It may be asked why Martin Savage’s body was allowed to leave Dublin without receiving from the capital the last mark of respect which his sacrifice deserved. The answer is simple. The Government of the Republic, Dail Eireann, did not wish to associate itself directly with our actions. Without going into details which might involve the names of many prominent men, some living, some dead, I wish to emphasise here and now that neither then nor at any later stage did Dail Eireann accept responsibility for the war against the British. Why, I do not know, nor do I wish to enter into any controversy on the attitude of the Dail. I can only say what was later publicly admitted both in the second Republican Dail and in the Free State Dail (General Mulcahy, December, 1923), that the I.R.A. was left to carry on the war on its own initiative, on its own resources, without either approval or disapproval from the Government of the Republic. It is well that this fact should be known to future generations.
GENERAL LIAM LYNCH.
It was amusing to read the newspaper versions of the Ashtown attack for days afterwards. At the inquest on Martin Savage it was stated that the “assailants fled and were pursued.” I almost roared laughing when I read this and pictured the British soldiers’ precipitate flight for the cover of the Phoenix Park wall. It was very strange indeed that we managed to reach Dublin on our bicycles if we were pursued by men provided not only with rifles and machine guns but with motor cars. Another imaginative writer described a tree by the roadside which had been specially clipped to form a look-out point for one of our men. Just imagine the military genius of anyone who would send a man up on a tree to see a train that he could see from the road, or to become a sure target for enemy rifles!
At the inquest too the Crown Counsel refused to disclose the name of the lady who was in the car with Lord French.
Lord French, by the way, travelled in mufti that day—so it was stated at the inquest. Perhaps that is why we did not recognise him in the first car. I also learned from the inquest story that Detective Sergeant Hally, who was wounded by our fire, was a countryman of my own, hailing from Carrick-on-Suir.
After a few days in the house of Mrs. Toomey at Phibsboro’, I was taken across to the south side of the city to No. 13 Grantham Street—the house of Mrs. Malone. Three months previously I had paid my first visit to this house. It happened in this way:
On 8th September, 1919, Seumas Robinson and I were in difficulties to find a place to sleep; we went to Phil Shanahan’s, where we had met Sam Fahy, brother of Frank Fahy, T.D. We had known Sam well in Tipperary, where he spent some years, though at this time he was on the run like ourselves. We told him our trouble, and he at once gave us the latchkey of a friend’s house in Grantham Street and told us the number, assuring us that men on the run need never want for shelter while that house was there. Mrs. Malone, he said, was the woman’s name, and she could be trusted with any secret. She had lost a son, Michael, in the Insurrection of Easter Week.
Seumas and myself then went from Phibsboro on our way to Grantham Street. To make matters worse we had forgotten the number of the house. Fortunately it is not a large street, and at the first house we knocked we were directed to Mrs. Malone’s. We were made feel quite at home immediately. They were all very kind to us—Mr. and Mrs. Malone and the Misses Malone. We stayed for the night, and next morning we learned that the family had only four days previously suffered the loss of one of their daughters.
From that day we became close friends with the Malone family. We brought Treacy and Hogan there soon afterwards and introduced them to the family. Both of the girls—Brighid and Aine—were active members of the Cumann na mBan, and were always anxious to help us. They carried all our despatches and messages and even helped in removing munitions to Kingsbridge Station. You must understand that we were always in search of revolvers or rifles or ammunition to buy or to capture. Any that fell into our hands we always sent to our Brigade in South Tipperary. The stuff was needed very badly there, and there were far less chances of getting it than there were in Dublin. Very often we sent on munitions by train, in boxes labelled “Tea” or “Wines,” or some other commodity that the person to whom they were addressed was accustomed to receive. Of course, we always had our arrangements made at the other end so that the goods would be received by a merchant who was himself an I.R.A. man or by one of his assistants.