We Bled Together by Price Dominic

Author:Price, Dominic [Collins, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Collins Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The table on page 172 shows the command structure and personnel of the Dublin Brigade involved in the operation to assassinate British IOs on Bloody Sunday. While not a definitive list, it shows the key IRA personnel who led operations and what companies and battalions the majority of the IRA Volunteers came from. It also shows which British IOs they were detailed to attack and the outcome of those attacks. It demonstrates the enormous undertaking of the operation and how it could not have been undertaken without an effectively functioning military organisation.

News of the events that morning was even more distressing to the British troops in the city. It was their friends and colleagues, with some of whom they had shared four years in the trenches during the First World War, who were now dead. Captain Rymer-Jones and his platoon of the 1st Battalion King’s Own Liverpool Regiment were on a raid of the Great Southern railway yards in Inchicore. According to intelligence he had received, the IRA had weapons and ammunition stored in the area. On this particular morning nothing was found and the captain and his men returned to Richmond Barracks. With them was British intelligence officer Captain Jeune. Had he not been on duty at Inchicore he would have been in his bed at 28 Upper Pembroke Street when Captain Flanagan began his operation. Rymer-Jones and Jeune’s disappointment at finding no IRA arms was nothing compared to the shock that awaited them on their return to barracks. News was just coming in of an unprecedented IRA operation across the city. ‘The raiding boys of the Sinn Féin, we called them then, they weren’t IRA, Sinn Féin, in their uniform of dirty mackintoshes and black homburg hats, went to all these places, killed the officers, dragging them out of bed with their wives and families watching.’91 As more details came in, Captain Rymer-Jones had great difficulty in restraining his men from going into the city to take revenge.92 Jeune hurried back to his lodgings to find his brother officers lying dead on the floor.93 As news of the killings reached Dublin Castle, panic spread among those of the British officers’ families who were living out in the city. Accounts were circulating of up to fifty British officers being shot. Eventually, more accurate figures emerged and the official British report read: ‘14 deaths, 6 injured including one Shinner and 4 prisoners captured.’94

The four prisoners were Volunteers Frank Teeling and Conor Clune and Commandants Peadar Clancy and Dick McKee. Teeling was sent to King George V Hospital at Parkgate to have his wounds treated. The others were now in Dublin Castle. The atmosphere in the city was highly charged. Michael Collins expected a response from the British. Worried that the proposed Gaelic football match between Tipperary and Dublin could become a focus for conflict, it was suggested, albeit late in the day, to cancel it. The GAA said it was too late as the city was filled with thousands of people on their way to the pitch at Croke Park.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.