ANNACURRA MAN PRO DURING IRELAND’S WA
PETER ENNIS WAS THE CARETAKER OF LIBERTY HALL DURING THE TURBULENT YEARS LEADING UP TO IRELAND’S INDEPENDENCE. PAUL ENNIS WRITES ABOUT HIS GREAT UNCLE’S LIFE AT THE HALL AND THE OFTEN VIOLENT INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED
IN MARCH 2016, the Wicklow People and Bray People featured the story of Peter Ennis from Annacurra, who was caretaker of Liberty Hall during the 1916 Rising.
Peter’s contribution did not stop in 1916 and he continued to serve and protect the Hall throughout the War of Independence.
His obituary in 1927 stated: ‘In the years of actual fighting, 19191921 especially, Ennis did his bit like a man, as he had done in the fateful Easter Week of 1916’.
In the aftermath of the Rising and throughout the War of Independence, Liberty Hall was seen as central to the creation of the Irish State. It became a symbol of self-determination. As Rosie Hackett said: ‘It all started from there’. Consequently, police raids were commonplace, often when Ennis was alone in the building.
Peter Ennis was born in 1876 to Simon Ennis, a herdsman, and Mary Traynor, daughter of Peter Traynor, a tenant farrier on the Coollattin estate. He was raised with three siblings, William, Dorah and John. Simon died of TB in 1877 and, after Mary’s death in 1892, the children migrated to Dublin in search of a new life.
By the early 1900s, William and John were set up as farriers. Dorah went into domestic service, and Peter went to work as a coal labourer on Dublin’s docks.
Dublin was a city of contrasts and Peter was moved by the plight of unskilled workers. In 1904 he joined the newly formed Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI). In an 1972 address to the Old Dublin Society, Frank Robbins, a veteran of the Citizen Army and a friend of Peter, reflected on the early socialist movement led by James Connolly and William O’Brien, as the ‘most fruitful phase not only in the trade union movement but in the fight for the freedom of our country and in the achievement of a great measure of social justice for the working class people’.
Ennis was tireless in promoting the socialist cause for a workers’ republic. He regularly chaired meetings and spoke on public platforms alongside William O’Brien and other prominent socialists.
In 1912, when James Connolly set up the Independent Labour of Ireland (ILP) with Francis Sheehy-Skeffington as its first Secretary, Ennis was nominated to the propaganda committee.
The surviving minutes in the National Library show that Peter Ennis maintained a central role in the ILP and presided at more meetings than any other member, until the Party ceased to function in 1914.
Peter was also a union activist, first with the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) and later as a founding member of the ITGWU in January 1909. It was while chairing an SPI meeting in 1907, that Peter met and befriended Jim Larkin.
In the first extant Rules of the ITGWU in 1912, Peter is a co-signatory with Larkin (General Secretary), Thomas Foran (General President), John O’Neill (Secretary, Executive Branch) and four other prominent trade unionists.
When Peter and his wife Mary Kate moved into Liberty Hall as their permanent residence in 1912, little did they realise that the rambling, run-down, former hotel would become the heartbeat of the 1916 Rising and continue to play a historic part during a decade of revolution.
From the outset, the Hall was a frenzy of activity matched by mass gatherings of up to 10,000 strike supporters outside in Beresford Place. As the keyholder, Peter would open Liberty Hall at first light and close up after the last person had left, usually late into the night.
At the same time, Mary Kate was totally immersed in the provision of food and clothing to the families of striking workers.
In this difficult period, Peter had the assistance of a fellow coal worker, Andy ‘the Dazzler’ Mulligan. In 1916, Andy pushed a handcart when accompanying the compositor Michael J. Molloy to collect type for the Proclamation from printer William West in Capel Street. The ‘Dazzler’ served with the Citizen Army in the GPO and was interned at Frongoch.
Sadly, Mary Kate died on April 15, 1914, from pernicious anaemia. She was 31 years old.
In the lead up the 1916 Rising, Peter was remembered for maintaining harmony between the union activities on floors above and preparation for rebellion below stairs. Frank Robbins said that Peter ‘was a very diplomatic person and there were many occasions when he was obliged to use all his gifts of persuasion to overcome awkward situations’.
Peter’s ‘amazing escape’ under machine gun fire from Liberty Hall was widely publicised. His obituary observed the special relationship between Connolly and Ennis: ‘Connolly trusted Ennis implicitly and that trust was not misplaced. Ennis was left behind as guardian of the Union’s premises and right well did he give an account of his stewardship.’
Peter reported to Connolly over three days at the GPO, until Connolly sent him away to stay with his brother William, as ‘the Union needed him’. Peter returned to the Union premises at 31 Eden Quay in September 1916 to supervise the reconstruction work.
While the ITGWU Executive recorded that its claim for compensation for the extensive damage to the Hall had ‘not materialised’, Peter did receive compensation for the loss of his personal property; including a Willow Pattern dinner service, the desired wedding present of the period.
In the aftermath of the Rising, the Hall was subjected to regular and often violent military and police raids.
Margaret Skinnider, who was wounded while fighting at the College of Surgeons, gave an insight into the nature of police behaviour in and around Liberty Hall: ‘[The police] are given permission to drink all they wish. At the station houses are big barrels of porter from which the police are expected to help themselves freely. The police do not attack to disperse a crowd, but to kill. They use batons like shillelaghs, swinging them around before bringing them down upon the heads of the people.’
Paddy Gunnery, who lived at 25C Corporation Buildings, remembered his visits to Liberty Hall to collect a tin of soup and to watch the violent police attacks: ‘I saw some of the worst baton charges around Liberty Hall. Metropolitan Police and Royal Irish Constabulary attacked men, women and children. They even batoned one of their own inspectors. Oh, my God, did they go wild! The people ran in every direction with the police running after them through the streets.’
Peter’s own private living quarters was frequently ransacked and during a raid his wife’s wedding ring was taken. It is beyond the limitations of this article to cover all of the events or incursions involving
THE POLICE HELP THEMSELVE TO PORTER. THEY ATTACK TO KILL"
August 7, 1918, following the arrest of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, the Hall was subjected to a police raid. A week later, with no reason given, there was another incursion by 30 police from ‘A’ Division.
On November 11, 1918, pro-British supporters, men and women, celebrating the Armistice, first attacked the Mansion House, where they were repelled by over a hundred constables. Then they moved on to the Sinn Féin offices in Harcourt Street, where shots were fired, before forcing entry to Liberty Hall with the intention of burning it down. The mob shouted triumphantly: ‘We have wrecked Liberty Hall.’
It took 400 military and 200 police to quell the crowd. The Irish Independent singled out the caretaker as having been assaulted.
After each raid, Peter was primarily responsible for essential repairs and re-securing the building.
Orchestrated attacks by Black and Tan units of the Royal Irish Constabulary were especially violent. Peter’s obituary stated: ‘Ennis on many occasions had exciting and almost fatal encounters with the armed forces of Dublin Castle.’
One evening, during a ‘sharp encounter’ between Republican forces and the Tans near the Hall, William O’Brien had ‘important documents’ he needed to safeguard from the Tans and with Ennis he made his way out through the back of the Hall.
They were confronted ‘by as murderous a gang of Tans as ever shot a civilian in the terrible years of the terror’. For a time it was touch and go with both O’Brien and Ennis, but in the end O’Brien’s assurance carried the day and both men were left alive to tell the tale. Afterwards, Ennis was heard to say: ‘Only for the old Bolshie, I was gone that time.’ It was known that the ITGWU provided cover, false papers and other assistance to wanted Republicans.
The attacks intensified during the War of Independence. On June 5, 1919, the Socialist Party held a concert in the Mansion House to commemorate James Connolly’s birthday. An event that was proclaimed by Dublin Castle. The remnants of the Citizen Army, now called the Connolly and Mallin Athletic Club (C&MAC) to avoid being banned, sought to provide security. They were prevented from entering Dawson Street by the police. Shots were exchanged and five policemen were shot. Ennis would have been at the Mansion House.
The most significant raid for Peter Ennis during the War occurred on Friday, August 22, 1919. At 4 a.m., a combined force of military under the command of Captain WG Price, Third Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, and Dublin Metropolitan Police led by Inspector George Love, Brunswick Street, raided Liberty Hall. A detailed account of the raid, of Peter’s arrest and of his subsequent court martial is documented in the British National Archives at Kew.
In evidence, Captain Price said that they ‘banged very loudly on a side door’ and Ennis answered. Inspector Love said that when confronted with the search warrant, Ennis replied in the genial manner for which he was known, ‘you are quite at Liberty’.
Peter accompanied the search party unlocking doors as requested. The record shows that he was ‘joking and laughing’ throughout and at one point he said to Captain Price: ‘Are you going to pay me overtime for this, sir?’ The search uncovered a Lee-Enfield rifle. Price noted: ‘The accused was standing in the doorway. He saw me take out the rifle’. The search also revealed an automatic pistol and cartridges, a pike, a French bayonet, two khaki uniforms and military service caps.
The caretaker was promptly arrested and brought to the Bridewell Police Station. He was charged that he did ‘contrary to the said order of the Competent Military Authority keep firearms not under effective military control, namely one automatic pistol’.
Peter declined to be cross examined by the arresting officer, Major LP Dorman, and ‘reserved his defence’. He was then taken to Mounjoy Prison, prisoner number 499, where it was noted that he was often known as William Ennis (his brother).
The Freeman’s Journal reported that Ennis had been ‘completely isolated’ at Mountjoy and he was refused access to his solicitor. The National Archives show that Ennis had been listed as a ‘hunger striker’.
His court martial took place on September 24, 1919. Peter was defended by the eminent KC and barrister Patrick Lynch. Lynch had run against Eamon de Valera in the 1917 East Clare byelection and would later be appointed Attorney General of the Irish Free State by de Valera. The prosecuting barrister was the equally eminent Hugh Holmes