PART 1
BY JOHN FITZGERALD
A botched ambush on Kilkenny’s Friary Street in 1921 left three men dead: two rebels and a civilian. It was one of those “heroic failures” that litter the sad turbulent course of Irish history. A plaque commemorating the event was erected some years ago beside the Capuchin church on Friary Street.
But what happened on that fateful day during the War of Independence? Our story must begin with a clandestine meeting of the IRA’s Kilkenny Brigade. The shadowy figures assembled a day or two before Christmas, 1920, to discuss ways of intensifying the struggle against the Black and Tans and British military forces within the county. Their secret meeting place was a room over Delaney’s tailor shop in Watergate.
The group’s Brigadier was George O’ Dwyer of Coon, Castlecomer. He had replaced Peter De Loughry, who had been lifted by the RIC a few weeks earlier. De Loughry hit the headlines when he supplied the key that helped spring Eamon de Valera from an English prison.
O’ Dwyer read a message from IRA HQ urging more attacks on the occupation forces: “Any ideas, lads?” He asked. One fellow drew attention to what he believed would be a soft target. He informed his colleagues that a wagon transported food supplies daily from the military barracks in Kilkenny to the City jail. The old gaol stood where St. Francis Terrace and Fr. Murphy Square can now be seen.
The rebel went on to explain that two mules pulled the cart and that an armed British soldier drove it. It was escorted by a military patrol. The group agreed that this would present an ideal target for an ambush. But they decided that men from the country should be used in the operation. They would not be as easily identified as might the city men, whose faces were well known.
Tim Hennessy of Threecastles and Tommy Nolan of Outrath were allotted the task of setting up the ambush. Tim was manager of Ennisnag Grocery Stores, and Tommy was a veteran fighter who had participated in the capture of Hugginstown RIC station.
A third man, Martin Mulhall of Danville, was assigned to observe the movement of the ration party and its escort from the military barracks to the gaol on each day of the week prior to the date set for the ambush: February 21st.
Martin discovered that the patrol followed the exact same routine every morning. He noted the time it departed the barracks on its way to the prison, and found that it always turned into Friary Street at about 9. 30 a.m.
And the composition of the patrol never varied: An advance party of two soldiers from the 1st Devonshire Regiment. The cart pulled by two mules had a military man at the reins. Immediately behind the cart walked an NCO and a private. And two soldiers wielding rifles with fixed bayonets formed a rearguard.
Aided by City-based rebels, Martin also learned that on each morning, when the two soldiers of the advance guard had reached Hackett’s pub (later Doherty’s) at the top of Friary Street, the mule-drawn cart would be passing Gargan’s stone-cutting yard, while the rearguard soldiers would be opposite the Capuchin Friary.
This pattern of movement seemed not to vary from day to day, and gave the Kilkenny rebel leaders a clear picture of what they were up against.
Having formulated a plan of attack, the IRA Kilkenny Brigade’s 1st battalion assigned the operation to three of its rural companies: Kells, Threecastles, and Bennettsbridge.
The plan was to disarm the patrol, and to avoid bloodshed if possible, the aim on this occasion being simply to capture weapons. The rebels would therefore carry no rifles, just revolvers.
Jim Brien of Garnaman, Kells, was appointed leader of the ambush team, whose total strength amounted to 16 volunteers…enough to enable two men to disarm each soldier, allow Jim Brien to lead more effectively, and have another rebel on hand to remove the captured guns and ammunition. A whistle blow from Jim Brien was the agreed signal for the ambush team to commence the attack.
On February 20th, the three companies were notified of the plan. They received an order to be present in Friary Street at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, February 21st.
The eventual line-up for the ambush team was as follows.
Threecastles: Tom Hennessy, Michael Dermody, Ned Dunne, and Dick McEvoy.
Kells: Jim Brien (Section Leader), Michael Keane, Tom Walsh, Paddy Hoyne, Michael Brennan, and Jim Torpey.
Bennettsbridge: Ned Gooley, Dick Fitzgerald, Danny Murphy, John Greene, and Paddy Murphy.
Martin Mulhall was in Kilkenny on the day too, his task being to watch the patrol as it left the barracks and shadow it part of the way to Friary Street. He could then alert his comrades along the street of the patrol’s impending arrival…
To be continued…
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(More stories of those bygone times can be read in my book Callan in Words and Pictures, which is available from Amazon)
