HISTORY: A fatal Civil War ambush in Offaly and its consequences

The capture of Patrick Geraghty, commandant of the 3rd Battalion (covering Tyrrellspass, Kilclonfert, Croghan and Rhode), North Offaly Brigade IRA, and Joseph Byrne, Adjutant of the same Battalion, on 10 November 1922, was one of the most significant and controversial incidents in the Civil War in North Offaly.

They were among the best known, most respected and resourceful IRA leaders in the midlands. After several hairbreadth escapes, they, along with Battalion Quartermaster William Begnall, of Milltownpass, were lured to a farmhouse in Croghan. Having sheltered there before, they mistakenly thought they were staying in a safehouse. An informer betrayed them to National Army troops stationed in Tullamore.

While the National Army encircled the house, Geraghty and Byrne dashed out the back into a turnip field. Troops fired a volley of shots at them. Byrne darted towards a stone wall, put up his hands and surrendered. Geraghty, 32, from Rochfordbridge, discharged his Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistol. He was eventually surrounded and disarmed.

Under the draconian Army (Special Powers) Resolution, passed by the Dáil, anyone caught with unauthorised firearms risked the death penalty. Republicans claimed Byrne, 26, from Cruith, concealed his rifle in a cesspool which was not discovered in a search. He was accused of possessing ‘without proper authority’ a Webley revolver. The fully loaded revolver was said to have belonged to Begnall who had tossed it away. He evaded arrest by hiding up a tree. On 5 January 1923 Geraghty and Byrne were sentenced to death at a secret military court. From that date onwards the two IRA leaders were effectively held hostage in Portlaoise Prison. If the IRA’s North Offaly Brigade inflicted fatalities on the National Army, they were liable to be executed in retaliation.

APPOINTMENT OF SEAN McGUINNESS AS NORTH OFFALY BRIGADE O/C

Lethal violence was comparatively small-scale during the Civil War in Offaly. The IRA’s South Offaly No. 2 Brigade killed four National Army soldiers in 1922. In the same timeframe their counterpart North Offaly Brigade mortally wounded an army corporal. Only one Offaly IRA Volunteer died in combat, in disputed circumstances at Brittas, Clonaslee. The Offaly IRA caused substantial damage to property and the transport infrastructure.

In November 1922, Sean McGuinness was appointed commander of the North Offaly Brigade. He was ordered to intensify guerrilla resistance, improve discipline and morale. The Kilbeggan native reorganised the Brigade, weakened by a series of captures of its experienced officers. He planned to ambush enemy troops a mile from Geashill, at a location known as the Range Wall, while soldiers marched to 11 a.m. Mass at Raheen chapel. A Lewis machine gun he borrowed from the South Offaly No. 2 Brigade was vital to his plan. After two weeks of preparation, McGuinness postponed the ambush because of problems mobilising sufficient Volunteers. He rescheduled the ambush for 7 January 1923. Emboldened, he told the Laois Brigade commander that he was ‘confident of victory.’

THE NATIONAL ARMY’S GEASHILL GARRISON

The old Protestant school in Geashill was converted into an improvised National Army barracks. The November 1922 army census named twenty-seven soldiers in the Geashill garrison. They were overwhelmingly young, single men, from small farming, labouring, and working class backgrounds. All were Catholics. Only two soldiers were married. Over half the garrison (55%) were aged in their twenties. The average age was twenty-two years. Teenagers comprised 37% of the garrison, a reminder of how reliant the nascent army was on raw recruits. The majority were Offaly natives, mainly from Daingean and Croghan. Eight soldiers came from County Laois, including their officer Lieutenant John Lacey. He was a British Army ex-serviceman who fought in the Great War and with the IRA’s Laois Brigade from 1920-21.The remaining two soldiers were from North Tipperary.

The Midland Tribune reported ‘Geashill has been a storm centre for some time.’ The road bridge across the railway line at Raheen was damaged by explosives. The IRA repeatedly sabotaged the railway near the village, raided trains, cut telephone and telegraphic wires, blocked roads, and seized mails. The garrison’s knowledge of the terrain and population of North Offaly was a decisive advantage. They engaged in constant patrols, sometimes on bicycles, relentlessly raiding for wanted guerrillas. On Sunday night, 3 September 1922, the barracks was reportedly sniped at. An IRA diary of operations denied the attack: ‘F.S. [Free State] Garrison at Geashill hearing some noise in the vicinity opened fire with rifle and machine guns and kept it up for about two hours. No attack was made on them.’ The most serious incident occurred on Sunday, 22 October 1922, when eight soldiers with rifles, under Lieutenant Lacey’s command, marched to Mass at Raheen chapel. The IRA opened fire on the troops at long range from a wooded area. Lacey repelled the attack. There were no casualties.

THE AMBUSH

On the night of 6 January 1923 McGuinness and a column of sixteen IRA Volunteers left Killeigh, a Republican heartland. They travelled cross-country to Aghanvilla House, a vacant mansion, and rested overnight. The mansion was a rendezvous for a newly organised flying column in 1920 when the IRA ambushed a lorry containing eleven policemen at the Range Wall. Two policemen were wounded. McGuinness, then a Battalion Commandant, was involved in the ambush.

The following morning McGuinness and a few of his comrades commandeered a Ford motor car to transport rifles and the machine gun to a yard behind a labourer’s cottage, near the ambush site. The machine gun, test fired the previous day, was camouflaged on an adjacent hill and trained on the road. The IRA intended to overwhelm enemy troops with superior firepower, compel them to surrender, and seize their rifles which would then be driven away in the car.

At 10.45 a.m. fourteen soldiers with rifles slung on their shoulders, led by Lieutenant Lacey, approached the Range Wall. A Geashill youth accompanied them in front. McGuinness instructed the machine gunner to open fire on the troops furthest from the youth. To the IRA’s consternation, the machine gun malfunctioned after firing ten rounds, reputedly caused by a faulty spring. With no spare parts, the machine gun was rendered useless, giving the National Army crucial time to take cover before the IRA opened fire with rifles.

WOUNDED SOLDIERS

Private Patrick Lynch was wounded in the calf of his left leg. A bullet penetrated the shoulder blade of Cadet Patrick Columba (known as ‘P.C.’) White. Private Patrick Mulpeter, from Togher, Daingean, was wounded in the knee. Lieutenant Lacey, who was wounded in his right arm, succeeded in taking cover. Calm and resolute, he continued to give orders to his troops. The IRA hurled a grenade at the troops, but the pin was not drawn and it did not explode. The ambush lasted half an hour. Abandoning their motor car, the IRA retreated across fields and headed for the County Laois border into Kilcavan and Clonaghadoo. Their machine gun and fifty rounds of ammunition were hidden in a heap of leaves and moss in a ditch at the ambush site. A local farmer, returning home from tending his cattle, discovered the machine gun later that day and handed it over to the military.

CASUALTIES TRANSFERRED TO THE CURRAGH

Francis Morrin, the Curragh military hospital commandant, highlighted how the casualties were not transferred from Tullamore hospital to the Curragh for specialist treatment until the following evening. By then Lynch’s wound was badly infected. An operation was deferred until the morning. On Thursday (11 January), Morrin noted the wound was gangrenous. Lynch’s leg was amputated from the mid-thigh. He died at 9.45 p.m. The death registry recorded he died on Friday (12 January), the widely accepted date.

Other discrepancies emerged. Morrin claimed White received a bullet wound above the right nipple, passing through the shoulder. In a contradictory account, the local press reported the entry wound was to White’s left shoulder blade, the bullet taking a downward course, partly emerging an inch above the heart. The bullet was extracted in Tullamore hospital before White’s removal to the Curragh.

White’s condition was said to be initially stable. On 19 January, Morrin claimed secondary haemorrhaging occurred in the axillary artery. White was brought to the operating theatre where he died. The death registry noted he died on 18 January. The Offaly Independent reported he died the day before. Three separate sources gave different dates for his death. The accurate date appears to be 18 January, at 1.30 p.m., six days after Lynch succumbed.

Morrin concluded: ‘By the time they reached us the wounds were septic, consequently the patients’ chances of recovery were minimised.’ He implied Lynch and White should have been transferred directly from Geashill barracks to the Curragh. He emphasised how in the Great War, soldiers suffering from gunshot wounds were evacuated rapidly for emergency surgery, and frequently operated on within eight hours. Morrin believed had Lynch and White received timely specialist medical treatment they likely would not have died. The other wounded soldiers, Mulpeter and Lacey, survived. Lacey was discharged from the army as medically unfit in 1924. He never fully recovered, was only capable of light physical work, and was subsequently diagnosed with neurasthenia.

LYNCH’S INQUEST

There was no report of an inquest for White. At the inquest for Lynch, held at Croghan Hall, Daingean based Dr John O’Meara, attested how he dressed Lynch’s wound in Geashill barracks before the casualties were taken by ambulance to Tullamore hospital. He asserted Lynch’s wound was caused by an expanded, high velocity bullet. It was not ascertained if the bullet was fired from the Lewis machine gun. A compliant jury returned a murder verdict. At local Catholic Church Masses the ambush was denounced.

Lynch’s inquest deserves sceptical scrutiny. The IRA complained there was undue National Army interference at inquests, often overtly politicised. The IRA accused their enemies of manipulating public opinion against Republicans at inquests in a bitter propaganda war. The Free State enforced press censorship. Unpalatable medical anomalies and internal military critics were omitted at Lynch’s inquest. No staff from the Curragh hospital testified. The delay in transferring the casualties to the Curragh was ignored. Colonel Patrick Mulcahy, commander of the National Army’s 3rd Southern Command (covering Laois, Offaly and North Tipperary), privately claimed there was a security lapse by the Geashill garrison. Reconnaissance on the route to Raheen chapel on the morning of the ambush was neglected, suggesting complacency: ‘It spoke badly for intelligence if an ambush can be laid one mile from a post. This should not be possible.’

FUNERALS OF LYNCH AND WHITE

White and Lynch were both aged twenty-four. Lynch was buried in the old Croghan Hill graveyard. At the largely attended military funeral, a firing party discharged the customary three volleys over his grave. The Midland Tribune reported Lynch was ‘…very popular with all his comrades, and was looked upon as a brave, steady soldier, while during the Anglo-Irish struggle he never shirked his duty.’ All four ambush casualties fought with the pre-Truce IRA. Unusually, Lynch’s father, Thomas, also served in the National Army and was stationed in Daingean. Thomas, 48, was the oldest National Army soldier in Offaly. Before enlisting in Tullamore, in September 1922, he was allegedly a victim of IRA intimidation. Patrick also enlisted in the town after the Civil War started. Like his father, he was a labourer.

White, a native of Blessington, County Wicklow, was buried in the family plot at Manor Kilbride cemetery following a military funeral. Joining the National Army at the Curragh in May 1922, he arrived in Tullamore two months later, after the IRA evacuated the town. He transferred to Geashill barracks six weeks before the fatal ambush. An only son, he had one sister. Their parents had a grocery shop.

WHO WERE THE IRA AMBUSHERS?

The IRA Volunteers responsible for the ambush were from North Offaly and the bordering areas of counties Laois and Westmeath. The National Army conducted extensive raids to apprehend the ambushers. On 8 January 1923, the National Army raided Reary Valley, Clonaslee. Three men were observed fleeing a surrounded house. Refusing demands to halt, the military opened fire. Thomas Scully, from Ballinagar, was wounded in the right ankle. James Lawlor, from Ballylevin, Killeigh, and John Hynan of Walsh Island, surrendered after falling into a river. The National Army fruitlessly searched the river-bed for possible discarded firearms. Their suspicion that the IRA trio were connected to the Raheen ambush was well founded. In a subsequent military service pension application, Hynan confirmed his participation in the ambush and the sniping attack on 22 October 1922.

An original, handwritten list exists of thirteen named Volunteers, whom McGuinness mobilised for the ambush. The Brigade Activity Reports (BAR), released online by the Military Archives in 2019, disclosed the names of William Mooney, John Conroy, and James McDermott, of the IRA’s Tullamore Company. John Coonan and James Dunne from the Killeigh Company were also named in the BAR files. However, only Conroy and McDermott appear on the mobilisation list which also includes the aforementioned Hynan, Lawlor, and Scully, in addition to Tom Guinan, Jack Quinn, Peter Finlay, Thomas Bohan, John Mitchell, James Morris, William Gorman and William Bergin. Further corroboration may emerge from privately held collections, oral history, and the future release of military service pension records.

REPRISAL EXECUTIONS AT PORTLAOISE PRISON

Richard Mulcahy, the National Army’s Commander-in-Chief, sought retribution for the deadly ambush. He selected Geraghty and Byrne for execution. Dismayed by the executions policy, prominent National Army officers interceded. They appealed to Mulcahy for clemency in recognition of the two IRA leaders’ guerrilla activities against Crown forces. The Byrne family endured considerable hardship. Both men’s longstanding membership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was also in their favour.

Although a vehement opponent of the anti-Treatyites, the Offaly Independent acknowledged their popularity, courage and sincerity. Their plight was discussed at an Offaly County Council meeting. Such were their high profile and the leniency pleas by National Army officers and the wider public, Mulcahy offered to commute the death sentence. The compromise was conditional on Geraghty and Byrne recognising the Free State’s legitimacy and signing an undertaking renouncing Republican resistance. They spurned the offer. Their principled stance is alluded to in a biblical reference in their last letters: ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul.’

They were executed by firing squad in Portlaoise Prison at 8 a.m., on 27 January 1923. At all the Daingean Masses, Sunday prayers were requested for Byrne. Tullamore District Council passed the following resolution: ‘That we tender our deepest sympathy to the relatives of the late Joseph Byrne and Patrick Geraghty recently executed, whose families and themselves made great sacrifices and rendered distinguished service during the war with the British.’ Their remains were returned to their families in 1924. Geraghty was buried in Meedin Cemetery. Byrne was interred in the old Kilclonfert graveyard. Curiously, his headstone refers to his membership of the IRB, not the IRA.

IRA COUNTER-REPRISAL BURNINGS OF MANSIONS

In counter-reprisals for the executions of IRA prisoners, Liam Lynch, the IRA Chief of Staff, ordered the torching of mansions of former leading loyalists, deemed ‘imperialists’. Lynch was convinced his strategy would culminate in influential ex-loyalists lobbying the British Government to compel the Free State regime to end its executions policy. In Offaly, amid pressure from GHQ, the IRA burned country houses at Ballyburley, Greenhill, Tubberdaly, Rathrobin, and Durrow Abbey. Only Durrow Abbey, owned by Otway Graham Toler, an ex-Deputy Lieutenant and former High Sheriff, was rebuilt. Similar to the executions in Portlaoise Prison, the IRA’s co-ordinated destruction of mansions in North Offaly in 1923, can be traced to the fatal ambush at Raheen and its consequences.