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Carlow County - Ireland Genealogical Projects (IGP TM)
Bushwhacked |
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Bushwhacked
Carlow Flying Column, April 1921
On the 21st of April 1921, Pádraig Kane, an adjutant in the
Carlow IRA Brigade, received news of the worst kind and
hurried to where the Brigade O/C Eamon Malone was staying.
Kane’s expression alone was enough for Malone, who had been
settling down with a cup of tea, to ask: “What disaster has
happened now?” It was an apt response to a catastrophic
intelligence failure and a crushing defeat.[1]
The Carlow Brigade had struggled with the same difficulties
that had beset many of the others throughout the country.
From its formation in 1917 and the triggering of the War of
Independence in early 1919, the Carlow Brigade had
struggled with the same difficulties that had beset many of
the others throughout the country: maintaining manpower and
morale against constant shortages of weapons and
ammunition, while surviving the attentions of an entrenched
British army and the increasingly militarised Royal Irish
Constabulary (RIC).
The Brigade responded with a cautious approach, with
planned operations cancelled at the first hint of
unexpected difficulty. In June 1920, a three-man team from
the Tullow Company was to meet up with their commanding
officer before holding up the RIC in the nearby barracks,
but when the officer failed to show, the attempt was called
off. [2] Similarly, a proposed assault by several
battalions on Bagenalstown Barracks in early 1921 was
aborted when poor coordination and planning made the
possibility of success unlikely. [3]
Crown forces adopted a wariness of their own: the men of
the 1st battalion lay in ambush along the back road between
Carlow town and Bagenalstown for an anticipated enemy
patrol, but after hours of waiting the target never came.
[4] Likewise, an attack planned by the 4th battalion in
Borris in September 1920 was thwarted when the targeted RIC
patrol broke its usual routine and did not come as
expected. [5]
Forming the Column
It was to break this impasse that the flying column was
formed as a small, dedicated body of men who would be
well-armed and mobile enough to take the fight to the
enemy.
As many of its members were already on the run, they would
not have had to adjust their lives by much. Leading the
column was Laurence O’Neill, a Tipperary émigré who had
already held a number of ranks in the Carlow Brigade and
was thus considered sufficiently experienced.
The newly established column began its training in the area
near Killeshin, on the borders of Leix and Kilkenny. The
hilly, uninviting terrain would help deter unwanted
attention while the column based itself in an empty
farmhouse, relying on local people for food.
The Carlow flying column was set up in late 1920, made of
local men on the run from the British authorities.
It was at this time that a Black-and-Tan named James Duffy
was shot at while leaving a pub in plainclothes and with a
civilian companion, Harry James. Duffy was killed and James
badly wounded. The assumption was that Duffy had been
investigating the area with the other man as his guide and
spy. It is unknown whether the men of the column had been
the ones who had killed Duffy but, as they were residing
nearby at the time, it is a strong possibility.[6]
Preparing the Column
The column had hoped to christen its campaign with an
attack on Bagenalstown Barracks, which had only recently
avoided an earlier assault without knowing it. The attack
was to be in unison with men from the 4th battalion, with
the 1st and 3rd battalions assisting in securing all roads
to Bagenalstown in order to stave off any enemy
reinforcements. As with many of the proposed operations by
the Carlow Brigade, it was cancelled, this time due to the
inopportune arrival of British reinforcements in Crossley
lorries before the roads could be blocked, prompting the
column and the battalions to prudently withdraw.[7]
According to Kane, the column planned another attack on
Bagenalstown Barracks. But with the lack of explosives with
which to breach its walls and in the absence of an expert
to make them, the plan was yet again called off, making
Bagenalstown one of the luckiest barracks in the War.
However, it is uncertain as to whether Kane was confusing
this foiled attempt in his Statement with the one above.[8]
The column moved north to the townland of Mullinagown on
the 19th of April, in the territory of the 4th battalion of
the Carlow Brigade, where it billeted in an unoccupied
house. From there, the column intended to join up with its
North Wexford counterpart, then in the neighbouring
Blackstairs Mountains, and sent two scouts ahead to make
contact, but fog made that task impossible and ensured that
the column would remain by itself.[9]
Losing the Column
What happened two days later was headlined in The Carlow
Nationalist as: ENGAGEMENT IN CO. CARLOW – FIVE STATED TO
BE KILLED. Quoting a report from the British military GHQ:
A patrol of Crown forces surprised an armed party of
civilians drilling near Ballymurphy, County Carlow, on
Monday evening. An engagement ensued resulting in some
(believed to be five) of the rebels being killed, two
wounded and six captured.
Eleven rifles, one shot-gun, several revolvers, a quantity
of rifle and dun-dun ammunition.
The Crown forces suffered no causalities.[10]
In fact, four had been killed. One member of the
aforementioned armed party, Michael Fay, had previously
served in the British army for three and a half years, as
part of which he had seen action in the trenches of France.
He had lived with his parents in Rathvilly, Co Carlow, for
some years after moving there from Dublin, and was
described by the article as “very popular in the district.”
His funeral was to receive a considerable turnout by
Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and ex-servicemen, and in
keeping with the diverse range of people Fay had known, his
tricolour-draped coffin was born by both Volunteers and
ex-servicemen.
In April 1921 the Carlow column was all but wiped out in an
engagement at Ballymurphy, with four killed and eight
captured.
Fay was the only one of the dead who had been definitely
connected with the day’s fighting. Of the other three, all
unnamed in the article, one had been an old man of
sixty-two. It was unknown if the remaining two had been
with the armed party, but they had been running with them
at the time of their deaths.
On a seemingly unrelated note, another article in the
newspaper was titled: SHOCKING AFFAIR NEAR MOUNTRATH –
YOUNG MAN SHOT DEAD – ROBBERY THE ALLEGED MOTIVE. It was
not a story that was obviously related to that of the
previously described engagement, and was treated by the
Nationalist as entirely separate. Only decades later would
there be a direct connection made between the two.[11]
The Court-Martial of the Column
It would not be until July, over two months later, that the
court-martial for the prisoners took place. Held in the
Curragh, it centred on the testimony of an (unnamed by the
attending Nationalist reporter) British officer who had
been leading the Crown forces in the capture of the column.
It is the only first-hand account of what happened. As it
was tailored to be heard in court, it is far from a
complete source, but it does provide a solid, step-by-step
version of events.
The eight men in the dock were facing six separate charges
relating to possession and use of illegal firearms, and so
the testimony at the court-martial took the time to focus
on details such as when the suspects were believed to have
opened fire, the number of weapons found on the scene, the
state of the guns as to whether or not they had been
recently fired, and other points relating to the
charges.[12]
Unfortunately, no surviving member of the column submitted
a Statement to the BMH, depriving historians of an
insider’s perspective. The closest we have are the BMH
Statements of Pádraig Kane and Thomas Ryan, an intelligence
officer in the 4th battalion, which flesh out a number of
details. Neither was present at the scene, and both were
presumably reliant on hearing about it from the survivors
afterwards.
The 8 captured IRA men were tried by court martial at the
military base at the Curragh.
However, the two of them match each other and the
court-martial account in such details as the column being
surprised as it was drilling in a field. Incredibly, no one
in the column had thought to post sentries. Historian
William Nolan felt the need to offer “extenuating
circumstances for their apparent negligence,” in that the
column men had been anticipating the arrival of a GHQ
representative “and could reasonably expect the whole area
to be on the alert.” Reasonably or otherwise, the column
members were to be very much mistaken in their
complacency.[13]
The Fight of the Column
An IRA training camp at Duckett's Grove, Carlow including
OC Liam Stack and Adjutant James Byrne. (Courtesy Irish
Volunteers website).
An IRA training camp at Duckett’s Grove, Carlow including
OC Liam Stack and Adjutant James Byrne. (Courtesy Irish
Volunteers website).
The Crown force consisted of six soldiers and seven
Black-and-Tans along with two officers, one senior and the
other junior. Driving in on the scene on two Crossley
lorries, the patrol rapidly disembarked and opened fire on
the Volunteers, about 200-250 yards away, who fled without
returning fire.
The Crown forces gave chase in two squads and, after 100
yards, the squad with the lead officer spotted the column
men moving along a hedge, presumably for the cover, and
opened fire again. The lead squad advanced up a laneway
where they re-joined the other group, catching sight of the
suspects from time to time who were making no attempt at
that stage to shoot back.
Upon reaching a certain point, the senior officer saw the
IRA men split into two groups moving in opposite
directions, at which point the Crown forces followed suit
and continued the chase, one squad for each half of the
column. The lead British squad opened fire again, and the
officer was sure that the suspects were returning fire this
time, for he “could hear the crack of rifles which [he]
knew did not come from behind [him].”
From the court martial evidence and statements given by IRA
veterans to the Bureau of Military History, it is possible
to put together what happened at the Ballymurphy ambush.
Emboldened by the poor aim of the enemy, the lead squad
pressed on, coming across four of the suspects – Patrick
Gaffney, Patrick Fitzpatrick, James and Michael Behan –
lying on the ground with their hands up, their rifles
discarded nearby, with two more men – Laurence O’Neill and
Thomas Behan – in a similar position of submission. Upon
taking these six men prisoner, the squad met up with the
other, who had two prisoners of their own: Michael Ryan and
William McKenna.
Two other column members, William Gaffney and a Fitzpatrick
(first name unstated) were able to escape in the confusion,
making the total number of the column at the time of its
loss to have been eleven men: eight captured, two escaped
and one killed.[14]
The captives were transported under guard to Borris
Barracks on the Crossleys where O’Neill and McKenna
received treatment for their injuries. The victorious
patrol then returned to the scene of the fight and
uncovered a number of rifles, Webley pistols and shotguns
with their accompanying ammunition in the house next to the
field where the suspects had been found drilling. Explosive
substances and an unexploded bomb were also found in the
house. Clearly, the column had been hoping to make up for
its past failed attempt on Bagenalstown Barracks.
Michael Fay
Three dead men were found on the scene, according to the
officer’s testimony, two in a house and the other in a
field, the latter identified in court as Michael Fay. He
had been killed by shotgun wounds, according to an earlier
Court of Inquiries, though Thomas Ryan was to describe in
his BMH Statement that Fay had been bayoneted to death
while on the ground, already wounded from gunshots, so that
“several parts of his hands and his teeth were scatted
round.”[15]
This was to become a sensitive point for the senior officer
under testimony, with him denying that he had seen any
bayonet wounds on Fay’s body, either at the scene or
afterwards, upon being asked about it by the counsel for
the defence, A. Wood. Sensing an opening, Wood pressed the
officer over whether the wounds on Fay’s arm were caused by
gunshots or a bayonet, with the officer maintaining the
former.
When it was his turn to testify, the junior officer denied
seeing how Fay died, only that the squad under his command
had found Fay when he was already dead, the implication
being that he had been killed at a distance in the
firefight, and not up close while already wounded as Wood
was clearly implying.
Counting the Dead
Of the three other fatalities, none were mentioned at the
court-material, presumably because their deaths were not
relevant to the trial of the accused. According to Thomas
Ryan, two of the dead had been brothers, James and Peter
Farrell, and both had been shot and bayoneted near where
the column had been overwhelmed. In Ryan’s version, they
were sowing corn in their field when the fight began, and
had been attempting to reach the column in order to warn
them – to Ryan, that was the only explanation, as they
would have had no other reason to go in that direction, it
being opposite from their home. According to Pádraig Kane,
both brothers had no relation to the fight and were
innocent victims of circumstances.[16]
It is alleged that 4 men killed by British forces were
bayoneted or shot while wounded. In addition three of the
dead killed in this way were mere civilian bystanders.
In either case, there was no question as to the
harmlessness of the third bystander, identified by Thomas
Ryan as 62-year-old Michael Ryan (no relation, presumably).
According to Thomas Ryan, Michael’s son John was a
Volunteer who was leaving home with IRA dispatches to his
company captain when he was chanced upon by one of the
patrol squads, which opened fire and forced him back in.
Ignoring his son’s warning to stay inside, Michael Ryan
went out for a bucket of water and was found dead by John
at the pump with a bullet-wound to the face.[17]
It is unclear as to whether the Farrell brothers and
Michael Ryan were killed by stray shots or deliberately
gunned down, perhaps mistaken for members of the fleeing
column, whose lack of uniforms would have made unlucky
civilians indistinguishable from combatants. In any case,
the testimonies of the two officers at the court-martial,
which strove to portray the conduct of themselves and their
men as models of cool, dispassionate efficiency, only told
part of the story.
The Fall-Out from the Column
Two days after the disaster of the column, on the 23rd of
April 1921, Michael Byrne, a man in his early 30s, was shot
to death while returning home from visiting neighbours. The
best motive that could be guessed at for anyone wanting
harm on a member of a “very popular” farming family was
robbery, as he had recently come into possession of £100
and was known to have kept the money on him.[18]
A local man, Michael Byrne, was killed shortly after the
ambush, probably as a suspected informer in the wake of the
ambush.
Writing over thirty decades later, both Pádraig Kane and
Thomas Ryan told of the death of a spy they had blamed for
exposing the column to ambush and defeat. In Ryan’s BMH
Statement, his name had been Finn, and he had led the
British patrol to the site of the Column. Finn had
disappeared shortly afterwards and, after initial failed
attempts to find him by the IRA, had been captured and
taken to an old house. From there he had escaped, and was
heading for the safety of Borris Barracks when he was
caught again and finally executed after an improvised
trial. A large amount of money was said to have been found
on him, presumably the reward for his spying.[19]
Kane’s version is broadly similar, in that a spy had guided
the British to the column, and afterwards had been captured
and detained near Borris. It diverges from Ryan’s in that
there had been no escape or second arrest, the spy’s name
is not given, and in how the spy had been shot dead while
trying to overcome his guard as opposed to executed.
Strikingly, Kane gives the value of the money found on the
dead man as £100, the same amount the Nationalist reported
as being in the possession of Michael Byrne.[20]
It is possible, then, that Byrne was killed on the 23rd of
April 1921 as a result of being suspected as the spy who
had doomed the column. There are a number of problems with
that theory, however: Ryan got Byrne’s name wrong, unless
‘Finn’ was a nickname.
The two days in between the wipe-out of the column and
Byrne’s death seems rather brief to fit in the drawn-out
tale of capture, escape, recapture, trial and execution
that Ryan offers.
That Byrne was on route from a social call to neighbours
would indicate he did not drop out of sight immediately, as
Ryan described, after the column’s loss.
Kane’s briefer account fits better into what it is already
known from the Nationalist, though his description of spies
travelling the countryside while dressed as tramps seems
overly outlandish, considering how Byrne was a local man
and presumably would have needed no excuse to be in the
area. Neither Ryan nor Kane give a reason as to why Byrne
would have been suspected so quickly after the column’s
end, despite both being well placed to have known, given
Ryan’s rank as a battalion intelligence officer, and Kane’s
work as an IRA mole in the Carlow town post office amongst
the hub of police reports and official mail.
The exact circumstances over Byrne’s death must thus remain
a mystery. He may have been a spy, or suspected as one at a
volatile time for the Carlow IRA. Or his death could have
been over a robbery as originally reported, with Kane and
Ryan confusing a death from decades ago as a causality of
their war by the time they gave their Statements.
Conclusion
Due to a spirited defence by A. Wood, the eight men from
the column were found not guilty at their court-martial of
the first two charges arrayed against them: endangering the
safety of Crown personnel by the discharge of firearms, and
the aiding of such an act. The other four charges, all
relating to the owning of contraband such as guns and
explosives, were to be announced later. According to Kane,
the prisoners ended up receiving lengthy prison time,
though the forthcoming Truce would nullify all such
sentences. The erstwhile column leader, Laurence O’Neill,
would go on to marry the former fiance of Dick McKee, the
slain Dublin Brigade commandant, and raise a family.[21]
The 8 captured IRA men were found not guilty at their court
martial of ‘endangering the safety of Crown personnel by
the discharge of firearms’. Nevertheless, it was the end of
the Carlow Flying Column.
Kane would recall Brigade O/C Eamon Malone’s distress was
primarily for the loss of the weapons rather than the men
in the column. Kane was not unsympathetic – he, too, agreed
with Malone’s assessment that the Carlow Brigade had the
personnel to spare but not the equipment, certainly not
enough for any successor column. There would be no further
attempts at a flying column for the duration of the
War.[22]
That the column had been crushed so effectively with no
loss to the enemy, despite the two sides being roughly even
in numbers and weapons, inadvertently justified the
cautious approach taken by the Brigade battalions. The
unspoken view had been that head-on confrontations with the
British army or RIC would invite disaster, and there could
be no better illustration of this than how the Carlow
Brigade risked much in forming a column and lost
accordingly.
Bibliography
Article
Nolan, William, ‘Events in Carlow 1920-21’, Capuchin Annual
1970
Newspapers
The Carlow Nationalist, 23/04/1921
The Carlow Nationalist, 09/07/1921
Source:
The
Irish Story.
Irish
History Online
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