The Civil War left a more violent mark on Kildare than the War of Independence had. As a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town, it had a low level of republican military activity. By the Truce of 1921, however, Kildare’s two IRA battalions had evolved into quite efficient military units.
Forty-three people in or from Co. Kildare died during 1922–3, while only fifteen people died in the 1916–21 period as a result of hostilities. Kildare had one of the highest numbers of IRA volunteers executed during the war – eight – and the largest single execution – in December 1922 when seven men from the Rathbride column were executed at the Curragh. Fifteen National Army soldiers were killed in ambushes in the county, yet only three RIC men died. Two internment camps – Tintown and Newbridge – housed nearly 3,000 prisoners in 1922–3, while the Rath Camp held 1,200. The internment camps were the scene of mass hunger strikes and mass jail-breaks and the escape from Newbridge is the biggest in republican prison folklore, with 112 prisoners getting away.
ISBN: 9781856357579
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Reviews
Leinster Leader - 'A book that is guaranteed to rouse a lot of interest..'
Evening Echo - 'A new book by James Durney, ' The Civil War in Kildare', tells the little known story of events in the county during the period.'
Kildare Nationalist - '...a riveting read...'
Leinster Leader - '... easy to read while at the same time authoritative.'
Video: Author James Durney speaks at the launch of his book, 'Civil War in Kildare' in Barker & Jones, Naas. June 2011.
James Durney interview on Looking Back, a local history and Irish heritage show on Dublin City Fm. Click here to take a listen.
Ireland's Own - '.. an in-depth study of the Civil War conflict in his county..'
THE CIVIL WAR IN KILDARE
James Durney
MERCIER PRESS
Cork
Introduction
The Irish Civil War began on the morning of 28 June 1922 with the bombardment of the Four Courts, Dublin, and ended in May the following year with the republican’s ‘dump arms’ order. There were three main phases in the conflict. The first, from June to the end of August, saw the fighting between the republican (anti-Treaty) and national (pro-Treaty) forces waged largely on conventional lines. The defeat of the republicans in the field led to their re-adoption of guerrilla tactics. With conventional hostilities ostensibly over, the struggle was now carried on by ambush and counter-ambush. In this second phase, a military stalemate ensued which began in September and lasted until December. The third phase began in December and saw the development of an increasingly ruthless, and ultimately victorious, counter-insurgency strategy by the Provisional Government, which responded to a shift in tactics by using the same measures that the British had employed: emergency powers, internment and official and unofficial reprisals. Though victory for the government came in May, with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) order to dump arms, this phase can be considered to have lasted until the end of July 1923, when martial law ended. From August 1923 until mid-1925 a variety of emergency public safety acts were in force, which had a detrimental effect on the remnants of the IRA.1
During the War of Independence, County Kildare – as a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town – had a low level of republican military activity. Despite this, by the Truce of 1921 Kildare’s two battalions had evolved into quite efficient military units. From January 1921, the Kildare IRA increased its activities in what were termed ‘small jobs’ – the blowing up of bridges, trenching of roads and disruption of communications. The rank and file had become more militant and were pushing for more action. There was talk of forming flying columns from the many men on the run, though many more were behind bars or barbed wire.
When the Civil War broke out in 1922, the county was divided, with the bulk of the activists going anti-Treaty. A surprise raid in the first days of the Civil War by the National Army netted two of the county’s main leaders – Easter Week veterans Domhnall Ua Buachalla, TD, and Tom Harris – while another leader, Art O’Connor, TD, was captured in the Dublin fighting. Three young hardliners emerged to lead republicans in Kildare: Jim Dunne and Bryan Moore in the middle of the county, and Patrick Mullaney in the north. Dunne led a column of Volunteers who escaped from Dundalk prison back to Kildare; Moore’s Rathbride column operated around the Curragh camp and against Kildare railway junctions in an attempt to disrupt communications to the south and west; Mullaney’s column planned to capture Baldonnel Aerodrome and bomb Leinster House by aeroplane.
The Civil War left its mark more violently on the county than the War of Independence; forty-five people in or from County Kildare died during 1922–23, whereas fifteen people died in the 1916–21 period. Kildare has one of the highest figures of IRA Volunteers executed during the war – eight – and the largest single execution of the war took place there in December 1922, when seven men from the Rathbride column were executed at the Curragh. The contrast between the two periods in the county overall was great: seventeen National Army soldiers were killed in ambushes in the county, yet only three policemen died during the Civil War, while no British soldiers were killed in the 1919–21 period; two internment camps – Tintown and Newbridge – housed nearly 3,000 prisoners in 1922–23, while in 1921 the Rath camp held 1,200. The internment camps were the scenes of shootings, executions, murder, mass hunger strike and huge jailbreaks – an escape from Newbridge being the biggest in republican prison folklore, with 112 prisoners getting away. Two ‘big houses’ were also burned down – Lord Mayo’s ‘Palmerstown’ and General Mahon’s ‘Mullaboden’ – as the ‘young incendiaries’ blazed a trail of destruction across the county.
1: Kildare at War 1916–21
At the dawn of the War of Independence period Kildare was a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town. The presence of the military had been a great boon to the county and the town of Newbridge had practically sprung up around the military barracks. It was very different from the days of 1798 and the Emmet Rising of 1803 when Kildare was considered to be a disaffected county. Kildare’s proximity to Dublin ensured its national strategic importance in the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, and even after Robert Emmet’s rising the county presented a continual problem for Dublin Castle. The Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Hardwicke, commented after the July 1803 rebellion:
I am sorry to say that such has been the state of the county of Kildare since the rebellion of 1798 as to require at all times the particular attention of government, and there is a more general and rooted spirit of disaffection in that county than any other part of Ireland.
The crown’s solution to the problem of Kildare – and as a deterrent to a French invasion – was to build military barracks on the main Dublin to Cork and Limerick roads: at Naas in 1813; Newbridge, 1819; the Curragh, 1855; and Kildare town, 1901. Kildare became a garrison county, tied to the British military presence economically through its trade, and loyally through the integration of the military with the civilian population. While Kildare was a reasonably prosperous county in times of economic hardship, particularly around its urban centres, the county became a major recruiting area for the British army. With an average of 10,000 British troops in the county, the possibility of a military confrontation between rebels and crown forces could only end the same way it had in 1798 – in defeat. However, there were other ways to confront the crown.
County Kildare, up until recently, has received bad press for its part in the War of Independence. The implication was that this area had under-performed during that time in the crucial disruption of communications, the activity to which it was best suited.2 Physical and geographical factors affected performance: Kildare is the flattest county in Ireland, where the greatest eminence is often a hump-backed railway or canal bridge. The open flat plains of Kildare militated against ambushes, while its proximity to the capital also inhibited the Kildare IRA. There was also the fear of bringing retaliation on their communities. (The three main attacks in Kildare – Greenhills, Maynooth and Barrowhouse – brought immediate reprisals from the forces of the crown.) There were roughly 40,000 British troops and 10,000 armed police in Ireland, and while the IRA could not militarily defeat them they could make the country ungovernable. The Kildare IRA was heavily outnumbered by crown forces and had neither the manpower, nor weaponry, to seriously challenge them. With about 300 activists in the county, and only about a third of them ready to take to the field at one time, the Kildare IRA faced nearly 10,000 troops and hundreds of police, including a company of Black and Tans based at Naas, coupled with a huge population of ex-servicemen and families tied to the military. However, the county was an important axis for intelligence gathering and communications to the south.
Within weeks of the formation of the Irish Volunteers in November 1913, units of this new force had sprung up in nearly every parish in the county of Kildare. While a substantial part of the population was still loyal to the crown there was a major revival of nationalist feeling and, by August 1914, the strength of the Irish Volunteers in County Kildare stood at 6,000. However, when the Volunteer movement split, only five companies – Naas, Maynooth, Kill, Prosperous and Athgarvan – remained loyal to the Irish Volunteers along with the auxiliary organisations, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann. British intelligence believed the number of Irish Volunteers in Kildare to be 344 men, armed with about twenty-four rifles. In the autumn of 1915, Dr Ted O’Kelly from Maynooth was appointed by the Volunteers’ GHQ (General Headquarters), in Dublin, as the head of the movement in Kildare. O’Kelly had the hard task of reorganising the Volunteers and preparing them for an insurrection against British rule.
When the mobilisation order for the 1916 Easter Rising – and subsequent countermanding order – reached County Kildare, the conflicting orders caused the same amount of confusion as they did in every other part of the country. However, several companies mobilised and some men made their way to Dublin to take part in the fighting. As part of the general uprising, GHQ expected the Kildare Volunteers to provide 100 to 150 men to demolish railway lines, roads and other communications between Dublin and the Curragh. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks at Sallins and Kill were to be attacked, but as there were only five under-strength companies in the area, the plan was abandoned. The main plan was to destroy the railway bridge over the canal outside Sallins to prevent troops from the Curragh getting to Dublin.
EXTRACT
THE CIVIL WAR IN KILDARE
James Durney
MERCIER PRESS
Cork
Introduction
The Irish Civil War began on the morning of 28 June 1922 with the bombardment of the Four Courts, Dublin, and ended in May the following year with the republican’s ‘dump arms’ order. There were three main phases in the conflict. The first, from June to the end of August, saw the fighting between the republican (anti-Treaty) and national (pro-Treaty) forces waged largely on conventional lines. The defeat of the republicans in the field led to their re-adoption of guerrilla tactics. With conventional hostilities ostensibly over, the struggle was now carried on by ambush and counter-ambush. In this second phase, a military stalemate ensued which began in September and lasted until December. The third phase began in December and saw the development of an increasingly ruthless, and ultimately victorious, counter-insurgency strategy by the Provisional Government, which responded to a shift in tactics by using the same measures that the British had employed: emergency powers, internment and official and unofficial reprisals. Though victory for the government came in May, with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) order to dump arms, this phase can be considered to have lasted until the end of July 1923, when martial law ended. From August 1923 until mid-1925 a variety of emergency public safety acts were in force, which had a detrimental effect on the remnants of the IRA.1
During the War of Independence, County Kildare – as a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town – had a low level of republican military activity. Despite this, by the Truce of 1921 Kildare’s two battalions had evolved into quite efficient military units. From January 1921, the Kildare IRA increased its activities in what were termed ‘small jobs’ – the blowing up of bridges, trenching of roads and disruption of communications. The rank and file had become more militant and were pushing for more action. There was talk of forming flying columns from the many men on the run, though many more were behind bars or barbed wire.
When the Civil War broke out in 1922, the county was divided, with the bulk of the activists going anti-Treaty. A surprise raid in the first days of the Civil War by the National Army netted two of the county’s main leaders – Easter Week veterans Domhnall Ua Buachalla, TD, and Tom Harris – while another leader, Art O’Connor, TD, was captured in the Dublin fighting. Three young hardliners emerged to lead republicans in Kildare: Jim Dunne and Bryan Moore in the middle of the county, and Patrick Mullaney in the north. Dunne led a column of Volunteers who escaped from Dundalk prison back to Kildare; Moore’s Rathbride column operated around the Curragh camp and against Kildare railway junctions in an attempt to disrupt communications to the south and west; Mullaney’s column planned to capture Baldonnel Aerodrome and bomb Leinster House by aeroplane.
The Civil War left its mark more violently on the county than the War of Independence; forty-five people in or from County Kildare died during 1922–23, whereas fifteen people died in the 1916–21 period. Kildare has one of the highest figures of IRA Volunteers executed during the war – eight – and the largest single execution of the war took place there in December 1922, when seven men from the Rathbride column were executed at the Curragh. The contrast between the two periods in the county overall was great: seventeen National Army soldiers were killed in ambushes in the county, yet only three policemen died during the Civil War, while no British soldiers were killed in the 1919–21 period; two internment camps – Tintown and Newbridge – housed nearly 3,000 prisoners in 1922–23, while in 1921 the Rath camp held 1,200. The internment camps were the scenes of shootings, executions, murder, mass hunger strike and huge jailbreaks – an escape from Newbridge being the biggest in republican prison folklore, with 112 prisoners getting away. Two ‘big houses’ were also burned down – Lord Mayo’s ‘Palmerstown’ and General Mahon’s ‘Mullaboden’ – as the ‘young incendiaries’ blazed a trail of destruction across the county.
1: Kildare at War 1916–21
At the dawn of the War of Independence period Kildare was a garrison county with military barracks situated on the main Cork and Limerick roads in Naas, Newbridge, the Curragh and Kildare town. The presence of the military had been a great boon to the county and the town of Newbridge had practically sprung up around the military barracks. It was very different from the days of 1798 and the Emmet Rising of 1803 when Kildare was considered to be a disaffected county. Kildare’s proximity to Dublin ensured its national strategic importance in the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, and even after Robert Emmet’s rising the county presented a continual problem for Dublin Castle. The Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Hardwicke, commented after the July 1803 rebellion:
I am sorry to say that such has been the state of the county of Kildare since the rebellion of 1798 as to require at all times the particular attention of government, and there is a more general and rooted spirit of disaffection in that county than any other part of Ireland.
The crown’s solution to the problem of Kildare – and as a deterrent to a French invasion – was to build military barracks on the main Dublin to Cork and Limerick roads: at Naas in 1813; Newbridge, 1819; the Curragh, 1855; and Kildare town, 1901. Kildare became a garrison county, tied to the British military presence economically through its trade, and loyally through the integration of the military with the civilian population. While Kildare was a reasonably prosperous county in times of economic hardship, particularly around its urban centres, the county became a major recruiting area for the British army. With an average of 10,000 British troops in the county, the possibility of a military confrontation between rebels and crown forces could only end the same way it had in 1798 – in defeat. However, there were other ways to confront the crown.
County Kildare, up until recently, has received bad press for its part in the War of Independence. The implication was that this area had under-performed during that time in the crucial disruption of communications, the activity to which it was best suited.2 Physical and geographical factors affected performance: Kildare is the flattest county in Ireland, where the greatest eminence is often a hump-backed railway or canal bridge. The open flat plains of Kildare militated against ambushes, while its proximity to the capital also inhibited the Kildare IRA. There was also the fear of bringing retaliation on their communities. (The three main attacks in Kildare – Greenhills, Maynooth and Barrowhouse – brought immediate reprisals from the forces of the crown.) There were roughly 40,000 British troops and 10,000 armed police in Ireland, and while the IRA could not militarily defeat them they could make the country ungovernable. The Kildare IRA was heavily outnumbered by crown forces and had neither the manpower, nor weaponry, to seriously challenge them. With about 300 activists in the county, and only about a third of them ready to take to the field at one time, the Kildare IRA faced nearly 10,000 troops and hundreds of police, including a company of Black and Tans based at Naas, coupled with a huge population of ex-servicemen and families tied to the military. However, the county was an important axis for intelligence gathering and communications to the south.
Within weeks of the formation of the Irish Volunteers in November 1913, units of this new force had sprung up in nearly every parish in the county of Kildare. While a substantial part of the population was still loyal to the crown there was a major revival of nationalist feeling and, by August 1914, the strength of the Irish Volunteers in County Kildare stood at 6,000. However, when the Volunteer movement split, only five companies – Naas, Maynooth, Kill, Prosperous and Athgarvan – remained loyal to the Irish Volunteers along with the auxiliary organisations, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann. British intelligence believed the number of Irish Volunteers in Kildare to be 344 men, armed with about twenty-four rifles. In the autumn of 1915, Dr Ted O’Kelly from Maynooth was appointed by the Volunteers’ GHQ (General Headquarters), in Dublin, as the head of the movement in Kildare. O’Kelly had the hard task of reorganising the Volunteers and preparing them for an insurrection against British rule.
When the mobilisation order for the 1916 Easter Rising – and subsequent countermanding order – reached County Kildare, the conflicting orders caused the same amount of confusion as they did in every other part of the country. However, several companies mobilised and some men made their way to Dublin to take part in the fighting. As part of the general uprising, GHQ expected the Kildare Volunteers to provide 100 to 150 men to demolish railway lines, roads and other communications between Dublin and the Curragh. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks at Sallins and Kill were to be attacked, but as there were only five under-strength companies in the area, the plan was abandoned. The main plan was to destroy the railway bridge over the canal outside Sallins to prevent troops from the Curragh getting to Dublin.
