British Voices

by William Sheehan

  Eventually the 2nd Battalion found the last guard on Dublin Castle and handed over to the relieving guard of the Free State Army (a photo of this is in the Regimental Journal of that time, I think). We didn’t suffer from the modern booby-trap and explosive cars, but nobody ever really knew who was who. One day I was on a ’bus filled with troops, on our way back to Kilmainham Barracks, with the Battalion IO. Suddenly I saw him sit up, and opposite to him was a man glaring into his face, with his hand on what was obviously the butt of a revolver in his hip pocket. We were just arriving at the Barrack Gate, and as we got off, I asked him who the man was. He gave me the name of a notorious thug (I think ‘Dan Breen’) and said ‘I arrested him not long ago and he obviously recognised me’. The Free State had come in to being, and he had been let out. Just as well the ’bus was full of troops! It is a sad, sad story and they will (still no doubt) harp on the Battle of the Boyne, because they were defeated there. But read your history! Why was there a battle fought there (1689)? Who was rebelling against whom? Why did England already heavily engaged on the Continent, have to go to the trouble and expense of sending an army there? Ask King Louis XIV of France, and James II, who had been kicked off the English throne and been superceded by ‘Orange William’ and Mary ( James’ daughter) – and why?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Major Reginald Graham

  Details

  This is taken from a recording (Accession Number 006181/04) held in the Imperial War Museum’s Deparment of Sound Archives. In it Major Graham gives an account on of his time as a boy soldier in the Devonshire Regiment during the War of Independence. He was based in Waterford. He was later commissioned as an officer and spent much of career in the Far East.

  Interviewer : Now, one of your early experiences was that you were posted to Ireland during the ‘Troubles’ there. Can you tell me about your posting there?

  RG : Well, we were sent there in July 1920 from Devonport. Headquarters is at Waterford and detachments, companies, were sent out to Wexford, Clonmel, Kilkenny and various other places.

  Interviewer : Where did you go?

  RG : Waterford.

  Interviewer : Where were you accommodated there?

  RG : In the barracks.There were two barracks in Waterford: the artillery and the infantry barracks. But the infantry barracks was built to accommodate about 200 men but there was about 600 in them till we sent out the detachments. We were sleeping on floors or in tents, barrack room messing etc and so forth.

  Interviewer : Was it explained to you what your role was to be there?

  RG : Oh, no, no, no, no, you see as a boy I was supposed to be a non-combatant. But I was charged once with whilst on active service leaving my post without being properly relieved. And as the adjutant pointed out to me it carried the death sentence but it didn’t worry me. But it happened because the unit had to round up about 200 Sinn Féiners and that called for every man Jack in the Barracks, including the cooks, signallers, they all had to go out and round up these people. And it was decided to put a boy in charge of the telephone exchange. I queried this because I said I knew nothing about telephones, so they said, ‘Well, no one will ring through, everyone will be out’. Anyhow, I hadn’t sat by myself more than about ten minutes in the cubicle and the flap dropped and a torrent of Morse poured out: dot dot dash dash dash dash. Well, I tried ringing and in the end I left the place to look to see if someone could take down this Morse. Luckily during my absence a signaller from the Royal Corps of Signals who normally manned the wireless station in the barracks heard this tick tick, dot dot dash, went in and took it down. And it was a list of additional men to be rounded up.

  Well, Dublin Castle from where the message originated were very annoyed about this and said that someone’s head should roll. And the RSM decided that it would be me. Well, I consulted the barrack room lawyer and decided that under the ‘old soldiers’ act’ it wasn’t my fault. Anyway, I appeared in front of the adjutant and then in front of the commanding officer and the case was dismissed. And an order was published that in future boys were not to be put on that sort of work.

  Interviewer : Did you ever get any impression of the situation in Ireland as far as the ‘Troubles’ were concerned?

  RG : Yes, because we had men wounded, policemen were wounded, ambushes were of a frequent nature, police barracks were attacked and burnt down and there was little or no co-operation between the Royal Irish Constabulary and the troops – at least it seemed to me not to be to the same extent as there is at the present moment in Ulster. They seemed to fade out of it. And then they recruited the Black and Tans who were for all intents and purposes the dirty job boys. You know, they were ex-officers clad in all sorts of uniform, armed with various weapons and they were paid a pound a day. They were really tough people.

  Interviewer : Was a pound a day a lot then?

  RG : Oh, yes. My pay as a boy was a shilling a day and a full-blown soldier, a fully trained soldier, got four shillings a day.

  Interviewer : What did the Army think of the Black and Tans?

  RG : We didn’t see a lot of them. They’d swoop into barracks, in out, in out, in out. They seemed to have a semi-independent role.

  Interviewer : Did you ever see any hostilities yourself in Ireland?

  RG : No. I saw the results of them. On January 4th 1921 the police barracks at Tramore was attacked, we sent out a large patrol and luckily the patrol heard a shot go off, the force was split into two and they caught the Shinners crossfire and killed and wounded several. Well, that morning I went into breakfast, at least we were told that breakfast would be in two sittings, and when we went in there was two bodies – naked bodies – laid out on the tables and a man was washing the bodies and plugging up the bullet holes. And as it was rissoles for breakfast that morning not many people ate them.

  Interviewer : So these were two soldiers who’d

  RG : No, two Shinners. We were very lucky. We had several men wounded but only one fatal one. That was a man that fell into the river at Clonmel on the night patrol clad in battle order.

  Interviewer : What was the Army’s opinion of the people against whom they were fighting?

  RG : Not very much, not very high at all. It was this question of tip and run. You see the ambushes were made chiefly by flying columns. They used to rendezvous at a certain point and the weapons for the ambush were brought out by the women in jaunting cars and things like that. Well, then having counted out the ambush they’d push off and do another one.

  Interviewer : Did you take any prisoners of the Sinn Féin?

  RG : Oh, yes, yes, yes. But it usually meant at the latter part if they were taken prisoner they were court martialled and shot. For instance in one incident at County Cork four or five men caught digging trenches across the road. They were court martialled at four – if I remember – three or four o’clock on the afternoon and shot at half past five. Now the squad that carried out the execution all left Ireland that night because they were on the draft for India. Now it was six men rather and that same night the Shinners went out and picked six British soldiers who were courting girls and shot them. So it was tit for tat.

  Interviewer : Did you actually see any prisoners?

  RG : Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. They were brought into the guard room and interrogated by the intelligence officer.

  Interviewer : How were they interrogated?

  RG : Well, that I don’t know but I think under their Marquess of Queensbury Rules, you know, we didn’t have any yellow cards or anything to tell us how we should go. For instance if an ambush occurred then the nearest house situated to the ambush was destroyed by the security forces.

  Interviewer : What do you mean by yellow card?

  RG : Well, what they have in Ireland, in Ulster, at the present moment they have a yellow card which indicates when and how they should open fire. You see over there the challenge was, ‘Halt. Hands up. Who are you?’. And if you didn’t reply to the challenge then the bloke covering the po
int of the patrol would open fire.There was an amusing incident once at Kilkenny a patrol was out and a figure loomed up in the darkness and the point of the patrol gave the challenge, ‘Halt. Hands up. Who are you?’, and the man came rushing forward, he said, ‘It’s all right soldier I’m Father O’Rourke the parish priest’. And the soldier replied, he said, ‘I don’t give a bugger if you’re Father Christmas’, he said, ‘you get your bloody hands up’.

  Interviewer : And did he?

  RG : Oh, yes, quick.

  Interviewer : Did anybody actually get shot for not obeying this challenge?

  RG : I can only recollect one. Yes, at the same place, Kilkenny. They were taking up the rations under escort of a lance corporal and six men in a limber and the lance corporal heard a scuffle and saw two men trying to wrest the rifle off the rear man of the escort. He shot one of them dead and he saw another man running and said, ‘Halt’. The man didn’t stop and he shot him dead. And that poor fellow was an ex-serviceman diving for cover.

  Interviewer : Were there any consequences for the guard for that?

  RG : Oh, no, no, no. There was none of this business of reporting it to the director of public prosecutions.

  Interviewer : When you saw the Sinn Féin prisoners what impression of them did you get? Can you describe what they looked like?

  RG : Well, they were normally ... I shan’t say they were nondescript but they were all, they seemed to be of a certain age group.

  Interviewer : What would that be?

  RG: About the thirties, early thirties I should say, maybe a bit younger. The older men of course were the commandants as they called themselves, the OCs of the various brigades and whatnot.

  Interviewer: How did they behave under captivity? Quietly or defiantly or what?

  RG : Well, there was a lot put in the Kilworth camp, they established an internment camp at Kilworth up in the mountains and dozens of them broke away. Well, I don’t think much of an effort was made to recapture them because the treaty was in the offing.

  Interviewer : When was this?

  RG : 1921 the treaty was signed, the latter part of 1921.

  Interviewer : Did you have any dangerous moments yourself in Ireland?

  RG : Not myself because I was young, silly, I used to wander miles out into the countryside taking a girl home but nothing was said to me but yet in other cases men had been picked up and shot by (through) associating with Irish girls. You see Cork was the worst place of the lot; they’d be more militant there than anywhere. Cork and Dublin were pretty bad.

  Interviewer : So you were courting an Irish girl were you?

  RG : Well, you know the usual thing, a lad of fifteen.

  Interviewer : Did you feel as you went amongst the population that there was any danger to you?

  RG : No, in Waterford ... as a matter of fact the day we left Waterford to come home the local paper printed among other things a tribute to the regiment. They said that during the time they’d been stationed at Waterford the 1st Devons have always upheld the best traditions of the British Army. You see we were not allowed to get out of hand. For instance the Buffs in Fermoy when they heard that the brigadier had been kidnapped they smashed up the town. Matter of fact we used to play the ... the ambush I mentioned previously at Tramore the man that was killed on the bridge had played hockey in Waterford city against the battalion the previous day. So there was a certain amount of ...

  Interviewer : Fraternization?

  RG : Yes. Slightly but it was there you know.

  Interviewer : So the Buffs smashed up Fermoy did they?

  RG : Oh, yes. They broke out of camp and smashed up the shops and all that business.

  Interviewer : What happened to their brigadier?

  RG : Well, he was kidnapped. Brigadier Lucas was fishing on the River Blackwater with his brigade major and, strange as it may seem, they were both released unharmed a week later. One can’t imagine that happening today in Ulster.

  Interviewer : How did the population at large – the civilian population – behave towards the British troops?

  RG : Properly. They were glad we were there because, well, we spent our pay there at the pubs and the what-have-you.

  Interviewer : So did you meet any hostility?

  RG : Not a lot. They rarely showed it to you, you know, they kept under cover.

  Interviewer : How would they show it if they did?

  RG : ‘English bastard!’

  Interviewer : This would be shouted out in the street would it?

  RG : Yes, yes, yes.

  Interviewer : How did the troops react to that?

  RG : Well, ‘Irish bastard!’. It was quid pro quo .

  Interviewer : How did you come to leave Ireland?

  RG : Well, when the Treaty was signed all British forces, with the exception of the garrison of Spike Island, were withdrawn.

  Interviewer : Were you glad to leave or sorry?

  RG : Well, if I say that as we pulled out from the quay at Waterford one soldier said, ‘They should have pulled the bloody plug out years ago’, because Southern Ireland was poor, there wasn’t the industry there that existed in Ulster. It was definitely a poor country.

  Interviewer : So what did he mean by ‘They should have pulled the plug out’?

  RG : Well, let it sink, let Ireland sink into the sea.

  Interviewer : So you were glad to leave then were you?

  RG : Well, yes, because we were going back to Devonport which was our station – Plymouth – and large garrison town and it was a bit more life, pictures and theatres and what-have-you.

  Interviewer : What did the civilian population think of the Black and Tans?

  RG : Oh, they loathed them. They hated them.

  Interviewer: Why was that?

  RG : Well, because the Black and Tans stood absolutely no nonsense. They bashed people about, shot them. And it is suspected that they burnt down the main shopping centre in Victoria Street in Cork after thirteen or fourteen of the chaps had been killed in an ambush.

  Interviewer : Do you think that that was true?

  RG : Oh, yes, I’m positive.

  Interviewer : What makes you so positive?

  RG : Well, because it’s the sort of thing that they would do there. For instance, they opened up fire at a football match in Dublin once after one of the chaps had been shot – on the crowd.

  Interviewer : How did you hear about that?

  RG : Well, it was common knowledge in the papers.

  Interviewer: How did you know that the civilian population were hostile to the Black and Tans? How did it show itself?

  RG : In many ways. You see if a soldier went into a pub he wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms but he was given a drink and they’d talk to him, the publican would, but if the Black and Tans went into a pub there was dead silence.

  Interviewer : Would he be served a drink if he asked for one?

  RG : Oh, yes. Well, if he wasn’t served with a drink he’d jolly well get it.

  Interviewer : Get it himself you mean?

  RG : Yes. You see they seemed to be a law unto themselves.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Major Gerald Stone

  Details

  This is taken from a recording (Accession Number 006059/03) held in the Imperial War Museum’s Dept of Sound Archives. In it Major Stone gives an account on of his service as a junior officer in the Devonshire Regiment during the War of Independence. He was based in Wexford. He later served in Hong Kong and Shanghai in the 1920s.

  Interviewer : How did your posting to Ireland come about?

  GS : The battalion had gone out there in June 1920, I was at the depot at Exeter at the time, and when I completed my tour of duty at the depot in March ’21 I was posted to the battalion. I was a month with the battalion headquarters at Waterford.Then I was posted to Enniscorthy in command of the platoon there having taken over from a real fire-eater who ruled the place with a rod of iron and was unofficially known as the uncr
owned king of Enniscorthy.

  Interviewer : Who was he known that by?

  GS : Well, I think it was by the battalion. One didn’t have much contact with many of the outside people, we just had about half a dozen personal friends in Enniscorthy.

  Interviewer : Before you went to Ireland did you know very much about the political situation there?

  GS: Yes. We knew from what we heard from the battalion, that is, one or two officers at the depot had had letters from officers out there and learnt what it was like and so we gathered from them that was what the situation was?

  Interviewer : What did you understand the situation to be?

  GS : That you had the IRA, that’s who one was up against, and there were ambushes chiefly. There was no gelignite or anything that way. And that’s what I understood before going out. After I got out and had experience of it the IRA used to try and prevent our getting along in our Crossley cars which we always moved three cars at a time, 150 yards between each, so that if any were ambushed only one, at the outside two, would be in the ambush. And you had them blocking the roads in three different ways. One, they would cut a trench nearly across the road just leaving room for a jaunty car to go round – that’s the little Irish horse-drawn vehicle. To compete with that we used to carry planks so that we’d put these down across the trench, then they’d cut trees down across the road and they were too difficult to deal with and you would look for a gate one side of the tree leading to a field and then a gate the far side to see if you could get round the tree that way. If you couldn’t then you would probably have to take another road.