CHAPTER X.SEAN HOGAN CAPTURED.
From Donohill we went to Rossmore, and then on to Rosegreen, and finally into Clonmel—the Headquarters of the R.I.C. for South Tipperary, and a large garrison town. We spent several days in that district, and were not idle. We met the local officers of the I.R.A.—they belonged to our brigade—and found out what plans they had. We did our best to induce them to get things moving more rapidly, and to get on with the real serious work.
One morning while in Clonmel district I had an unusual adventure, not very exciting in its own way, but one that I feared was going to prove more than exciting for me. As I was cycling up Mockler’s Hill at 2 o’clock in the morning, when it was still pitch dark, a cyclist coming in the opposite direction rode right into me. I got the full force of his handle-bars over the heart. I was thrown helplessly to the ground, and vomited a quantity of blood. I thought I was going to die. The prospect of such an ingloriousend did not improve me, nor hasten my recovery. To be killed in action by an enemy bullet was a fate I did not at all dread; but I strongly objected to being killed by the handle-bars of an ordinary, inoffensive push-bicycle, and, to make things worse, I pictured myself being identified by the R.I.C. and kicked into an even worse condition than that in which the cyclist left me. However, my recovery was more rapid than I hoped for. I have always had a bad habit of pulling myself together very quickly. In a short time I was able to mount my bicycle again, and ride to my destination.
On the 10th of May, 1919, we retraced our steps to the village of Rossmore. It was now almost four months since the affair at Soloheadbeg. During that time we had been sleeping where and when we got the chance; sometimes in a barn, sometimes in a cattle-shed, and very seldom in bed. Our health was not any the worse of our hardships. I suppose with time one grows hardened. Even this night when we got to Rossmore we were feeling fit and game, although we had been four nights without any rest. Still, we could do with a few hours’ sleep. Somebody we met mentioned casually to us that there was a dance that night in Eamon O’Duibhir’s house in Ballagh, only a short distance away. We forgot about our weariness; we forgot about our danger. We were young, and had grownaccustomed by now to taking risks, and it was long since we had had the pleasure of a dance or a ceilidhe.
Without a second thought we faced for Ballagh. Soon we were in the thick of the night’s fun. It felt glorious to be back again, even for one night, in the atmosphere of light-hearted gaiety. For nearly two years I had not mingled with a crowd, and here I was now in the midst of a typical Tipperary party. The music was great, and the supper and refreshments were even better. For once we forgot the dark clouds over us; we laughed and talked and danced in the reels and in the sets with the lads and the lassies—in the middle of the Martial Law area, and at a time when probably a dozen British raiding parties were breaking in doors in cottages and farmhouses looking for us.
Of course, the boys and girls all knew us. They, like so many others before and after, had only to slip out, any one of them, go to the nearest police barracks, not two miles away, and earn a thousand pounds by saying where we were. But they never dreamed of such a thing. Neither did we ever dream of suspecting any one in the party, or in any other party of Irish-Irelanders. Every one of them would cut off his hand before he would touch that Saxon gold. Irishmen have many faults, but very, very few informers are bred amongst them.
We danced all through the night, and in the early hours of the morning I returned with a few of the boys to Rossmore. The other three did not come with me; they stayed on for a few more dances, but we had arranged to meet at O’Keeffe’s, of Glenough, where we would have a right good sleep. Shortly after I arrived there Sean Treacy and Seamus Robinson put in an appearance. Sean Hogan did not come with them, but none of us felt a bit uneasy. He had two days to go before he reached his eighteenth birthday, but we knew he was well able to look after himself.
The three of us were about as tired as we could be. What with our five nights without sleep, and the fatigue of a night’s dancing, we could have slept, as Sean said, on a bed of briars. The sight of the cosy bed that had been made ready for us almost made us sleep before we turned into it.
I think Sean Treacy had not finished his rosary before I fell asleep. The next sound I heard was the voice of Patrick Kinnane. It seemed very far off. He was speaking to me I knew, but my eyes refused to open. Then I was brought to my senses. His words lifted me clean out of the bed; I realised the full meaning of his early intrusion: Hogan had been captured by the Peelers!
It would have been very easy for us to believe that “J.J.,” as we called him—his name was John Joseph—had been shot. But to think he wasarrested! I would not believe it. Was Kinnane joking? I turned to Sean Treacy, for he too was on his feet by now, and I read the truth in his face.
I would have given a fortune for a few hours more of sleep. I never felt so tired and weary in my life. Robinson and Treacy were just as bad. But the thought of “J.J.” in the enemy’s clutches brought us quickly to our senses. Without a moment’s hesitation we made our decision. Our faces rather than our words conveyed to one another what was in our minds. We must rescue Hogan, or die in the attempt, and we knew that had any one of us been in Hogan’s position his decision would have been the same.
Quickly we got what information there was of his capture. He left the dance soon after us. Before he had gone far he was surrounded by ten stalwart policemen. He carried his gun, of course, as we all did, but he never got a chance to use it. It was not until a year later that the British invented the happy trick of shooting prisoners “while attempting to escape.” If that fashion had then existed “J.J.” would not be with us to-day, nor would there have been much use in planning to rescue him that night.
Our first trouble was to locate him. At that time murders of innocent people had not yet come into fashion, but Martial Law made people more careful, and few ventured out late at night or early in themorning because of the certainty of being held up and questioned and probably arrested by the British, who patrolled the roads at all hours of the night and day. Hence we found on our first enquiry that no one had seen whither Hogan’s escort had departed. They might have faced for any one of half a dozen garrisons—Thurles, Tipperary, or Cashel, for instance. To be thus left in ignorance of where to lay our plans was almost maddening, and we knew that every hour that passed made the danger greater, and that he would soon be removed to a place beyond our reach. Gladly, I believe, would any one of the three of us have taken the place of our youngest comrade. Now that he was gone from us we suddenly discovered all his excellent points of character, though we were never in the habit of paying him compliments while he was with us.
We searched and enquired everywhere. We sent messengers on bicycles in all likely directions to endeavour to pick up a trail. But his captors had got too big a start. We were almost in despair when at last we got on the scent: we traced him to Thurles police barracks.
To attempt to rescue him from that place would have been worse than madness. It would have been as easy to storm the gates of hell. Thurles is a fairly large town, and had a big garrison of both police and military. The barrack wasstrongly fortified, and the peelers were always on the alert. Their positions made alertness essential. They were in the middle of an area that was soon to become the centre of active warfare, and they were on the main road from Dublin to Cork. There was never the slightest hope of rushing the barracks or of effecting an entrance by a ruse, and besides, we knew that the presence of Sean Hogan in their stronghold would make them all the more careful, for they knew he was one of the four men wanted for the attack at Soloheadbeg. The bits of information they had picked up, and our disappearance from the locality made it certain to them from the first day that we were in that adventure.
But there was one gleam of hope. We knew he would not be kept long in Thurles. Prisoners were only kept in these local stations for a day or two while the preliminary enquiries and remands were being gone through. Then they were transferred to one of the largest prisons—Mountjoy, Cork, Maryboro’, Dundalk or Belfast. In the case of Tipperary men, and indeed men from all over Munster, Cork was generally the destination. The odds were ten to one that in a day or two Sean Hogan would be taken by train from Thurles to Cork.
Our plans were quickly completed. We would go to Emly, intercept the escort, hold up the train and rescue our comrade. We chose Emly for manyreasons. It was a small station, and there were no soldiers convenient; the police we did not particularly mind. It was in the heart of a district with which we were familiar, and in which we had many friends. It almost touched the borders of three counties, and consequently increased our chances of evading pursuit, since the enemy would not easily discover whether we retreated to the mountains, to North Cork, to South Tipperary, or to East Limerick. Above all, we had faith in many of the boys from the neighbouring village of Galbally.
But holding up a train and making arrangements for the removal of our rescued companion, and for our own escape, are not operations that can be carried out by three men. We needed help; we must get reinforcements. We at once secured the services of a special Volunteer despatch-rider; for, naturally, neither telegrams nor telephones were to be thought of. To trust these means of communication would be the same as to send the British word of our plans. Our first care was to send full details of our plans to the Acting Commandant of the Tipperary town Battalion, with orders to send us the reinforcements. Emly would be only seven miles, less than an hour’s cycle run, from Tipperary town.
Hurriedly we decided on our course of action, and made our preparations. Ned Reilly and the O’Keeffe brothers gave us every help in laying our plans before we left Thurles.
Having completed these arrangements we left the town of Thurles at 11 o’clock on the morning of May 12th, 1919. Our hearts were sad, but we still had hopes, and our blood was boiling with anger, anxiety and excitement.
J. J. HOGAN.
J. J. HOGAN.
Mounted on our bicycles the three of us faced for Emly. Except for the hour’s sleep after the dance we had now been five nights without a rest. In the ordinary course Emly would have been only some thirty miles from us, but for obvious reasons we had to avoid the main roads, and could not pass near Tipperary town. We covered nearly fifty miles on that journey, over rough and uneven roads. It was one of the toughest rides we ever did. The journeys that Sean Treacy and I had done to and from Dublin were less wearisome. As we approached Donohill, Seumas Robinson’s bicycle was put out of action. We had neither the time nor the means to try to repair it on the roadside, but we had faithful friends. Patrick O’Dwyer, of Donohill, whose wife was a first cousin of Sean Hogan’s, put a new bicycle at our disposal, and we resumed our journey. Our fatigue was telling on us. We could have fallen off the bicycles and slept by the roadside, but the excitement and our sense of loyalty to our comradekept up our strength. At Oola we actually fell asleep on our bicycles, but again we bestirred ourselves, and on we went doggedly, up hill and down dale with our teeth set and our minds fixed on rescue or death. We made a detour to the right, through the Martial Law area, and over the border into County Limerick, through the historic village of Cullen, and on to Ballyneety, past the ruins of the old castle, on the very same road that Patrick Sarsfield took on that moonlight night three hundred and thirty years before, when his sabre brought terror to Dutch William’s troops. It was a strange coincidence that we who now rode on a similar errand of death or glory were Tipperary outlaws, just as was Galloping Hogan, the man who made Sarsfield’s exploit possible that night. And we were going to rescue another Tipperary outlaw of the same name and clan.
While Sean Treacy was reminding us of these pages of history—for he loved his Irish history—we were interrupted by a dull thud, and looking round we saw that poor Robinson had fallen off his bicycle and was fast asleep by the roadside. We had to keep moving, time was precious, and the three of us mounted again and reached Emly at half-past three on the morning of May 13th. On the way we had stopped once or twice to complete our plans, and to perfect our intelligence arrangements. Oncewe got a rude shock when a bomb dropped from Robinson’s pocket, and for a moment we thought we were being attacked.
At Lackelly we called upon our old friends, the Maloneys, and right heartily we were welcomed. When we were discussing our plans, while enjoying a warm and much needed breakfast, May Maloney offered her services in any way she could help, and gladly we accepted her offer. She became our despatch rider for the occasion, and I do not know how we could have got along without her help. It was she who went to Thurles that morning, and sent us word that Hogan was still there. The Maloneys’ house, by the way, was later destroyed by the Black and Tans, and both May Maloney and her brother Dan were imprisoned during the recent war.
By 10 o’clock on the morning of May 13th, we had completed all arrangements for the rescue of Sean Hogan.