CHAPTER XXIII.EXECUTIONS AND REPRISALS.
While I was lying in the Mater my faithful comrade, Sean Treacy, was never idle. His main concern during this time was to be ever on the watch for my safety. And that Thursday evening, 14th October, 1920, he learned that the hospital was surrounded.
Without a moment’s delay he went to Headquarters to seek a rescue party of which he himself would be one. His request was granted, and within an hour he and other trusty comrades were busy mobilising their men. In his zeal to undertake a desperate task for my safety he forgot about himself. He went openly through the principal streets—and was shadowed. I cannot say for certain, but I have a firm conviction that the man who traced him was the same man who, three days before, had traced us to Drumcondra.
Sean had almost completed the arrangements for the rescue when he went to the “Republican Outfitters,” in Talbot Street, where he was to havea few final details settled. That place was a drapery establishment owned by Tom Hunter, T.D., and Peadar Clancy. It was perhaps the best known centre in which I.R.A. men met from time to time, or delivered messages, though it was so closely watched that it was never advisable to delay there long.
When Sean arrived in the shop he found George and Jack Plunkett, sons of Count Plunkett, T.D., and both members of the Headquarters Staff. With them were Joe Vyse and Leo Henderson, officers of the Dublin Brigade, who had been holding a hurried meeting.
Peadar Clancy, who left the shop, accompanied by a lady friend, had only reached the Nelson Pillar, two hundred yards away, when he saw a military raiding party dash from O’Connell Street into Talbot Street, and at once suspected that the shop was going to be raided. But he had no chance of giving word to the boys. It would take the military less than two minutes to reach the shop. Sean, who was standing near the door, was the first to see the enemy approach. Two or three others had to face the front and take their chances of evading the British.
The lorries pulled up at the door. One of those in the shop immediately ran from the door to the street. A soldier sprang from the lorry to intercept him. Just at the same time an Auxiliary Intelligenceofficer, whose name was given as “Christian,” and who was in civilian clothes, jumped from the first lorry and shouted “That is not he. Here is the man we want”—rushing towards Sean Treacy, who was in the act of throwing his leg across the bicycle which he had left outside the door.
Sean saw he was cornered and pulled his gun. It was a hopeless fight from the first, but like the man that he was Sean Treacy fought till he was riddled.
The whole contingent of British troops and Auxiliaries, regardless even of their own comrade who was in grips with Sean, turned their rifles and machine gun on the man they feared. They killed Sean and three civilians who came in the line of fire, but Sean had left “Christian” dangerously wounded before he fell himself.
Thus died the greatest Irishman of our generation. He gave his life to save his comrades. It was not the first time he had offered to do it.
I have no hesitation in declaring that Sean Treacy was not only the noblest patriot of our time, but the greatest military genius of our race. It is a big claim to make for a man who died before he was 28 years of age, and who had had none of the training that we associate with military leaders of fame and reputation. The world has since acknowledged that the tactics adopted by the I.R.A. in its guerilla warfare with the British were inspiredby genius of the highest order. I assert now for my dead comrade that the most brilliant of these tactics for which others were given credit, were the product of Sean Treacy’s active brain. He gave the hints; others elaborated them. He died with a smile on his countenance—the noblest patriot, the bravest man, and the cleanest and most honourable soldier I have ever known.
I knew nothing of the fight in Talbot Street for days afterwards. I am not given either to superstition or to flights of imagination, but so sure as I pen these lines so sure am I that I knew that Thursday afternoon that Sean Treacy was dead. He stood at the foot of my bed, with a calm smile on his countenance.
That evening Mick Collins came to see me. My first question was: “Where is Sean?” I was yet too ill to be told the bitter truth. Mick turned his eyes from mine and replied: “He is out in the country.”
Not for ten days did I hear the full story. From Ship Street Barracks, whither his body had been taken by the British, the remains of Sean Treacy were taken to his native Tipperary, where they were received with honour and reverence that no king could claim. From Soloheadbeg Church, where he had knelt in prayer as a child, the body of Tipperary’s pride was taken through the town of Kilfeacle. Never before had such honours beengiven to a dead Tipperaryman. The British seemed to fear him in death, for their armed ghouls sought to interfere with the funeral. The day was observed as a day of general mourning in South Tipperary, and the funeral procession was several miles long. Scarce an eye was dry that day.
The country will not soon forget Sean Treacy. His grave at Kilfeacle has become a place of pilgrimage, and his name will rank with those who stand highest in the roll of our people’s soldiers and patriots.
The following Friday night I was removed from the Mater Hospital by Gearoid O’Sullivan and Rory O’Connor. Gearoid O’Sullivan was later Adjutant-General of the Free State Army. Rory O’Connor, with his comrades Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey, was executed in Mountjoy Jail on the 8th December, 1922, by order of the Free State Government, as a reprisal for the shooting of Sean Hales.
These two accompanied me in a motor to the house of a lady doctor on the south side of the city. It was felt that the Mater was no longer a safe place for me, though I shall always think with gratitude of the devoted care I received from every member of the staff, particularly Surgeon Barnaville and the nuns. It must not be forgotten that at this time the British had issued orders that any doctor or nurse who attended a patient for gunshotwounds was at once to report the case to the Castle. The object was to trace men who were in a position similar to mine. To their credit be it said that the members of the medical profession, irrespective of their personal political views, absolutely declined to carry out these orders.
At my new resting-place I was again carefully tended, and my wounds began to heal rapidly. After a few days I was able to get out of bed for a short time every day.
A week after my arrival at this house another exciting incident took place. The whole block in which my hostess lived was surrounded. Once more, I thought, they were on my trail. From my window I saw the troops taking up their positions. I rushed to the skylight—for skylights had often before proved useful to me. Just as I got to the skylight I saw an Auxiliary outside on the roof with a rifle in his hand.
This time, I concluded, there was no chance for me. I was to be caught like a rat in a trap. I went to the front window again. Outside was a line of khaki and steel. Beyond that was a throng of curious sightseers. Some, I suppose, were full of anxiety and fear lest any soldier of Ireland should be caught in the trap. Others no doubt were proud of the Empire’s Army, and hoping it would gain another little laurel.
As my eyes travelled along the line of spectatorsI saw the figure of Mick Collins. Later I learned why he was there. He had seen the troops moving in the direction of the district in which I was being nursed, and had actually collected a few of the boys to be ready to attempt a rescue.
Their services were not needed. The soldiers raided almost every house in the locality, including the house next door, but never came into the place where I was. All the same I felt grateful to Mick. As I have already explained, he was the only member of G.H.Q. who stood by us consistently.
It was considered advisable to remove me again. I was taken to Dun Laoghaire to the house of Mrs. Barry early in November, 1920. Miss O’Connor and Miss Mason were both constant nurses of mine while I was there and my recovery became rapid. I had been there only three or four days when almost every house in the avenue was raided, except that of Mrs. Barry. Evidently the British spies were hitting the trail but losing the scent.
I was in Dun Laoghaire on “Bloody Sunday,” November 21st. On that morning fourteen British Intelligence officers were shot dead in their lodgings in Dublin by our men. These officers, living the lives of ordinary civilians in private houses, were really spies, and the brains of the British Intelligence Department at that time. In every land spies pay the death penalty during war, and even the British Ministers of the time justified all their actions bysaying they were “at war with Ireland.” But there could not be one set of war rules for their men and another for ours.
The operation was one of the most successful carried out in Dublin. The I.R.A., however, suffered some losses. Frank Teeling was captured and sentenced to death, but escaped from Kilmainham Jail before the sentence was carried out. Paddy Moran was later captured and tried for taking part in one of these executions although he was four miles from the scene. He was hanged in Mountjoy early in 1921. I knew poor Paddy well. I first met him at the home of my friend Mrs. O’Doherty in Connaught Street, Dublin. He was a lovable character, and a faithful soldier of Ireland.
There were two terrible reprisals that day for the execution of the fourteen spies.
In broad daylight the same afternoon hundreds of soldiers and Black and Tans drove to Croke Park where 10,000 people, who had not even heard of the shootings that morning, were witnessing a football match between Tipperary and Dublin.
Surrounding the grounds the British without warning poured volley after volley into the crowd, killing seventeen people and wounding about fifty. That crime was, perhaps, the most diabolical of which England had been guilty.
Another incident of “Bloody Sunday” had, however, a sadder personal touch for me. Thatwas the murder of Peadar Clancy and Dick McKee. They had been captured by the enemy shortly before, and were murdered in Dublin Castle as a reprisal for the shooting of the officers. Of course, Sir Hamar Greenwood, or his chief manufacturer of lies at the Castle, invented one of their usual explanations that they attacked the guard and attempted to escape. Fancy two highly intelligent officers attempting to attack an armed guard in the heart of a fortress from which a mouse could not escape! An independent medical examination showed that the two I.R.A. men were subjected to the most incredible tortures before they were done to death.
Mick Collins and Tom Cullen (later A.D.C. to the new Free State Governor-General) arranged for this medical examination, and also for the lying-in-state of the two bodies at the Pro-Cathedral. I mention this to their credit, for few members of G.H.Q. staff would have ventured so much in public at that time of danger and uncertainty.
Poor Dick and Peadar! They were two of our bravest officers and two of our staunchest supporters of the intensive war policy. They lived only five weeks after Sean, and did not even get a chance of dying fighting like him. A County Clare Volunteer named Conor Clune was murdered on the same occasion in the Castle.