War and Revolution in the West of Ireland by Conor McNamara

Author:Conor McNamara [McNamara, Conor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788550208
Publisher: Irish Academic
Published: 2018-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Initial phase of the republican campaign

The republican campaign in Galway can be analysed in three phases that broadly conform to the evolution of the movement in other active parts of the country. In each consecutive phase of the campaign, the pool of Volunteers involved in attacks became smaller, as the less committed, the older, and those with full-time occupations and more responsibilities, increasingly dropped out. In their stead, remained younger men who were generally free from the constraints of careers, property and regular working hours.

The first four attacks in the initial phase of the republican campaign comprised attacks on isolated rural RIC barracks at Castlehacket, Castlegrove, Loughgeorge and Bookeen between January and July 1920. All of the attacks took place at night and were carried out by large groups of badly armed Volunteers. The primary aim was to seize the weapons and stores held by the police and to physically destroy the garrisons. These initial attacks took place in the east of the county and no members of the RIC were killed. All four barracks were badly damaged with the Bookeen and Loughgeorge barracks destroyed by fire.

The Castlehacket and Castlegrove attacks – the first of this period – were carried out in the northeast of the county and were organised by the Tuam brigade under the leadership of Michael Moran who was a student at University College Galway, and Thomas Dunleavy, a small farmer from the Barnaderg district. The Castlehacket barracks, located between Headford and Tuam was attacked by a group of about seventy Volunteers armed mainly with shotguns, early on the morning of Saturday 10 January.12 The attack was originally fixed for the twelfth night but as Volunteer John Conway recalled, ‘as somebody suggested that it was little Christmas night and not a nice thing to have an attack on that Holy night, it was fixed for the following night’.13 A large group of Volunteers surrounded the barracks, keeping it under intermittent fire, as a small body of police under Sergeant Higgins returned fire and successfully defended the building. The attack lasted several hours and grenades were unsuccessfully employed to blow the door of the building open.

The second operation carried out by the Tuam brigade was a carbon copy of the first attack with a large group of Volunteers attacking the isolated police barracks at Castlegrove, near Milltown, on the night of 26 March. The barracks was situated a few miles from the site of the first attack and like the previous operation, was carried out by a large group of badly armed Volunteers from the surrounding districts of Sylane, Tuam, Barnaderg, Caherlistrane and Cortoon, led once more by Michael Moran. Volunteer John Conway recalled, ‘when the explosion or explosions occurred, all at the front opened fire, directing our fire at the windows in front of us and at the doors’.14 The large group kept the building under intermittent fire for several hours but once again, the small detachment of police did not surrender and the raiders eventually fled.15

The

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