Welcome to the Irish Revolution!
This month we’re going to look at the sack
of Balbriggan, with a few words on the growing
fearsomeness among the newly recruited Black
& Tans, and finish with a rather strange story
with the curious apparition of the Virgin
Mary in Templemore, Co. Tipperary. The biography
this month will be about Kevin Barry, an 18
year old who was captured in an IRA operation
gone wrong in Dublin’s north inner city.
By the summer of 1920 it was clear that things
were getting worse in Ireland. The Black & Tans
and later the auxiliaries would commit serious
atrocities and reprisals against communities
all across Ireland. The hawks in the British
cabinet were in the ascendant, possibly because
of the belief that they were QUOTE winning
UNQUOTE. Although I think I’ve made it clear
throughout these videos that the British didn’t
have a clear strategy so it wasn’t obvious
what their idea of winning actually was. The
hawks in the cabinet had won sweeping powers
with the passing of the Restoration of Order
in Ireland act in August 1920. Even the usually
pessimistic General MacReady claimed that
while there was no marked change in the military
situation that things were turning a corner.
1
There was some amount of self delusion in
this thinking. Hamar Greenwood told Bonar
Law that the tide had turned, that the Irish
were losing faith in Sinn Féin. Macready
agreed with this and also indicated that there
had been an improvement in the morale of the
army and the police. This self delusion would
come to a head with the now infamous declaration
by Lloyd George on 9th November that they
had QUOTE murder by the throat UNQUOTE. Of
course, the events of Kilmichael and Bloody
Sunday would reveal this for what it was.
But you’ll have to wait for November for
that episode.
All that said there was the ongoing public
relations nightmare for the British state
with the hunger strike of Terence McSwiney
which became a huge propaganda tool for the
Republican side. There was also widespread
alarm in the British press about the tactics
employed in Ireland by crown forces. Ireland
was, after all, a supposedly integral part
of the core British Isles, not some distant
colony, and among polite society at least
harsh methods were not cricket. September
1920 saw widespread and indignant coverage
of the sack of Balbriggan in both the Liberal
and Conservative press in Britain. In fact
large parts of the British establishment were
horrified by what was going on in Ireland,
even among the more conservative element.2
The key part of the hawks strategy was the
effective utilisation of reprisals as a policy
tool of the state – state terrorism, if
I were to put it bluntly. Don’t take my
word for it. The head of the Imperial Army,
General Henry Wilson, recorded the following
in his diary on the 23rd September 1920:
QUOTE “At Balbriggan, Thurles and Galway
yesterday the local police marked down certain
Sfs [Sinn Féiners] as in their opinion the
actual murderers or instigators and then coolly
went and shot them without question or trial.
Winston saw very little harm in this but it
horrifies me.”3 UNQUOTE
If you’re wondering who Winston is, it’s
none other than the big lad himself, Winston
Churchill, who was one of the main men responsible
for the introduction of the Black & Tans to
Ireland.
Now, speaking of Balbriggan. On the 21st September
1920 a large party of Black & Tans burst through
Balbriggan and looted and burnt many houses
and businesses in the town, including a factory.
They also killed two people. This was a reprisal
attack for the killing of a District Inspector
and a sergeant earlier on the same day. Charles
Townshend points out that contrary to the
popular imagination this was not a wild orgy
of drunken mayhem. No, this was a controlled
exercise of state power. They were led by
officers and sergeants QUOTE ‘Irishmen all’
UNQUOTE.4 The reprisals in the autumn of 1920
were widespread across the country. This month
there were also reprisals in Clare, Sligo
and Meath.
And now for something completely different.
On the 16th august 1920, District Inspector
William Wilson was shot by the IRA in Templemore,
Co. Tipperary. That same night Templemore
town hall was burnt down by soldiers in reprisal.
The next day, reports from the town talked
about supernatural cures. The epicentre of
these miracles emanated from the Thomas Dwyan
newsagent in the town’s main street and
in a cottage 12 km away, in Curraheen. It
was reported that the religious statues in
the newsagents, in the cottage, and in a nearby
RIC barracks were shedding tears of blood.
A 16 year old farm labourer, Jimmy Walsh,
claimed to have seen the virgin Mary and that
a holy well had appeared in the floor of his
bedroom. The local newspaper reported that
after the burning of Templemore Town Hall
that a statue had been brought to the town
which, according to local people, had prevented
further trouble.
A kind of religious mania gripped this part
of Tipperary, which was news to me by the
way, as I hadn’t heard of this before. Up
to 15,000 people per day went there on pilgrimage.
Hundreds of people with all kinds of maladies
congregated there, hoping to get ‘the cure’.
Several cures were indeed reported. Sinn Féin
tried to police the madness as best they could.
The official line of the church, as so often
in these cases, was one of extreme scepticism.
They did their best to stay out of it or least
take a back seat.
Most interestingly of all, a kind of informal
truce between the IRA and the crown forces
took place. The IRA even acted as stewards
attempting to bring some order to the crowds.
The local IRA leader, Jimmy Leahy, was very
dubious about it and he wasn’t the only
one. Dan Breen, another Tipperary IRA leader,
concluded that it was a hoax. When he informed
Michael Collins in Dublin, he seemed amused,
accusing Breen of being a man without any
religion. Collins had already been contacted
by clergy in the area worried that it was
an elaborate ruse invented by the local IRA
in order to raise money to buy guns. Collins
sent for one of the statues to be brought
to him. He smashed it open, and found inside
an alarm clock connected to a fountain pen
inserts filled with sheeps blood.
Jimmy Walsh emigrated to Australia soon after
– Dan Breen was convinced that he was a
spy. Had he remained in Ireland it’s highly
probable that he would have been shot.
As far as I know, people in Templemore don’t
like to talk about this strange episode of
their history. If there are any Templemorians
watching this, I’d appreciate a bit of local
folklore there in the comments.5
Biography
Kevin Barry, an 18 year old medical student,
took part in an IRA operation at King’s
Inn, on Dublin’s Northside. The IRA held
up a detachment of soldiers, aiming to take
their rifles while they were collecting a
delivery of bread. Ordinarily, crown forces
in this predicament wouldn’t resist, probably
knowing that the IRA were always racing the
clock and were happy to get what they needed
and move on again. However on this occasion
a British soldier did resist which led to
an altercation. 3 British soldiers were killed
and one IRA man wounded in the chaos. Within
minutes the Church Street area was overwhelmed
by British forces from the nearby North Dublin
Union. Barry was taken as prisoner and later
executed, becoming a major focus of Republican
propaganda in the months that followed. Later,
in October, the Irish Bulletin, Dáil Éireann’s
propaganda machine, made use of an affidavit
produced by Barry that alleged torture against
him with a bayonet. In any case, even if there
were no torture involved, Barry’s youth,
and his perceived idealism made him a perfect
Republican martyr, which he would go on to
become. You’ve probably heard one of the
songs.
That’s it! Thanks very much for watching.
