O'Callaghan The Battle for Kilmallock

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-85635-976-4
Verlag: Mercier Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Reihe: Mercier's History of the Irish Civil War

When the Free State army captured Limerick city in mid-July 1922, Republican forces retreated south towards Cork and made their next determined stand around Kilmallock. This area barred the way to the heartland of the 'Munster Republic'. In one of the largest and most intense battles of the Irish Civil War, Free State and Republican troops fought for possession of Kilmallock, Bruree and Bruff, with the latter two towns repeatedly changing hands. The eventual Free State occupation of Kilmallock was a vital turning point in the war. In The Battle for Kilmallock John O'Callaghan outlines the goals of the opposing forces, assesses their respective strengths, charts the course of the combat over two weeks in late July and early August, examines key strategies, and evaluates the role of leading personalities. The book challenges inherited wisdom about the engagement and offers sobering insights into the conduct of the belligerents.

From Limerick, Dr John O'Callaghan lectures in Atlantic Technological University, Sligo. He has published widely on the history of the Irish Revolution.

Autoren/Hrsg.

O'Callaghan, John

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1

THE EAST LIMERICK IRA

Bruff, Bruree and Kilmallock were part of the territory of the East Limerick Brigade of the IRA. During the War of Independence East Limerick outperformed its counterparts in Mid and West Limerick in terms of intensity of activity and successful military outcome. East Limerick also suffered the highest number of casualties. Of the forty-eight Limerick IRA men who were killed, twenty-two were East Limerick Brigade Volunteers. Crown forces also suffered heavy casualties. Donnchadh O’Hannigan of East Limerick was perhaps the most successful flying column commandant who went pro-Treaty.

Tensions between Republican and Crown forces in Limerick remained high during the Truce, and fire was exchanged on several occasions. General Sir Peter Strickland, who commanded the 6th Division of the British army in Munster, urged his superiors to consider resuming military action on an extended scale if the IRA did not curtail its activities.1

The transition the IRA had to make, from secret, self-contained guerrilla organisation during the War of Independence, to peacetime activities during the Truce, accentuated problems of discipline and control.2 There was regular open drilling. Volunteers, including men who had been on the run, wore their uniforms and socialised openly in the city and towns. On 2 August 1921 Kilmallock railway station was raided by several men who took away parcels consigned from England to a local trader. They left an IRA receipt.3 On 8 August IRA notices were posted up in Newcastlewest ordering public houses to close at 8 p.m. An IRA dance took place at Caherconlish school on 13 August at which Volunteers ‘were drunk and brandished revolvers and automatics’.4

IRA GHQ was concerned about discipline and at the end of November 1921 ordered an inquiry into whether any Volunteers were involved in the apparent falsification of betting telegraphs at Kilmallock and the holding up of two post office officials who were in Kilmallock for an inquiry into the matter.5 On the night of 16 November armed men had seized papers from the officials which apparently contained proof of telegram betting and ordered them to leave Kilmallock on the first train in the morning.6 The Kilmallock postmaster, Mr Bleech, received a threatening letter in relation to the planned inquiry on 19 November.7

Despite the concern of both Strickland and Volunteer GHQ, however, the East Limerick IRA stepped up its activities. On 14 December 1921 two Thurles RIC men were ambushed by the IRA while attending a coursing meeting in Kilmallock. Constable Thomas Enright was shot dead when leaving Clery’s Hotel in Lord Edward Street, and Constable Tierney was seriously wounded.8 East Limerick Brigade flying column Volunteer Maurice Meade claimed that Enright was:

… particularly active and bitter against our men, on one occasion bombing some of our captured men. For this we decided he should pay the death penalty. No opportunity to carry this out had arisen until the Truce occurred but when we saw him at the coursing match, even though the Truce was then in operation, we agreed to shoot him and we did so that night.

The Volunteers used a car which they had seized from a Lieutenant Brown, the British army intelligence officer in Kilmallock. Brown had himself previously seized the car from Tomás Malone, one of the leading Volunteers in the East Limerick Brigade. Malone and Brown actually socialised together during the coursing meeting.9 Brown had been the subject of much Volunteer attention during the War of Independence but managed to survive several attacks. Sergeant James Maguire, who was killed in Kilmallock in March 1921, had been Brown’s RIC liaison.

Constable Lauchlin McEdward was shot dead by the IRA at Garryowen in Limerick city on 17 February 1922; this and the killing of Enright, were the most glaring examples of local autonomy and resistance to central authority by the IRA. While the killing of Enright was motivated by vengeance, these incidents should also perhaps be viewed in the context of the belief that if the British could have been provoked into hostile action there would have been a chance of re-uniting the IRA.

Of the East Limerick Brigade staff at the time of the Truce, only Tomás Malone took the anti-Treaty side. Liam Hayes, who was also a staff member, voted in favour of the Treaty in Dáil Éireann. Despite the fact that a number of former East Limerick Brigade office holders who were in prison at the time of the Truce sided against the Treaty when they were released, East Limerick was the only brigade in the 2nd Southern Division to throw the bulk of its weight behind the Treaty.

A number of battalions outside of East Limerick also took the pro-Treaty side, however. Mid Limerick had a majority of anti-Treatyites but a significant minority of pro-Treatyites. Dick O’Connell’s 4th Mid Limerick Battalion was mainly pro-Treaty, and 70 per cent of Seán Carroll’s 2nd Battalion took the pro-Treaty side, even though Carroll himself was one of the most prominent anti-Treaty leaders in the region. The Mid Limerick Brigade quartermaster, Captain Seán Hurley, tried to organise these groups into a pro-Treaty unit but there were often divisions within individual units.

A Free State South Western Command report of 22 August 1922 on Mid Limerick commented that:

We have had trouble with this brigade owing to the inactivity of our troops there, and the activity of the Irregulars under Seán Carroll. The object of Seán Carroll has been to break our road and rail communications with Dublin and with this in view, he keeps a column working in the Birdhill-Castleconnell areas.10

Members of the Free State army were frequently arrested in Carroll’s territory: however, his relationship with Liam Forde was acrimonious and he eventually transferred his unit to Tipperary.

West Limerick was predominantly anti-Treaty. Brigadier Garret McAuliffe explained to Ernie O’Malley that ‘our Bde [Brigade] stayed firm but some of the junior officers went F/S [Free State]’.11 West Limerick was even busier than Carroll’s area early in the war, but was overrun by Free State troops by the end of the year. In the middle of October 1922 one anti-Treatyite informed the 1st Southern Division of a conversation he had with McAuliffe:

I was speaking to the O/C West Limerick Brigade, who stated that owing to enemy activity in his brigade and the arrest of practically all his staff he was unable to attend to communications.12

Despite having an experienced anti-Treaty force, County Limerick was neutralised as a threat to the Free State early in 1923. In February 1923 Ernie O’Malley noted that:

West Limerick is attached as a battalion to Cork no. 4 brigade. There are none of our men armed or active in this area. I am unable to give enemy strength but some of the towns are strongly held by him.13

The presence of a significant pro-Treaty IRA element in Limerick was crucial in the defeat of the anti-Treaty IRA. It meant that the Free State knew both the countryside and their opponents.

In Kilmallock two officers of the local Volunteer Company, Captain Michael Fitzgibbon and Second Lieutenant John O’Donnell, took the pro-Treaty side and joined the newly formed Free State army. Michael Mortell, a former captain of the company and a member of the East Limerick Brigade flying column, also went pro-Treaty. The majority of the Kilmallock Company, however, took the anti-Treaty side.

The company was reorganised in the spring of 1922 and new officers were elected: Captain Seán Hayes, First Lieutenant James Chamberlain, Second Lieutenant Michael Walsh, Intelligence Officer Daniel O’Brien, Quartermaster Tim Tierney and Adjutant Patrick Downes. Seán T. O’Riordan, who was battalion commandant during the War of Independence, had been released from prison in October 1921 and now became O/C of the East Limerick Brigade IRA. O’Riordan’s predecessor as brigadier, Donnchadh O’Hannigan, had taken charge of the 4th Southern Division of the new National Army. James Chamberlain later changed his allegiance from anti-Treaty to pro-Treaty, left the IRA and took up a job in Dublin.

The majority of the neighbouring Ballingaddy Company took the Republican side after the Treaty split. Volunteers from the townlands of Ballygibba, Knocksouna and Tankardstown in the west of the parish were members of the Bruree Company. The division in the Bruree Company seems to have been between those who continued in the post-Truce IRA and those who took no active part in the Civil War – very few if any of the Bruree Volunteers went pro-Treaty.

As the dispute over the Treaty became more fractious, the building at Gortboy, Kilmallock, which the RIC had been using as a barracks, and that part of the Kilmallock Workhouse which had been in the hands of the British army, were occupied by members of the Kilmallock Company and by members of IRA companies from surrounding districts....