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INTRODUCTION

“IN WAR,” said Napoleon, “it is not the men who count, it is the man.” Tom Barry exemplifies this.

His book is not a history of the Anglo-Irish War in West Cork. It is his own personal account of that war. He says in his preface that no one other than his wife and his solicitor read any part of it before it went to the publisher. It is invaluable as an account of what he thought, and of why and how he acted during the single year which established his reputation as the most successful Irish guerilla leader of his time. It is an authentic story. The real Tom Barry speaks throughout; fearless, aggressive, assertive and energetic. There is no false modesty, no straining after effect, and above all no gloss based on hindsight. Such sweeping statements as there are reflect the man. Kilbrittain was “the best company in Ireland”; Liam Deasy “the best Brigade Adjutant”; Charlie Hurley “one of the greatest patriot soldiers of Ireland of any generation” and “there never was the equal of Charlie Hurley”.

It is remarkable also for the fact that, unlike other books on the period, it is uninfluenced by the bitter divisions of the Civil War and free from attempts to belittle or ignore the achievements of men who opposed him in it.

It is a measure of Barry’s quality that he so quickly established his pre-eminence among the galaxy of leaders which West Cork had already produced when he arrived on the scene in 1920. These were men who were again to prove themselves outstanding in other times and circumstances.

Although Barry refers to the “inactive areas” and the “hard-pressed fighting brigades”, many readers of his story seem to have got the impression from other sources that West Cork was typical. This is far from the truth. Barry describes his victories. He suffered no defeat; but what Florrie O’Donoghue described as “the bitter lessons of Clonmult, Mourne Abbey, Dripsey and Nadd” were parallelled in West Cork at Upton, in Dublin at the Custom House and on a lesser scale in many other places.

Collins exaggerated when, in an emotional outburst after Sean MacEoin’s capture, he wrote, “Cork will now fight alone. ” As a Co. Cork man he took justifiable pride in the lead given by all three Cork brigades in the fight against the British whose heaviest concentration of troops and police – Dublin District apart – was in Cork. This is manifestly true of his regard for the fighting men of his native West Cork.

In June 1920 when Barry became active there were about 14,000 all ranks, excluding R.I.C. and Auxiliary Division R.I.C., in what was later to become the Martial Law Area. By July of the following year this number had risen to about 25,000.

In June 1921 there were fifty-one British infantry battalions in Ireland. Five were guarding internment camps, leaving forty-six of which twenty were in the Martial Law Area and twelve in Dublin District which had heavy guard duties for the seat of government. Only fourteen were assigned to the remaining twenty-three counties.

Of the twenty battalions in the Martial Law Area, twelve plus a machine-gun corps and a cavalry regiment were in Co. Cork, three in Co. Tipperary (of which two were in Tipperary town and mainly engaged against the East Limerick Brigade), two in Co. Limerick, one plus a cavalry regiment in Clare, and one in Kerry; one covered the three counties of Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford.

Of even greater significance is the fact that when seventeen additional battalions and a mounted brigade were sent to Ireland between June 14th and July 17th, 1921, seven of the battalions and the whole mounted brigade were allotted to the Martial Law Area, five to Dublin District, and five to the remaining twenty-three counties.

Apart from the ex-ranker General Boyd, who as commander of Dublin District was the most successful, Barry was opposed by the most formidable combination of British officers then in Ireland. Strickland, commander of the Sixth Division that covered the Martial Law Area, if not brilliant, was at least more competent than his peers. Captain Kelley of his intelligence staff earned the respect of the extraordinarily able and successful I.R.A. Intelligence Officer in Cork, the historian Florrie O’Donoghue. Percival, who looms large in all accounts of the fight in West Cork, was a most energetic intelligence officer (not O.C. of the Essex as Barry and Deasy believed) and his successes become evident in Barry’s account. He was decorated for his services in Cork, and became something of an authority on guerilla warfare on the basis of his experience here. His failure as a general and C-in-C in Singapore should not obscure the menace he was to the West Cork I.R.A. Montgomery as Brigade Major of the 17th Brigade was thought by his superiors and contemporaries to “have done well in Ireland”, and to have given promise of the qualities admired by some when he later became Britain’s most famous field-marshall. Between them they eventually developed towards the last months of the war the only tactics which seriously menaced the survival of the I.R.A. units. As Florrie O’Donoghue says (in No Other Law) they “could to a large extent immobilise our basic organisation, disrupt communications, and add to our losses in men killed and captured”. One can, however, safely say that Montgomery and Percival met their match in Barry, and in hindsight he had a better idea of how the new British tactics could be frustrated than any other pre-truce leader with whom one has discussed the topic, bar Mossie Donegan.

The reputation of Percival for permitting, if not instigating, the torture of prisoners steeled the resolution of the people as well as the I.R.A., and Montgomery’s attitude of “regarding all civilians as Shinners” and “never having any dealings with them” was conducive to providing the I.R.A. with recruits from people previously neutral or hostile.

It must be evident to any student of the period that Barry was unique in the measure of success he achieved, in the careful planning of every action, and in his domination of such afterwards famous people as Montgomery and Percival.

Michael J. Costello
Lieutenant-General (Retd.)
1981

AUTHOR’S NOTE

THERE is something to be said for waiting a quarter of a century before writing a factual account of what I know of the most stirring page in Ireland’s long and chequered story. The lapse of this period of time allows one to write of men and matters as they really were from 1919 to the Truce with Britain in July, 1921, without being influenced by the tragic Civil War which followed. At the same time those Guerilla Days are sufficiently near for any reader who seeks confirmation, to interview witnesses and examine the documents and newspaper issues of those days, which are still available.

No one has read this story in part or as a whole until it was sent to the publishers, except my wife who typed it and my solicitor who examined it for any unconscious libel. Therefore every opinion in it is mine alone and I have sought to tell only the truth.

As I have not written a reference book, I regret I cannot include the names of all and every West Cork man and woman whom I know gave service to the Nation during those years of strife.

T. B. B.

CORK, 1948.

CHAPTER I

THE GLORIOUS PROTEST

FOR me it began in far-off Mesopotamia now called Irak, that land of Biblical names and history, of vast deserts and date groves, scorching suns and hot winds, the land of Babylon, Baghdad and the Garden of Eden, where the rushing Euphrates and the mighty Tigris converge and flow down to the Persian Gulf.

It was there in that land of the Arabs, then a battle-ground for the two contending Imperialistic armies of Britain and Turkey, that I awoke to the echoes of guns being fired in the capital of my own country, Ireland. It was a rude awakening, guns being fired at the people of my own race by soldiers of the same army with which I was serving. The echo of these guns in Dublin was to drown into insignificance the clamour of all other guns during the remaining two and a half years of war.

This rude awakening came in the month of May, 1916, when I was serving with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force. After futile and costly attempts to break through the tough ring of Turkish-German steel which encircled the British General Townsend and his thirty thousand beleaguered troops at Kut el Amara, our unit had been withdrawn to rest at a point twelve miles back. We were sheltering in a nullah out of view and range.

One evening I strolled down to the orderly tent outside which war communiques were displayed. These one usually scanned in a casual manner, for even then, war news was accepted in a most sceptical way. But this evening there was a “ Special ” communique headed “ REBELLION IN DUBLIN.” It told of the shelling of the Dublin G.P.O. and Liberty Hall, of hundreds of rebels killed, thousands arrested and leaders being executed. The communique covered a period of several weeks and contained news which up to then had been suppressed from overseas troops. I read this notice three or four times and now thirty-two years later I can recall it almost word for word.

Walking down the nullah my mind was torn with questionings. What was this Republic of which I now heard for the first time ? Who were these leaders the British had executed after taking them prisoners, Tom Clarke, Padraic Pearse, James Connolly and all the others, none of whose names I had ever heard ? What did it all mean ?

In June, 1915, in my seventeenth year, I had decided to see what this Great War was like. I cannot plead I went on the advice of John Redmond or any other politician, that if we fought for the British we would secure Home Rule for Ireland, nor can I say I understood what Home Rule meant. I was not influenced by the lurid appeal to fight to save Belgium or small nations. I knew nothing about nations, large or small. I went to the war for no other reason than that I wanted to see what war was like, to get a gun, to see new countries and to feel a grown man. Above all I went because I knew no Irish history and had no national consciousness. I had never been told of Wolfe Tone or Robert Emmet, though I did know all about the Kings of England and when they had come to the British Throne. I had never heard of the victory over the Sassanach at Benburb, but I could tell the dates of Waterloo and Trafalgar. I did not know of the spread of Christianity throughout Europe by Irish missionaries and scholars, but did I not know of the blessings of civilisation which Clive and the East India Company had brought to dark and heathen India ? Thus through the blood sacrifices of the men of 1916, had one Irish youth of eighteen been awakened to Irish Nationality. Let it also be recorded that those sacrifices were equally necessary to awaken the minds of ninety per cent. of the Irish people.

The Great War dragged on. Nineteen-seventeen saw a return from the borders of Asiatic Russia to Egypt, Palestine, Italy, France, and in 1919 to England. Back to Ireland after nearly four years’ absence, I reached Cork in February, 1919.In West Cork I read avidly the stories of past Irish history: of Eoghan Ruadh, Patrick Sarsfield, John Mitchel, Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet and the other Irish patriots who strove to end the British Conquest. I read the history of the corpses of the Famine, of the killings of Irishmen without mercy, the burnings, lootings, and the re peated attempts at the complete destruction of a weaker people. In all history there had never been so tragic a fate as that which Ireland had suffered at the hands of the English for those seven centuries. I also read the daily papers, weekly papers, periodicals and every available Republican sheet. Past numbers told the story of 1916, of the ruthless suppression of the Rising, of the executed, the dead, the jailed. Those of 1917 shadowed the gloom of the year after military defeat, while the 1918 issues mirrored rising morale, the coming together of the nation to defeat the conscription of Irishmen to fight for Britain, and the overwhelming victory at the polls for the Republicans who had pledged themselves to set up a Parliament and Government of an independent Irish Republic.

The 1916 Proclamation appeared to me to be a brief history in itself. In it were the call to arms, the Declaration of Rights, the history of the nation and of the six previous Risings, the establishment of a Provisional Government, the call for discipline, and the appeal to the Most High for His Blessing.

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN.
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN : In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty : six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government,

THOMAS J. CLARKE.
SEAN Mac DIARMADA.	THOMAS MacDONAGH.
P. H. PEARSE.	EAMONN CEANNT.
JAMES CONNOLLY.	JOSEPH PLUNKETT.

Promulgated on Easter Sunday, 23rd April, 1916, at Liberty Hall, Dublin.

The beauty of those words enthralled me. Lincoln at Gettysburg does not surpass it nor does any other recorded proclamation of history. Through it shines the grandeur and greatness of those signatories who were about to die with their pride, their glory and their faith in their long-conquered people.

Obviously of all the events since the Rising of 1916 by far the most important was that which naturally followed the Republican Victory at the General Election of 1918, the Proclamation of Dail Eireann setting up the Government of the Irish Republic as the de facto Government of Ireland in January, 1919.The Rising of 1916 was a challenge in arms by a minority. This was a challenge by a lawfully established government elected by a great majority of the people. The National and the Alien governments could not function side by side and one had to be destroyed. All history has proved that, in her dealings with Ireland, England had never allowed morality to govern her conduct. Force would be used to destroy the Government of the Republic and to coerce the people into the old submission. There could be no doubt it would succeed unless the Irish people threw up a fighting force to counter it.

About the middle of 1919 whispers came of the Volunteers again secredy drilling and re-organising. Names leaked through of local leaders and eventually I approached Sean Buckley, of Bandon, telling him who I was, and that I wanted to join the I.R.A. Buckley told me to return again, and at a later meeting asked me not to parade as yet with the local Company, but to act as an Intelligence Officer against the British Military and their supporters in the Bandon area. So began my connection with the I.R.A.

CHAPTER II

WEST CORK BRIGADE

WEST CORK is a poor land, where bogs and mountains predominate, but there are fertile stretches, such as those along the valley of the Bandon and in the vicinity of the towns of Clonakilty and Skibbereen. Those rich areas were in the hands of a small minority, and the large majority of the people had a hard struggle for existence. Families reared in poverty had nothing to look forward to but emigration to the United States, the Colonies, Great Britain, or to join the British Services. Before the European War of 1914–1918, few young men or girls who had reached the age of twenty remained, and so the poor part of the countryside was sparsely populated. The rich lands had been well planted by the conquerors, and an examination of the names of the occupiers is a history in itself. There predominated the descendants of the mercenary invaders who had defeated Red Hugh in the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.When Gaelic Ireland went down at that battle it was a tragedy for the whole Irish nation, but its consequences were more far-reaching to the Irish in West Cork than to those living in other parts. It was there the battle was fought and it was there the conqueror, in his first flush of victory, with fire and sword sought to destroy the natives. Those left alive were driven to the woods, the bogs and the wastelands, while the invaders settled in their homes and on their lands.

In 1919, the “ Big House ” near all the towns was a feature of first importance in the lives of the people. In it lived the leading British loyalist, secure and affluent in his many acres, enclosed by high demense walls. Around him lived his many labourers, grooms, gardeners, and household servants, whose mission in life was to serve their lord and master. In the towns, many of the rich shopkeepers bowed before the “ great ” family, and to them those in the big house were veritable gods. The sycophants and lickspittles, happy in their master’s benevolence, never thought to question how he had acquired his thousand acres, his castle and his wealth, or thought of themselves as the descendants of the rightful owners of those robbed lands. The chief example of the dominant British loyalist was the Right Hon. The Earl of Bandon, K.P.

Offshoots from the “ Big House ” were a large number of farmers settled in the best land. Of the religion of Tone and Emmet, they would not consider themselves as Irish. Theirs was a privileged position upheld by British domination, and it was their mission in life to see that their privileged and aloof status was maintained. A small number of the bigger merchants and strong farmers, although Catholic in religion, aspired to become members of the loyalist society through motives of snobbery or gain. They were strong in wealth and not in numbers. The remaining civilian prop on which British power rested in West Cork was a large group of retired British naval and military officers. These lived in comfort, in groups, in the most beautiful parts of a lovely countryside. They, too, never considered themselves as Irish, and were soon to prove that their loyalty to British power was not simply a passive one. All these active supporters of British power held over half the wealth of the area, though they did not number one-tenth of the population.

During the Anglo-Irish War, British military and police forces in West Cork numbered about three thousand. These were reinforced as the fight against them developed. The largest British garrisons were stationed in Bandon, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Skibbereen, Bantry and Castletownbere. In all, they occupied twenty fortified posts, structurally strong and situated at points of strategic importance. In the town of Bandon there were three enemy posts. At the end of the North Main Street stood the military barracks. Eighty yards across from it a large hotel was commandeered to house one hundred and ten Black and Tans. A few hundred yards away at the end of the South Main Street the regular R.I.C. barracks was chiefly garrisoned by Black and Tans. In addition to the troops within the area many thousands stationed outside the borders were used for operations in West Cork. They came from Cork, Ballincollig, Macroom and Kinsale.

Practically all those British troops had battle experience during the 1914–1918 war. They were highly trained and well accustomed to fighting and bloodshed. Armed with the most modern weapons, they had a plentiful supply of machine-guns, field artillery, armoured cars, engineering material, signalling equipment and motor transport. The finances of the world s largest empire were behind them.

Arrayed against these military and civilian garrisons were three-quarters of the people of West Cork. The blood sacrifice of the 1916 patriots had awakened them to their National degradation and in the 1918 Election only Republican candidates were nominated. It would be wrong to suggest that at the beginning of the Anglo-Irish War a majority of the people supported armed action against the British. They did not, mainly because they considered such a campaign as hopeless and suicidal. It is true, however, that when the issue was knit and the people saw with amazement that their own Volunteers were carrying the fight to the Sassanach they rallied behind them. The savagery of the British and the deaths of their neighbours’ children for the people’s freedom roused them, and from the middle of 1920 they loyally supported the I.R.A. As was natural, a certain section was more enthusiastic in their support and burdens were not equally shared.

From these people sprang the Irish Republican Army, the finest of the manhood of West Cork. Mostly young men of good physique, the I.R.A. were virtually untrained and unarmed. Their unit was the Third West Cork Brigade, one of the three formed at the end of 1918 and in early 1919 to cover all Cork City and County. Its eastern boundary extended from west of the Old Head of Kinsale, north to a point two miles south of Waterfall. Here the boundary turned west and ran one mile south of Crookstown and Kilmichael, to the southern end of the Pass of Keimineigh on to the Kerry border, west of Glengarriff, to meet the sea after enclosing all the Castletownbere peninsula.

In the Brigade there were seven Battalions, organised around the chief towns ; the First Battalion, Bandon ; Second, Clonakilty ; Third, Dunmanway ; Fourth, Skibbereen ; Fifth, Bantry ; Sixth, Castletownbere, and Seventh, Schull. Each Battalion was divided into a number of Companies, which, in turn, were divided into Sections, the smallest unit of the Irish Republican Army. Battalions, Companies and Sections were of unequal sizes and strengths. The Bandon Battalion had thirteen companies and was far the strongest. Its personnel exceeded that of the combined Bantry and Castletownbere units. Likewise one Company might have a roll of fifty members, while another might include over one hundred. The organisation was elastic, based on the factors of population and terrain, and no attempt was ever made to form units on an establishment basis as in regular armies. This was important as it allowed for the development of a fighting machine under changing conditions and growing enemy pressure. In all, the Brigade had at its peak period about three thousand volunteers.

Unlike the enemy, the West Cork I.R.A. had no experience of war. The members were untrained in the use of arms and were backward even in ordinary foot-drill. They had no tactical training, but they had a great desire to become efficient volunteers. They were practically unarmed. Even in the middle of 1920, the whole Brigade armament was only thirty-five serviceable rifles, twenty automatics or revolvers, about thirty rounds of ammunition per rifle, and ten rounds for each automatic or revolver. The Volunteers had no transport, signalling equipment or engineering material, machine-guns or any other weapon whatever, except a small supply of explosives and some shot-gùns. They had no money and were an unpaid Volunteer force. They had no barracks to which they could retire, and no stores to supply them with food. They had no propaganda department to blazon forth their objectives or to deny enemy slanders. Each Brigade stood alone, without hope of outside reinforcements should disaster threaten it. Within the whole National movement the unit made its own war, gloried in its victories and stood up to its own defeats.

This was the force that was to attempt to break by armed action the British domination of seven centuries’ duration. Behind it was a tradition of failures. Each century had seen the humiliating defeat of some Irishmen who had sought to break the British yoke. Worse still, tradition showed that, after its savage crushing in 1601, West Cork did not take a worthy part in the numerous risings, except when Tadhg O’Donovan mustered a handful of men in 1798 at Ballinascarthy in a gallant, but hopeless attempt to help in the fight for freedom. And sadly it must be recorded that, when West Cork women and children died in 1846 and 1847 of hunger, while the British ascendancy seized their food, not a West Cork man drove a pike through any one of the murderers of his family. Still, West Cork did produce in the nineteenth century that patriot who will ever be revered by the Irish people, the great O’Donovan Rossa.

In the summing up of the strengths of the contending Irish and British Forces, the factor of morale must rank highest. There was no doubt, whatever, that the morale of the I.R.A. stood far above that of the British. Greater experience, numbers and armaments of the British were indeed an important consideration, but this was far excelled by the willingness of the Volunteers to sacrifice themselves for a cause they knew to be right. Theirs was an aim higher than that of simple political freedom, for perhaps without being fully able to express it, they knew that when they fought and gave their lives for the ending of their long endured subjection, they did so for the dignity of man and all mankind.

CHAPTER III

THE ATTACKS BEGIN

AT the General Election in 1918, held under British auspices, seventy per cent. of the electors of all Ireland voted for candidates pledged to abstain from the British Parliament, and the setting up of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Republic in Dublin. When these members met in January, 1919, in pursuance of their election programme and the declared will of the people, they established Dáil Eireann as the Parliament of the Irish people. They further proclaimed the Independence of the Nation and the setting up of the de facto Government of the Irish Republic. They established parallel Departments of State to those of the British and sought the people’s allegiance and support for the new Institutions of the Irish State. The issue was now clear. Two opposing governments could not function side by side, one would certainly be destroyed.

Observers of revolutionary epochs, and particularly those who decry the use of the political weapon in any form as an instrument for successful emancipation, should study well the three periods of the 1916–1921 endeavour. Firstly, the armed Rising and the blood sacrifices of the 1916 patriots to awaken the Nation, although there was no hope of military success ; secondly, the contesting of the 1918 elections and the subsequent setting up of the National Parliament and Government ; and thirdly, the 1920–21 guerilla warfare to prevent the destruction, by armed force and terrorism, of the institutions so set up.

Those three plans of action dovetailed perfectly. Without 1916 there would have been no Dáil Eireann ; without Dáil Eireann there would, most likely, have been no sustained fight, with moral force behind it, in 1920–21, and without the guerilla warfare of 1920–21 Dáil Eireann would have been destroyed and the sacrifices of 1916 vain. Looking back it seemed to me that the Master, moved to pity by the centuries of failures and oppression which Ireland had suffered, guided the footsteps of our leaders on the only road to success.

The January Proclamation of Dáil Eireann had two messages for the Volunteers. Remembering the past records of British oppression, the Volunteers knew that the enemy would use military force to suppress the Government of Ireland and its administration if they could not otherwise destroy it. The Volunteers would either have to fight or surrender all that had been won. The other message was that Dáil Eireann had now formally, as the elected Parliament of the Irish people, proclaimed the Volunteers as the People’s Army, subject to the newly-elected Government of the Irish Republic. Henceforth, the Irish Volunteers were to be the Army of the Republic, with the moral and legal status of a lawfully-organised army of a democratic Government.

About the middle of 1919, the various State Departments of the Irish Republic commenced to take shape. Soon representatives of the Republic were accredited to foreign lands, despite the lack of recognition by other established governments. Courts of Justice were established, subscriptions to a National Loan invited, Local and Municipal Authorities, hitherto governed by Dublin Castle, came under Dáil Eireann, and Industrial and Agricultural programmes were formulated. As was expected the British Government took action. Dáil Eireann and all National organisations were proclaimed as illegal bodies and large military and Black and Tan reinforcements poured into Ireland to suppress the elected Parliament of the people. In the opening months of 1920 the British raids, arrests and searches for arms and literature were in full swing, even though throughout 1919 neither police nor soldiers were fired on by the I.R.A. in West Cork.

There were, however, two incidents which showed the awareness of the progressive elements of the I.R.A. of the coming struggle and the desperate need for arms. In June, 1919, there was some agrarian trouble in Kilbrittain. To protect the landlord’s interests, the police at Kilbrittain were reinforced by a section of British military. Each evening a party of six soldiers and one policeman patrolled the road near the disputed estate. The Kilbrittain I.R.A. were naturally on the side of the tenants and they made representations to have official I.R.A. action taken against the British patrol. They failed to secure an official order but decided to act on their own. One evening in June, fourteen of the Kilbrittain Company, wearing masks, waited for the patrol of seven, rushed, disarmed and tied them up. No shots were fired, but one revolver, five rifles with ammunition and equipment were secured by the I.R.A. This Kilbrittain Company was eventually to prove itself the best Company in Ireland. The other incident occurred in November, 1919.A British Naval M.L. boat lay in Bantry Bay. The I.R.A. kept a close watch on the routine of the crew. On November 17th, a party of the Bantry I.R.A., under Maurice Donegan, boarded the Naval boat, held up the sentry and guard and secured all the arms on board. Six rifles, ten revolvers, equipment and ammunition were taken and these, with the Kilbrittain spoils, were the main basis on which the West Cork Brigade armament was built.

It appeared at the opening of 1920 as if nothing could prevent all the known Volunteers from being arrested. Small parties of the R.I.C. and small groups of military, led by a policeman who knew the people and the countryside intimately, were continuously raiding for arms and literature and attempting to arrest Volunteers. No armed resistance was being offered to them, but all wanted men evaded arrest as best they could. Not one shot had yet been fired at those patrols who were disrupting the whole I.R.A. organisation, except when a few Volunteers shot a most aggressive policeman at Kilbrittain, in December, 1919.

However, on February 12th, 1920 attacks on the R.I.C. and Black and Tans commenced. Three parties were assembled to attack barracks at Allihies, Farnivane and Timoleague, Tom Hales in charge at Farnivane, and his brother Sean, at Timoleague. The Allihies attack was unsuccessful. The groups at Farnivane and Timoleague, through unforeseen circumstances, were unable to get close enough to push home the attack and were forced to retire after some shots had been fired. Durrus Barracks was also attacked by a party under Ted O’Sullivan’s command, on March 31st, but in it, too, the garrison held out.

There was a lull until April 24th, when a sergeant of the D.M.P. was shot dead near Clonakilty. On the 25th, a small party under the Battalion Adjutant, Jim O’Mahony, intercepted and shot dead a sergeant and constable on patrol near Upton. Two carbines and ammunition were taken. Next a group under Charlie Hurley’s leadership attacked a police patrol from Timoleague at Ahawadda. Three police were killed, one wounded and all arms and ammunition were taken.

No further attacks took place until June 22nd, when Jack Fitzgerald, Company Captain, Kilbrittain, led a party in to the Coastguard Station at Howes Strand, near Kilbrittain, and secured ten Ross rifles and equipment without resistance. The British immediately supplied another dozen rifles and ammunition to this Station, and on July 2nd, a group under Charlie Hurley again raided the Station. The Coastguards fired on the raiders, who replied. After some firing the I.R.A. burst the door with sledges and the Coastguards surrendered. There were no casualties on either side. The I.R.A. secured all arms, ammunition and also a wireless installation.

In the Bantry area on June 12th, Ted O’Sullivan and a few I.R.A. resumed the Western attacks and a Constable was shot dead at Anagashel, on the Bantry-Glengarriff road. On June 22nd, Maurice Donegan and five of his men attacked a patrol of five R.I.C. at Clonee Wood, on the Bantry-Durrus road. One Constable was killed and another wounded. Ralph Keyes and a few Volunteers shot dead a terrible ruffian of the R.I.C., right under the noses of the British garrison at Bantry. On the same day, Maurice Donegan, with a few Volunteers, was again on the warpath in Glengarriff, where one Constable was shot dead. Down in Castletownbere, on July 25th, a party of I.R.A., under Billy O’Neill, attempted a raid on the Coastguard Station by a ruse. It failed, and four I.R.A. were wounded. Two days later, on July 27th, a few I.R.A. led by Jim Murphy (Spud) shot a Constable dead in Clonakilty. There was some I.R.A. activity in the Skibbereen area and R.I.C. patrols were fired on.

On Sunday, July 25th, the most dangerous member of the British Forces in West Cork was shot dead in Bandon, a Sergeant of the R.I.C. He was Chief Intelligence Officer for the British in the area, the man who controlled all political police intelligence, which, in effect, was the only accurate enemy intelligence. It was on his information that the raids and arrests were executed. He had for long known that his activities would eventually entail an attempt on his life and he took every precaution. He never travelled out with raiding parties and never appeared in public, practically living within the barracks. One journey he did undertake with regularity. Each Sunday he attended Mass at the nearby Church, a hundred yards from his barracks. He was generally escorted to Mass by Black and Tans, who, on reaching the Church gates, turned and went back to barracks. It was impossible to attack the Sergeant between the barracks and the Church gates. Inside the Church gates about seventy steps led steeply upwards to the yard in front of the Church porch. On the last Sunday of July, 1920, the Sergeant went to Church. He climbed the steps, reached the yard and was proceeding towards the Church porch, when on receiving two revolver bullets, he staggered and fell dead in to the porch of the Church. His death was instantaneous. Those who shot him walked off without hindrance.

In the same month the Brigade O.C., Tom Hales, and the Brigade Quartermaster, Pat Harte of Clonakilty, were arrested by British Military and brought to Bandon military barracks. The Hales family were amongst the founders of the Volunteers in West Cork and were prominendy associated with all the armed activities throughout the Anglo-Irish War. Several of the brothers had taken part in the 1916 mobilisation and had marched from Ballinadee to Macroom with the West Cork contingent. Tom was the first officer commanding the West Cork Brigade. The family had what is probably an All-Ireland record, as when Tom was serving a sentence of penal servitude in Pentonville, his three brothers were serving in the Brigade Flying Column.

In Bandon, the British repeatedly beat up their two prisoners, Hales and Harte, in an effort to obtain information from them. After failing in this effort the Essex Regiment Torture Squad was called in. The two prisoners were stripped naked and the Torture Squad got to work with pincers and pliers, pulling out the hairs and crushing the nails of their helpless prisoners. When they had finished, Tom Hales was unconscious and Pat Harte completely insane, but the Torture Squad had failed to get any information. Pat Harte was transferred to a mental hospital and remained insane until he died a few years later. Tom Hales was sentenced to penal servitude and was held in Pentonville Jail until after the Treaty of 1921 was signed.

CHAPTER IV

TRAINING CAMP

IN May, 1920, I had received a warning that the British suspected me. I had been temporarily resident in Bandon and, having little liking for being arrested or beaten up, I told Sean Buckley I was leaving the town, and I did so without delay. One day after Tom Hales had been arrested, Sean Buckley told me that the new Brigade O.C., Charlie Hurley, wanted to see me. We met at Barrett’s, Killeady, and Charlie asked me to take on training throughout the Brigade area. He spoke in detail of the urgency of getting some trained men ready to defend themselves. Before long I was to learn that Charlie’s volunteer outlook was governed by twin ideas, train and fight. The Brigade staff of which I was to become a member in August, 1920, was composed of the following I.R.A. Officers :—

Charlie Hurley, promoted over the heads of many officers to take charge of the Brigade, had previously held the post of Vice-O.C. of the Bandon Battalion. He was a remarkable man and a lovable personality. Born in Baurleigh, Kilbrittain, on March 19th, 1892, he went to work at an early age in a Bandon store. While there he studied for and passed the Boy Clerks’ examination and was posted to Haulbowline. He served at Haulbowline from 1911 to 1915, when he was ordered to Liverpool on promotion. He refused to accept the transfer as it entailed conscription in the British armed forces, and he, being a member of the Irish Volunteers, Sinn Fein, the Gaelic League and the G.A.A., was well grounded in the faith of Irish Republicanism. He returned to West Cork and commenced to organise the Volunteers, but early in 1918 he was arrested. He was charged and found guilty of being in possession of the plans of the British fortifications at Bere Island. Sentenced to five years’ penal servitude, he served part of it in Cork and Maryborough jails, but was released with other hunger strikers under what was known as the Cat and Mouse Act at the end of 1918. Release under this Act allowed the British to rearrest any prisoner at any time they considered him fit to serve the unexpired portion of his sentence, without the formality of Court proceedings. Back again in 1919 in West Cork, he worked day and night to organise the I.R.A., and it was he, above all others, who continually urged a fighting army policy.

Liam Deasy, the Brigade Adjutant, from Kilmacsimon Quay, Bandon, was one of five brother members of the I.R.A. From his boyhood he had been a member of the Volunteers and other national organisations. By the middle of 1920 he had travelled throughout the whole Brigade area, organising units and arranging lines of communications. Whenever he could get away from his staff work he was with the Flying Column to which he was a tower of strength. He was easy to co-operate with and was the best Brigade Adjutant in Ireland. Later he was to prove himself one of the best Brigade O.C’s.

Sean Buckley was the Brigade Intelligence Officer and, as may be gathered already, was another pioneer of the Volunteer movement in West Cork. To us who were twenty-two, he appeared an elderly man, for his hair was grey and his mien was grave. He must then have been about forty-six years. He was quiet and reserved, but had an unexpected sense of humour. Wise in council, militant in outlook, he was a splendid staff officer and undertook many duties outside his own department of Intelligence, which he kept going till the Truce. He worried continually about all our lives, but never about his own, although the British would most certainly have killed him, had they laid their hands on him from mid-1920 onwards. In spite of his age and austere appearance, he was tough, carrying his gun and marching long distances with the best of us.

Dick Barrett was the Brigade Quartermaster, successor to Pat Harte. He was a careful and conscientious Quartermaster and a sincere patriot. His duties as Principal of the Gurranes National School were a good cover for his I.R.A. activities. A native of Hollyhill, Ballineen, he was a gay and cheery soul and gave great service to the I.R.A. in West Cork, until his arrest in May, 1921.

Later I was to meet Ted O’Sullivan, the Brigade Vice-O.C. A native of the Western end of the Brigade, he was usually to be found in the Bantry and Castletownbere Battalion areas. He, too, was an old Volunteer and was engaged in all the earlier activities in his district. He was also to serve with the Brigade Flying Column for many periods. Young, and of powerful physique, he was a hard-working and reliable officer. He was Brigade Vice-O.C. until the Truce.

Formal meetings of this staff, as such, were never held, and no decisions affecting military operations or Brigade matters were ever taken by it. But there was the closest co-operation between all these officers, and many informal discussions about Brigade matters took place when they could meet. But there were meetings of the Brigade Council, as distinct from the Brigade Staff. This Council was composed of the Brigade Staff, the Battalion Commandants, and usually one other member from each Battalion Staff. At these meetings reports were submitted by each Battalion O.C. as to the strengths and armaments of his own and the enemy forces in his Battalion area. He further reported on the training of his unit, the efficiency of his Intelligence department, the attitude of the civilian population, enemy activities, and the steps he was taking to resist such pressure. Those meetings enabled the Brigade Staff and the various Battalion Officers to get a view of the overall situation in the Brigade area. Here, too, officers saw problems facing the Battalion Commander of a particular area, which might not yet have appeared in theirs, and they were able to judge of the effectiveness of his method of dealing with them. General policy and tactics were discussed at length at those meetings.

Battalion Council meetings were also held in each Battalion area. These were attended by the Battalion Staff, all Company Commanders, and one or more Company Staff officers. At times, a Brigade officer presided. The business was conducted on the same lines as that of the Brigade Council meeting. Still lower in the scale of organisation were Company Council meetings, where the Company Staff and Section Commanders met to deal with matters within the Company area. A Battalion Staff officer usually attended and reported back to the Battalion Staff on the position of affairs of the companies.

There was always a great danger that any of those Brigade meetings would be surrounded by the enemy, and that all the controlling officers would be killed or captured. It is unnecessary to emphasise the disaster of such a happening, and all possible precautions were taken, but still the danger was ever present. Looking back and being wise after the event, it might have been wiser to have brought one or two Battalion Staffs together for a meeting, with one Brigade Officer at one venue, and thus have avoided the possibility of the whole Brigade Staff and all the Battalion Commandants being wiped out in one swoop.

GUERILLA DAYS IN IRELAND

TOM BARRY