The two women on opposite sides of War of Independence ambush a century ago
Lizzie Early would have to wait decades for the recognition her bravery deserved, writes Patrick McGarty
ON THE bright spring morning of Friday, March 4, 1921 a detachment of soldiers from the First Battalion of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, accompanied by a mixed force of RIC Auxiliaries, left Carrick-on-Shannon en-route to Gowel.
The regiment had only recently arrived in Leitrim, and were confronted with an escalation of IRA violence in the county, primarily as a result of the arrival of Commandant Sean Connolly, an IRA GHQ organiser from neighbouring Longford. Connolly was tasked by Michael Collins with reorganising IRA structures in Leitrim with the aim of increasing military action against crown forces.
Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire regimental reports noted “the district is considerably more disturbed than that which we have vacated in Donegal, and though our hopes are high we have not yet been able to get the gunmen of the district under hand”.
The purpose of the journey to Gowel that morning was to capture some of these gunmen. News had reached the RIC at Carrick-on-Shannon that IRA volunteers would be attending first Friday mass at Gowel church where the local curate Father Edward O’Reilly was a wellknown republican supporter. Little did the crown forces know this tip-off to the local RIC was a ploy by the IRA to lure them into an ambush.
On their arrival at Gowel, the crown forces immediately surrounded the church, and as the congregation made their way out from mass they were met by a force of 40 soldiers and police. The men were lined up for searching on one side while a female searcher attended to the women. Female searchers were a relatively new phenomenon in the War of Independence, and were primarily employed to thwart the activities of members of Cumann na mBan and other women who often transported arms, ammunition and dispatches for the IRA.
The church interior at Gowel was also thoroughly searched, and when nothing was found, no arrests were made and the police and soldiers remounted their Crossley tenders and set out for the return journey to Carrick-on-Shannon.
Just over one mile into that journey, the three-vehicle convoy was ambushed at Sheemore by members of a section of the flying column of the South Leitrim Brigade of the IRA led by Commandant Sean Mitchell.
At the command from Mitchell, the IRA opened fire on the convoy, and soldiers and police immediately jumped from their lorries, and took cover behind a wall. The eight-man ambush party had chosen their position well, and engaged crown forces from an elevated vantage point behind a low wall at the edge of a wooded area. After several minutes of intense gunfire, a number of soldiers and RIC Auxiliaries were wounded. In an attempt to out-flank the ambushers, the party’s commanding officer and World War One veteran Lieutenant Eric Chilver Wilson (25) was shot and fatally wounded. On seeing Wilson collapse, the female searcher attached to the raiding party, Dublin nurse Alice Gray (55), immediately went to his aid and proceeded to bandage the officer’s wounds. Gray also re-distributed the rifles of the wounded RIC men to their comrades who were armed only with revolvers.
Fearing the arrival of reinforcements, and with a low supply of ammunition, Mitchell withdrew his column to safety. With the departure of the ambushers, the police and military regrouped and forced a young local boy to guide them by back roads into Carrick-on-Shannon. When Mitchell’s column arrived at a safe house, a member of the flying column realised he had left his handkerchief at the ambush site. Fearing police tracker dogs would pick up a scent, a young local woman, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Early (18),
Alice Gray was ‘hoping to proceed to Canada as quickly and quietly as possible’
a member of Cumann na mBan, was dispatched to retrieve the handkerchief. Despite intense Crown force activity in the area, Ms Early cycled to Sheemore and retrieved the lost handkerchief.
Police and soldiers continued to swarm the area in search for the ambushers. Local homes were raided and burned including Gowel Temperance Hall. At Kiltoghert, crown forces destroyed machinery at the creamery before burning the building.
While their forces in Leitrim conducted widespread reprisals, authorities in Dublin Castle were anxious to highlight the actions of Nurse Gray at Sheemore. Corresponding with the War Office, Commander of British Forces in Ireland Neville Macready ordered his colleagues to “make a story of this but do not use name or description. Call this heroine ‘a loyal Irish lady of 55’.”
Macready also recommended that Gray be awarded the Order of the British Empire Medal, which was presented to her on January 30, 1922, in a private ceremony by the Lord Lieutenant at the Vice Regal Lodge. It was at Gray’s request that the ceremony was private, as she informed authorities she was “hoping to proceed to Canada as quickly and quietly as possible”.
Like many Irish women of the Irish Revolution, the actions of Lizzie Early did not receive immediate recognition.
After spending a short period of time in the USA, Lizzie returned to Leitrim where she married John Joe Beirne and raised a family of six children on a small farm at Effernagh, a short distance from the ambush site at Sheemore. Over 50 years later, Lizzie was finally awarded a medal on June 26, 1974, for her service with Cumann na mBan.
Lizzie spent her final years in the care of her daughter Pauline Creighton at Croghan, Co Roscommon, where she passed away in 1996. The fate of Alice Gray is unknown.