Disaster for the Volunteers
ORGANISERS HOPE PRESIDENT HIGGINS WILL ATTEND CENTENARY COMMEMORATION AT DATE TBC
THE organisers of a Cork commemoration to mark the IRA’s single greatest loss in the War of Independence, when 14 men died, have said they are confident President Michael D Higgins will attend a remembrance ceremony next year after this year’s event was cancelled due to Covid-19.
Tim O’Sullivan of the Clonmult Ambush Commemoration Committee in East Cork said everyone involved in the group was disappointed that they could not mark the actual centenary of the event on Saturday, February 20th but they remained confident they would be able to do so next year.
“We extended an invite to President Higgins last year before the lockdown to speak at the commemoration and we were confident he would attend given his own father’s involvement in the War when he fought with the Charleville Company of No 2 Cork Brigade,” said Mr O’Sullivan.
According to military records, President Higgins’s late father, John, a native of Co Clare, was a Lieutenant in the Charleville Company and was involved in attacks on Ballylanders Barracks, a raid on a mail train in Charleville station and an ambush in Ballyhea.
Mr O’Sullivan said: “Obviously, we had to cancel our plans because of Covid but it remains our ambition to have President Higgins attend our centenary commemoration whenever that happens.”
The East Cork Flying Column of the 4th Battalion, Cork No 1 IRA Brigade was virtually annihilated when they were caught on February 20, 1921 in a disused farmhouse at Garrylaurence, Clonmult, some 12kms north of Midleton by a combined force of British troops and Auxiliaries.
Local historian and author of ‘ The Battle of Clonmult’, Tom O’Neill said the Column was made up primarily of men from the Midleton, Cobh and Knockraha Companies who had successfully taken part in the attacks on Carrigtwohill, Cloyne and Castlemartyr RIC Barracks in 1920.
On the morning of February 20th 1921, O/C of the Flying Colum, Comdt Diarmuid O’Hurley and two other senior officers, Capt Joseph Ahern and Capt Paddy Whelan, left the billets at Garrylaurence to scout out the site of a planned ambush of a train carrying British troops at Cobh Junction.
Mr O’Neill explained that around noon the British military received information from an informer that the column had been spotted near Clonmult and a force of British troops from the 2nd Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment proceeded to Clonmult and began a search of the area, he said.
British soldiers surprised and fatally wounded two column members, Michael Desmond and John Joe Joyce, as they were getting water from a well near the thatched farmhouse where the column were billeted and the troops quickly surrounded the building, which had only a front door and no rear exit.
Mr O’Neill explained how Capt Jack O’Connell attempted a break-out from the house and while he managed to escape three men following him, Michael Hallahan, James Ahern and Richard Hegarty, were killed while Diarmuid O’Leary was wounded and retreated back to the house.
O’Connell later told the Bureau of Military History: “I led the sortie, carrying a rifle with a fixed bayonet and dashed through a hail of enemy bullets across the yard to a gateway. I turned up to the right and was fired on by two soldiers ... I returned fire, wounding one, the other ran back.
“I turned round to look for my companions who had attempted the sortie with me and discovered to my astonishment that I was alone ... I could not see the doorway of the house but, judging from the intensive rifle fire, I judged it would be madness to attempt to rejoin my comrades in the house.”
O’Connell tried to get help but it proved too late as the British troops, backed up by a contingent of Auxiliaries from Midleton, set the thatched roof of the farmhouse on fire, forcing the remaining members of the Flying Column to surrender and some 15 men emerged to be taken prisoner.
But seven of these were shot by the Auxiliaries before a British officer intervened and prevented the remaining eight being killed. Among those who survived and were taken prisoner was Diarmuid O’Leary who was badly wounded and got a last minute reprieve from execution three months later.
“Paddy Higgins instructed the boys to throw their guns into the blazing house and come out with their hands up, bringing me with them – this was done, whereupon the Black and Tans lined up the boys and shot seven of them in cold blood,” O’Leary later told the Military Bureau of History.
Those who were shot at Clonmult after surrendering included Jerry Ahern, Liam Ahern, Donal Dennehy, David Desmond, James Glavin, Joseph Morrissey and Christopher O’Sullivan while two other men, Maurice Moore and Paddy O’Sullivan, were later executed at Victoria Barracks in Cork.
Capt Paddy Whelan, who originally had been earmarked to stay in charge of the Flying Column at Clonmult, later told how he and his comrades, Comdt Diarmuid O’Hurley and Capt Joseph Ahern and sole survivor Capt Jack O’Connell returned to the scene of the fight later that night. “Some local people had come to the scene after the military had left, collected the bodies and laid them as we found them ... their faces covered by a long canvas ... I undertook the heartbreaking task of uncovering their faces and identifying them, calling out each name consecutively.
“This sad task took me some time but, between sobs of anguish, I managed it – there were two distinct pauses as I went along the row as I had great difficulty in naming Liam Ahern – Joseph Ahern’s brother and Jerry Ahern, Joseph Ahern’s first cousin.”
According to Tom O’Neill, Clonmult represented a huge setback for the IRA in East Cork and Cork generally, coming after other failed ambushes at Dripsey in Mid- Cork, Mourneabbey in North Cork and Upton in West Cork, where a total of 15 IRA volunteers were killed or captured and executed.
“Clonmult really was devastating for the IRA in East cork – most of their successes had been in 1920 when they destroyed Carrrigtwohill, Cloyne and Castlemartyr RIC Barracks and ambushed British troops at Mile Bush, and each time they captured significant amount of arms and ammunitions.
“But they were all prior to the Flying Column being formed – its only real success was an attack on an RIC patrol in Midleton just after Christmas 1920 – they had got all these weapons for use in 1921 but less than two months later with Clonmult, the Flying Column was actually wiped out.”
Church bells rang out in East Cork at 6pm on Saturday, February 20th to mark the 100th anniversary of Clonmult while a video telling the story, as related by Tom O’Neill at a socially distant ceremony attended by committee members at a new memorial at Garrylaurence, can be viewed at: https://wwww. facebook.com/clonmult/