Capture and interrogation – Tom Mac Donough

Tom Mc Donough planned to leave the money for collection: “Nearing O Dea’s place we stopped and Murphy got off the car to go make enquires. He was not gone twenty yards when two lorries of R.I.C. and Black and Tans in charge of D.I. Hilliard and Sergeant Larkin arrived. We were unarmed at the time. ‘Tosser’ [John Joe Neylon] slipped off the car and started to walk up a by road, where before being captured, he threw the money into a drain. Murphy was also captured Sergeant Larkin came over to me where I was seated on the sidecar and asked me what I was doing. And I replied that I was just out for a drive. He then looked into the well of the car and saw the rate books. … The Police had meantime found the money, which Neylon had thrown into the drain. District inspector Hilliard announced that he had no intention of bringing us in and he proposed to shoot us there and then. He placed the three of us standing on the grass margin on one side of the road and fell in a firing party of six at the opposite side – two men aiming at each of us. Sergeant Larkin pleaded with him and, referring to Neylon, said he was no ordinary prisoner as his uncle was a general in the British Army. That was quite true for ‘Tosser’ was a nephew of General Sir Daniel Neylon who had been knighted after the 1914 – 18 Great war. This however seemed to cut no ice with Hilliard who said ‘Little good that would do you if this so-and-so got you from behind a ditch’. He pulled Larkin out of the way and ordered the party into the firing position. While we waited the order to fire, the thought entered my mind that I would not hear the shot that killed me. Then the unexpected happened. A woman cyclist who came along cycled between us and the firing party. Then she appeared suddenly to realise what was happening. She screamed, fell off the bicycle and became hysterical. That caused a diversion and we were ordered to get up into one of the lorries. We were brought to the R.I.C. barracks in Ennistymon where we were interrogated and given a few kicks and bashes. We were then removed to the military post in Ennistymon where we were interrogated in a gentlemanly manner by a British officer. A few days later we were removed to Ennis military barracks. There we were savagely attacked by a party of military led by a provost sergeant named Davis Finlay. Finlay was a native of Scotland and he had earned a notorious name for himself in Ennis for his cruelty and for the third degree methods he used on prisoners. When Finlay and his gang were finished with us I would say that Neylon was the worst hurt. He was covered with cuts and bruises; he was bleeding from the scalp and his fingers were damaged when, with his hands, he tried to ward off kicks.”

A week later Neylon, Mc Donough and Murphy were transferred to Limerick Prison and courts-martialed under the Defence of the Realm act for armed robbery. Neylon refused to recognise the court. Despite James Hynes denials that he was one of the men who taken the rate books in his possession and the fact that the three men were unarmed, Neylon was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for armed robbery. Mc Donough was sentenced to six months hard labour and Murphy was sentenced to three months.

Four members of the East Clare Brigade’s flying column, Michael Brennan, John Ryan, Peter Flannery and Jim Tuohy, had a close escape from the British forces. During the second week of February a combined operation between the Mid and East Clare Brigades had been arranged to attack a large British Army convoy on the road between Ennis and Tulla, but when they arrived at the rendezvous point a messenger told them that the convoy was not travelling and the operation was cancelled. Brennan dismissed the members of the column and continued with the three others to Mc Donnell’s at Rossoroe near Sixmilebridge.

Gilligan, the Captain of the local I.R.A. company, thought that his house was likely to be searched and arranged accommodation for them in Mc Donnell’s barn a short distance away. The four men were called for breakfast at nine the next morning by one of the Gilligan girls the daughter of the local I.R.A. company Captain. The four were slow to get up and when the girl returned in a few minutes telling them to get up at once because that the Black and Tans were raiding the area, the men thought this was a rouse to get them up in time for breakfast. Michael Brennan went to the door and saw a group of Black and Tans dismounting from two Crossly Tender lorries on the roadside a hundred yards away. He called to the others to get up immediately as the Black and Tans began crossing the fields towards them. Mc Donnell’s barn was attached to the family home and the Black and Tans walked straight past the barn to begin searching the house.

Brennan ordered Ryan to walk slowly across the farmyard to the edge of the field and cover the Black and Tans as Peter Flannery and Jim Touhy made their way to join him. When the other three made it successfully into the field Brennan moved to follow them: “I had seen the Black and Tans leaning on their rifles watching the others, but by the time the fourth man appeared they had probably started wandering where the devil all these men were coming from. I tried to keep my telltale sling and bandage covered with a raincoat draped over my shoulder while I managed my Mauser pistol and stock plus a Webbly revolver I had found under one of the pillows in a last check round in the left hand which was the side away from the lorries. The distance to the wall around the field was about thirty yards  or so and I was ordered to halt when I had gone about half way. I pretended not to hear and I walked on without any appearance of hurry. The challenge was repeated several times but I reached the wall safely and climbed up on it with some difficulty. The police opened fire as I reached the top and then the loose stones slipped from under me and the wall and I arrived in the field somewhat mixed up. A cheer went up from the Black and Tans apparently under the impression that I was hit.”

John Ryan had seen Brennan fall and also thought that he had been shot, he was about to return fire when Brennan sprang to his feet and shouted ‘Don’t fire; they’ll burn the house’. Brennan’s bandaged arm had identified him to the search party and as the four I.R.A. men crawled along under the cover of the stone wall away the  R.I.C. and Black and Tans entered the field in pursuit. Brennan told Ryan to fire one shot at their pursuers but not to kill, as he was still fearful both farms would be burned in reprisal. According to Ryan his shot had the desired effect: “The shot spent clay splattering around the feet of the leading policeman whereupon, along with the others he beat a quick retreat to the lorry which immediately drove off leaving us to proceed on our way without any further interference.”

It was obvious for some time that Michael Brennan’s movements were being reported for some time by a local British spy and narrowly escaped capture again while staying at Gleesons in Bodyke: “When tea was half way through one of the Gleeson’s rushed in to say he thought he heard the squeak of brakes coming down the hill. He said he heard no sound of engines and he was sent back for a further report. Almost immediately he returned and shouted ‘Auxiliaries’. We jumped from our seats and ran for the back door just as a terrific hammering started at the front door. We crossed the yard in minus a second and just as I got through a fence I saw the ‘Auxies’ swarming over the road wall into the yard. … We stayed quietly in the field and when the raiders left we came back to inquire into the extraordinary silence of their approach. We found that engines and lights had been switched off at the top of the hill outside the village and the lorries had coasted silently down to the very gate of Gleeson’s house. It was one of the first appearances of Auxiliaries in East Clare and they had announced that they had made a bet  of a case of champagne with the Tulla officers mess that they would get me within a week. Their first attempt had gone near enough.”

On Sunday the 20th of Febuary a mixed force of British Military, R.I.C. and Auxiliaries  shot at a group of boys during a search operation at Black Water Mill in Clonlara, killing brothers Cecil and Aidan O Donovan. The boys had been searching the area for birds nests with a third brother Thomas and one of their cousins. The British forces clamed that they had mistaken the boys for an I.R.A. detachment and had called upon them to halt before opening fire. On the 25th of February Brigadier General Crozier resigned as head of the Auxiliary Division saying he ‘could not go on leading a drunken and insubordinate body of men.’ Two days later Patrick Conlon was shot dead by the British soldiers at Lissycasey Church.

With February 1921 having been a disastrous month for the I.R.A. in Clare their fortunes changed in March. On the 12th of March members of the East Clare Brigade, under the command of Joseph Clancy, captured and executed Daniel Murphy, a Black and Tan intelligence officer from Cork, who was on an intelligence mission in the Sixmilebridge area: “It was noticed by the local Volunteers that an R.I.C. man named Murphy had started to make visits to houses around Oatfield, Belvoir and Broadford dressed as an agricultural labourer, and that in the same disguise he frequently took despatches between the R.I.C. barracks in Broadford and in Sixmilebridge. During the course of his visits to houses in the locality he was always asking questions about the I.R.A. Two of the I.R.A. men ‘on the run’ Martin Mc Namara and John Curley were told about Constable Murphy’s movements and decided to waylay him in the vicinity of the scene of the Glenwood ambush. He came cycling from Broadford in the middle of the day … and was held up. On being searched he was found to be unarmed and, as far as I now can recollect, the only things of interest found were a number of snapshots of police in Broadford barracks, including himself. He was taken to Enagh wood and shot that night by Mc Namara and Curley. His body was buried in the vicinity.”

On the 13th of March Thomas Shanahan was shot dead by British Forces at Moyasta. Three days later an accidental shooting lead to the death of I.R.A. Volunteer Patrick Hassett  who was a native of Killimer. The Sinn Féin court at Kilkee made a ruling against Mr. Rickman–Gore, a landlord accused of rack renting by his tenants. Mr. Rickman–Gore Tom Mc Donough planned to leave the money for collection: “Nearing O Dea’s place we stopped and Murphy got off the car to go make enquires. He was not gone twenty yards when two lorries of R.I.C. and Black and Tans in charge of D.I. Hilliard and Sergeant Larkin arrived. We were unarmed at the time. ‘Tosser’ [John Joe Neylon] slipped off the car and started to walk up a by road, where before being captured, he threw the money into a drain. Murphy was also captured Sergeant Larkin came over to me where I was seated on the sidecar and asked me what I was doing. And I replied that I was just out for a drive. He then looked into the well of the car and saw the rate books. … The Police had meantime found the money, which Neylon had thrown into the drain. District inspector Hilliard announced that he had no intention of bringing us in and he proposed to shoot us there and then. He placed the three of us standing on the grass margin on one side of the road and fell in a firing party of six at the opposite side – two men aiming at each of us. Sergeant Larkin pleaded with him and, referring to Neylon, said he was no ordinary prisoner as his uncle was a general in the British Army. That was quite true for ‘Tosser’ was a nephew of General Sir Daniel Neylon who had been knighted after the 1914 – 18 Great war. This however seemed to cut no ice with Hilliard who said ‘Little good that would do you if this so-and-so got you from behind a ditch’. He pulled Larkin out of the way and ordered the party into the firing position. While we waited the order to fire, the thought entered my mind that I would not hear the shot that killed me. Then the unexpected happened. A woman cyclist who came along cycled between us and the firing party. Then she appeared suddenly to realise what was happening. She screamed, fell off the bicycle and became hysterical. That caused a diversion and we were ordered to get up into one of the lorries. We were brought to the R.I.C. barracks in Ennistymon where we were interrogated and given a few kicks and bashes. We were then removed to the military post in Ennistymon where we were interrogated in a gentlemanly manner by a British officer. A few days later we were removed to Ennis military barracks. There we were savagely attacked by a party of military led by a provost sergeant named Davis Finlay. Finlay was a native of Scotland and he had earned a notorious name for himself in Ennis for his cruelty and for the third degree methods he used on prisoners. When Finlay and his gang were finished with us I would say that Neylon was the worst hurt. He was covered with cuts and bruises; he was bleeding from the scalp and his fingers were damaged when, with his hands, he tried to ward off kicks.”