, he mixes with, and is influenced by, writers and artists as he works on what are to become classic autobiographies of the Irish revolution: On Another Man’s Wound (1936) and The Singing Flame (1978).

O’Malley meets Helen Hooker, daughter of Elon and Blanche Hooker, in Connecticut in 1933. They marry in London in 1935, each rejecting something of their prior lives in the process: he, his Irish republicanism, through marriage to somebody entirely unconnected with that world; she, her wealthy and respectable upbringing, through liaison with a Catholic, Irish, unemployed, bohemian ex-revolutionary. They settle first in Dublin then, from 1938 onward, primarily in County Mayo. Burrishoole Lodge, near Newport, is his main base until 1954, when he moves to Dublin. Three children are born to the O’Malleys: Cahal (1936), Etáin (1940), and Cormac (1942). Sharing enthusiasm for the arts, he and Helen enjoy several years of intimacy. However, by the mid-1940s their relationship has frayed. In 1950, Helen kidnaps (the word is used by both parents and by all three children) the couple’s elder two children and takes them to the United States. From there she divorces O’Malley in 1952. Cormac remains with his father.

O’Malley’s post-American years are devoted to a number of projects. He writes extensively, including work for The Bell and Horizon. He is involved with the film director John Ford in the making of his Irish films, including The Quiet Man (1952). He gives radio broadcasts on Mexican painting for BBC Third Programme (1947), and on his IRA adventures for Radio Éireann (1953). In the latter year he suffers a heart attack, and his remaining years are scarred by ill health. He dies of heart failure on March 25, 1957, in Howth, County Dublin, at the house of his sister Kathleen. Two days later he is given a state funeral with full military honours. He is buried in the Malley family plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

O’Malley exemplifies some important themes in modern Irish political and intellectual history. His powerful memoirs form part of a tradition of writing absorbedly about Ireland, while under idiosyncratic emigrant influences which lend the writing much of its distinctiveness. His aggressive republicanism exemplifies a persistent but ultimately unrealisable tradition of uncompromising IRA politics. His unflinching single-mindedness is the condition for much courageous and striking activity, but also lay behind his infliction and his suffering of much pain. Literary, intellectual, and defiantly dissident, he is the classic bohemian revolutionary. His historical significance lies in his having been both a leading Irish revolutionary and the author of compelling autobiographical accounts of those years. His memoirs are distinguished from their rivals on the shelf by subtlety, self-consciousness, and literary ambition. In particular, his preparedness to identify motives for Irish revolutionary action, beyond the terms of ostensible republican purpose, renders his writing of great value to historians. Similarly, the large body of archival material left in his name (especially, perhaps, the papers held in UCD archives, and those in the private possession of his children) leaves scholars in his debt. The most striking and evocative visual images of O’Malley are, arguably, the set of photographic portraits taken in 1929 by Edward Weston and held at the University of Arizona‘s Center for Creative Photography (CCP). These capture with precision his reflective concentration, his piercing earnestness, and his troubled intensity.

(From: “O’Malley, Ernest Bernard (‘Ernie’)” by Richard English, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Photograph of Ernie O’Malley taken by Helen Hooker, New York City, 1934)


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The Occupation and Burning of the Custom House

The Custom House in Dublin is occupied and then burned in an operation by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on May 25, 1921, during the Irish War of Independence. At the time, the Custom House is the headquarters of the Local Government Board for Ireland, an agency of the British administration in Ireland, against which the IRA is fighting in the name of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic. The operation, involving over 100 IRA volunteers, is a propaganda coup for the republicans but a military disaster for the IRA in the Irish capital. A force of British Auxiliaries quickly arrives, and a gun battle erupts. Five IRA volunteers, John Doyle, Edward Dorins, Daniel Head, Captain Patrick and Lieutenant Stephen O’Reilly, are killed, along with three civilians. Approximately 80 volunteers are captured.

The operation is the largest action in Dublin by rebels since the Easter Rising of April 1916.

The Irish War of Independence is a guerrilla campaign by the IRA in support of the Irish Republic. The conflict enters its bloodiest phase in the first six months of 1921. In Dublin, a total of 309 people are killed in the conflict and several hundred more wounded.

Dublin is garrisoned by over 10,000 British troops and 1,600 police including 400 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Auxiliary Division. Most IRA actions in the city consist either of assassinations of selected police, military or administration figures by the Squad, or ambushes on British forces by one of the four Active Service Units (ASU) of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade, together comprising about 100 men. These are usually rapid and fleeting attacks using grenades and handguns, followed by a quick getaway. There are strict orders given to IRA units to avoid prolonged engagements with the better-armed British forces.

However, this policy is reversed after a meeting of the Ministry of Dáil Éireann in May 1921 where the President of the Republic, Éamon de Valera, calls for a spectacular public show of force by the IRA, to reinforce the idea that it is an army representing an Irish government. For this reason, it is decided to attack and burn the Custom House, which, although an important government building, is not defended by the British military. Michael Collins is against the attack but is overruled.

Michael O’Kelly, Lieutenant E Company, 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, recalls plans to “deliver a smashing blow to England.” Two large scale operations – to capture Beggars Bush Barracks, or to destroy the Customs House are initially considered. The Custom House is eventually chosen. IRA member Vincent Byrne says that the operation is “one of many under review.”

In the early afternoon of May 25, 1921, roughly 120 non-uniformed IRA Volunteers begin to gather around the Custom House in groups of two or three. Three quarter of those involved belonged to the 2nd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade under Tom Ennis. Only a minority of them are experienced guerrilla fighters and they are armed only with pistols and a limited amount of ammunition. At 1:00 p.m., they rush the Custom House and overpower the police guard. A lorry pulls up outside the building with tins of petrol and bales of cotton, which are then sprinkled throughout the building. The IRA Volunteers herd all the staff into the main hall. The caretaker of the building, Francis Davis, is shot dead when he tries to call the police.

However, at about 1:10 p.m., a watching policeman notifies British forces and 60 Auxiliaries in three lorries and an armored car quickly arrive on the scene. IRA Volunteers from the 1st, 3rd and 4th battalions are positioned outside the building to stop the enemy from approaching.

Four Auxiliaries are wounded in a gun battle with one of these IRA protection teams outside the building. Other Auxiliaries fire into the building with rifles and Lewis machine guns, exchanging fire with the IRA fighters inside. A number of IRA Volunteers and civilians are killed or wounded by the Auxiliaries. As fighting rages outside, IRA Volunteers inside the building are ordered to set it alight.

The ammunition of the IRA Volunteers quickly runs out and the firefight ends within 30 minutes. Some Volunteers are shot as they try to run away. Tom Ennis, in command of the operation, escapes but is hit twice in the leg. Many others are arrested along with civilians as they come out of the now burning Custom House with their hands up. The Fire Brigade, which had been delayed from responding by other IRA companies in the city, arrives too late to put out the fire.

British military forces composed of units from the Wiltshire Regiment arrive and take over the operation from the Auxiliaries at this point. A total of 111 people are arrested, of whom 70–80 are IRA volunteers.

The Custom House burns for five days and is all but completely destroyed by the fire. With it are destroyed many centuries of local government records. The Irish Bulletin, official gazette of the Irish Republic, reports:

“A detachment of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Army was ordered to carry out the destruction of the Custom House in accordance with a decision arrived at after due deliberation of the ministry of Dáil Éireann. We in common with the rest of the nation regret the destruction of historical buildings. But the lives of four million people are a more cherished charge than any architectural masterpiece. The Custom House was the seat of an alien tyranny.”

From the republican point of view, the operation is successful for its propaganda value, but it is a heavy blow in terms of the numbers lost, both killed and arrested. Following the operation, the Dublin Brigade and The Squad are amalgamated into the Dublin Guard. However, the operation does not totally impede the IRA’s campaign in Dublin. The Dublin Brigade carries out 107 attacks in the city in May and 93 in June, showing a decline but not a dramatic one.

The memoir of Harry Colley, Adjutant of the Dublin IRA, estimates the numbers in the five Dublin battalions at 1,400 in early 1921.

The armed conflict is brought to an end on July 11, 1921, and negotiations are opened which produces the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December of that year. The Custom House is re-built after the end of the war.

Irish local government records from the 1600s had been brought from rural parts of Ireland to the Custom House for safekeeping, and these are lost in the blaze. At the time, The New York Times subtitles their report on the fire as “Priceless Records Lost.” Some genealogists still lament the loss of these historical records.

(Pictured: The Custom House in flames, taken on May 25, 1921)


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Political Prisoner Francis Hughes Dies on Hunger Strike

Francis Joseph Sean Hughes, a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and an Irish political prisoner, dies on hunger strike in Long Kesh Detention Centre on May 12, 1981. He is the most wanted man in Northern Ireland until his arrest following a shoot-out with the British Army in which a British soldier is killed. At his trial, he is sentenced to a total of 83 years’ imprisonment.

Hughes is born in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on February 28, 1956, into a republican family, the youngest of four brothers in a family of ten siblings. His father, Joseph, had been a member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s and one of his uncles had smuggled arms for the republican movement. This results in the Hughes family being targeted when internment is introduced in 1971, and his brother Oliver is interned for eight months without trial in Operation Demetrius. He leaves school at the age of 16 and starts work as an apprentice painter and decorator.

Hughes is returning from an evening out in Ardboe, County Tyrone, when he is stopped at an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) checkpoint. When the soldiers realise he comes from a republican family, he is badly beaten. His father encourages him to see a doctor and report the incident to the police, but he refuses, saying he “would get his own back on the people who did it, and their friends.”

Hughes initially joins the Official Irish Republican Army but leaves after the organisation declares a ceasefire in May 1972. He then joins up with Dominic McGlinchey, his cousin Thomas McElwee and Ian Milne, before the three decide to join the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1973. He, Milne and McGlinchey take part in scores of IRA operations, including daylight attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) stations, bombings, and attacks on off-duty members of the RUC and UDR. Another IRA member describes the activities of Hughes:

“He led a life perpetually on the move, often moving on foot up to 20 miles for one night then sleeping during the day, either in fields and ditches or safe houses; a soldierly sight in his black beret and combat uniform and openly carrying a rifle, a handgun and several grenades as well as food rations.”

On April 18, 1977, Hughes, McGlinchey and Milne are travelling in a car near the town of Moneymore when an RUC patrol car carrying four officers signals them to stop. The IRA members attempt to escape by performing a U-turn but lose control of the car which ends up in a ditch. They abandon the car and open fire on the RUC patrol car, killing two officers and wounding another, before running off through the fields. A second RUC patrol comes under fire while attempting to prevent the men from fleeing, and despite a search operation by the RUC and British Army the IRA members escape. Following the Moneymore shootings, the RUC name Hughes as the most wanted man in Northern Ireland, and issue wanted posters with pictures of Hughes, Milne and McGlinchey. Milne is arrested in Lurgan, County Armagh, in August 1977, and McGlinchey later in the year in the Republic of Ireland.

Hughes is arrested on March 17, 1978, at Lisnamuck, near Maghera in County Londonderry, after an exchange of gunfire with the British Army the night before. British soldiers manning a covert observation post spot Hughes and another IRA volunteer approaching them wearing combat clothing with “Ireland” sewn on their jackets. Thinking they might be from the Ulster Defence Regiment, one of the soldiers stands up and calls to them. The IRA volunteers open fire on the British troops, who return fire. A soldier of the Special Air Service (SAS), Lance Corporal David Jones, is killed and another soldier wounded. Hughes is also wounded and is arrested nearby the next morning.

In February 1980, Hughes is sentenced to a total of 83 years in prison. He is tried for, and found guilty of, the murder of one British Army soldier (for which he receives a life sentence) and wounding of another (for which he receives 14 years) in the incident which leads to his arrest, as well as a series of gun and bomb attacks over a six-year period. Security sources describe him as “an absolute fanatic” and “a ruthless killer.” Fellow republicans describe him as “fearless and active.”

Hughes is involved in the mass hunger strike in 1980 and is the second prisoner to join the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in the H-Blocks at the Long Kesh Detention Centre. His hunger strike begins on March 15, 1981, two weeks after Bobby Sands began his hunger strike. He is also the second striker to die, at 5:43 p.m. BST on May 12, after 59 days without food, refusing requests from the IRA leadership outside the prison to end the strike after the death of Sands. The journey of his body from the prison to the well-attended funeral near Bellaghy is marked by rioting as the hearse passes through loyalist areas. His death leads to an upsurge in rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.

Hughes’s cousin Thomas McElwee is the ninth hunger striker to die. Oliver Hughes, one of his brothers, is elected twice to Magherafelt District Council.

Hughes is commemorated on the Irish Martyrs Memorial at Waverley Cemetery in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and is portrayed by Fergal McElherron in the film H3.


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Execution of James McEnery, Irish Republican Army Volunteer

James McEnery, farmer and Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who fights on the anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War in north County Kerry, is executed on April 25, 1923. He surrenders during a three-day siege by Irish Free State forces, in the last significant action of the war, and is executed seven days later.

McEnery is born on April 28, 1892, to Henry McEnery and Margaret (née Stack) at 4 Slieveawaddra, Drommartin, County Kerry. His mother and father are national teachers, and his father is also a farmer. Some of his older siblings become teachers and his brother is a Catholic priest.

McEnery marries Johannah (Hannah) Donnelly at Causeway, County Kerry, on April 13, 1918. Their only child, Henry, known as “Sunny,” is born on June 11, 1920.

McEnery joins the Irish Volunteers and is a lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, North Kerry. As in the Volunteers, in the IRA he is a lieutenant, 3rd Battalion, in the Kerry No.1 Brigade (also of North Kerry). He is part of Timothy “Aeroplane” Lyons‘s column, which is involved in the burning of a Civic Guard station at Ballyheigue and a robbery of the Ballyduff post office. He is captured and imprisoned by the National Army and claims under interrogation that he was forced to join Lyons’s column under fear of death, accused of being a traitor. Despite giving an undertaking, he would not resume militant activity, he rejoins Lyons’s column following his release.

On April 16, McEnery takes part in the column’s ambush on a Free State raiding party at Meenoghane. The National Army’s 1st Western Division supplies reinforcements quickly and pursues the column to Clashmealcon, where the members hide in Dumfort’s Cave on the Atlantic cliffs with no possible escape. Two National Army troops are shot and killed by Lyons when trying to enter the cave. Two of the column’s men fall and drown after trying to scale the cliff at night. McEnery surrendered with Reginald Walter Stenning and Edmond Greaney. They are taken to Ballymullen Barracks in Tralee. Lyons falls from a rope and is shot while lying on the rocks below.

On April 18, McEnery and his two remaining colleagues are charged with the Ballyheigue burning, the Ballyduff robbery, stripping civic guards at Ballyheigue, attacking National troops at Clashmealcon and armed opposition to the government. They are tried and sentenced to death by Paddy Daly, OC of the National Army in Kerry. The following day, Daly asks for confirmation of the sentences, which duly arrive. McEnery is shot at 8:00 a.m. on April 25, three days before his 31st birthday. He is initially interred at the gaol. A death entry is made in the register the following month, incorrectly giving his age as 28. His body is finally released, along with those of others executed, to relatives on October 28 of the following year, when hundreds gather outside the gaol.

McEnery is buried alongside executed colleagues in the republican plot at Rahela Cemetery, Ballyduff. Hannah McEnery is granted £250 from the Irish White Cross and their son Henry £1 per week until working age. In 1932, pending new legislation, she applies for an allowance because of her dependency on McEnery and is awarded £67 and 10 shillings per annum (increased to £250 in the 1950s), and £18 per annum for their son.

McEnery is counted as one of “the seventy-seven,” a term made popular amongst republicans after the writing of Dorothy Macardle in memory of those executed by Free State troops.


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The Capture of RIC District Inspector Gilbert Potter

Gilbert Norman Potter, a District Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) is captured by the 3rd (South) Tipperary Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on April 23, 1921, in reprisal for the British execution of Thomas Traynor, an Irish republican.

Potter is born in Dromahair, County Leitrim, on July 10, 1878, a son of Rev. Joseph Potter, Church of Ireland rector of Drumlease Parish, and his wife Jane. He is stationed at Cahir, County Tipperary, during the Irish War of Independence.

On April 23, 1921, District Inspector Potter is captured by the 3rd (South) Tipperary Brigade, IRA, following the Hyland’s Cross Ambush. This occurs near Curraghcloney, close to the village of Ballylooby. The ambush party is initially made up of a combination of the 1st and 2nd Flying Columns of the 3rd Tipperary Brigade. This is the largest force assembled to date by the Tipperary IRA in anticipation of a major battle. However, the convoy of military lorries that is expected never materialises. Dan Breen and Con Moloney return to battalion headquarters, while Seán Hogan‘s Column withdraws northward in the direction of the Galtee Mountains.

As Dinny Lacey‘s (No.1) Column prepares to leave toward the south, a small party of British soldiers accompanying two horse-drawn carts unexpectedly approaches from Clogheen and are immediately fired upon. Amid some confusion Lacey’s scattered men withdraw southward toward the Knockmealdown Mountains. One British soldier, Frank Edward Conday, is fatally wounded and two others from the relieving party are wounded. Reports that army lorries are burned during the exchange may have been abandoned by the relieving soldiers sent from Clogheen.

By chance, Potter, who is returning by car from police duties at Ballyporeen, drives into a section of the withdrawing No.1 Column. Although in mufti, he is recognised by one of the IRA volunteers and taken prisoner. As part of a new strategy, he is held as a hostage for the safe release of Thomas Traynor, an IRA volunteer (and father of ten young children), then under sentence of death at Mountjoy Gaol. The IRA offers to release Potter in exchange for Traynor’s release, however, Traynor is executed. Traynor has since been honoured by the Irish state as one of “The Forgotten Ten.”

The Column, under sporadic fire from soldiers alerted at the nearby Clogheen barracks, follow the contours of the mountains to the village of Newcastle. Losing their pursuers, they stay for a period of time at the townland of Glasha. Here Potter is detained in an out-building of a farm which is regularly used by the IRA as a safe house. From there the party is guided into the Nire Valley by a contingent of local Waterford Volunteers and on to the Comeragh Mountains.

Accounts from Rathgormack, County Waterford, suggest that Potter is kept for at least one night at a nearby ringfort before being taken down the hill to a field then owned by Powers of Munsboro, where he meets his ultimate fate. At 7:00 p.m., on April 27, following news of Traynor’s execution by hanging, he is shot to death and hastily buried in a shallow grave on the banks of the River Clodiagh. A diary he kept during his period of captivity and some personal effects and farewell letters are returned anonymously to his wife, Lilias. This is the first confirmation she has that he had been killed. The artifacts are later lost when his son’s ship is torpedoed in 1942, during World War II.

On May 18, three weeks after Potter’s death, a notice of officially sanctioned military reprisals appears in local newspapers.

During the Truce, by arrangement through specially appointed Liaison Officers, Potter’s body is disinterred by the IRA and conveyed to Clonmel where it is returned to his widow. Two days later his body is brought to Cahir and buried with full military honours at the Church of Ireland cemetery at Kilcommon, 4 kilometres south of the town. The funeral is presided over by Bishop Miller of Waterford and attended by the Band of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, the locally stationed Royal Field Artillery and officers and men of the RIC, takes place in the afternoon of August 30, 1921.


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1997 Coalisland Attack

On the evening of March 26, 1997, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) East Tyrone Brigade launches an improvised grenade attack on the fortified Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)/British Army base in Coalisland, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The blast sparks an immediate reaction by an undercover Special Air Service (SAS) unit, who shoots and wounds Gareth Doris, an Irish republican and alleged IRA volunteer. The SAS unit is then surrounded by a crowd of protesters who prevent them approaching Doris or leaving. RUC officers arrive and fire plastic bullets at the crowd, allowing the special forces to leave the area.

Coalisland is a town in County Tyrone that has a tradition of militant republicanism; five residents are killed by British security forces before the first IRA ceasefire in 1994. In February 1992, four IRA volunteers are killed in a gun battle with the SAS during their escape after a machine gun attack on the RUC/British Army barracks there. Three months later, an IRA bomb attack on a British Army patrol at Cappagh, in which a paratrooper loses his legs, triggers a series of clashes between local residents and British troops on May 12 and 17. A number of civilians and soldiers are injured, a soldier’s backpack radio destroyed, and two British weapons stolen. The melee is followed by a 500-strong protest in the town and bitter exchanges between Republic of Ireland and British officials. Further scuffles between civilians and soldiers are reported in the town on March 6, 1994.

At 9:40 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26, 1997, a grenade is thrown at the joint British Army/RUC base at Coalisland, blowing a hole in the perimeter fence. The RUC reports that a 1 kg device hit the fence ten feet off the ground. Another source claims that the device is a coffee-jar bomb filled with Semtex. The grenade is thrown or fired by two unidentified men. At the time of the attack, there is an art exhibition at Coalisland Heritage Hall, also known as The Mill, from where the explosion and the gunshots that follow are clearly heard. The incident lasts less than two minutes.

Just one minute after the IRA attack, bypassers hear high-velocity rounds buzzing around them. A number of men, apparently SAS soldiers, get out of civilian vehicles wearing baseball caps with “Army” stamped on the front. A source initially describes them as members of the 14 Field Security and Intelligence Company. The men are firing Browning pistols and Heckler & Koch submachine guns. Witnesses say there are eight to ten gunshots, while a republican source claims that up to eighteen rounds are fired. Nineteen-year-old Gareth Doris is shot in the stomach and falls to the ground. He is allegedly returning from the local church and is in the company of a priest when he is shot. A local priest, Seamus Rice, is driving out of the church car park when his car is hit by bullets, smashing the windscreen.

Three minutes after the blast, hundreds of angry residents gather at the scene and confront the undercover soldiers. The soldiers fire live rounds at the ground and into the air to keep people back. The crowd keeps drawing back and moving forward again until 9:50 p.m., when the RUC arrives and begins firing plastic bullets at the protesters. Two women are wounded by plastic bullets and the undercover soldiers then flee in unmarked cars, setting off crackers or fireworks at the same time. Sinn Féin councillor Francie Molloy claims that the protesters forced the SAS to withdraw, saving Doris’s life in the process. Witnesses allegedly fear an undercover soldier brandishing a pistol would have killed the wounded Doris with a shot to his head.

Afterward, hundreds of residents are forced to leave their homes as security forces search the area near the base. This keeps tensions high, according to local republican activist Bernadette McAliskey. Two men are later questioned by the RUC about the attack.

The attack, along with two large bombings the same day in Wilmslow, England, raise concerns that the IRA is trying to influence the upcoming UK general election. Martin McGuinness describes the shooting as “murderous,” while independent councillor Jim Canning says that more than a dozen soldiers “were threatening to shoot anybody who moved […] while a young man lay shot on the ground.” Republican sources claim that this is another case of shoot-to-kill policy by the security forces. Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP Ken Maginnis, however, praises the SAS for their actions.

Gareth Doris is admitted to South Tyrone Hospital in Dungannon, where he is arrested after undergoing surgery. He is later transferred to Musgrave Park Hospital in Belfast. He is later convicted for involvement in the bombing and sentenced to ten years in jail, before being released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Gareth is the cousin of Tony Doris, an IRA member killed in an SAS ambush in the nearby village of Coagh on June 3, 1991, and a cousin of Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill. According to Sinn Féin councillor Brendan Doris, another cousin of Gareth, “He absolutely denies being involved in terrorist activity of any description.” Amnesty International raises its concerns over the shooting and the fact that no warning is given beforehand.

DNA evidence collected in the area of the shooting leads to the arrest of Coalisland native Paul Campbell by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in 2015, on the charges of being the other man with Doris during the attack. In February 2020, he is convicted by a Diplock court in Belfast. He denies the charges but receives a seven-and-a-half-year sentence. The prosecutor acknowledges that Campbell would have been released by this time under the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement but argues that that was a decision for the parole commission, not the court.

On July 5, 1997, on the eve of the 1997 nationalist riots in Northern Ireland, the British Army/RUC base is the scene of another attack, when an IRA volunteer engages an armoured RUC vehicle with gunfire beside the barracks. One female officer is wounded. The former RUC station at Coalisland is eventually shut down in 2006 and sold for private development in 2010.

(Pictured: Coalisland RUC/British Army base in Coalisland, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland)


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The Scramoge Ambush

The Scramoge ambush is an ambush carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on March 23, 1921, during the Irish War of Independence (1919-21). The IRA ambush a lorry carrying British Army troops and Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers at Scramoge (also spelled Scramogue), near Strokestown in County Roscommon. Three British soldiers and an RIC officer are killed, while two RIC “Black and Tans” are captured and shot dead shortly thereafter.

Following the ambush, the British carry out a sweep in which they capture three of the IRA volunteers involved and kill another who had not taken part.

County Roscommon is not one of the more violent areas of Ireland during the conflict. The local IRA argues to their GHQ that it is very difficult to conduct guerrilla warfare in the flat open countryside there. Prior to the action at Scramogue, the biggest previous incident had been in October 1920, when four RIC officers were killed in an ambush near Ballinderry.

Sean Connolly is sent by IRA GHQ from Longford to re-organise the Roscommon IRA and chooses the ambush site at Scramoge. However, he is killed twelve days before the action, at the Selton Hill ambush in neighbouring County Leitrim.

Both the North and South Roscommon brigades of the IRA take part and are commanded by Patrick Madden. There are 39 volunteers in the flying column, but only 14 take part in the actual attack. The remainder are tasked with blocking roads to keep the IRA’s line of retreat open. The IRA party is armed with thirteen rifles (eleven Lee–Enfields, one Winchester and one sporting rifle), twenty shotguns (though some are in bad condition) and two or three Webley revolvers. This is the largest collection of arms that the IRA assembles in Roscommon during the war and some of them have been borrowed from IRA units in Longford.

Among the volunteers who take part are Martin Fallon, ‘Cushy’ Hughes, Frank Simons, Luke Duffy, Peter Casey, Peter Collins, Patrick Gallagher and Tom Compton. Several of the IRA men, including Hughes, had served in the Irish Guards (IG) in World War I, but had been persuaded by Pat Madden to join the IRA upon their return.

The ambush site is carefully prepared. It is located at a sharp bend on the Strokestown–Longford road. A farmhouse and barn at the bend have been taken over and loopholed, and a trench is dug behind a hedge alongside the road. Only a mile from the IRA’s position, the British 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers regiment is garrisoned in Strokestown House.

The IRA waits in their position all day for British forces to come from Strokestown. Just as a troop lorry finally appears, two civilians came up the road in a pony and trap and have to be frantically waved out of the way.

The lorry carries a nine-man British Army and Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) patrol traveling on the Strokestown–Longford road. The British inquiry into the incident is to question why the lorry is unescorted, as their practice is not to travel in lone vehicles.

The IRA opens fire from very close range, killing the driver and halting the lorry in its tracks. Several of the soldiers and policemen are hit and they scrambled for cover behind a wall along the road. The lorry has a Hotchkiss machine gun bolted onto it, but its gunner gets off only one burst before being badly wounded and the gun is put out of action. The commander of the patrol, Captain Roger Grenville Peek, is hit in the lorry but tries to run to safety, only to be hit again and killed 400 yards down the road. The other officer with the party, Lieutenant Tennant, is also killed by a shotgun blast. After the death of the two officers, the surviving British, several of whom are wounded, surrender.

Just as the firing is dying down, another lorry, an RIC/Black and Tan patrol, approaches the ambush site but turns back after coming under fire.

Four of the British force are killed – this includes two British Army officers (Roger Grenville Peek and John Harold Anthony Tennant), a Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) driver, and one RIC man (Constable Edward Leslie).

Two men in civilian clothes are also found in the lorry. They turn out to be Black and Tans, Constable Buchanan and Constable Evans, who had been placed under arrest by the soldiers. They are made prisoners by the IRA. The ambush party takes the British arms, including the Hotchkiss gun, burn the lorry and make their escape over the hill of Slieve Bawn.

The IRA leaders, Pat Madden, Luke Duffy and Frank Simons, decide to murder the two Black and Tans, despite their offering to show the IRA how to use the captured machine gun. The IRA officers’ reason that if the prisoners identify the IRA men who had taken part in the ambush, the volunteers will be at risk of being executed if captured. The two are taken to remote locations and shot over the next two days.

The British garrison in Roscommon town mounts a sweep directly after the ambush with eight lorries and one Whippet tank. Three volunteers who had taken part are arrested afterward. Pat Mullooly and Brian Nagle of the North Roscommon Brigade are arrested as they try to get away from the scene of the ambush, as is “Cushy” Hughes, who is picked up when he is drawing his soldier’s pension in Roscommon. Mullooly and Nagle are badly beaten by their captors on the road to Roscommon. The next day, another volunteer, Michael Mullooly, brother of Pat Mullooly, is shot dead in his home by the RIC.


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Birth of Seán O’Hegarty, Member of the IRA’s Cork No. 1 Brigade

Seán O’Hegarty, a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in County Cork during the Irish War of Independence, is born on March 21, 1881, in Cork, County Cork. He serves as O/C of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA after the deaths of Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney.

O’Hegarty comes from a family with strong nationalist roots. His parents are John, a plasterer and stucco worker, and Katherine (née Hallahan) Hegarty. His elder brother is Patrick Sarsfield O’Hegarty, the writer. His parents’ families emigrated to the United States after the Great Famine, and his parents married in Boston. His father is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). In 1888, his father dies of tuberculosis at the age of 42, and his mother has to work to support the family.

O’Hegarty is educated at the Christian Brothers North Monastery school in Cork. By 1902, he has left school to work as a sorter in the local post office, rising to post office clerk. He is a supporter of the Gaelic revival, Irish traditional music, and Gaelic games. A committed sportsman, in his twenties he is captain of the Post Office HQ’s hurling team. He follows his brother Patrick into Conradh na Gaeilge and eventually the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He is a member of the Celtic Literary Society by 1905 and founds the Growney branch of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1907. A puritanical character by nature, he is a non-smoker and never drinks.

O’Hegarty is a founder of the local branch of the Irish Volunteers in Cork in December 1913. In June of the following year, he is appointed to the Cork section of the Volunteer Executive, and then to the Military Council. In October, the Dublin government discovers his illegal activities, and he is dismissed. Excluded from Cork under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) regulations, he moves to Ballingeary, where he works as a labourer. From there he moves to Enniscorthy, County Wexford, where he lives with Larry de Lacy. On February 24, 1915, he is arrested and tried under the Defence of the Realm Act for putting up seditious posters. But for this and a second charge of “possession of explosives” he is discharged. The explosives belonged to de Lacy.

The Volunteers appoint O’Hegarty as Commandant of Ballingeary and Bandon. During the Easter Rising, he is stationed in Ballingeary when visited by Michael McCarthy of Dunmanway to propose an attack on a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) post at Macroom. But their strength is fatally weakened and, having no reserves, they call off the attempt. In 1917, he becomes Vice-commandant of No.1 Cork Brigade. He works as a storekeeper at the workhouse but is intimidating, and clashes with the Poor Law Guardians.

During the Irish War of Independence, O’Hegarty is one of the most active in County Cork. Like others, he is exasperated with Tomás Mac Curtain’s inactivity and refusal to be more bellicose. One such is battalion commander Richard Langford, who joins with O’Hegarty’s unit to make an unauthorized raid on the RIC post at Macroom. Langford is court-martialed, but O’Hegarty continues to rise in the ranks. When a RIC Inspector is murdered, Mac Curtain condemns the shootings and calls for their end. On March 19, 1920, Mac Curtain is shot and killed in his home in Cork. The coroner blames the British establishment in Dublin, but the police never make any attempt to investigate the killings. Shortly after these events General Hugh Tudor begins the policy of official reprisals.

In January 1920, an inquiry is held into corruption alleged against “Hegarty’s Mob” or “Hegarty’s Crowd” running Cork City. O’Hegarty blames the former mayors for the charges of incompetence but remains on good terms with them.

In a raid on Cork City Hall on August 12, 1920, the British manage to net all the top brass of the IRA in Cork. In an incredible failure of intelligence, they do not identify the leadership as their prisoners. They are all released, including Liam Lynch, and O’Hegarty. Only Terence MacSwiney, the new Lord Mayor of Cork, is kept in custody and sent to England.

On February 25, 1921, the Coolavokig ambush is carried out by the 1st Cork Brigade under O’Hegarty at Ballyvourney village, on the road between Macroom and Ballyvourney. The IRA suffers no casualties; however, the number of British casualties has been disputed to this day.

The brigade commanders in the southern division retain a residual lingering resentment of Dublin GHQ’s lack of leadership and supplies. Seán Moylan, commandant of No. 2 Cork Brigade, thinks good communications with No.1 Brigade are to be vital, but little of this is seen via the organizer, Ernie O’Malley, at GHQ. At a meeting set up for April 26, 1921, when the manual of Infantry Training 1914 is produced, the document raises great anger. The meeting ends in uproar when O’Hegarty, who is “a master of invective, tore the communication and its authors to ribbons.”

O’Malley and Liam Lynch, the general, meet with O’Hegarty in the mountains of West Cork, near a deserted farmhouse, just off the main road. In the retreat that follows, the Irish take heavy casualties and leave their wounded to the good care of the British. These are the “Round-ups” in which the Irish sleep outside in order to avoid being at home when the Army calls. They are told by the Brigade to learn the national anthem of England to avoid arrest.

In East Cork brigade, O’Hegarty uncovers a spy ring. He is ruthless in the treatment of Georgina Lindsay and her chauffeur, who give away information to the Catholic clergy, but is remarkably lenient on brigade traitors within. He is allegedly not too bothered about evidence but is reminded that all executions of a traitor have to be approved by Dublin first.

O’Hegarty becomes more and more aggressive toward the establishment, using tough language to impose his will over the area. He attempts to force the civilian Teachtai Dála (TDs) for Cork to stand down, to give way to military candidates, telling the Dáil in December 1921, that any TD voting for the treaty will be guilty of treason. But Éamon de Valera is decided and overrules any interference with the Civil Government. Like the commanders, de Valera rejects the treaty but has already been defeated in the Dáil on a vote by W. T. Cosgrave‘s majority.

On February 1, 1922, O’Hegarty marries Maghdalen Ni Laoghaire, a prominent member of Cumann na mBan.

O’Hegarty is on the IRA’s Executive Council, but when there is a meeting on April 9, 1922, it is proposed that the Army should oppose the elections by force. As a result, Florence O’Donoghue and Tom Hales join him in resigning. In May, he and Dan Breen enter into negotiations with Free Stater Richard Mulcahy. A statement is published in the press asking for unity and acceptance of the Treaty. During this time, the republicans become very demoralized and ill-disciplined, but they have to gain strength before announcing independence from Dublin. The debate amongst the anti-Treaty IRA command is increasingly rancorous.

The bitter divisions split the anti-treatyites into two camps. Two motions are debated at the Army Convention on June 18, 1922. At first, the motion to oppose the treaty by force is passed. These men include Tom Barry, Liam Mellows, and Rory O’Connor, who are all in favour of continuing the fight until the British are driven out of Ireland altogether. However, one brigade’s votes have to be recounted, and then the motion is narrowly defeated. Joe McKelvey is appointed the new chief of staff, but the IRA is in chaos. While he strongly opposes the Anglo-Irish Treaty, O’Hegarty takes a neutral role in the Irish Civil War and tries to avert hostilities breaking out into full-scale civil war. He emerges as a leader of the “Neutral IRA” with O’Donoghue. This is a “loose” confederation of 20,000 men who have taken part in the pre-truce wars but have remained neutral during the Civil War from January 1923. Over 150 persons attend its convention in Dublin on February 4, 1923. By April 1923, O’Malley is imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison. In a letter to Seamus O’Donovan on April 7, he blames Hegarty for all this compromise and “peace talk.”

It has been alleged by the author Gerard Murphy that O’Hegarty had a role in the assassination of the Commander-in-Chief, Michael Collins, in August 1922, along with Florrie O’Donoghue and Joe O’Connor. It is alleged that as members of the 1st Southern Division Cork, they are actually feigning claims of neutrality but remain part of the IRB in order to set up talks towards peace and the cessation of hostilities at the start of the Irish Civil War.

Although probably an atheist during the Irish War of Independence, O’Hegarty returns to the Catholic church later in life. On forming the Neutral Group of the IRA in December 1922, he tries to unify differences in the volunteers between Republicans and the Free Staters. He communicates with the Papal Nuncio during the inter-war years in an attempt to have Bishop of Cork Daniel Cohalan‘s excommunication bill lifted. Instead, he turns to commemoration as a way to earn favour in Rome, with the dedication of a Catholic church at St. Finbarr’s Cemetery. After his wife’s passing, he becomes a close friend with Florence O’Donoghue until his own death.

O’Hegarty dies on May 31, 1963, at Bon Secours Hospital, Cork.