by Fergal Keane
9: Between Gutter and Cart
1. Lola Ridge, Sun-Up and Other Poems, New York, 1918, citing Project Gutenberg online edition, 2012.
2. John B. Keane, The Street and Other Poems, Dublin, 1961.
3. WO/35/157A/50, TNA (file on murder of District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan).
4. Ibid.
5. Jack Ahern, Witness Statement 970, BMH.
6. WO 35/151/B, TNA.
7. WO/35/157A/50, TNA.
8. Con Brosnan, Witness Statement 1,123, BMH.
9. Interview with Conor Keane, 24 Mar 2016.
10. WO/35/157A/50, TNA.
11. John ‘Jaco’ Lenihan, Witness Statement 968, BMH.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. ‘Cork Courtmarshall – Kerry Murder Charge: Four Civilians Accused.’ Account supplied to author by Vincent Carmody, 08/07,2017.
18. Correspondence with author, 21 July 2017.
19. Nottingham Evening Post, 26 Jan 1921.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. O’Malley, The Men Will Talk, p. 74.
25. Irish Bulletin, 8 Feb 1921.
26. Patrick McElligott, Witness Statement 1,013, BMH.
27. Brian O’Grady, Witness Statement 1,390 BMH.
28. Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland, Dublin, 1962, pp. 50–1.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Timothy ‘Ted’ Houlihan, Witness Statement 969, BMH.
33. Thomas Pelican, Witness Statement 1,109, BMH.
34. Ibid.
10: Executions
1. G. K. Chesterton, in A. P. Wavell, Other Men’s Flowers, London, 1945 edn, p. 405.
2. Kerryman, 13 Apr 1935, cited in Gaughan, Listowel, p. 390.
3. ‘The Condition of Ireland’, Hansard, 6 May 1920.
4. O’Malley, The Men Will Talk, p. 73.
5. Patrick McElligott, Witness Statement 1,013, BMH.
6. Ibid.
7. James Costello, Witness Statement 1,091, BMH.
8. Thomas Carmody, Witness Statement 996, BMH.
9. Patrick McElligott, Witness Statement 1,013, BMH.
10. Ibid.
11. Michael Murphy, Witness Statement 1,081, BMH.
12. James Costello, Witness Statement 1,091, BMH.
13. Ibid.
14. Michael Murphy, Witness Statement 1,081, BMH.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. O’Keefe and Doran, Yearbook.
18. Brian O’Grady, Witness Statement 1,390, BMH.
19. Gaughan, Listowel, p. 395.
20. Cited in Hore Herbert Francis, An Inquiry into the Legislation, Control, and Improvement of the Salmon and Sea Fisheries of Ireland, Dublin, 1850, p. 8.
21. Brian O’Grady, Witness Statement 1,390, BMH.
22. O’Malley, The Men Will Talk, p. 73.
23. Seán Moylan, Witness Statement 838, BMH.
24. Ibid.
25. O’Grady, BMH.
26. O’Grady, BMH.
27. O’Grady, BMH.
28. Cited in Gaughan, Listowel, Appendix 8, p. 457.
29. Brian O’Grady, Witness Statement 1,390, BMH.
11: The Republic Bold
1. Cited in Brendan McConvery, ‘Hellfire and Poitin Redemptorist Missions in the Irish Free State (1922–1936)’, History Ireland, Autumn 2008.
2. Affidavit of Cornelius Dee, given at Tarbert, Jun 1921.
3. Ibid.
4. Statement from Dublin Castle Publicity Department, 21 May 1921, cited in http://www.moyvane.com/people/gabriel-fitzmaurice/where-history-meets-poetry-the-valley-of-knockanure/
5. Timothy Houlihan, Witness Statement 969, BMH.
6. Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence, Dublin, 2002, p. 183.
7. Peter Hart, Mick: The Real Michael Collins, London, 2005, p. 270.
8. John Borgonovo, Florence and Josephine O’Donoghue’s War of Independence: ‘A Destiny that Shapes Our Ends’, Dublin, 2006, cited pp. 154–6.
9. Cited in Hart, Mick, p. 275.
10. Sir Alfred Cope, ‘Lessons from the Irish Rebellion’, talk given at Tabernacle Chapel, 7 Mar 1927, cited in http://www. cwmammanhistory.co.uk
11. Bishop Michael Fogarty, Witness Statement 0362, BMH.
12. Michael Hopkinson (ed.), The Diaries of Mark Sturgis, Dublin, 1999, p. 32.
13. Paul McMahon, British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland 1916–1945, Woodbridge, 2008, p. 58.
14. See http://www.militaryarchives.ie/en/collections/reading-room-collections/truce-liaison-and-evacuation-papers-1921-1922
15. Ibid.
16. Tadhg Kennedy, Witness Statement 1,413, BMH.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Order of General Richard Mulcahy, IRA Chief of Staff, 9 Jul 1921.
21. Jack Ahern, Witness Statement 970, BMH.
22. Michael Finucane interview with Maurice O’Keefe, Irishlifeandlore.com
23. Seán Moylan, Witness Statement 838, BMH.
24. Colonel Éamon Broy, Witness Statement 1280, BMH.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. James Leahy, Witness Statement 1,454, BMH.
28. The Times, 10 Dec 1921, cited in http://www.theauxiliaries.com
29. John Sharkey, Witness Statement 1,100, BMH.
30. Maurice Meade, Witness Statement 891, BMH.
31. Donal McMahon, ‘The Story of a Thurles RIC Man’, Tipperary Star, 28 Dec 2011.
32. Éamon de Valera to Michael Collins, 15 Jul 1921, No. 139, UCDA P150/151. Vol I, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, http://www.difp.ie
33. Seán Moylan, Witness Statement 838, BMH, 1913–21.
34. Ibid.
35. Fearghal McGarry, Eoin O’Duffy, A Self-Made Hero, pp. 76–7.
36. Cal McCarthy, Cumann na Mban, Cork, 2007, p. 280.
12: The War of the Brothers
1. Denis Quille, quoted in O’Malley, The Men Will Talk, p. 385.
2. Treaty debate, 19 Dec 1921.
3. Treaty debate, 6 Jan 1922.
4. Treaty debate, 20 Dec 1921.
5. Treaty debate, 9 Jan 1922.
6. Speech at Killarney, 17 Mar 1922.
7. Yorkshire Post, 3 Jul 1922.
8. Northern Whig, 3 Jul 1922.
9. Tom Doyle, The Civil War in Kerry, Cork, 2008, p. 15.
10. Letter from Edward Sheehy, 31 Jan 1923, to Board of Investigators, Department of Defence, Dublin, MSPC.
11. Letter to Mr E. Sheehy, Officer I/C Personal Services, Office of Adjutant General, 14 Feb 1923, MSPC.
12. New York Times, 28 Jul 1922.
13. New York Times, 30 Jul 1922.
14. Ibid.
15. Cork Examiner, 26 Jul 1922, cited in Doyle, The Civil War in Kerry, p. 112.
16. Major General P. O’Daly, Witness Statement 387, BMH.
17. Cited in Calton Younger, Ireland’s Civil War, London, 1979, p. 488.
18. Ibid.
19. National Army communiqué, in Weekly Freeman, 12 Aug 1922.
20. Cited in Doyle, The Civil War in Kerry, p. 127.
21. General Emmet Dalton interviewed in Robert Kee, Ireland, A Television History, Pt 10.
22. John O’Connell in ibid.
23. Moss Twomey Papers, p/69/93 (177), UCD Archives cited in Denis O’Neill and the Road to Béal na Bla, MSPC.
24. Department of Defence Intelligence Report, 9 Apr 1924, MSPC.
25. Peter Hart, Mick: The Real Michael Collins, London, 2005, p. 403.
26. ‘Address to the Army on the Death of Michael Collins’, 22 Aug 1922.
27. Michael Laffan, Judging W. T. Cosgrave, Dublin, p. 124.
28. National Library of Ireland, MS36, 251/26 18 Apr 1922.
29. National Library of Ireland, MS36, 251/29 16 Sep 1922.
30. ‘
The New Horror,’ Freeman’s Journal, 11 Dec 1922.
31. Irish Military Archives, CW/OPS/3/C. cited in Gemma M. Clark, Fire, Boycott, Threat and Harm: Social and Political Violence within the Local Community – A Study of Three Munster Counties during the Irish Civil War, 1922–23, doctoral thesis, The Queen’s College, Oxford, 2010. See also Gemma M. Clark, Everyday Violence in the Irish Civil War, Cambridge, 2014.
32. A letter from the Judge Advocate General to Mulcahy, 12 Dec 1922, U. C. D. Archives, Mulcahy papers, P7/B/101 (29. cited in Timothy Murphy Breen, The Government’s Executions Policy during the Irish Civil War 1922–1923, doctoral thesis, National University of Ireland, 2010.
33. May Ahern, MSPC, 24 May 1940.
34. Wireless message from Paddy O‘Daly to Richard Mulcahy, 19 Jan 1923 (M.A., Irish Civil War Operational/Intelligence Reports, Box 16/10), cited in Timothy Murphy Breen, The Government’s Executions Policy during the Irish Civil War, 1922–23, doctoral thesis, National University of Ireland, 2010.
35. Northern Whig, 27 Jan 1923.
36. Ernie O’Malley, The Men Will Talk to Me, p. 1825.
37. Seamus O’Connor, Tomorrow Was Another Day, p. 89.
38. Dorothy McArdle, Tragedies of Kerry, Dublin, 1924, p. 22.
39. Niall Harrington, Kerry Landing, Cork, 1987, pp. 148–9.
40. IRA report, cited in Breen, The Government’s Execution Policy during the Irish Civil War.
41. Ibid.
42. O’Malley, The Men Will Talk to Me, location 1784.
43. Ernie O’Malley, The Singing Flame, Dublin, 1978, p. 240.
44. O’Malley, The Men Will Talk, pp. 51–2.
45. Ibid., pp. 69–70.
13: A New Ireland
1. Niall Jordan, The Past, London, 1982, p. 22.
2. Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War, Dublin, 1998, p. 391.
3. De Valera to Joe Garrity, 5 Feb 1923, cited in Michael Hopkinson, Ireland’s War of Independence, Dublin, 2014 edn, p. 388.
4. Hopkinson, Green Against Green, p. 389.
5. Cited in Kieran Glennon, The Execution of the Drumbo Martyrs, The Irish Story, http://www.theirishstory.com
6. Seamus O’Connor, Tomorrow Was Another Day, Dublin, 1970, p. 92.
7. National Library of Ireland, MS36, 251/30 6 Jul 1923.
8. Hopkinson, Green Against Green, p. 393.
9. Financial Compensation Claim, 2/8/847, NAI.
10. Financial Compensation Claim, 2/8/253, NAI.
11. Cited in Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912–1985, Cambridge, 1989, p. 98.
12. Richard English, The Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, London, 2003, p. 44.
13. Northern Whig, 29 Nov 1923.
14. Gaughan, Listowel, p. 425.
15. Mary Keane, aunt, in conversation with the author.
16. Northern Whig, 15 May 1934.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Interview with author.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Máirtin Ó Direáin, ‘Strong Beams’, in The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry, edited by Patrick Crotty, London, 2010, p. 666.
23. Éamon de Valera, St Patrick’s Day speech, broadcast on RTÉ, 17 Mar 1943.
24. Marcus Tanner, Ireland’s Holy Wars, New Haven, p. 314.
25. Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland, p. 174.
26. Jack White, Minority Report: The Anatomy of the Southern Irish Protestant, Dublin, 1975, Chapter 8: ‘Part and Parcel’.
27. Cited in Marcus Tanner, Ireland’s Holy Wars, p. 315.
28. The words mean ‘Lest rashly’ and are taken from the opening sentence of the 1907 papal decree which insisted that any marriage between a Catholic and non-Catholic had to be solemnised by a Catholic priest.
29. Theobald Wolfe Tone, Speech from the Dock, 10 November 1798.
30. Senate debate on divorce legislation, 11 Jun 1925.
31. Brian Inglis, ‘No Petty People’, Spectator, 25 October 1957.
32. Eamonn Dillon, correspondence with the author, 7 Jul 2017
33. J. A. Murphy, The Church of Ireland in County Kerry, p. 178.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid, p. 179.
14: Inheritance
1. RTÉ News, 24 Jun 1973.
2. The Good Old IRA: Tan War Operations, Sinn Féin Publicity Department, Dublin, Nov 1985, p. 7.
3. The Good Old IRA, p. 1.
15: Afterwards
1. Cited in The Lost Decade: Ireland in the 1950s, ed. Dermot Keogh, Finbarr O’Shea, Carmel Quinlan, Cork, 2004, p. 16.
2. Ibid.
3. M. Lennon, from the play And All His Songs Were Sad, London, 2006.
4. John B. Keane, Self Portrait, Cork, 1964, p. 17.
5. Fergal Keane, All of These People, London, 2005, pp. 10–11.
6. Correspondence with author, 20 Oct 2016.
7. John B. Keane, ‘My Father’, from The Street and Other Poems, Monument Press, Dublin, 1961.
8. John B. Keane, Big Maggie, Cork, 1969.
9. Files no. MD44630 and MD41314, MSPC.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. MSP34REF32473, MSPC.
13. Conor Keane interview with Gerry Brosnan, 24 Mar 2016.
14. Kerryman, 26 Jun 2013.
15. Keane/Brosnan, 24 Mar 2016.
16. Father Dan Ahern, conversation with author, 26 July 2017.
17. In conversation with author, October 2013.
18. Liam Purtill, 23 Mar 2016.
19. Morgan Flynn, 31 Mar 2016.
Chronology of Major Events
1916
24 April: Easter Rising to establish an independent Republic.
25 April: Martial law declared.
3 May: Executions of the leaders of the Rising begin.
1917
20 June: Kerry prisoners return home from internment after the Rising. Welcome parades in Listowel and Ballybunion.
11 July: Volunteer killed by police during march in Ballybunion.
Dates unknown: Con Brosnan and Mick Purtill join the Irish Volunteers. Volunteer drilling takes place in their home districts of Newtownsandes and Ballydonoghue.
1918
13 April: First raid in Ireland on police barracks takes place in County Kerry. Two Irish Volunteers are killed.
18 April: British government introduces Military Service Bill which seeks to extend conscription to Ireland. The move is widely condemned in Ireland and by Irish MPs at Westminster.
14 December: General election victory for Sinn Féin which increases its number of Westminster seats from 6 to 67.
1919
21 January: Establishment of Dáil Eireann which will provide an underground government for the Revolution. On the same day the IRA ambushes and kills two policemen at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary in what is regarded as the first attack of the War of Independence.
1920
Date unknown: Hannah Purtill goes on active service with Cumann na mBan.
12 March: IRA attacks Ballybunion RIC barracks. Since late 1919, attacks on remote RIC posts have escalated.
25 March: First Black and Tans arrive to augment regular police force.
3 May: RIC sergeant shot dead near Listowel – the first policeman killed in the district in the growing violence.
28 May: North Kerry Volunteer organiser Liam Scully is killed in an attack on Kilmallock RIC barracks in County Limerick. The defence of the barracks is led by Sergeant Tobias O’Sullivan, who is shortly afterwards promoted to District Inspector.
19 June: RIC constables mutiny in Listowel against shoot-to-kill instructions from senior British officer.
27 July: First Auxiliaries start to arrive in Ireland.
September–October: District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan takes up his command in Listowel.
October–November: Violence escalates in north Kerry between the IRA and the RIC and Black and Tans.
22 November: Raid on Ballylongford by regular police
and Black and Tans led by District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan. Volunteer Eddie Carmody killed.
1921
1 January: Clerical student John Lawlor dies after being beaten in public by the Black and Tans in Listowel.
20 January: District Inspector Tobias O’Sullivan is shot dead in Listowel. The town is placed under curfew for three days. Eight men are arrested and two sentenced to death for the killing.
February–July: Violence continues with ambushes, assassinations and the killing of suspected informers. The most notorious acts include the killings of Sir Arthur Vicars at Kilmorna in April – by the IRA – and of three IRA men at Knockanure by the Black and Tans in May.
11 July: Truce comes into force that ends the War of Independence.
6 December: Anglo-Irish Treaty signed.
1922
7 January: Treaty ratified by Dáil by 64 votes to 57, forcing open split in Sinn Féin.
28 June: Civil War begins with the shelling of Republican positions by the new National Army at the Four Courts in Dublin.
29 June: In Listowel National Army forces surrender after day-long exchange of fire with Republicans.
2 August: National Army lands in force at Fenit near Tralee.
3 August: Listowel falls to National Army.
22 August: Michael Collins killed by Republicans in County Cork.
15 October: Emergency Powers Act allows for execution of all caught in possession of arms.
30 November: In retaliation for Emergency Powers Act the IRA leadership issues order to kill members of Dáil who voted for the legislation as well as hostile judges and newspaper editors opposed to Republicans.
7 December: Pro-Treaty member of the Dáil is killed and colleague wounded by IRA.
8 December: The Free State government executes four senior Republicans in retaliation.
1923
6 March: Five Free State soldiers killed by IRA mine in Knocknagoshel, north Kerry.
7 March: Nine Republican prisoners taken to Ballyseedy Cross and tied to landmine. Eight are killed.
14 March: Two Listowel men executed by Free State in County Donegal.
10 April: IRA leader Liam Lynch killed in the Galtee Mountains.
18 April: IRA Column surrounded at Clashmealcon Caves in last significant fight of the Civil War in north Kerry. The leader of the Column is killed and several survivors are subsequently executed.
30 April: The IRA calls a ceasefire.
24 May: IRA leadership tells Volunteers to dump arms and go home.
Glossary
Auxies: Their formal name was the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary. They were recruited from the ranks of former military officers who had served in the Great War. The majority of these men had obtained their commissions from the ranks. Around 2,000 served in Ireland where, like the Black and Tans, they earned a reputation for brutality and ill-discipline.
