SOLDIERS' SEPARATION ALLOWANCES
Patrick set about organising the task ahead very carefully. He chose one helper to carry out the arrest with him. His choice fell on a fellow volunteer, Jim O’Brien, a man on whom Patrick could fully rely while carrying out O’Meara’s arrest, which was duly planned for the November 17, 1920.
Patrick and Jim, took great precautions so as to be able to enter Hospital without attracting attention. Patrick changed his gender, dressing himself up as a tinker woman, complete with shawl, which covered his ‘Peter the Painter’ automatic gun beneath. His colleague, Jim O’Brien, was dressed-up in old ragged traveller type clothes as well.
On receiving information that O’Meara was at his home in Kenmare Terrace, they proceeded to the house where they found the front door open. They quickly rushed up the stairs. O’Meara, who was in bed, when he heard the noise on the stairs, attempted to block his bedroom door with a dressing table. Patrick and Jim successfully pushed in the door and ordered O’Meara to get dressed immediately as they were putting him under arrest and taking him away.
O’Meara was very slow about getting dressed, so the two Volunteers, realising the necessity for getting him out of the town quickly, pushed him out, dressed only in his trousers. They had a car waiting which took them to a safe house belonging to an O’Neill family in Ballinacurra, near Limerick City, where they allowed O’Meara finally to get fully dressed. There, he was handed over at once to a Tom Keogh, O/C of Herbertstown Volunteer Company. This was how most arrests were carried out by the Volunteers who quickly passed on their ‘ suspected targets’, from one company area to the next, to confuse the authorities.
The arrest and rapid hand-over of O’Meara, meant that Patrick Meehan was free to return to his Flying Column, where shortly after, he was allowed home to rest for Christmas. During that Christmas rest period, a number of volunteers lost their lives because of information that had been passed on to the enemy. Such deaths, as a result of informer information, made the Volunteers more determined than ever to show no mercy to spies or collaborators when they were apprehended!
O’Meara was held a prisoner by the Volunteers, in all for about six weeks (from 17/11/1920 to 31/12/1920), before being tried by court-martial. The delay occurred because there was a constant danger of the witnesses, who were to give evidence to the Volunteers at O’Meara’s court-martial, being followed by Crown forces. As a result, the Volunteers wanted to wait until the initial furore died down, following O’Meara’s seizure, before they’d set about having his trial.
After being held for some time in the Herbertstown area, Michael O’Meara had to be got well away from the Hospital hinterland. It was decided to move him towards the hilly and mountainous Galtee Battalion’s area, where the British felt very insecure when travelling about. O’Meara was brought first to Elton, where his guard there gave him, what turned out to be his last alcoholic drink in this life!
From there, O’Meara was moved on and taken, after a few nights, to Grady’s, Kilcruig/Garryarthur, in Glenrue, where he was held a prisoner for about a week. Then, he was moved again on to Leaba Molaige, where a very patriotic family, the O’Flynns, Thomas and Johanna and their son after them, Maurice Flynn, lived in an ideal location, high up the hill, above Leaba Molaige, on the edge of that townland bordering Gurteenatarriff. The O’Flynn farmstead is in a mile long boreen and is beautifully isolated from literally the ‘whole world’, even to this day!