The daring raid of the Upnor by the IRA
One of the greatest military coups in Irish history occurred on the waters of Cork Harbour just over 100 years ago when the IRA seized the British army vessel, SS Upnor.
In the week after St Patrick’s Day 1922 an IRA volunteer who was working at Haulbowline dockyard noticed the Upnor at the wharf where it was being loaded with a wealth of arms and ammunition. It was March 1922 and following the end of the War of Independence and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the British military were preparing their departure from Cork. The Upnor was one of the vessels being used to take British stores back to Britain from Cork but, the local IRA decided the departing ‘visitors’ should leave their weapons behind!
The raid on the Upnor was carried out under the orders of Brigade O/C Sean O’Hegarty when he received information about the vessel and its cargo at Haulbowline. He asked for the Upnor’s manifest and set about a plan to seize the contents of the ship. The original plan was to storm Haulbowline and take the ship at the wharf. O’Hegarty decided the raid on land was too risky, instead he opted for a raid at sea.
ATTRACTIVE CARGO
Volunteer Daniel O’Donovan was charged with selecting a suitable port to take the Upnor to while Vol. Michael Burke had the job of keeping a constant watch on the ship at Haulbowline. He reported to Brigade HQ that the ship was due to set sail on the morning of March 29th and the plan was then set in motion to seize the vessel.
IRA Volunteers Dan ‘Sandow’ O’Donovan and Mick Murphy left Cork City for Cobh where the rest of the raiding party were waiting. The party were equipped with a Thompson Submachine Gun, a Lewis Machine Gun and their own personal revolvers.
Vol. Michael Leahy was in charge of seizing a vessel for the IRA in order to chase down The Upnor at sea. A tugboat called The Warrior had arrived from London that morning and while it was tied up at quayside the captain and crew were in the nearby Rob Roy Hotel. A number of armed IRA volunteers went to the Rob Roy where they placed The Warrior’s captain and crew under arrest, while their vessel was being commandeered in the name of the Republic.
Along with the Lewis gun and Thompson machine gun, the IRA had another important weapon - sea captain Jer Collins, an experienced mariner who threw in his lot with the Republican movement. With Captain Collins at the helm of The Warrior, they followed the Upnor as she set sail for England. Collins calculated the distance between The Warrior and the Upnor. He knew that the Upnor would change course to pick up fresh water so he changed the course of The Warrior in order to correctly intercept the Upnor at approx 6.30pm.
IRA Staff Officer Leo Buckley was tasked by O’Hegarty to take control of the Roches Point Coastguard Station. With three other IRA Volunteers, Buckley successfully seized the station and the important telegraph system while the raid on the Upnor was in progress.
The chasing pack spotted the Upnor just off Roches Point and the calculations of Captain Collins were correct, it was just after 6 o’clock that evening and they raised the admiralty flag on The Warrior as they approached the Upnor and shouted through a megafone they had a message from the admiralty.
A row boat with British sailors was dispatched from the Upnor to collect the fictitious message. As the British sailors boarded The Warrior the IRA party pounced. They tied them up and placed the dumbfounded sailors below deck. A portion of the IRA raiding party then took the row boat back to the Upnor, while the rest of the party stayed on The Warrior covering their comrades with the Thompson Submachine gun.
The IRA party which included Tom Crofts, Con Sullivan, Peter Donovan and Sean O’Donoghue just to name a few, boarded the Upnor in quick fashion and over-powered the stunned crew. Mick Murphy was armed with the Lewis machine gun and ordered the captain of the ship to abandon the bridge. The Upnor’s captain cried piracy but when Murphy brandished the Lewis gun the ship’s captain did not argue and along with his crew, went quietly below deck under armed guard.
IRA Volunteer John Duhig, who was also a mariner, took to the bridge of the Upnor and with The Warrior tugboat close by, they set sail for Ballycotton, the safe harbour chosen by Vol. Daniel O’Donovan.
ASSISTANCE IN BALLYCOTTON
The Upnor with The Warrior at its side sailed into Ballycotton just after midnight. They were met there by 500 IRA Volunteers while Mary (Mamie) Francis Hegarty led the Cumann na mBan members on shore, along with five steam wagons and 76 lorries. All roads into Ballycotton had been closed off by the IRA while several groups patrolled the surrounding area. The telephone exchange in Ballycotton was taken over by the IRA and many local homes played their part by cooking food and making tea for the IRA members and their prisoners. It was a large scale operation which included battalions from all corners of the Rebel county.
Over one thousand rifles and revolvers along with over one thousand pistols and ammunition were taken from the Upnor. Fifty Lewis machine guns, several boxes of hand grenades, 6 Maxim machine guns and boxes of land mines were also part of the booty. The operation went on without any interference throughout the night with the last lorry loaded at 10 o’clock the next morning.
The arms were distributed across the county to various brigade areas. A Bedford lorry destined for an arms dump in Cuil Aodha was the last one loaded just as a British patrol vessel appeared on the horizon of Ballycotton Bay.
The IRA and their helpers all got away with their cache of weapons, leaving the locals in Ballycotton to pick through the furnishings of the British vessel. Many a home in Ballycotton that night was warmed with wood and coal liberated from the ship and many a family sat at new tables and chairs courtesy of the Upnor!
The daring raid caused great embarrassment for the British. Despite the insistence of the British to return the weapons, not one bullet was ever returned or retrieved. The majority of the weapons taken from the Upnor would later be used by various IRA brigades in the Civil War across Munster.
As for the vessel which was first launched in 1899, The Upnor was scrapped in 1952, thirty years after it fell into Rebel hands in Cork harbour!