FEARS SIX BEDS TO GO AT DINGLE HOSPITAL
100 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK A TEAM OF I.R.A VOLUNTEERS ATTEMPTED TO ASSASSINATE TWO R.I.C OFFICERS IN TRALEE. HERE HISTORIAN RYLE DWYER EXAMINES THE INCIDENT, WHICH THE BRITISH AUTHORITIES CAME TO REGARD AS THE START OF IRELAND’S WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
WHILE THE FAMOUS RAID ON GORTATLEA BARRACKS IN APRIL 1918 IS GENERALLY REGARDED AS THE FIRST INCIDENT IN THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE FROM THE BRITISH PERSPECTIVE ITWAS AN ATTACK IN TRALEE TWO MONTHS LATER THAT IGNITED THE CONFLICT
KERRY’S part in the War of Independence was grossly distorted for decades, as a result of the bitterness of the Civil War. In his book on the period, the British Intelligence Officer, Major Cecil J. C. Street essentially cited “an attempt to murder two policemen” in Tralee as an outrage that sparked the War of Independence from the British perspective.
A British intelligence report described what happened in Tralee on June 14, 1918, as “a most daring outrage committed in daylight in the presence of over a hundred inhabitants, who were terrified to interfere, or subsequently identify the culprits.” What happened and the follow up was reported in more than fifty newspapers throughout Australia.
The incident was an attempt to kill two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), in revenge for their part in killing two Irish Volunteers engaged in an arms raid on an RIC hut in Gortatlea, a few miles from Tralee, on the night of April 14, 1918.
This was during the conscription crisis, which erupted the previous week, when Prime Minister Lloyd George indicated plans to introduce conscription in Ireland.
Seven Irish Volunteers, under the command of Tom McEllistrim, decided at a meeting in Ballymacelligott, to resist conscription forcefully.
To facilitate this, they planned to raid an RIC hut at Gortatlea, the following Saturday evening, for arms. In addition to McEllistrim, those involved were John Browne, Maurice Carmody, John Cronin, John Flynn, Richard Laide, and Maurice Reidy.
They waited until two of the four policemen in the hut had gone on night patrol, but they did not realise that Sergeant Martin Boyle and Constable Patrick Fallon had only walked as far as the nearby railroad station, from where they witnessed the raid.
They then slipped up to the building and shot John Browne, 24 of Feale Bridge; and Richard Laide, 25, of Clogher. Each died within hours, while the other five escaped.
As the raid was at the height of the conscription crisis, it went virtually unreported in the national press. The Irish Independent merely noted that an inquest into the two deaths, had been postponed for a couple of weeks while the men were buried.
The two policemen were promptly transferred out of Kerry and promoted— Boyle to head constable, and Fallon to sergeant. Each was also awarded the Constabulary Medal, the highest distinction within the RIC. Of course, this merely added insult to injury in the eyes of the Volunteers.
On learning that Boyle and Fallon would be giving evidence at a court case in Tralee on June 14, 1918, McEllistrim and Cronin decided to shoot them, as they arrived in Tralee on the train from Cork on the morning of the court hearing.
Dan Stack was to be at the railroad station on his donkey-drawn cart, with two shut-guns, hidden under sacks. Before McEllistrim set out for Tralee on the fateful morning, however, Moss Carmody informed him that Boyle and Fallon had travelled the previous night.
McEllistrim therefore decided to shoot them, when they would leave the courthouse for lunch. Carmody refused to take part, so McEllistrim had him notify Cronin to meet him at the back of Tom Harty’s pub in The Mall, Tralee.
McEllistrim then had Stack deliver the guns to the back entrance of Harty’s pub. When Cronin arrived around 11:30 a.m., they took the two shotguns, concealed in a sack, into Harty’s and went to a small snug at the front, overlooking The Mall.
“We knew that Boyle and Fallon would have to pass that way,” McEllistrim noted. Stack —acting as a lookout — warned them as the two policemen were coming down the street.
“We snatched our guns and moved quickly to the door,” McEllistrim recalled. “We could now see Boyle and Fallon, in uniform, going down the other side of the street. There were scores of people passing to and fro.”
“I was leading and, as I dashed through the door, I collided with someone, slipped and fell on one knee,” McEllistrim added. “When I got to my feet Cronin was by my side and we dashed together across the street. There was great excitement and shouting and when we got halfway across the street. Boyle and Fallon heard someone shout, ‘ look out’.”
“They turned in our direction and saw us facing them with two shotguns,” McEllistrim continued. “We lifted our guns to fire. We were now only ten yards from them. As we did they flung themselves backwards in a somewhat sitting position on the flags. We took aim and fired.”
Fallon turned instinctively and was hit in the back around the shoulder, but made a full recovery. Boyle was missed altogether.
“Cronin and I dropped our shotguns in the middle of the street, dashed again for Harty’s front entrance, out through the shop to the back, where we jumped on our bicycles and got clear away.”
Although Carmody had declined to take part in the shooting, he was arrested anyway that day, along with Robert Browne, a brother of John Browne, one of the two killed during the Gortatlea raid.
Both were initially charged as the gunmen in The Mall. The case against Browne was quickly dropped, but Carmody was held in custody for six weeks awaiting trial, before the charges against him were also abandoned.
To learn more about the War of Independence in Kerry you can pick up a copy of ‘Rebel Kerry - from the pages of The Kerryman’ which was published last year in conjunction with Mercier Press. The book – which contains numerous stories and photos from The Kerryman’s extensive archives and details events in Kerry from 1916 to the end of the Civil War – is available from The Kerryman’s offices at Denny St in Tralee and from all good bookshops.