THE MEN WILL TALK TO ME Clare Interviews by Ernie O’Malley Edited by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc Preface by Cormac K. H. O’Malley
For my parents, Pat and Monica
MERCIER PRESS
Cork www.mercierpress.ie © Original notebooks of Ernie O’Malley, UCD Archives © Preface: Cormac K. H. O’Malley, 2016 © Introduction and footnotes: Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc, 2016 ISBN: 978 1 78117 418 0 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
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Contents
Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations
8
Preface
9
Introduction
15
Mid Clare
Michael MacMahon
30
Séamus Hennessy
43
John ‘Seán’ Burke
71
Paddy ‘Con’ MacMahon
93
East Clare
Patrick McDonnell
137
Appendix 1
Liam Haugh
167
Appendix 2
The Execution of Patrick D’Arcy
178
Appendix 3
The Shooting of Alan Lendrum
204
Chronology of Significant Events in Clare Related in the Interviews
208
Bibliography
212
Index
217
Map showing the brigade and battalion divisions and the main towns of Co. Clare.
Acknowledgements
The weekends of my boyhood were spent in west Clare and it
was probably from my late grand-uncle, Miko Hayes, that I first
heard stories of the Rineen Ambush, the Black and Tans and the Republican struggle in Clare. Visits to his home in Shanaway East, Miltown Malbay, inspired my love of history, archaeology and folklore, and for that I will always be grateful. Likewise I also
owe a great debt to his sister, Mary ‘Nana’ Murrihy (née Hayes)
of Knockbrack, Miltown Malbay, who had a wealth of stories and was always eager to share them with me.
I also wish to thank Cormac K. H. O’Malley, custodian of the
O’Malley notebooks, who realised the value and importance of his
father’s research and was eager to share his archive with the public, and Dr Tim Horgan, who started the ball rolling on the tran-
scription of the O’Malley notebooks – without his knowledgeable assistance and advice the transcription of O’Malley’s Clare interviews would not have been possible.
Thanks also to Colin Hennessy, grandson of O’Malley inter-
viewee Séamus Hennessy, who has always been generous with his
time and information; Fintan MacMahon, son of O’Malley inter-
viewee Michael MacMahon, who didn’t hesitate to help when I approached him as a complete stranger seeking his assistance; the
McDonnell family from Burgess, Tipperary, who shared with me the stories of ‘Black Paddy’ McDonnell, ‘the Brigadier’, and their 5
The Men Will Talk to Me
family’s role in the Republican struggle; Dr John O’Callaghan, one of the first pioneers to successfully decipher and publish O’Malley’s
handwriting; Tom Toomey, a brilliant historian and loyal friend to whom I frequently turn for advice; Johnny White, a great neigh-
bour and one of nature’s gentlemen; the O’Gorman family of Moy, Lahinch, especially the late Michael O’Connell, who shared with me a wealth of stories and information about the history of west
Clare; P. J. Donnellan of Toureen, Miltown Malbay, who gave me some valuable insights into the War of Independence and Civil War in Clare; and Eoin Shanahan, who assisted me with queries relating to the IRA’s West Clare Brigade.
The staff of the Irish Military Archives provide a top-class ser
vice, as do the staff of the British National Archives at Kew in
London – their efficient service makes research there a pleasure. Mike Maguire of the local studies section in Limerick City Library, his counterpart Peter Byrne in the Local Studies Centre in Ennis and Maureen Comber of the Clare County Library were all extremely helpful.
Tony MacLoughlin, the most affable bookstore owner in
Dublin, makes every visit to his shop on Parnell Street memorable. Sean O’Mahony and the 1916–21 Club have always given
valuable assistance and support to my endeavours. The members of the Meelick-Parteen and Cratloe War of Independence Commemoration Committee (Councillor Cathal Crowe, Tom Glee-
son, Eamon O’Halloran, Jody O’Connor, Ger Hickey and Pat McDonough) have done invaluable work in preserving and promoting the history of the IRA’s East Clare Brigade. 6
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr John Borgonovo and Dr Andy Bielenberg of
University College Cork, two of Ireland’s hardest-working histo rians; Dr Tomás Mac Conmara, who is probably the best histo rian working in Clare today and certainly one of the finest in the country; Dr Billy Mag Fhloinn, with whom it is always a pleasure
to discuss Irish history and heritage; Cormac Ó Comhraí, an
exceptionally talented historian and a great friend; and Liam Hogan, a restless new historian hungry for the truth.
Joe Laffan, Seamus Cantillon, Aidan Larkin, Karl Walsh,
Kieran O’Keefe and all the Caherdavin gang; John White, Gavin
O’Connell, Cathal McMahon and all the lads from Meelick; and
of course the ‘usual suspects’ – Chris Coe, Sean Patrick Donald, Dara Macken, William Butler and Patrick Fleckenstein – I couldn’t ask for better friends.
Thanks to my publishers Mercier Press, especially Wendy
Logue and Mary Feehan, who have the unenviable job of trying to turn my disjointed, grammatically flawed and misspelled
manuscripts into books. And a special thank you to the Sheehy family of Clonmeen House, Banteer, Co. Cork.
Finally thanks to my parents, Pat and Monica, for their finan
cial assistance during my time at university, and to my sister Deir-
dre and my brother Kevin for their friendship and support. Lastly, and most importantly, thanks to my wife Anne Maria for all the happy years she has given me, and to my son, Tomás, who helps
remind me that there are far more important things in life than writing history books.
7
Abbreviations
Auxie/Auxies
Auxiliary Division of the RIC
BMH
Bureau of Military History
D/M
Director of Munitions
EOM
Ernie O’Malley
IPP
Irish Parliamentary Party
IRA
Irish Republican Army
IRB
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The Joy
Mountjoy Prison, Dublin
NAUK
National Archives, Kew, UK
O/C
Officer Commanding
PMCILI
Provisional Military Court of Inquiry in Lieu of Coroner’s Inquest
RAF
Royal Air Force
RIC
Royal Irish Constabulary
TD
Teachta Dála
UCDA
University College Dublin Archives
V/C Vice-Commandant WS
Witness Statement
8
Introduction
County Clare played host to some of the most momentous and important political and military events during the Irish revolution
of 1913–23. The military campaign waged by the IRA against the
British forces in Clare during the War of Independence was one of the most successful conducted nationally, and Republicans from Clare also made major contributions to the Republican struggle in
other counties. As well as a strong Republican heritage, stretching back to the United Irishmen in the 1790s and the Fenian Rising
of 1867, there was also a very strong radical agrarian movement in
Clare that sought to break the power of wealthy landowners and
redistribute the land they held to an impoverished local peasantry. Agrarian violence and unrest in Clare were so widespread in the
early years of the twentieth century that the British government declared County Clare an ‘Area of Disturbance’ in 1907.1
By that time the secret revolutionary movement called the Irish
Republican Brotherhood (IRB) had collapsed or been reduced to
‘a drinking club’ in many parts of Ireland. However, Clare was an
exception, and an active and well-organised IRB network existed in various parts of the county long before Seán MacDiarmada and
Thomas Clarke began reorganising and reforming the movement 1
Peter Cottrell, The Anglo-Irish War: The Troubles of 1913–1922 (Oxford, 2006), p. 30. 15
The Men Will Talk to Me
throughout Ireland in 1910. In north Clare Thomas O’Loghlen had recruited a group of young IRB members who actively oppo sed local recruitment by the British Army, engaged in arms train
ing and founded and controlled local branches of both Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers. In Meelick, in south-east Clare, Mic hael Brennan and his brothers were amongst the most active and
militant members of the ‘Wolfe Tone Club’, an IRB front organi sation based in Limerick city.
During the 1916 Rising it was planned that part of the Ger-
man arms shipment headed for Kerry would be shipped to Clare to arm these IRB groups. When this plan failed, Republicans in
Clare attempted to take independent action to assist their com-
rades who were fighting the British forces in Dublin and Galway. The IRB in north Clare sabotaged the local communications network, while Michael Brennan made determined but ultimately
futile efforts to convince the leadership of the IRB in Limerick city to join the rebellion.
After the collapse of the Rising, Sinn Féin’s victory in the East
Clare by-election of July 1917 was of huge importance to the
efforts of the Republicans to rally and reorganise their forces. The
Sinn Féin candidate, Éamon de Valera, was best known to the local electorate as ‘the fella with the funny name’, and the massive vote that elected him was based not on his personal popularity but on his status as a veteran of the Rising who espoused Republicanism
and the use of physical force to achieve Irish independence. The
fact that the previous member of parliament for East Clare had been Major William Redmond made the Republican victory all 16
Introduction
the more poignant. William was a brother of John Redmond, the leader of the ‘constitutional’ nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and had been killed fighting for the British Army
during the First World War, his death triggering the by-election.2 De Valera’s election in East Clare happened shortly after similar
electoral victories in North Roscommon and South Longford, and
it inspired the slogan ‘The Irish Party – wounded in Roscommon, killed in Longford and buried in Clare’. In the general election held just over a year later, the Republicans won a landslide
majority, securing seventy-three of the 105 Irish seats in the British parliament – effectively destroying the IPP in the process.
At the same time, the IRA in Clare began meeting, marching
and drilling publicly in open defiance of British law, and this led to the widespread arrests of local Republican leaders across the
county. Four leading IRA officers – Patrick, Michael and Austin Brennan from Meelick and Peadar O’Loughlin from Liscannor –
refused to recognise the right of a British court to try Irishmen in 2
Although John Redmond and the IPP today enjoy a benign reputation as ‘constitutional’ nationalists who used exclusively peaceful means to achieve their goals, the reality is that they had a far more ambiguous relationship with violence. John Redmond had been imprisoned for inciting violence in 1888 when he threatened a landlord. In 1908 Redmond stated that armed resistance to British rule in Ireland ‘would be absolutely justifiable if it were possible’. In June 1912, when the Ulster Unionists and the British government suggested that Ireland should be partitioned, Redmond urged his supporters to ‘resist most violently as far as it is within our power to do so’. It is estimated that 10,000 of the Irishmen killed in the First World War enlisted because of Redmond’s appeal to support the British war effort. Although Redmond’s modern supporters are loath to admit it, the reality is that the actions of Redmond and other ‘constitutional’ nationalists in 1914 killed many more thousands of Irishmen than died in the 1916 Rising, War of Independence and Civil War combined. 17
The Men Will Talk to Me
Ireland and went on hunger strike. The tactics developed by these
Claremen were soon adopted nationally and led to a mass hunger strike amongst IRA prisoners in Mountjoy Prison in September
1917. Thirty-eight Republican prisoners took part in the hunger strike, seventeen of whom were Claremen. The hunger strike
ended and all of the prisoners were released after their comrade Thomas Ashe died following a botched attempt by the prison
doctor to force-feed him. Ashe’s death produced a huge surge in
support for the Republicans and over 20,000 people followed his funeral cortège in Dublin. The tactics developed by O’Loughlin
and the three Brennan brothers were so effective that they have been utilised ever since, and twenty-two Irish Republicans have died while on hunger strike during the twentieth century.
The very first member of the IRA killed by the British forces
during the War of Independence – Robert Byrne, adjutant of the 2nd Battalion of the IRA’s Mid Limerick Brigade – died at Knockalisheen in Meelick, County Clare, on 7 April 1919.3 Byrne was the first of ninety-five fatalities that occurred in Clare
during the War of Independence.4 The conflict in the county was so intense it had the fourth highest number of people killed per
head of population.5 The IRA were extremely active in Clare 3 Tom Toomey, Robert Byrne, commemorative booklet (Meelick, 2015). 4 Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Counting Terror: Bloody Sunday and the Dead of the Irish Revolution’, in David Fitzpatrick (ed.), Terror in Ireland 1916–1923 (Dublin, 2012), p. 152. 5 Figure taken from ‘The Dead of the Irish Revolution’, a lecture delivered by Daithi Ó Corrain and Eunan O’Halpin at the Military History Society of Ireland conference on the War of Independence held at Collins Barracks, Dublin, in 2009. 18
Introduction
throughout the conflict, and Clare’s three IRA brigades inflicted at least forty-one fatalities on the British forces, killing nineteen
RIC constables, nine Black and Tans, eleven British soldiers and two members of the Royal Marines.
The people of Clare also suffered some of the worst British
reprisals in revenge for these attacks. In April 1920 a British military patrol launched an unprovoked attack on a group of un armed Sinn Féin supporters in Miltown Malbay, killing three
people attending a celebration marking the release of Republican prisoners from Mountjoy Prison. In September 1920 the British
forces avenged the deaths of their comrades killed in the Rineen Ambush by running amok in Miltown Malbay, Lahinch and
Ennistymon, killing six people and destroying or damaging over seventy houses and business premises. Members of the RIC’s
Auxiliary Division killed four local men they were holding prisoner at Killaloe in November 1920 in reprisal for IRA attacks on the RIC. The Republicans also suffered heavy losses in Clare during the War of Independence, with fifteen IRA Volunteers and one Fianna Éireann scout being killed – the majority of them died in British reprisal killings and assassinations.6
In comparison to the War of Independence, there was rela
tively little activity in Clare during the Civil War, but nonetheless Claremen were active on both sides during that conflict. The very
first Republican fatality of the Civil War was a Clareman: IRA 6
Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc, Blood on the Banner: the Republican Struggle in Clare (Cork, 2009), p. 260. 19
The Men Will Talk to Me
Volunteer Joseph Considine from Clooney was shot dead by Free State Army soldiers in Dublin on 28 June 1922, shortly after the
‘Battle of the Four Courts’ began. At least ten IRA Volunteers and three Free State soldiers were killed in Clare during the Civil
War, while Commandant Con MacMahon and Volunteer Patrick Hennessy, both natives of Clooney, were executed by a Free State Army firing squad at Limerick Jail on 20 January 1923.
By the spring of 1923 it was clear to the Republicans that the
Civil War was all but over and that the Free State had won. Frank
Aiken, the IRA chief of staff, ordered all IRA Volunteers to dump their arms and to cease hostilities against the Free State Army from 30 April. The announcement of the ceasefire was not enough to save the life of Patrick O’Mahony, an IRA Volunteer who was
executed by the Free State Army at Ennis Jail the morning after it was announced. Nor did the ceasefire save Christopher Quinn
and William O’Shaughnessy, the last two Republicans killed in official Free State executions. Quinn and O’Shaughnessy were shot by a firing squad at Ennis on 2 May 1923, two days after the Civil War had ended.
Although there can be little doubt about the significant con-
tribution Clare Republicans made to the Irish revolution, histori-
cal memory of the period has tended to overlook the county. For years the history of the Irish revolution was dominated by the
published memoirs of a small number of War of Independence
veterans, particularly Dan Breen’s My Fight for Irish Freedom and Tom Barry’s Guerilla Days in Ireland. Although these were highly
localised accounts of the conflict in Tipperary and Cork respec20
Introduction
tively, they were written in a very engaging and accessible style
and quickly became bestsellers, making their authors household
names throughout Ireland. Michael Brennan was the only senior
Clare veteran of the War of Independence to publish his memoirs,
but his book, The War in Clare, did not appear in print until 1980. Brennan’s book never sold as well as the earlier memoirs and, be-
cause he had fought on the pro-Treaty side during the Civil War, he was seen by some to have compromised his principles, making
him a much less romantic figure than the likes of Breen and Barry. In the late 1940s a series of county histories of the War of In-
dependence was published. The first of these was Kerry’s Fighting
Story, published in 1947, and this was quickly followed by Rebel
Cork’s Fighting Story (1947), Limerick’s Fighting Story (1948) and Dublin’s Fighting Story (1948). Although the military record of the IRA’s three Clare brigades was equally deserving of inclusion
in the series, there was no ‘Clare’s Fighting Story’. Instead a hand-
ful of articles on IRA operations in Clare was included in With
the IRA in the Fight for Freedom (1955), a general history of the
War of Independence that included contributions written by IRA veterans from all over Ireland.
Coinciding with the publication of these books, the Irish gov-
ernment established the Bureau of Military History (BMH) in 1947 to record the experiences of those who had taken part in the
Rising and the War of Independence. The Bureau recorded 1,773 witness statements from those who had participated in the Irish revolution. After the Bureau had finished its work in 1959, eighty-
three steel boxes containing the material it had amassed were 21
The Men Will Talk to Me
sealed and locked away in the strongroom of Leinster House. The
Irish government justified the closure of the Bureau’s collection on the basis that its contents were too controversial. One government
official commented: ‘If every Sean and Seamus from Ballythis and
Ballythat who took major or minor or no part at all in the national movement … has free access to the material, it may result in local
civil warfare in every second town and village in the country.’7 The Bureau’s archive remained closed to the public until 2003, when the last surviving veteran who had given testimony died.
The BMH’s collection is now relatively well known to the pub-
lic because it has been widely used by historians since its release. For example, my first book, Blood on the Banner: the Republican
Struggle in Clare, made extensive use of the recently declassified BMH statements to give a blow-by-blow account of the War of
Independence in Clare. The fact that most of the Bureau’s collec-
tion is now available online for free means that it is often the first stop for historians and members of the public who are researching the period, and it has made a major contribution to our understanding of modern Irish history.
However, an equally important collection of veteran testimony
has, until recently, been forgotten, even though it has been avai
lable to the public for decades. Ernie O’Malley, who took part in the 1916 Rising and was a senior IRA officer throughout both the War of Independence and Civil War, began interviewing and 7
Fearghal McGarry, Rebels: Voices from the Easter Rising, (Dublin, 2011), pp. xiv–xv. 22
Introduction
recording his fellow veterans in the 1930s on a casual basis. By 1948 his interview project had developed into a full-time enterprise, and by 1954 he had interviewed more than 450 veterans of
the conflict. Most of O’Malley’s interviewees were former IRA
comrades, but he also interviewed a number of British soldiers and veterans of the Free State Army.
As well as first-hand accounts of the Rising and War of Inde-
pendence, O’Malley’s interviews contain a wealth of information about the Civil War – a conflict that those speaking to the BMH
were officially prohibited from discussing. Moreover, quite a number
of those who agreed to be interviewed by O’Malley did not give testimony to the BMH. This was largely due to the bitter legacy and
divisions left by the Civil War. Irish Army officers, who were mostly
veterans of the Free State Army, conducted the Bureau’s interviews, and many of the veterans who had fought on the Republican side during the Civil War refused to co-operate with them. When one
Republican veteran of the Civil War was approached by the Bureau
to make a statement about his experiences during the War of Independence, he refused, but suggested that some of his former com-
rades could have given the Bureau a lot of information – if the Free
State Army hadn’t killed them!8 However, many of the men who
declared that they would rather burn their memoirs than share them
with the ‘Free Staters’ in the BMH were willing to talk to O’Malley. This book contains interviews with all five of the Claremen
who were interviewed by O’Malley. None of these men gave 8
McGarry, Rebels, p. xv. 23
The Men Will Talk to Me
statements to the BMH. They contain valuable testimony about the War of Independence and Civil War in Clare, which was not
recorded elsewhere and would have been irretrievably lost were it not for O’Malley’s hard work and dedication. The first four of the
interviews in this book are with veterans of the IRA’s Mid Clare Brigade. Séamus Hennessy and John ‘Seán’ Burke had both taken part in the Rineen Ambush, and their interviews contain important
accounts of the attack which was, at that time, the largest and most successful operation that the IRA had conducted against the RIC. Michael MacMahon’s interview includes an eyewitness account of the reprisals in Miltown Malbay carried out by the
British forces in revenge for the ambush. Paddy Con MacMahon’s
interview gives a fascinating account of IRA operations in Ennis
during the War of Independence, including details of Republican
sympathisers within the RIC garrison in Ennis who provided the local IRA with information, and the activities of members of
the local loyalist population who assisted the British forces. The Civil War also features prominently in Paddy ‘Con’ MacMahon’s interview and he discusses his capture during the ‘Battle of the
Four Courts’ in Dublin and his lengthy internment in Mountjoy
Prison, where he shared a cell with the IRA leader Liam Mellows. O’Malley also interviewed Paddy McDonnell, who was a lea
ding member of the IRA’s East Clare Brigade. McDonnell was
friendly with Alfie Rodgers and Michael ‘Brud’ McMahon, two
of the ‘Scariff Martyrs’, who were killed by members of the RIC Auxiliary Division on Killaloe Bridge. In his interview McDon-
nell describes meeting Rodgers and McMahon just a few hours 24
Introduction
before they were captured and killed, and giving them a poignant order to take more care because they were at risk of capture.
O’Malley made a hugely important, if grossly under-appre
ciated, contribution to the study of modern Irish history. There is no doubt that if his interviews had been typed and were easily
legible, their significance would have been recognised years ago. However, before O’Malley became a revolutionary he was a medical student at UCD and one of the first things he seems to
have been taught there was how to write like a doctor! Because of the appalling state of his handwriting O’Malley’s interviews have
too often been dismissed as being indecipherable or worthless, despite the important material they contain. For example, one
of O’Malley’s interviewees revealed that future taoiseach Seán
Lemass was one of the IRA Volunteers involved in the assassination of British intelligence officers on ‘Bloody Sunday’. Normally the
value of such information would be recognised by historians, but one academic who found that this information conflicted with
his theories about Lemass’ IRA activities simply dismissed the
information by denouncing the O’Malley interviews as ‘a series of illegible notes scribbled by Ernie O’Malley later in life’.9
As well as the possibility that the O’Malley interviews will
continue to be dismissed or ignored if they are not transcribed
and published, there is also the danger that their contents might
be misinterpreted by those who cannot understand O’Malley’s handwriting. This raises the possibility that misleading quotes 9
Bryce Evans, Seán Lemass: Democratic Dictator (Cork, 2011) p. 16. 25
The Men Will Talk to Me
purporting to come from his interviews might be used to sup port questionable interpretations of Irish history. In The Year of
Disappearances Gerard Murphy made the claim that the IRA
executed three anonymous Protestant teenagers in Cork city and secretly buried their bodies, sparking an IRA campaign of sectarian murder ‘that led to dozens of deaths’ and ‘the flight of hundreds
of Protestant families’.10 There is no verifiable evidence that these
anonymous victims ever existed, much less that they were killed by the IRA, a fact Murphy attributed to ‘a spectacular cover-up’ and ‘a big conspiracy’ involving the press, the British government and
even Cork Protestants themselves.11 The main piece of verifiable ‘evidence’ Murphy had for his claim was a misreading of an
interview in the O’Malley notebooks.12 Murphy’s inaccurate and 10 Gerard Murphy, The Year of Disappearances: Political Killings in Cork 1921– 1922 (Dublin, 2010), pp. 300–6, 323. 11 Ibid., pp. 101, 181, 225–6. 12 Murphy claims that IRA veteran Connie Neenan referred to the killing of the three teenagers in his interview with O’Malley. Murphy gave the following as an extract from Neenan’s account: ‘Three were friends and they confessed to their trackings and they were killed.’ However, Murphy had misread the sentence and it actually reads: ‘Both kids confessed their trackings, and they were killed.’ O’Malley’s son, Cormac, custodian of the O’Malley notebooks, has confirmed the accuracy of the latter transcription of the account, which shows that Neenan had been referring to two spies killed before the Truce and not three Protestant teenagers killed afterwards, as alleged by Murphy. When questions were raised about the accuracy of Murphy’s transcription he initially defended it. However, he later conceded that his transcription was inaccurate and corrected it in the second edition of his book. Despite admitting to this error, Murphy continued to insist that Neenan’s interview with O’Malley supports his claim that three Protestant teenagers were abducted by the IRA and killed. For more see: Sunday Tribune, 16 January 2011; Murphy, The Year of Disappearances, p. 173; ‘Letters to the Editor’, History Ireland, November/December 2011, p. 5. 26
Introduction
misleading quote was so central to his thesis that he referred to it fifteen times in his book and used it as a title for one of his chapter
headings. Had Murphy been able to read the O’Malley interviews correctly, or had his transcriptions been checked for accuracy, he
would have realised that the O’Malley interview he cited made no
mention of the killing of three Protestant teenagers by the IRA and that there is no verifiable evidence in the historical record to indicate that the alleged event ever happened.13
Consequently an important disclaimer must be added to this
transcription: whilst every effort has been made to accurately decipher and transcribe O’Malley’s difficult handwriting, mistakes
and errors are of course still possible, and any reader relying on a specific sentence or passage in this book to support an important
argument should visit the UCD Archives to check the original document and confirm the exact transcription for themselves. In
some places it has been necessary to insert additional words, indicated by square brackets, or some punctuation into the text to
make grammatical sense of a passage. In other instances where
it has not been possible to read a particular word or phrase writ-
ten by O’Malley, a suggested transcription indicated by a question
mark has been inserted. All ampersands have been written as ‘and’. Finally, in addition to the five interviews with IRA veterans
from Clare conducted by O’Malley, this book also contains extracts from a memoir written by Liam Haugh, which O’Malley had
13 Connie Neenan (UCDA, EOMN, P17b/112); Murphy, The Year of Disappearances, pp. 300–6. 27
The Men Will Talk to Me
written into his notebooks.14 Haugh was vice-commandant of the
IRA’s West Clare Brigade during the War of Independence and
in 1935 he wrote an account of his experiences during the war. He
did not publish the memoir but donated a copy of it to the BMH. Although the Bureau’s collection was officially classified, O’Malley
managed to get unofficial access to it through Florence ‘Florrie’ O’Donoghue, a veteran of the War of Independence in Cork who was friendly with O’Malley and who had been instrumental in
convincing President Éamon de Valera to establish the Bureau. O’Malley recorded an abridged version of Haugh’s memoir in
his notebooks alongside the record he made of his interviewees’ testimony.
Although the extracts from Haugh’s memoir copied by O’Malley
are not the record of an interview, they have been included in this book as Appendix 1 because they are nonetheless a valuable firsthand account of the period. O’Malley, recognising this, used the
memoir as a source for an article he wrote on events in west Clare, which was published in The Sunday Press in 1955. O’Malley’s article
caused significant controversy as it mentioned the killing of Patrick 14 There are entries for two other Claremen listed in the O’Malley note books, but neither of these was an actual interview. Frank Butler’s entry in the O’Malley notebooks (Series 1 interviews, Notebook No. 40, UCDA P17b/72 pp. 18–62) is actually O’Malley’s rough notes for his interview with Patrick McDonnell, which is included in this book. The entry for Brian O’Higgins (Series 1 interviews, Notebook No. 28) is merely a reference to O’Higgins in an interview with another person and not an interview with O’Higgins himself. The very brief entry for Patrick A. Mulcahy in the notebooks is a transcription of part of a document, now in the Irish Military Archives, detailing IRA activity and the deployment of British garrisons in Clare during the War of Independence. 28
Introduction
D’Arcy, an IRA Volunteer who was executed as a suspected spy in
1921. D’Arcy’s shooting is also mentioned in John ‘Seán’ Burke’s interview, but because the incident is too complex and controversial
to be dealt with in a footnote, I have explained the full story as far as it is known in Appendix 2.
Several of O’Malley’s interviewees also mention the shooting
of Alan Lendrum, a former captain in the British Army who had been appointed resident magistrate in Kilkee. The circumstances of Lendrum’s death have been grossly distorted over the years for
propaganda purposes, so Appendix 3 has been added to give a brief factual account of his shooting.
Now that the BMH interviews have been declassified and the
Military Service Pensions records relating to the same period are
also being released and made available online, Ernie O’Malley’s notebooks are probably the last significant body of veteran testimony relating to the Irish revolution of 1916–23 not easily accessible to the public.15 Thankfully a number of historians are already
hard at work transcribing the notebooks on a county-by-county basis for publication. This book is my small contribution to that effort.
Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc 15 Excepting of course the Fr Louis O’Kane interviews with dozens of IRA veterans, which are held in the Ó Fiaich Library in Armagh. Unlike O’Malley, O’Kane was able to make audio recordings of his interviewees, which are easier to listen to than O’Malley’s handwriting is to read and moreover, the full contents of many of O’Kane’s interviews were typed up, making them far more straightforward to read than O’Malley’s collection. 29