Dan Breen and the IRA Read Online Free PDF Page A

invited to attend. I should say, however, that there were about twenty men present, all of whom agreed to become members of the Volunteer organisation.’
    Trustworthy men in inactive areas who were thought to be willing and able to start a company were approached. Joost Augusteijn discovered that the obvious starting point – when initiating a company or setting up a battalion – was often a relative.
    The enrolment of Thomas Ryan from Ballylooby was a prime example of relatives recruiting one another. Ryan was related to Seán Treacy by marriage and was an obvious choice when Treacy was looking for a local contact to set up the Volunteers in his district. Ryan had always been involved with what might be regarded as ‘improving’ activities. An accomplished athlete with the GAA, he played football for Tipperary at county level and was subsequently a member of the Tipperary team playing at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday. At one stage, legend has it, he was offered £8 a week to play soccer for Glasgow Celtic. In 1914, he was captain of the local Irish National Volunteer company but, as a result of the split in the National Volunteers, was not involved in 1916.
    â€˜Some time about April 1917 Seán Treacy made a few trips to the locality and suggested the organising of a Volunteer unit there,’ said Ryan. ‘On his second visit to us, he gave us an outline of the organisation and generally encouraged us, pointing out what should be done and how to do it. As a result of Treacy’s visit, the battalion was formed with Ned McGrath as the battalion commandant. I was vice-commandant. This was really the beginning of my career in the Volunteer movement. Following Treacy’s instructions, we set to work from then on to organise companies in the surrounding parishes, to appoint officers for these and to direct their training.’
    At the start of 1917 Eamon O’Duibhir had obtained a loan and bought Kilshenane House and farm, with a view to using it as a base for Gaelic League, Sinn Féin and Volunteer activities. During his Easter Week-induced internment in England he had met a Belfast man called Séamus Robinson who had trouble finding work after his release from prison. Robinson had played a considerable part in the Rising, having been in charge of the farthest outpost from the GPO on Sackville Street, holding the Hopkins and Hopkins shop which looked out over O’Connell Bridge. From that vantage, he was face to face with the full might of the British response to the GPO insurgency. His building was one of the last to be evacuated despite heavy British gunfire. O’Duibhir, in prison, noted Robinson’s obvious sincerity and capability. After their release he invited the firm catholic to come and live at Kilshenane as an alleged farm labourer. In fact, Robinson’s job was to help manage the Volunteers.
    â€˜Robinson arrived some day in January 1917, in the midst of a snow storm,’ said O’Duibhir. ‘He had with him a small black travelling bag that we got to know very well and to associate with him. As a farm worker he made up for his lack of knowledge by his honesty, hustle and zeal. He certainly worked as hard as he could and left nothing undone that he could do and in addition to all that he was a very gentlemanly man.’
    In August 1917, O’Duibhir was arrested for the second time, sent to Cork jail, court-martialled and sentenced to two years. He was transferred to Mountjoy where he went on the first of many hunger strikes, protests which did permanent damage to his health: ‘Some of the principal men of the movement in Co. Tipperary were in prison with me, Seán Treacy and Séamus O’Neill in particular. As far as the organisation was concerned, I need not have worried, for Robinson, although new to the place and unknown, had stepped into the gap … we had a housekeeper at Kilshenane and now, when I was taken away and Robinson was