It was in 1914 that I first joined the Irish Volunteers in the village of Donohill, some four miles from Tipperary town. At that time I was about twenty years of age. I soon became known to the local police as the “Sinn Feiner,” then a very rare sort of animal. At a later stage in my career the same people, I believe, conferred upon me the still higher title of “Prince of the Assassins”! But I must beg the reader’s patience while I briefly outline the position in Ireland the year the Great War began.
The British Parliament had passed its Home Rule Bill for Ireland. The Orange minority in the North of Ireland declared it would resist any attempt to enforce that Bill or to set up a Parliament in Dublin. Supported financially and morally by the wealthiest section of the English Tory Party, the Orangemen openly organised, drilled and armed a Volunteer Army to defy the British Parliament.
At this time Sinn Fein as a political policy was little known outside of Dublin City. The spokesmen of the great majority of the Irish people were the Parliamentarians led by John Redmond. But a few of the intellectual leaders, such as Pearse and MacNeill, whose political influence then counted for little, saw in the action of the Orange Volunteers an excellent example to the rest of Ireland. They called on the Nationalists to form a Volunteer Army. The tradition of the Fenians still lived. Many who cared little for the Home Rule Bill saw that we now had got the opportunity for which they wished. Ireland answered the call, and when the Great War broke out there were in Ireland three armies, though very different in equipment and in outlook. One was the British Army of Occupation; the other was the Orange Volunteer Army in the North; and the third was the Irish Volunteer Force. Consequently, when the Great War broke out Redmond and his followers threw in their lot with the British, and appealed for recruits for the British Army. The Orange Volunteers, too, were in whole-hearted sympathy with the British cause. The Irish Volunteers for a time were split and disorganised; thousands joined the British Army; but a small number remained doggedly neutral and loyal to Ireland alone. That small number was not deceived by England’s cant of “fighting for small nations,” and “for the sanctity of treaties.” They were those who believed in an Independent Ireland; and as their best speakers were supporters of the political programme of Sinn Fein, they all gradually became known as “Sinn Fein Volunteers.”
Our little band at Donohill was part of this small minority. We did not give much heed to John Redmond’s call to join the British Army. We continued to drill and train openly, in the hope that the time would come when we might get our chance to strike a blow at the only enemy we recognised—England.
As the war developed we were closely watched by the police. We were known as “pro-Germans.” The majority of the people, carried away by the campaign of lies and calumny in the Press, were in favour of England as against Germany in the war. The aristocracy and the wealthiest merchants and farmers generally supported the movements that were started to provide comforts for the British soldiers in the trenches. But we of the Irish Volunteers—henceforth in using that term I must be understood to mean those who declined to take England’s side in the war—stood aloof. It was then that I came into disfavour with the police for my refusal to support their funds for providing comforts for soldiers. I was an employee of the Great Southern and Western Railway, and I have no doubt that they acquainted my superiors with what they regarded as my disloyal tendencies.
It is necessary to explain the nature of this police force. The Royal Irish Constabulary—a body that has now passed into history—was not a police force in the sense understood in other countries. It was a semi-military force, trained to the use of arms, and provided with carbines and rifles. As crime in the ordinary sense was practically unknown in Ireland, the main duty of these men was to spy upon Volunteers and others working for an Independent Ireland. They were known to report even sermons delivered by Irish priests. In all there were then about ten thousand of these police in the country, scattered in small garrisons of two to ten or twenty men, according to the size of the village or town in which they were located. Sprung as they were for the most part from Irish Nationalist families, they were the brain of England’s garrison in Ireland; for they knew the people and they got the information without which England’s 40,000 troops—ignorant alike of the country, its people and its history—would have been of little use.
I now resume my narrative. From the outbreak of the Great War I still continued my daily work, and took no more active part than any ordinary private in the local company of the Irish Volunteers. We met and drilled a few times a week, and tried to pick up a rifle or a revolver now and again; for the Volunteers generally had very few arms at that time.
Thus we continued our routine through 1915, and up to April, 1916. With the Insurrection of 1916 I do not propose to deal here, except to say that owing to the confusion of orders and counter-orders the men of Tipperary got no chance of having their mettle tested. I must, however, remark upon a coincidence in connection with our plans. Part of the duty of the Volunteers of my district was to have been the destroying of an important line of railway communications. For that purpose we were to have seized a quantity of gelignite, then stored by the County Council for blasting purposes in a neighbouring quarry. That quarry was Soloheadbeg, where three years later my comrades and I received our baptism of fire.
The Rising of 1916 changed our whole outlook. The people who had scoffed and sneered at the Sinn Feiners before now swung round to our side. But our military organisation had collapsed. Thousands of our men all over the country were seized and deported to England. The British forces, both police and military, seized what arms they could lay hands upon. We could no longer drill and parade in public; our organisation had been solemnly proclaimed by the British to be an illegal body. For a time we were in confusion and despair. It was only for a very short time, however, for within a few months those who had escaped the meshes of the English military net after the Rising had actually held two secret Conventions in Dublin to re-organise the Volunteers.
After a few months we set to work again. My neighbour and comrade, Sean Treacy, and I decided to make a fresh start, and to put our Volunteer company at work once more. This time, of course, we could not do it openly; we had to work on a secret basis. As it was now considered dangerous to have anything to do with the Irish Volunteers, our numbers were small; but we had better and more determined men. For a while, indeed, there were only three of us.