‘Ah, nothing,’ Byrne replied, ordering him to walk in front of him to the back room.
Meanwhile Ennis and Duffy had found Ames in a room at the back of the house. Duffy covered Ames with a revolver as Ennis asked him to identify himself.
‘I am a British officer,’ he replied. He said he was not armed, but Ennis put his hand under the pillow and took out a .45 Colt automatic, fully loaded, as well as a pouch with about fifty rounds of ammunition. He put the pistol in his pocket and gave Duffy the pouch.
As Byrne and the others were bringing Bennett to the back room, there was shooting in the street and the doorbell rang.
‘Open the door,’ Byrne ordered.
A British soldier, a dispatch rider with the rank of private, had left Dublin Castle a short time earlier on a motorcycle with a side car. On turning into Herbert Place, near Mount Street, he had been held up by armed men who ordered him off the motorcycle and took it away. It did not seem to be his morning. As he walked along Upper Mount Street he saw Michael Lawless at No. 38 but as he got within thirty yards of him the man produced a pistol and told him to put up his hand and come towards him. He was then ordered to knock on the door, but nobody answered.
‘Open the door, boys,’ Lawless shouted.
The door was then opened and the private was half pushed and half pulled into the house, while a major’s batman witnessed the scene from across the road in No. 28. He informed his officer, Major Carew, who fired at the volunteer outside No. 38. The batman got his gun but could not see the man outside the building so he went out into the street.
Meanwhile the dispatch rider was told to put up his hands and was kept under guard in the hall. Byrne and his prisoner returned to the back room. Ames was standing up in the bed facing the wall, and Byrne told Bennett to do likewise.
‘The Lord have mercy on your souls!’ Byrne said to himself. ‘I then opened fire with my Peter. They both fell dead.’ Doyle had joined in the shooting.
‘As I came into the hall, the servant girl was crying,’ Byrne said. ‘I tried to comfort her and tell her that everything would be all right. Then I looked at the soldier. I did not know whether to finish him off or not.’
‘Well, he is only a soldier,’ Byrne thought to himself. ‘So I told him not to stir for fifteen minutes.’
‘As we came out of the house, fire was opened on us from a house on the other side of the street. We retreated down Mount Street, at the same time keeping the house, from where the firing came, under fire.’
Meanwhile Saurin was still in the house. ‘In my anxiety to make a thorough search I was unaware that the squad had left and, hearing some shooting in the street, I walked to the door of Bennett’s room,’ he explained. ‘I heard a noise and, looking down the hall, I saw a British soldier outside the room where the two bodies were. I wheeled to shoot but the soldier jumped into the room.
‘Come on,’ Tom Ennis cried. He was on the doorstep. The batman across the street was shooting at the retreating squad with what appeared to be a .22 automatic. Ennis and Saurin fired at the batman who jumped back into the doorway of his house. It was only afterwards that they learned that the officer across the street was Major Carew, a much-wanted intelligence officer. He was the man who had led the group against Seán Treacy. It was later mistakenly suggested that he was one of the targets on Bloody Sunday, ‘but he put up a good show and escaped,’ according to Mark Sturgis. ‘A party went to his house,’ Sturgis added. ‘He did not let them in and fired from the window hitting two – this lot made off and he escaped unharmed.’
Byrne and his men crossed Mount Street, turned right into Verschoyle Place, and continued down until they came to Lower Mount Street. ‘A s we came near the corner, the firing was very heavy,’ he recalled. ‘I saw Tom Keogh dashing across Mount Street and, as he was running across the road, he dropped one of his guns. He quietly turned back and picked it up again.’ At this time the firing had eased somewhat. Keogh went down Grattan Street, while Byrne and his men went down the lane behind Holles Street hospital.
‘Here I came upon my first-aid man again,’ Byrne noted. He was very excited.
‘Oh, Vinny, what will I do with this?’ he asked, taking out the .38 pistol.
‘Give it to me and you make yourself scarce and away from us,’ Byrne replied, feeling sorry for the man who was getting on in years. ‘The remainder of us carried on until we came to the quays on the South Wall, where we expected a boat to carry us across the river, but, when we arrived there there was no boat, it being on the other side. However, it crossed back for us, and we all safely boarded it.’
Meanwhile Ennis and Saurin had retreated down to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, where they took the ferry across the Liffey to the north side. ‘I had to walk to the east side of Clontarf, armed, and with my pockets full of enemy documents,’ Saurin explained. ‘Amongst the papers I had Ames’ notebook which showed their system of intelligence work was similar to ours insofar as they had agents or touts working on identity numbers for patrol purposes.’
CHAPTER 15
‘THE MOST DISGRACEFUL SHOW’
Having left Mount Street on the morning of Bloody Sunday, Crozier went to Dublin Castle, and had just got there when word came though about what had been happening around Dublin. Crozier felt the intelligence officers there were a snobbish bunch. They were ‘mostly “hoy, hoy lah-di-dahs” in mufti’, he wrote, and, on reflection at any rate, he seemed to take a certain vicarious satisfaction at seeing them taken down a peg
‘What!’ exclaimed an officer holding a telephone as he went distinctly pale.
‘About fifty officers are shot in all parts of the city – Collins has done in most of the secret service people.’
Cabs, sidecars and all modes of conveyance began arriving at Dublin Castle as undercover agents sought information and refuge. ‘Panic reigned,’ David Neligan noted. ‘The gates were choked with incoming traffic – all the military, their wives and agents.’ They were seeking protection within the castle walls. ‘A bed was not to be found for love or money,’ he added. ‘Terror gripped the invincible spy system of England. An agent in the castle whose pals had been victims, shot himself. He was buried with the others in England. The attack was so well organised, so unexpected, and so ruthlessly executed that the effect was paralysing.’ Neligan concluded that ‘the enemy never recovered from the blow. While some of the worst killers escaped, they were thoroughly frightened.’
On the afternoon of Bloody Sunday a mixed force of RIC, auxiliaries and military, raided a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary. They approached the grounds from different directions. The auxiliaries stated that people just outside the grounds fired on them as they approached from the Royal Canal end. ‘The firing was returned and a number of casualties was sustained by people who were watching the match,’ read the official statement issued that evening from Dublin Castle.
There were undoubtedly IRA men at the game as there was a great deal of overlapping in membership between the IRA and the Gaelic Athletic Association. Indeed, in many areas the IRA companies were established on the basis of GAA clubs. It was, therefore, quite conceivable that some shots were fired at the approaching crown forces.
People at the game though said that it was the auxiliaries who fired first. The castle authorities stated that the intention was for a British officer to go out on the field about fifteen minutes before the end of the game and announce with a megaphone that all males were going to be searched leaving the stadium and that any men who tried to get out by other means than the exits would be shot. However, even before he reached the ground the shooting had started about fifteen minutes into the game.
All the witnesses stated that the shooting started at the canal end at the southwest corner of the stadium near where Jones’ Road crossed the Royal Canal. This shooting led to panic. One of the armoured cars at the St James’ Avenue exit opened up with a machine gun burst of fifty shots in the air to stop people rushing out of that exit. In
the panic people took off their overcoats to allow them to run faster. Men, women and children were knocked down and trampled upon as they tried to run up the steep embankment
When it was all over fifteen people lay dead or fatally wounded including a ten-year-old boy, Jeremiah O’Leary, who was shot in the head, John Scott aged fourteen, and Jane Boyle, who had gone to the game with her fiancée. They were due to marry five days later. The other people killed were Michael Hogan, the fullback on the Tipperary team, as well as Thomas Hogan, Thomas Ryan, James Burke, James Matthews, Thomas Boyle, Patrick O’Dowd, William Robinson, Joseph Traynor, Michael Feery, James Teehan and Daniel Carroll. There were over sixty people requiring hospital treatment and eleven of those were detained in hospital.
There was no proper inquest, just a military inquiry held in camera and the result of which was not published for over eighty years. The auxiliaries testified that they were fired on.
‘I was in the first car of the convoy detailed to go to Croke Park,’ one of them testified. ‘Immediately we came to the canal bridge on the rise overlooking the park I observed several men rushing back from the top of the bridge towards the entrance gate of the park. I observed three of them turning backward as they ran and discharging revolvers in our direction. Almost immediately the firing appeared to be taken up by members of the crowd inside the enclosure. At this time the members of our party were jumping out of the cars. Most of them rushed down the incline towards the entrance gate.’
‘I was in the second lorry of the convoy to Croke Park,’ another auxiliary testified. ‘The lorry halted just over the canal bridge. I saw no civilians on the bridge. There were some civilians in the passage leading to the turnstiles. I got out and went to the turnstiles as quickly as I could. As I got to the turnstiles I heard shots. I am certain they were revolver shots, a few shots fired quickly. They were fired inside the field. I tried to get through the turnstiles and found that they were locked. When getting over them a bullet hit the wall near to my head. This was the wall on the right hand side inside the archway and splinters of brick and mortar hit me in the face. It could not have been fired from outside the field. As I got inside I landed on my hands and feet. I saw young men aged between 20 and 25 running stooping among the crowd, away from me between the fence and the wall. I pursued and discharged my revolver in their direction.
‘Having been fired at, I used my own discretion in returning fire,’ the second auxiliary continued. ‘I aimed at individual young men who were running away trying to conceal themselves in the crowd. I used a .45 revolver and service ammunition. I chased them across the ground nearly to the wall on the east side. I then saw that a number of people were going back towards the main gate by which I came in. I rushed to that gate and took up my position outside to try and carry out my duties of identification. I stayed there until the ground was cleared.’
Two DMP officers, who testified that they were in the vicinity of the canal bridge on Jones’ Road, said nothing about the auxiliaries being fired on, or any civilians acting in a threatened manner. One officer testified that the men in the first lorry to arrive ran down towards the entrance of the stadium. He did not know what started the shooting. A military officer raced up to him.
‘What is all the firing about?’ he asked. ‘Stop that firing.’
Another DMP testified that he was on duty at the main gate in Jones’ Road. ‘At about 3.25 p.m., I saw six or seven large lorries accompanied by two armoured cars, one in front and one behind, pass along the Clonliffe Road from Drumcondra towards Bally bough,’ he testified. ‘Immediately after a small armoured car came across Jones’ Road from Fitzroy Avenue and pulled up at the en trance of the main gate. Immediately after that, three small Crossley lorries pulled up in Jones’ Road. There were about ten or twelve men dressed in RIC uniforms in each. When they got out of the cars they started firing in the air which I thought was blank ammunition, and almost immediately firing started all round the g r o u n d .’
The auxiliaries fired a total of 228 rounds of small arms fire, in addition to the fifty rounds fired from the armoured car. The court of inquiry found that the shooting was unauthorised and excessive, even if some members of the crowd fired on the auxiliaries first. Following the inquiry Major-General G. F. Boyd, commanding officer of the British soldiers in Dublin, concluded that the firing on the crowd, which began without orders, was both indiscriminate and unjustifiable.
Brigadier General Frank Crozier, who would shortly resign in protest against what he believed was the condoning of the miscon duct of his men, publicly stated that one of his officers told him that the auxiliaries started the shooting. ‘It was the most disgraceful show I have ever seen,’ one of his officers told him. ‘Black and Tans fired into the crowd without any provocation whatever.’
It has generally been stated that all of the Squad stayed away from Croke Park because they expected trouble, but some of them were definitely there, although they had dumped their guns beforehand. ‘Tom Keogh asked Joe Dolan and myself to go to the football,’ Dan McDonnell recalled. ‘We went there. His theory was that if there was any sudden raid we would be much safer there. We parked ourselves on the famous Hill 16, and the match had just started when, as far as we could see, there was a rumble and bustle going on around the entrance gate at the Hogan Stand side. (I personally had no interest in the match.) We suddenly realised that the whole ground was under rifle and machine-gun fire. We scattered and separated from one another on the hill. My hat fell off and while I was picking it up the man in front of me was shot. I was very fit in those days and I ran across the slob lands at the back of Hill 16 over to the Ballybough gate. I ran so fast that I was nearly the first to reach it.’
‘Next morning we knew the actual number of British agents who had been disposed of. We were disappointed with the result,’ Dan McDonnell recalled.
‘The fact is that the majority of raids by the IRA were abortive,’ Todd Andrews noted. ‘The men being sought were not in their digs, or in several cases the men looking for them bungled the jobs. It is not clear how many people were actually on the overall list. At one point there were apparently more than fifty, but some names were dropped at the insistence of Cathal Brugha. About thirty-five still remained, which meant that the IRA actually got less than a third of those targeted. Nevertheless the British agents were terrified and many went to ground.
‘My one intention was the destruction of the undesirables who continued to make miserable the lives of ordinary decent citizens,’ Collins wrote. ‘I have proof enough to assure myself of the atrocities which this gang of spies and informers have committed. Perjury and torture are words too easily known to them. If I had a second motive it was no more than a feeling such as I would have for a dangerous reptile. By their destruction the very air is made sweeter. That should be the future’s judgment on this particular event. For myself my conscience is clear. There is no crime in detecting in wartime the spy and the informer. They have destroyed without trial. I have paid them back in their own coin.’
In London Lloyd George and members of the cabinet were very jittery, according to Sir Maurice Hankey. Greenwood provided weapons for all his domestic staff, though – unlike the prime minister – he was able to joke about his own predicament. ‘All my household are armed,’ the chief secretary told the cabinet, ‘my valet, my butler, and my cook. So if you have any complaints about the soup you may know what to expect.’
When the House of Commons next met, there were some ugly scenes. Joe Devlin, the nationalist MP from Belfast, provoked up roar from the benches when he asked why members were asking about the deaths of the officers in the morning and ignoring what had happened in Croke Park in the afternoon.
‘Sit down!’ members shouted. ‘Sit down!’
‘I won’t sit down,’ Devlin replied. ‘I want to know from the prime minister why the House has not been made acquainted in this recital with the entrance of the military into a football field of 15,000 people, the indiscriminate shoo
ting, and the ten men killed. Why have we not heard of this?’
‘I was never asked that question,’ Hamar Greenwood replied, on walking to the despatch box. ‘But I am prepared to answer it now.’ The chief secretary rummaged among his papers as members on the government benches beneath Devlin were on their feet shouting at him to sit down. Devlin turned to Major John Molson on the Conservative bench below him and said something. The major grabbed Devlin around the neck with his right arm and tried to drag him into the row below. A violent scuffle ensued as Devlin broke loose and traded punches with government MPs.
‘Kill him, kill him,’ members from all sides of the house shouted. Other members rushed to break up the scuffling. Devlin’s coat had been pulled from him in the struggle. T. P. O’Connor and James M. Hogge, the Liberal M P, restrained Devlin from behind.
‘This is a fine specimen of your English courage and chivalry – to attack one man among six hundred,’ Devlin taunted his attackers.
‘If there is a fight I am in it,’ Jack Jones of the Labour Party said as he imposed himself in front of Devlin.
‘I declare the sitting suspended,’ the speaker said.
The public gallery was cleared, but some members remained rooted to their benches. Lloyd George, Bonar L a w, Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain sat together on the treasury bench, while Greenwood, Sir Eric Geddes and Sir Lionel Worthington-Evans stood staring at where Devlin sat, pale and angry, flanked by O’Connor and Hogge. A number of members went to Devlin and shook hands with him, while some Conservatives engaged in animated discussion with him. Those included Viscount Curzon and Sir Harry Brittain. The session resumed after about a twenty minute recess.
The three men arrested in the hours before the 9 a.m. strike, McKee, Clancy and Clune, were being held in the old detective office in the Exchange Court. The room was being used as a kind of guardroom in which beds, other furniture and some stores were kept, including a box of handgrenades. Even though there were three windows in the room overlooking an alley, it was dark because of the high building on the other side. The prisoners supposedly got hold of the handgrenades and threw them, and one of them was also said to have got hold of a rifle. But all three – McKee, Clancy and Clune – were shot dead before they could do any damage.
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