Dan Breen and the IRA Read Online Free PDF Page B

teacher, now re-established contact with Treacy and Breen and got to know Robinson. Thomas Malone (whose brother, James, was busy cycling all over the county attending dances, teaching Irish and training Volunteers) had just been elected to the army council with IRB support. He had been sent, early in 1917, to west Limerick – a GHQ man – to knock the local Volunteers into shape. Padraic O’Farrell describes Malone as being ‘an astoundingly successful leader’. Aware that the south Tipperary men were better organised and motivated than most other units, he took an interest in what they were up to.
    Malone said: ‘They were a grand collection of men. Eamon O’Duibhir of Ballagh, Dan Breen, Ned Reilly, Séamus Robinson, Paddy Kinnane, Jimmy Leahy, Joe McLoughlin and Micksey Connell of Thurles, most of them to become well known in the fight afterwards … We planned to ambush and disarm four RIC guarding a boycotted farm. That was two years before Soloheadbeg. We lay in wait, Paddy Kinnane, Breen, Treacy and myself, but they did not come at the right time. We raided Molly’s of Thurles and carried away eight boxes of gelignite.’
    Early in 1918, O’Duibhir got the job of organiser of the Irish National Assurance Society, for which he recruited hundreds of agents and got a good business going. Kilshenane operated as a live-in semi-collective with Volunteers being given both employment and cover as farm workers or insurance salesmen.
    O’Duibhir and his circle set about collecting arms throughout Munster, buying them in Dublin or grabbing them off the RIC whatever chance they got. Thomas Ryan held up a British officer using a carved wooden fake gun and got a Webley .45. Another time he stole a revolver from an RIC man who was courting in a park. Big houses were methodically raided, their hunting rifles seized in the name of the Irish Republic. This resulted in a motley – sometimes useless – arsenal, said by Ernie O’Malley to include British long and short Lee-Enfields, police carbines, Lee-Metfords, single shot Martini-Henris, Sniders, Remingtons, Winchesters, German, Turkish or Spanish Mausers, French Lebels, American Springfields, old flint muskets and muzzle-loading Queen Annes. There were also Webley, Colt, and Smith and Wesson revolvers. There were not too many machine guns but they had gunpowder, gelignite and dynamite.
    In March 1918, a confrontation arose between the RIC and the Volunteers on the streets of Tipperary town. The cause of the confrontation was the trial, at Tipperary courthouse, of Seán Duffy and Tom Rodgers on charges of drilling a few days previously. Duffy, in particular, was a well-known local Volunteer.
    Breen was in charge because Treacy was locked up in jail. A few days before the trial Breen sent out orders that as many men as possible from the battalion area were to mobilise at 11 a.m. in the market yard, Tipperary, on the day of the trial, carrying hurleys or stout sticks. About 200 men turned up.
    â€˜The men were divided into two companies, Dan taking charge of one and I of the other,’ said Maurice Crowe. ‘We marched to the courthouse, Dan’s party leading and, on our approach, the RIC, under District Inspector Brownrigg, drew a cordon across the road between St Michael’s church and the courthouse gate. Dan halted his company near the cordon and my party halted at St Michael’s Road, opposite the church.’
    The two men began to drill their Volunteers. Since Rodgers and Duffy were being tried on drilling offences, this was an overtly political action.
    â€˜The district inspector asked us to stop drilling,’ continued Crowe. ‘We refused, so the RIC got an order to draw sticks and at this time it looked as if there would be a clash. But the District Inspector saw that the Volunteers were determined and under perfect discipline. The police put back their batons and sent for the