Ernie O’Malley

Ernie O’Malley, photographed by his wife Helen Hooker O’Malley in 1936 in the “Passeges leading to the cell where I was imprisoned”. Ernie O’Malley was a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising and was an active member of the IRA during the War of Independence. Later in life, he wrote several books, including one in which he described his time as a prisoner of the “F Company” of the Auxiliaries in December 1920.

Ernie O’Malley was a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising and was an active member of the IRA during the War of Independence. Later in life, he wrote several books, including one in which he described his time as a prisoner of the “F Company” of the Auxiliaries in December 1920. He had been sent to the Castle as a prisoner from Kilkenny, and was kept in the same Guard Room where only a few weeks earlier Clune, Clancy and McKee had been killed. He described the setting:

We ate at the table when the guard had finished. We got the same food as they did. We had a knife and fork between four of us, a piece of bread, or our hands served instead. … Prisoners were mixed; some Volunteers, others arrested on suspicion, possibly a few pigeons to get information. Every night fresh prisoners came in; they had been out after curfew or had been taken by raiding parties. … We were allowed to exercise two at a time for less than an hour in an alley turning toward the entrance to the lower Castle yard. We could see lorries going out or waiting by, and all the bustle and movement of a fortress seat of government.

O’Malley also described his interrogation within the walls of the Castle. On one occasion, he was repeatedly punched and beaten; told to place his coat on the floor to prevent his blood staining it; and later subjected to a mock execution where his interrogator pointed a revolver at his head, counted to three and, when he refused to divulge information, pulled the trigger – blank cartridges had been used. O’Malley was quite sanguine about his fate. As he wrote, “We did not expect to live through the war; there were too many risks to be taken, but we did feel our cause would win.”

Despite this treatment at the hands of his captors, O’Malley expressed some sympathy for them. He recalled: “When they sat at the fire I could see brooding bitterness in many faces. The World War had left its mark; behind organized efficiency and a sense of comradeship was a glum, swarthy melancholy.” Later, he recalled an Auxiliary with a Scottish accent describing his time in Ireland as “a rotten job”, and continued, “But what can we do? I was out of work.”

Possibly the strangest scene he described was that of 25 December: “We sat at a table beside the guard on Christmas Day, four Auxiliaries and three prisoners. It was a good dinner; we did not talk much.” Later that day, they “joined hands around the tables and sang: ‘For the Sake of Auld Lang Syne’”, following which each of the prisoners was called upon to give a speech. Some of the Auxiliaries and prisoners exchanged Christmas cards. O’Malley struck up a conversation with one guard who had studied at Trinity College Dublin. They ended the evening by shaking hands, and agreeing to meet again on Christmas Day in two years’ time, “when the Irish Republic is recognised”, to have dinner together again.