Continuing the story of how a planned attack on the well-defended Woodstock House unraveled…
BY JOHN FITZGERALD
(Part three)
No sooner had Ernie O’ Malley woken the next morning when word reached the Hanrahans that a large military force appeared to be heading in their direction. James Hanrahan’s sister warned that the enemy could soon be on their doorstep.
Incredibly, O’ Malley reacted with total disdain to this news. “Please let me finish my breakfast”, he insisted, turning his attention to a plate full of sausages, eggs, and black puddings laid out in front of him.
Troops surrounded the house and banged on the entrance. About sixty Auxiliaries had been sent from Woodstock after receiving a tip-off that rebels might be sheltering in the house. Upon entering the front room, the raiders found three men relaxing around a breakfast table.
Troops ran upstairs and searched every part of the house. An officer asked the diners to identify themselves. James Hanrahan and Ned Holland gave their names, but O’ Malley claimed to be a man called Stewart who had come to see his aunt who was ill.
Unconvinced by this cover story, the officer moved aggressively towards O’ Malley and his colleagues to search them. O’ Malley resisted and a struggle ensued between him and the officer.
The soldiers pinned the IRA man to the ground, seizing a handgun and ammunition he had in his coat pockets. They also took a weapon and clips of bullets from Holland. The search yielded a number of grenades, bombs, detonators, and maps. The evidence provided by the maps was equally damning. One of these offered a bird’s eye view of the military HQ at Woodstock, with all key locations encircled or underlined.
The troops arrested O’ Malley, Holland, and Hanrahan on the spot. As if the seizure of weapons and maps were not bad enough, the elated Auxiliaries then discovered O’ Malley’s diary. After scanning its pages, which contained vast amounts of information useful to the British, the officer looked up grimly at his three captives. He shouted an order to his men. “Burn this house!” he roared, “burn everything”.
The soldiers doused all the outhouses with petrol and set them alight. They set fire to the hay and the straw on Hanrahan’s farm. James Hanrahan’s mother was upstairs in the house. She had just received the Last Rites from a priest. Soldiers burst into her room and carried her out of the building on a mattress as she lay dying.
Exiting the house, she was taken past her four sons, who were all handcuffed and under guard: As well as arresting James, the raiding party had also shackled his brothers John, Andrew, and Thomas.
A worker on the farm who had been found cutting turnips in a shed was also handcuffed. Old Mrs. Hanrahan raised a hand feebly and said goodbye to her sons. She died a few days later. The soldiers emptied gallons of petrol onto her bedroom floor and over the house furniture. After breaking the windows, they torched the house.
O’ Malley and Ned Holland were jailed. Armed with information from O’ Malley’s notebook, the Tans and Auxiliaries picked up dozens of Republicans around the county.
Among those arrested were Jim Roughan of Ahenure, who had met O’ Malley at the cinema; Lord Mayor de Loughry; and the legendary fighter, Ned Aylward in Callan.
Ned, who had fought in many an ambush, was taken to Callan barracks by a squad of Tans who swore they would kill him if he failed to “cooperate”. He freely admitted to being a Sinn Feiner and told his captors that he was proud to be one.
The Tans went berserk. Punches and kicks rained down on him. They seemed intent on beating the life out of the Callan man. But he was strong and resolute- and not the surrendering kind. Noticing that the door of the interrogation room was open, he managed to break away from them. Summoning every ounce of strength, he pushed the Tans aside and reached the top of a stairway.
He jostled with some men who tried to block his path, throwing them down the steps, and leaping over them. Outside the barracks, a Tan sentry rushed at him. Ned narrowly avoided death as a razor sharp bayonet slashed through his heavy coat, just missing his stomach.
Luck was with him all the way. Though racked by pain from the beatings, he pressed on down the street until he reached the safety of Peggy Delaney’s house. Peggy and he watched from the window as scores of swearing Tans rushed past, having lost sight of him…
To be continued…
