MY FIGHT FOR IRISH FREEDOMCHAPTER I.A VOLUNTEER’S TRAINING
“A soldier’s life is the life for me,A soldier’s death, so Ireland’s free.”—Davis.
“A soldier’s life is the life for me,A soldier’s death, so Ireland’s free.”—Davis.
“A soldier’s life is the life for me,A soldier’s death, so Ireland’s free.”
“A soldier’s life is the life for me,
A soldier’s death, so Ireland’s free.”
—Davis.
—Davis.
It was in 1914 that I first joined the Irish Volunteers in the village of Donohill, some four miles from Tipperary town. At that time I was about twenty years of age. I soon became known to the local police as the “Sinn Feiner,” then a very rare sort of animal. At a later stage in my career the same people, I believe, conferred upon me the still higher title of “Prince of the Assassins”! But I must beg the reader’s patience while I briefly outline the position in Ireland the year the Great War began.
The British Parliament had passed its Home Rule Bill for Ireland. The Orange minority in theNorth of Ireland declared it would resist any attempt to enforce that Bill or to set up a Parliament in Dublin. Supported financially and morally by the wealthiest section of the English Tory Party, the Orangemen openly organised, drilled and armed a Volunteer Army to defy the British Parliament.
At this time Sinn Fein as a political policy was little known outside of Dublin City. The spokesmen of the great majority of the Irish people were the Parliamentarians led by John Redmond. But a few of the intellectual leaders, such as Pearse and MacNeill, whose political influence then counted for little, saw in the action of the Orange Volunteers an excellent example to the rest of Ireland. They called on the Nationalists to form a Volunteer Army. The tradition of the Fenians still lived. Many who cared little for the Home Rule Bill saw that we now had got the opportunity for which they wished. Ireland answered the call, and when the Great War broke out there were in Ireland three armies, though very different in equipment and in outlook. One was the British Army of Occupation; the other was the Orange Volunteer Army in the North; and the third was the Irish Volunteer Force. Consequently, when the Great War broke out Redmond and his followers threw in their lot with the British, and appealed for recruits for the British Army. The Orange Volunteers, too, were in whole-hearted sympathy with the British cause. The IrishVolunteers for a time were split and disorganised; thousands joined the British Army; but a small number remained doggedly neutral and loyal to Ireland alone. That small number was not deceived by England’s cant of “fighting for small nations,” and “for the sanctity of treaties.” They were those who believed in an Independent Ireland; and as their best speakers were supporters of the political programme of Sinn Fein, they all gradually became known as “Sinn Fein Volunteers.”
Our little band at Donohill was part of this small minority. We did not give much heed to John Redmond’s call to join the British Army. We continued to drill and train openly, in the hope that the time would come when we might get our chance to strike a blow at the only enemy we recognised—England.
As the war developed we were closely watched by the police. We were known as “pro-Germans.” The majority of the people, carried away by the campaign of lies and calumny in the Press, were in favour of England as against Germany in the war. The aristocracy and the wealthiest merchants and farmers generally supported the movements that were started to provide comforts for the British soldiers in the trenches. But we of the Irish Volunteers—henceforth in using that term I must be understood to mean those who declined to take England’s side in the war—stood aloof. It wasthen that I came into disfavour with the police for my refusal to support their funds for providing comforts for soldiers. I was an employee of the Great Southern and Western Railway, and I have no doubt that they acquainted my superiors with what they regarded as my disloyal tendencies.
It is necessary to explain the nature of this police force. The Royal Irish Constabulary—a body that has now passed into history—was not a police force in the sense understood in other countries. It was a semi-military force, trained to the use of arms, and provided with carbines and rifles. As crime in the ordinary sense was practically unknown in Ireland, the main duty of these men was to spy upon Volunteers and others working for an Independent Ireland. They were known to report even sermons delivered by Irish priests. In all there were then about ten thousand of these police in the country, scattered in small garrisons of two to ten or twenty men, according to the size of the village or town in which they were located. Sprung as they were for the most part from Irish Nationalist families, they were the brain of England’s garrison in Ireland; for they knew the people and they got the information without which England’s 40,000 troops—ignorant alike of the country, its people and its history—would have been of little use.
I now resume my narrative. From the outbreak of the Great War I still continued my daily work,and took no more active part than any ordinary private in the local company of the Irish Volunteers. We met and drilled a few times a week, and tried to pick up a rifle or a revolver now and again; for the Volunteers generally had very few arms at that time.
Thus we continued our routine through 1915, and up to April, 1916. With the Insurrection of 1916 I do not propose to deal here, except to say that owing to the confusion of orders and counter-orders the men of Tipperary got no chance of having their mettle tested. I must, however, remark upon a coincidence in connection with our plans. Part of the duty of the Volunteers of my district was to have been the destroying of an important line of railway communications. For that purpose we were to have seized a quantity of gelignite, then stored by the County Council for blasting purposes in a neighbouring quarry. That quarry was Soloheadbeg, where three years later my comrades and I received our baptism of fire.
The Rising of 1916 changed our whole outlook. The people who had scoffed and sneered at the Sinn Feiners before now swung round to our side. But our military organisation had collapsed. Thousands of our men all over the country were seized and deported to England. The British forces, both police and military, seized what arms they could lay hands upon. We could no longer drill andparade in public; our organisation had been solemnly proclaimed by the British to be an illegal body. For a time we were in confusion and despair. It was only for a very short time, however, for within a few months those who had escaped the meshes of the English military net after the Rising had actually held two secret Conventions in Dublin to re-organise the Volunteers.
After a few months we set to work again. My neighbour and comrade, Sean Treacy, and I decided to make a fresh start, and to put our Volunteer company at work once more. This time, of course, we could not do it openly; we had to work on a secret basis. As it was now considered dangerous to have anything to do with the Irish Volunteers, our numbers were small; but we had better and more determined men. For a while, indeed, there were only three of us.
We met in a little wood after our work twice every week. So we struggled on until May, 1917, when our company had grown to be thirteen strong. Not a man of us possessed any military knowledge, and those in the neighbourhood who could instruct us had either joined the British Army, or could not be trusted to take the risks. Still we got on very well at physical drill, scouting, signalling, revolver practice, close-order drill, and such work. We had to rely mainly on book-work; and by astrange irony the books we found most handy were the official texts supplied to the British troops, the men we were preparing to meet.
Of course, we made mistakes now and again, but our earnestness surmounted many difficulties. Besides, we were often innocent spectators of British drill manœuvres in the locality, and I can assure you we kept our eyes and ears open for tips. If the chance of picking up an odd revolver came our way, we managed to find the money somehow, and added to our little supply of munitions.
The best tribute to our success in the art of military education was paid by the officials of the British Government, who, at a later stage, described our little band as the “crack shots of the I.R.A.” In passing it is well to observe that we ourselves learned that anything in the nature of official statements issued from the British military headquarters at Parkgate Street, Dublin, or from the civil authorities at Dublin Castle, should always be digested with a considerable quantity of salt.
It was in August, 1917, that our little handful of men made its first public parade. By that time the men who had been deported after the Easter Week Insurrection had been released, and all over the country were beginning to do what we had been doing on our own account for nearly a year. In the political arena two bye-elections which had occurred in Roscommon and Longford, resulted in a triumphfor candidates standing for the Republican cause. A few months later still Eamon de Valera, on his release from Lewes Jail, had been invited to contest a Parliamentary vacancy in East Clare. Standing for a Republic, and for declining to attend England’s Parliament, he was elected by a huge majority. Shortly after his election he addressed an enormous meeting in Tipperary town, and we, in the dark green uniforms of the Irish Volunteers, acted as a bodyguard of the man who was shortly afterwards elected President of the Irish Republic. Tipperary was then occupied by a garrison of over one thousand British soldiers, and as our meeting was held almost under the shadow of their barracks we did not carry rifles. Instead we carried hurleys. Now, we were thus, to the amazement of all peaceful people, committing a treble act of defiance against England. In the first place, it was a crime to march in military formation; secondly, it was an even more serious offence to wear uniform; and thirdly, it was violating a special proclamation just issued against the carrying of hurleys.
That proclamation came about in this way. A meeting was being held in Beresford Place, Dublin, one Sunday afternoon to protest against the treatment of Irish prisoners detained by England. The meeting was being addressed by Count Plunkett and Cathal Brugha, when Inspector Mills, of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, with some of his menattempted to prevent the holding of this peaceful meeting of citizens. The meeting included many young men going to or returning from a game of hurling—Ireland’s national pastime. In the melee, which followed the attempt to break up the meeting and to arrest the speakers, the Inspector was struck with a hurley, and received injuries from which he died. Thereupon, Sir Bryan Mahon, then Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in Ireland, issued a proclamation making it illegal to carry hurleys in public. To realise the absurdity of this proclamation one has only to imagine a civilised Government declaring it illegal to carry a walking-stick. The result was what anybody knowing Ireland might expect—hurleys for a time were carried in places where their use was scarcely known, and the British Government became a laughing-stock.
This first military display of ours in Tipperary was not a bigger shock to the enemy than it was to the local Sinn Feiners; for you must understand that by this time public opinion had swung round almost completely in favour of Sinn Fein, and we were burdened with thousands of recruits, who were not in their hearts in favour of any stronger weapons than resolutions. On this occasion many of the local Sinn Feiners were shocked by our audacity in taking the step we did without a solemn discussion, a formal proposition to the meeting, and a long-windedresolution. Such poor souls often hampered us later on, but we didn’t mind. The purely political wing of Sinn Fein criticised us severely, I believe, but we kept silent, just listened to all, and judged our men.