Freedom and the Fifth Commandment by Brian Heffernan

Author:Brian Heffernan [Heffernan, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Ireland, Religion, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Nationalism & Patriotism, Christianity, Catholic, Modern, 20th Century, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9781526117984
Google: w3G5DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2016-09-30T22:09:15+00:00

Sheltering men on the run

Apart from these forms of spiritual aid, priests also gave material support. The most frequent form of this was giving shelter to fugitives. When IRA activity picked up in early 1920 with more regular attacks on RIC barracks, Volunteers who became known to the police had to go on the run.64 These men were constantly in need of safe houses, and they began to form flying columns in the spring and summer. Charles Townshend and Joost Augusteijn have contended that the fugitive life of these Volunteers, which took them away from the ‘restraining influence of the community’, was an important factor in the radicalisation of the movement. As the restraints imposed by interaction with relatives, friends and the wider community were removed, such Volunteers became likely to engage in ever more violence. This continued until British countermeasures made flying column activity increasingly ineffective in the course of the spring of 1921.65 The existence of safe houses was obviously important to the functioning of these columns, and providing shelter was thus a significant contribution to make.

Not every priest who put up a Volunteer for the night was an ideologically motivated supporter of the IRA. James Canon O’Connor, parish priest of Gurteen, County Sligo, gave shelter to the IRA man Patrick Hegarty in the winter of 1919 even though he had condemned Hegarty’s activities from the pulpit a short time previously.66 O’Connor’s hospitality was no doubt motivated more by thoughts of Christian charity than by a desire to aid the Volunteers in their efforts, although he also stored a car used by the IRA. Nonetheless, his activities helped to further the cause, and he was thus a material, if not an ideological supporter of the campaign. By contrast, the ideological component was not lacking with Thomas Canon Langan, parish priest of Moate, County Westmeath, who put up an entire column at a farm he owned in the winter of 1920.67 The same was true of Father John Magee, parish priest of nearby Tober, who housed a column in his stables.68 Moreover, there were considerable risks involved in sheltering men on the run, even for priests who gave occasional shelter to individual Volunteers. Thus Father John Larkin, curate in Windgap, County Kilkenny, was interrogated by Auxiliaries within twenty-four hours of putting up two Volunteers for Christmas in 1920.69 The possible repercussions required strong motivation on the part of those who provided shelter.

IRA veterans praised the intrepidity of their hosts. The Meath Volunteer Seamus Finn stayed with some comrades in the house of Father P. Norris, curate of Kildalkey, and called the priest ‘a fearless, patriotic “sagart” who well knew the risk attaching to his hospitality’.70 And Dan Breen praised Father McCarthy, the Ballyhahill curate, because he ‘never counted the cost of “harbouring outlaws”’ during the War of Independence.71 The difficulties involved are clearly illustrated in Father Patrick Gaynor’s account of the hospitality that he and his fellow Mullagh curate provided to a Volunteer in 1920. Ignatius O’Neill had been in charge of the Rineen ambush in September 1920, which killed six constables.

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