THE NIGHT I.R.A. WAGED WAR ON THE GARDAI
More than 90 years on, our writer looks back at...
BY November 1926, the Civil War had been over for three years and the IRA appeared to be waning in influence and popularity. The subversive organisation had gone from a membership of nearly 15,000 in 1924 to a historic low of just 5,000 two years later.
Nevertheless, the group was still made up of committed republicans hell-bent on showing their ability to undermine the legitimacy of State institutions.
They chose Sunday, November 14, 1926, as the night they would make their stand. The republicans planned attacks on 12 Garda stations throughout the country with the express aim of seizing important government documents. The meticulously planned attacks would occur between 6pm and 7.30pm. They occurred on a Sunday evening because it was known there would be very few gardaí on duty at that time.
Stations were targeted in six counties, with the raiders ensuring that telegraph wires would be cut, trees felled and roads blocked to scupper the follow-up investigations. Many members of the raiding parties would be armed.
That November night would see more incidents in Cork than in any other county. Cork had grown accustomed to tensions between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions and sporadic troubles had continued after the conclusion of the Civil War. On this particular night, several cars were stolen from the town of Macroom, 38km west of the city, which were then used in armed ambushes on stations.
Blackrock, Togher and Ballincurrig would find themselves under attack. Shots would be fired and officers and their families tied up. Money and property were also stolen from the stations. St Luke’s in Cork city was also targeted, with three raiders knocking on the door at 6pm. The orderly opened the door and saw the blackened faces of the armed republicans. He managed to knock the gun out of the lead raider’s hand but was then overpowered. Sergeant James Fitzsimons, a Down native, was in charge of the station and ran into the hallway on hearing the commotion. From a range of just a few feet, the lead raider fired a bullet which hit the sergeant in the abdomen. He crumpled to the ground and his blood seeped out onto the floor. The raiders, whose plan appeared to have been to seize papers from the station without resorting to shooting, wasted no time in fleeing.
The wounded sergeant was brought to the North City Infirmary where it was found that his liver was perforated and his condition was hopeless. James Fitzsimons was then pronounced dead.
Meanwhile, in Hollyford, Co. Tipperary, Garda Hugh Ward and his colleague Garda Martin McTighe were settling in for the night. Ward was a native of Nobber, Co. Meath, and had played a prominent role in the War of Independence. At around 7.15pm, he answered a knock on the front door of the barracks, and was confronted by three armed men wearing overcoats. The first intruder had a partially blackened face and without warning fired two shots in quick succession. One of the bullets penetrated Ward’s left cheek, while the other lodged in his neck. The raiders then entered the station, rifling McTighe’s pockets before fleeing with the garda’s official notebook, some documents and about £30 sterling. They shouted: ‘One of your comrades is shot; look after him’ as they left. McTighe helped Ward to a nearby pub and laid him on a table. He summoned a doctor, an enterprise that was delayed by the fact that telegraph wires had been cut.
THE injured garda’s condition was not initially thought to be life-threatening. The day after the attack he was even able to walk unaided from the ambulance to the train in Tipperary town as he was being conveyed to St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. Within two days his condition had worsened, however, and on November 16 a physician found him unable to talk. The garda collapsed shortly afterwards and at 5am on that morning Hugh Ward was pronounced dead in hospital, making him the second victim of the attacks of that Sunday. It would later transpire that a third victim, soldier Thomas Moloney, had also been shot and injured after a raid on Tallaght Army Camp. He would survive the shooting, however.
The news of the deaths spread quickly throughout the country and there was widespread outrage. It was the second occasion that two gardaí had met their death on the same day – Garda John Murrin and Sergeant Thomas Griffin had been shot dead near Carrick-on-Suir two years previously. This time the men’s joint State funeral took place on November 17, 1926, and was attended by thousands of mourners. The Taoiseach himself, WT Cosgrave, gave the final oration at Fitzsimons’s graveside in Glasnevin, Dublin. Ward, meanwhile, was buried in his native Nobber.
Just days later, the Cumann na nGaedheal government introduced the Emergency Powers Bill to deter the anti-Treaty IRA from carrying out further acts of this nature. The draconian legislation permitted gardaí to arrest anyone about whom there was a reasonable suspicion, with Cosgrave describing the co-ordinated raids as ‘an attempt to terrorise the people of this country’. Shortly after the shootings the Gardaí conducted a raid on the offices of the republican newspaper An Phoblacht, and destroyed its printing presses. The IRA would later issue a statement, through the same organ, regarding the raids. They described the deaths of the gardaí as unintentional and decried the new legislation.
IN the days after the deaths of Ward and Fitzsimons, 110 men were arrested nationwide, including 23 in Cork city alone. The arrests included some wellknown local men, most notably Seán MacSwiney – chairman of the Cork GAA County Board and brother of former lord mayor Terence MacSwiney. Two TDs were also detained. All would eventually be released, however, and noone would ultimately be charged over the sergeant’s death. In the case of Garda Ward, two local men would face charges of having killed him, but both would be acquitted due to lack of evidence.
The botched raids of that winter’s night had needlessly ended the lives of two gardaí, and would prove wildly unpopular nationally and be disastrous for the IRA. Several IRA members publicly expressed disgust at the shootings and dissent within the ranks would ensue, as well as a clampdown on the organisation by the authorities. The identities of the men who killed the two gardaí would remain unknown, however.
The 1920s was a turbulent time for gardaí, in which they faced threats from republicans and criminals alike. The job of a garda today seems safer, on the face of it, although the tragic deaths of Adrian Donohoe and Tony Golden in the past five years show clearly that the life of a frontline officer still carries tremendous risks.
Colm Wallace’s book, The Fallen: Gardaí Killed In Service 19221949, is available in all good book shops and on amazon.com. For more information, see the author’s Facebook page – facebook.com/ colmwallaceauthor – or contact History Press, City Quay, Co. Dublin, 01-2449470.