History loves heroics, but ordinary people’s grief is the real story

How war impacts on daily life is often overlooked by historians

IKNOW it probably means little or nothing at all, but when I got hold of the new book listing the dead of the Irish revolution I couldn’t resist looking up possible forebears. I don’t know what any of my ancestors actually did and I don’t know that any of the Dohertys and O’hallorans and Kerrs who died during the War of Independence are related to me, but it was their details I turned to first.

The book, The Dead of the Irish Revolution by Eunan O’halpin and Daithi O Corrain, published by Yale, does for that war what Lost Lives does for the more recent Troubles period. It lists, as far as is possible, all who died and how they died.

I have read many books about that period, but none that exposes like this book does the raw callousness and bigotry and pure hapless human blundering that energised that violence.

After conflicts and wars, the histories tend to concentrate on heroics, real and imagined, or on killings with a higher profile, because they relate to a bigger story, or have propaganda value.

Dipping at random into the records of the dead may produce a more plausible account of ordinary horror. The device I chose for taking a cross-section of the killings was to look at the people who had one of my family names.

My father’s parents were Doherty (pronounced Dordy). His generation restored the “O”. His mother was a Kerr. My mother’s father was an O’halloran and her mother a Lane.

Eight Dohertys and one O’doherty died in that war. So did three Kerrs and one O’halloran. Of the Dohertys, four were in the IRA, three were in the RIC, one was shot as an informer by the IRA and one, an RIC man, died in a shooting accident.

The dead Doherty who caught my eye first was Barney. He had my father’s name. Barney had been in the British Army during the First World War and his brother was killed at Gallipoli.

There had been rioting for some days in Derry after the IRA killed a police inspector called Denis Moroney in May 1920.

In what appeared to be an end to the fighting, Barney offered to walk a girl home. He was struck by a shot fired, presumably by a loyalist, and he collapsed and died in Linenhall Street.

That same month, 24-year-old James Doherty, an RIC man, was “accidentally shot by a comrade” in Donegal. There was ghastly violence a few weeks later in Derry, with five people killed in two days. One of them was 32-year-old James Doherty.

He was at the wake house for one of the dead, chatting on the doorstep to Janie O’kane. (O’kane is another name in my extended family, though this probably means nothing here). Janie saw a woman in Fountain Street point them out to a gunman. The gunman fired and killed James.

In October that year, Francis Doherty was killed as part of a six-man RIC patrol that was ambushed by the IRA.

John Doherty was 47 years old and had been in the RIC for 25 years. He was stationed in Westport, Co Mayo and was part of a convoy of vehicles travelling through the most beautiful part of the country to Leenane in June 1921.

I have cycled that road, not knowing what horror took place there. The convoy was attacked by the West Mayo Brigade of the IRA and RIC men and soldiers fought them off for over three hours.

The IRA killed five policemen and even after a three-hour battle had time to pick up the police and Army weapons, taking 23 rifles, 25 revolvers, one Lewis gun and 5,000 rounds of .303 ammunition. This was before the invention of the helicopter.

Another James Doherty had lost an arm when serving with the Leinster Regiment. On June 25, 1921, he was taken from his home in Limerick by armed men.

When his body was recovered, the IRA said that he had been “tried, convicted and duly executed” as an informer. His father said he had come under suspicion because he had been “chummy” with the police.

Daniel O’doherty worked in the family bicycle repair business. He was one of three men taken from their homes on the same night in April 1921 and shot dead in Dromore, Co Tyrone.

The forces of the state had no compunction then about picking up IRA suspects and killing them, often in reprisal for previous attacks on the Army or police.

Edward Doherty from Ballybofey ran off when soldiers raided his house following an IRA ambush. They shot him dead.

Of the three Kerrs who died, one was in the IRA and one in the British Army. Both of them died by accident.

William Kerr was a soldier in the Irish Guards. He was on security duty at the vice-regal lodge in Dublin. He was chatting to a woman, Miss Francis Pennicatt, and ventured for some reason to climb over a turnstile opposite Baggot’s pub and fell.

The other accidental death of a Kerr was a shooting accident. Neil and Tom Kerr were gun-runners for the IRA, based in Liverpool.

While inspecting a consignment of weapons, one of them discharged a .45 pistol and the bullet went into Neil. He had been interned after the 1916 rising in Dublin.

The other Kerr to die was a 26-yearold barber living on the Old Lodge Road in Belfast. He was one of three men taken from their homes one night in June 1921 by Black and Tans and shot dead.

His body was found the following morning on the Springfield Road. He was believed to be the victim of a murder gang led by RIC District Inspector Nixon.

The one O’halloran who died was a member of the IRA. Another IRA man called Thomas Blake had been shot dead three days earlier while walking home alone. There was fighting between mourners and the police at the funeral and shots were fired. One of those shots killed Patrick O’halloran.

Is this information of any value? It tells me nothing, really, about my family since none of these people may actually be related to me.

But I would be happy to have a similar spread of revolutionaries, RIC men, soldiers and touts in my background. I am, after all, answerable for none of them.

But reading the past in this way tells you about ordinary people and how war impacts on their daily lives and that is the part that is usually overlooked.