We spent a while in Mid. and South Tipperary too. At this time money was one of our great needs. Many, we knew, would gladly give it to us, but it was not easy to get in touch with the right people. The people we met most were, like ourselves, on the run and on the rocks.
Eamon O Duibhir, of Ballagh, in whose house, you will remember, the dance was the night Sean Hogan was captured, was a good friend to us, and supplied us with money. Once we had to sleep in an old castle—Castle Blake, near Rockwell College. This old ruined castle was later a good friend to many of the boys on the run, as it had a kind of a secret apartment. At an early stage in the Civil War it was the scene of a sad tragedy when two Republicans—Theo English, of Tipperary, and Mick Summers—were surprised by Free State troops, and killed in the encounter which followed.
At last we got restive again. The country showed signs of following our example, but at this time the signs were few—an odd attack on a police barrack and the capture of a rifle or two from a soldier here and there. We felt the time had come for more energetic and general action. We knew we could not remain any way safe within Tipperary or over the border of Offaly. We discussed our position time and again, and always agreed we could not continue the life we were now living. To escape being shipped or exiled to America by those who should have stood by us, we had to avoid Dublin, and to remain in some remote part of the country. We were no longer content to accept this condition. We wanted to know how exactly the country stood, how we stood, and how the whole Volunteer Army stood. At last Sean Treacy and I, leaving Robinson and Hogan in North Tipperary, cycled straight into Dublin. We had no adventure on the way. At Maynooth we called on Donal Buckley, a member of Dail Eireann, and a man who had walked to Dublin to take part in the Rising of 1916. He proved as good as his record. His house was put at our disposal, and we stayed three or four days there, though he tried to keep us longer.
In Dublin we headed for Phil Shanahan’s again. Every Tipperary man who was on the run, or who wanted a good dinner, faced for Phil’s. Later we met Mick Collins, then Adjutant-General of the Irish Volunteers. We had a long discussion and we spoke plainly. Finally Mick undertook to arrange that we should stay in Dublin. With this assurance we mounted our bicycles again, and rode back to the country for Seumas Robinson and Sean Hogan.
At this time I was dressed as a priest. That was not an uncommon disguise at the time. The Peelers and soldiers probably suspected that a good many of the priests they saw travelling knew more about guns than Theology, but seldom held any of them up. They were not then at open war with men and women, priests and children. There would be too much of a National uproar if a priest was arrested, and as the old Peelers were still overwhelmingly Catholic they gave suspicious-looking priests the benefit of the doubt. Next year they not only arrested priests, but imprisoned several, and murdered three of them.
SEAMUS ROBINSON.
On this occasion when I reached Maynooth I discovered my back tyre was badly punctured. I did not think it becoming my clerical dignity to mend the puncture myself, and besides I had no patience with that kind of work; so I wheeled my machine to a local cycle mechanic’s shop and asked him to repair it at once. Apparently he was a man who believed in making every customer take his turn, for he told me he could not do the job for a few hours. I pointed out to him that I was going on urgent business, but it was all no use. Finally he advised me to go to the College—Maynooth College, the world’s greatest college for the training of Catholic priests—where they would easily get someone to repair it. In my rage at this refusal I forgot for a moment that I was in the garb of a minister of peace and goodwill. I told that cycle mechanic what I thought of him in language more forcible than priestly, and I am sure the poor man was amazed and shocked at the liberties which present-day clerics take with the English language. He was still staring at me in amazement when I wheeled my wounded bicycle from the door.
I had no desire to visit the College. Amongst the students I would find many friends willing to help me, but I was afraid the President and the Professors might not be too well pleased to find a gunman masquerading as a clergyman, and I doubted if I would be able to play the part and pretend I was a priest. I need hardly say I was no master of Latin, and I always associated priests with that language.
Still, I had to get the puncture mended. In a fit of bravado I turned towards the police barracks. At the door I met a policeman who raised his hat to me, and with a show of dignity that would have done credit to an archbishop I acknowledged his sign of respect.