Showdown at Nine-Mile-House
BY JOHN FITZGERALD
(Part four)
One of the best-known military engagements involving the County Kilkenny IRA occurred at Nine-Mile-House, just inside the Tipperary border in the valley of Sliabh-na-mBan.
On December 20th, 1920, volunteers of the 7th battalion Flying Column, backed up by Tipperary IRA men, lay in hiding on a hill overlooking a section of the main Kilkenny to Clonmel road. They had learned that lorry-loads of British troops were to pass by at a certain time, heading for Clonmel, and planned to ambush them.
Paud Egan of Windgap and Ned Aylward of Ahenure commanded the fighters, who were well concealed and camouflaged on Carroll’s Hill, part of an extensive woodland area rising from the side of the road upon which they had positioned themselves.
Waiting for the sound of engines, they were surprised when, at 2.45 p.m. nine troops and two RIC men came cycling along the road from Mullinahone direction. Ned Aylward cautioned the volunteers not to fire until the enemy was well within range, but one man loosed off a shot, alerting the soldiers.
Dropping their bikes, they jumped over a ditch and ran for cover in a bog. As they retreated, the IRA men, who were divided into two groups, blazed away at them. The troops returned fire; though neither side suffered casualties apart from a minor wound inflicted on a soldier.
The enemy troops got away, scampering across the bog as fast as they could run. They made contact with the Mullinahone police, and within minutes British forces in Clonmel and Callan had been alerted.
Troops cycling from Callan spotted two armed men coming towards them at Aughatarra Bridge, also on bikes: Paddy Ryan and Tom Maher. The British alighted from their bikes and blocked the road, calling on the activists to halt. Tom and Paddy ignored the warning. The troops opened fire, narrowly missing their targets. The IRA men flung their rifles on the road, threw down their bikes, and sought refuge in nearby Trenchmore Wood.
A British officer gave chase, ordering one of his men to another section of the road where he thought the activists would emerge from the wood. Cycling along, Private Reginald Squib saw the two fugitives over a ditch. They were in a field, running towards the wood. Throwing down his bike, he fired at them, but missed. Paddy Ryan turned around, stopped in his tracks, and drew his revolver.
He was one of the best shots in the entire Republican movement. Taking careful aim, he sent a bullet winging its way through Private Squib’s right eye. The soldier fell to the ground in a pool of blood. He narrowly avoided death. After receiving first aid in Jack Hanley’s house, he had an operation and made a full recovery apart from losing his eye.
The soldiers chased the IRA men through the woods, firing as they ran. Paddy and Tom, struggling to take cover amid briars and dense foliage, returned fire. Hiding behind trees, then rocks, then trees again, they led their pursuers in a deadly game of cat and mouse that could bring death to either side in an instant.
But the IRA men had the advantage, knowing every inch of the terrain. They managed to shake off the posse and reach the home of sympathizer Johnny Cahill in Cappahenry, where they teamed up with Mick and Paddy Maher, hard-bitten, experienced fighters.
At 4.30 pm, as darkness fell over the countryside, a dozen RIC men arrived at the scene of the earlier ambush to assist their military colleagues. A bizarre episode followed which resulted in the unintentional death of a policeman. Seeing flashes of gunfire in the wood, the Kilkenny police called on those involved to identify themselves. A soldier hollered: “The Devons from Callan!”
In what could surely be described as a tragicomic response, the police, thinking the soldier had said: “The rebels from Callan”, sprayed the wood with rifle and machinegun fire.
The soldiers in the wood, believing themselves under attack from the IRA, fired at the police. Though they could make out the form of a Crossley Tender in the semi-darkness, they assumed the IRA had stolen it.
RIC Sergeant, Thomas Walsh of the Kilkenny John Street barracks caught a bullet in the head and died instantly. A Ballyragget man, he had twenty years of service behind him and had just been promoted to Sergeant. Another officer was wounded. Both were victims of what today would euphemistically be called “friendly fire.”
As the evening wore on, there was more action in the picturesque mountain valley. A police contingent from Clonmel, rushing to the assistance of their colleagues at Nine-Mile-House, was set upon at Glenbower, a few miles on the Clonmel side of where the earlier ambush had occurred.
Jim Daly, ‘King’ Delaney, and ‘Pony’ Ryan of the IRA’s much-feared Coolagh Company linked up with Tipperary fighters for the attack. Bullets rained down on the military convey. But the police had good cover behind rocks and only one constable was slightly wounded. The IRA men escaped unhurt, melting into the countryside they knew so well.
Later that night, the Tans were out for blood. They suspected, rightly as it happened, that Jackie Brett of Mullinahone had been one of the IRA activists at Nine-Mile-House. They raided Brett’s Store in the village, smashing up the bar and grocery with their rifle butts. They wrecked the inside of the building.
Jackie could not return to his business for fear of arrest. And, for good measure, the Tans set fire to hay on Fox’s farm at Killamery as a warning to would-be rebels.
Tragedy in Callan…
Though Sergeant Walsh had been accidentally killed by his own side the Tans blamed the rebels, reasoning that he would still be alive had it not been for the Nine Mile incident and the follow-up police/military operation necessitated by it.
Sergeant Walsh’s body had been conveyed to his native Ballyragget for the burial service the following day, December 21st. A curfew was ordered by the authorities in Callan, with a stern warning issued against any human presence on the streets of the town.
A local Tan collaborator roared from a slow moving Crossley Tender at everyone to remain indoors until the corpse had left Callan. Townsfolk complied, not wishing to engage in foolish risk-taking or bravado.
But as the cortege turned into Bridge Street, local woman Josephine Delaney called to Michael Ryan’s pub and grocery (where Hourigan’s pub now stands) at 5.30 pm for a jug of milk. Michael’s wife, Margaret filled the jug for the customer and the two women then stood inside the pub, watching through a window as the funeral procession passed down the street.
Then tragedy struck. A Tan had spotted the flicker of light in the doorway of Ryan’s pub and, fearing it augured a possible IRA ambush, had fired at the source of the light. The bullet penetrated the door before passing through Margaret’s bowel and lodging in her back.
Terror-stricken, she saw a pool of blood spreading on the floor and assumed that one of her feet had been wounded. Her husband, Michael, who had been working in the adjoining storehouse when the shot rang out, rushed to her aid.
After the cortege and the Tan lorries had passed and left Callan, Michael took Margaret to the Workhouse hospital. The medical staff worked frantically to save her life. But her condition was beyond hope.
Margaret was 36 years old and expecting baby at the time of the shooting. She died on the operating table two days before Christmas.
