IRA activity in Laois/Offaly

Farmer Pudsey

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

East Limerick was an active area. Aside from Dromkeen there was a fair bit of activity around it even if attacks tended to be on a much smaller scale.

I think the Kerry thing is overstated to be honest. You hear it a lot that Kerry did nothing. While it wasn't on the same level as Cork, you still had major ambushes at the Headford Railway Station, at Rathmore and at Castlemaine. The Crown Forces had about twenty fatalities in those three incidents alone.

Comments about what areas did or didn't do by veterans also have to be viewed in terms of the Treaty split. That certainly coloured later opinions about the respective military performances of different areas. O'Duffy was famously critical of the IRA in Kerry later for example. Galway was hugely criticised particularly, retrospectively during the Civil War and Laois was another one. Lar Brady was involved in a fatal attack on Free State officers there and their lack of violence during the War of Independence was commented on.

I was not saying east limerick was inactive rather the opposite it was one of the few area's where ambushes took place on main roads it was not just Dromkean you also had the Oola ambush. East limerick was very active. General Lucy who was captured by the cork brigades was held in limerick for a good while before he escaped.
But this was not the rule elswhere most ambushes took place in small by roads or the attacks were on small barracks.

Gee Bag

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

That is not a realistic reason. Most country lads of that era knew how to load, point and fire a weapon. For a ‘firefight’ war they would have needed training on fields of fire, tactics, cover, engage/withdraw, etc,

It pretty much is the reason.

Shotguns were not common in private hands at this time, much less rifles. Given the extent of agrarian unrest in the late ninteenth century and the general fear of an armed rebellion it was difficult for someone seen as 'unloyal' to obtain a firearm. If privatley held weapons were freely available then the IRA would not have been attacking fortified RIC barracks in order to obtain arms.

The notion that inexperienced 'country lads' could take on British Army regulars (many of whom were combat veterans) without any training is very simplistic. GHQ (IRA Command) sent instructors around the country to train local units in basic military tactics. There weren't enough instructors to go around the entire country, therefore instructors were sent to the most militantly republican areas in order to maximise their effectiveness.

Local units were allowed to elect their own commanding officer. This proved to be a mistake as some units elected officers who were popular because they didn't push the men too hard or take risks.

The lack of arms was a major issue for the Republican side throughout the War of Independence. Often ambushes were undertaken with units having a minimal amounts of ammunition and with men armed with shotguns having to engage from very close range.

While disruptive action such as digging trenches, blocking roads, cutting telegraph lines and enforcing boycotts were important actions they were very much secondary to the actual fighting. In the end it was the sheer numbers being killed and injured that forced the British to agree to a truce.

He's been mentioned before but I'm going to mention him again, Ernie O'Malley is well worth reading about this period.

ciarriaithuaidh

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I was not saying east limerick was inactive rather the opposite it was one of the few area's where ambushes took place on main roads it was not just Dromkean you also had the Oola ambush. East limerick was very active. General Lucy who was captured by the cork brigades was held in limerick for a good while before he escaped.
But this was not the rule elswhere most ambushes took place in small by roads or the attacks were on small barracks.

Its merely a point of order, but its General LUCAS you mean I'm sure? He was captured while fishing in Fermoy i think and held in the east Limerick area before escaping. The Knocklong rescue and surrounding story in Dan Breen's book "My fight for Irish freedom" mentions the circumstances of Lucas' escape and that he was very complimentary afterwards towards his IRA captors for the treatment he received. Incidentally, the British thought that both the Knocklong train rescue of Seán Hogan and a subsequent attack on a convoy of Crossley tenders outside Oola, were both attempts to re-capture Lucas..which Dan Breen had a good laugh at in his book!

http://www.cairogang.com/soldiers-killed/Lucas-ambush/lucas-ambush.html

On the general topic of discussion...it seems from reading the contemporary accounts that poor leadership, local squabbling and lack of weaponry were the main factors for inactivity in certain areas, although lets be honest...there may also have been a lack of willingness to fully commit to bloodshed in some quarters. Its totally understandable. Many people forget just how few men actually FOUGHT the War of Indpendence and how ostracised and criticised by their fellow countrymen most of them were at the time. It was a bold and courageous step they took...too many of us have forgotten their sacrifices. One of the saddest things I remember reading is how many of those on the Republican side in the Civil war, left the country either out of fear or disgust and never returned. Some of these were men who had been through some of the toughest fighting which ultimately led to our freedom. I wouldn't agree with a lot of what they believed and fought for, but many of them deserved better.

cormacocomhrai

Re the question of arms there were a lot of shotguns in the countryside and the IRA hoovered up a lot of them but other than in closequarter fighting the shotgun was basically useless. They were desperately short of rifles and had next to no machine guns. Rifles were important militarily for covering retreats etc. but also, as was noted at the time, pyschologically. The rifles made them feel like soldiers and "improved the neighbours opinion of us". They captured some small number of rifles in ambushes, bought or stole some more and got some more during raids on the houses of the gentry. The problem with the latter was they were often of unusual makes and it was next to impossible to find ammunition for them.

sinsin

King and Queens County, Philipstown and Maryborough.
Laois and Offaly were planted,drive around and You will find that many towns and villages are planned and have War Memorials.
It was an inhospitable area for Republicans.

cormacocomhrai

It's an interesting theory but I'd have my suspicions of how much merit is in it. Towns and large villages tended to be areas of limited support for republicans regardless of where they were in country. It'd be interesting to see what Sinn Féin membership was like in the two counties, as a proportion of the population in the county. I have the figures somewhere. The original 16th century planters families were there a long time and would have been very assimilated whatever about families who had been "planted" during the late 1800s.

The republican movement would have been significantly smaller if it was only made up of people of Gaelic or Norman stock. One of the Laois IRA men who gave a witness statement who gave a witness statement to the Bureau of Military History was called Ramsbottom, for example. He was, presumably, of planter origin. One of the most famous republicans from Offaly over the years was a Protestant named Walter Mitchell.

Delancey

sinsin wrote: »

King and Queens County, Philipstown and Maryborough.
Laois and Offaly were planted,drive around and You will find that many towns and villages are planned and have War Memorials.
It was an inhospitable area for Republicans.

This is why there was relatively little action seen in Laois/Offaly - both counties also had significant protestant populations which may have also had a bearing on the ' participation rate ' in the IRA.

sinsin

Delancey wrote: »

This is why there was relatively little action seen in Laois/Offaly - both counties also had significant protestant populations which may have also had a bearing on the ' participation rate ' in the IRA.

Yes,There was a substantial Protestant population which meant the IRA could not move about with impunity.

pedroeibar1

Gee Bag wrote: »

It pretty much is the reason.

Shotguns were not common in private hands at this time, much less rifles. Given the extent of agrarian unrest in the late ninteenth century and the general fear of an armed rebellion it was difficult for someone seen as 'unloyal' to obtain a firearm. If privatley held weapons were freely available then the IRA would not have been attacking fortified RIC barracks in order to obtain arms.

The notion that inexperienced 'country lads' could take on British Army regulars (many of whom were combat veterans) without any training is very simplistic. GHQ (IRA Command) sent instructors around the country to train local units in basic military tactics. There weren't enough instructors to go around the entire country, therefore instructors were sent to the most militantly republican areas in order to maximise their effectiveness.

Local units were allowed to elect their own commanding officer. This proved to be a mistake as some units elected officers who were popular because they didn't push the men too hard or take risks.

The lack of arms was a major issue for the Republican side throughout the War of Independence. Often ambushes were undertaken with units having a minimal amounts of ammunition and with men armed with shotguns having to engage from very close range.

While disruptive action such as digging trenches, blocking roads, cutting telegraph lines and enforcing boycotts were important actions they were very much secondary to the actual fighting. In the end it was the sheer numbers being killed and injured that forced the British to agree to a truce.

He's been mentioned before but I'm going to mention him again, Ernie O'Malley is well worth reading about this period.

Gee Bag wrote: »

It pretty much is the reason.

No, it is not the reason. I’m not sure what your point is in that post, as you agree with me on several issues.
There were many shotguns in private hands and ordinary farmers knew how to use them. A shotgun is a very effective weapon at ranges of 40 – 60 yards. In the right hands and with a bit of very basic technical knowledge (known to any poacher) that range could easily be doubled, more than sufficient for any ambush, which is close-quarters fighting. It has been used from the 17th C and is still in use as a guerrilla weapon today, and by combat troops. Most of the ‘big houses’ were raided for shotguns, as rifles were very uncommon and of diverse calibres, as pointed out by CormacC above. Additionally, most of those 'big house' rifles were single-shot ‘black powder’ guns, suited to hunting and of little use to ‘rebels’. That which is why the RIC barracks were raided for their rifles, as I said in my above post. Those used cordite ammunition and were both considerably easier to use and more effective in the right hands.
Also, agrarian unrest was very common throughout the 19th century, and most certainly not confined to

Gee Bag wrote: »

‘the late ninteenth century’

Look at the armed crime figures for (to take an example) Clare, Limerick and Tipperary for the late 1840’s Famine era. Those counties were the most lawless in Ireland, where robberies of arms – mainly from ordinary farmers - accounted for 75 per cent of the total for all the robberies of arms in Ireland; in Limerick they were 42 per cent of the total, in a county that had a population of only 4 per cent of the entire population of Ireland. Nationwide, robberies for stealing arms in 1846 were 207, the following year they had increased by almost 160% to 530. (Hansard – see http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1847/nov/29/crime-and-outrage-ireland) That is why the Grand Jury and the Coercion Acts were introduced in that era and a result quite comparable to the Restoration of Order Ireland Act of 1920.

The aim of any guerrilla war is to disrupt the ruling power – the easiest way to do this is to disrupt their communications. The French Resistance did this and caused huge disruption in WW2, (read ‘Maquis’ by George Millar or any good book on the SOE or any guerrilla war); the New IRA did this repeatedly to the Belfast-Dublin railway line and by mining border roads throughout the Northern 'Troubles'.

Gee Bag wrote: »

In the end it was the sheer numbers being killed and injured that forced the British to agree to a truce.

I don’t agree with that either.

Gee Bag

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

No, it is not the reason. I’m not sure what your point is in that post, as you agree with me on several issues.

My point is that I don't agree with anything in your original post.

You stated that most country lads would know how to fire a weapon, I disagree with this statement due to the limited number of firearms in private ownership at this time in Ireland.

Shotguns were used during the War of Independence but were not favoured due to their limited range (shotgun men at ambushes were very exposed to enemy fire) and unreliability of cartridges. The reason I specifically referred to agrarian unrest in the late ninteenth century is because of the scale of the movement at the time which scared the authorities into thinking another 1798 type rebellion was on the cards. Hence, the lack of availability of firearms.

You then suggested that a mixture of brawn and pluck would have been sufficent to carry the fight to the enemy. That kind of activity has it's place but was nothing more than a minor hindrance without the threat of violence to back it up. Hence, my opinion that such activity would have been of marginal use in areas without active IRA units.

Using the Maquis as an example for a guerilla war is a bad choice as there were external factors at play and they eventually were liberated by the Allies.

the New IRA did this repeatedly to the Belfast-Dublin railway line and by mining border roads throughout the Northern 'Troubles'.

Positioning of bombs in Northern Ireland (other than those specifically intended to kill) was rarely focused on dirupting lines of communication (which I take to mean military lines of communication). It was about disruption of the overall economy.

I don’t agree with that either

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

cormacocomhrai

Gee Bag you're overstating how rare shotguns were in early twentieth century Ireland. Rifles are a different issue. Volunteer companies were often able to collect 15-20 shotguns locally, except in the poorest areas. That was aside from any guns they might have possessed themselves. The quality of marksmanship was widely different though, like any other skill. A Kerry republican commented when he learned of the name of an RIC man who was killed in an ambush in Rathmore, Kerry. "He's not the first woodcock I shot." On the other hand you've the comment about the IRA in Limerick: "Most of our fellas wouldn't shoot a haystack."

pedroeibar1

Gee Bag wrote: »

My point is that I don't agree with anything in your original post.

You stated that most country lads would know how to fire a weapon, I disagree with this statement due to the limited number of firearms in private ownership at this time in Ireland.

Shotguns were used during the War of Independence but were not favoured due to their limited range (shotgun men at ambushes were very exposed to enemy fire) and unreliability of cartridges. The reason I specifically referred to agrarian unrest in the late ninteenth century is because of the scale of the movement at the time which scared the authorities into thinking another 1798 type rebellion was on the cards. Hence, the lack of availability of firearms. .

You have yet to give a valid excuse for the lack of activity in Laois/Offaly.
There were a substantial number of arms in Ireland, although many were old and almost antique. Even the guns landed in Howth and used in 1916 were left-overs from the Franco-Prussian War of 1872. If one is hit by a bullet the age of the gun that fired it is immaterial, it is the energy of the projectile that counts. As I pointed out earlier, shotgun cartridges can be easily adapted for longer ranges. Contrary to your assertion, shotgun or rifles have no impression on being exposed to enemy fire, it is cover that counts. Most cartridges of that era were made of waxed paper and quite waterproof, but if the outer layers were wet they tended to get stuck and were a little more difficult to remove.

Gee Bag wrote: »

You then suggested that a mixture of brawn and pluck would have been sufficent to carry the fight to the enemy. That kind of activity has it's place but was nothing more than a minor hindrance without the threat of violence to back it up. Hence, my opinion that such activity would have been of marginal use in areas without active IRA units. .

It is a hindrance, but it is a very important one recognized since time immemorial. It keeps the regular troops looking over their shoulders, it is very bad for their moral, it shows the general population that the guerrilla controls the terrain (if only at night) and it is very good for propaganda purposes and fundraising. (Almost all guerrilla wars that do not have external support fail.)

Gee Bag wrote: »

Using the Maquis as an example for a guerilla war is a bad choice as there were external factors at play and they eventually were liberated by the Allies. .

The Maquis is a very appropriate study, they were initially largely unsupported by external resources - that is why when they had explosives they targeted the ‘points’ on railway lines, because they were much more difficult to obtain, took longer to fit and required a minimum of explosive to be destroyed. They caused huge disruption and tied up thousands of German troops just before D-Day.

Gee Bag wrote: »

Positioning of bombs in Northern Ireland (other than those specifically intended to kill) was rarely focused on dirupting lines of communication (which I take to mean military lines of communication). It was about disruption of the overall economy. .

From the IRA Volunteers handbook :
CHAPTER 11-GENERAL TECHNIQUES
The guerrilla must always remember that his main job is the destruction and break-down of enemy communications, administration and supplies, and not the capture of specific objectives. Therefore, the more the enemy is harried the better the result. The guerrilla can always harry the enemy by even small scale methods. Trees felled across roads can cause long delays. Railway signal boxes can be effectively sabotaged. Telegraph and telephone lines can quite easily be put out of order. Four men can fell 200-300 trees of one foot diameter in a day. These can be set up as barriers or barricades. A stone tied to the end of a long piece of cord can be thrown over a wire and the wire lowered to the roadway and then cut.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/5026680/IRA-Volunteers-Handbook-Notes-on-Guerrilla-Warfare


And while we are on Laois, it was that county where Dr. Tiede Herrema was held for most of his captivity back in 1975, a substantial part of it in Mountmellick, before he was transferred to Monasterevin. FWIW, around 1977 when deer stalking in Laois I encountered a poacher armed with an Armalite.

thecommietommy

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

the New IRA did this repeatedly to the Belfast-Dublin railway line and by mining border roads throughout the Northern 'Troubles'.

I don’t agree with that either.

Not draggin it off topic but replying to the above. It was the British army who were " mining border roads throughout the Northern 'Troubles' ", not the IRA as I can personally vouch for having spent many a Saturday afternoon filling in the craters left by them only for the roads to be destroyed again a day or two later by the Brits. Not only that but they also blew up many bridges, with the Gombeen state govt expresssing a meek ' concern ' over such activites.

http://www.irishborderlands.com/living/secure.html

pedroeibar1

thecommietommy wrote: »

It was the British army who were " mining border roads throughout the Northern 'Troubles' ",

http://www.irishborderlands.com/living/secure.html

They 'blew' or blocked the roads with caissons which is quite different to mining them, which is what the IRA did and what I said. The British Army were not responsible for the railway line bombs, as I also said. Blocking the roads by the Army was a help, militarily, but any benefit was more than outweighed by the very negative impact of alienating the populace, as amply illustrated by your link.

Strange last sentence in the link you quoted.;)

and the easy escape of their perpetrators across the border into Ireland.

I don't want to go off topic...........

thecommietommy

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

They 'blew' or blocked the roads with caissons which is quite different to mining them, which is what the IRA did and what I said. The British Army were not responsible for the railway line bombs, as I also said. Blocking the roads by the Army was a help, militarily, but any benefit was more than outweighed by the very negative impact of alienating the populace, as amply illustrated by your link.

Strange last sentence in the link you quoted.;)
I don't want to go off topic...........

Mods - only replying to the points raised by the poster above.
Yes your right, they used caissons (concrete barriers) and blew up the roads up with expolsives, particuliarily in the 70's along with bridges ( the 70's were the good old days when the Brits didn't make much attempt to hide their arrogance and contempt for the natives). However by the late 80's and early 90's your heros were a bit less violent about it and used JCB's a few days later to undo the work myself and others such as small farmers etc trying to access their lands on the other side of the border.

As for

Strange last sentence in the link you quoted.

Quote:
and the easy escape of their perpetrators across the border into Ireland.

Well their wouldn't be any " perpatrators " if the Brits weren't here in the first place.

Simples.

thecommietommy

Gee Bag wrote: »

It pretty much is the reason.

Shotguns were not common in private hands at this time, much less rifles. Given the extent of agrarian unrest in the late ninteenth century and the general fear of an armed rebellion it was difficult for someone seen as 'unloyal' to obtain a firearm. If privatley held weapons were freely available then the IRA would not have been attacking fortified RIC barracks in order to obtain arms.

The notion that inexperienced 'country lads' could take on British Army regulars (many of whom were combat veterans) without any training is very simplistic. GHQ (IRA Command) sent instructors around the country to train local units in basic military tactics. There weren't enough instructors to go around the entire country, therefore instructors were sent to the most militantly republican areas in order to maximise their effectiveness.

Local units were allowed to elect their own commanding officer. This proved to be a mistake as some units elected officers who were popular because they didn't push the men too hard or take risks.

The lack of arms was a major issue for the Republican side throughout the War of Independence. Often ambushes were undertaken with units having a minimal amounts of ammunition and with men armed with shotguns having to engage from very close range.

While disruptive action such as digging trenches, blocking roads, cutting telegraph lines and enforcing boycotts were important actions they were very much secondary to the actual fighting. In the end it was the sheer numbers being killed and injured that forced the British to agree to a truce.

He's been mentioned before but I'm going to mention him again, Ernie O'Malley is well worth reading about this period.

Yes Ernie O'Malley is well worth reading. Though I can understand your point of view, but as for " The notion that inexperienced 'country lads' could take on British Army regulars (many of whom were combat veterans) without any training is very simplistic. " At Kilmicheal most of the men had never engaged in a gun battle before from what I remember in Guerilla Days in Ireland. And that was the Auxiliary regiment, the SAS of their day (though the media called them "cadets" )

And also though mainly Dubs from the city, the men of 1916 didn't do too bad for inexperienced city lads taken on British Army regulars, artillery, gun boats etc

snafuk35

Well look at the map of the 1910 general election and you'll see that William O'Brien's All-For-Ireland-League was concentrated in Cork. Pretty much the rest of the country is uniformly Irish Parliamentary Party. The O'Brien Party was much more radical than the rest of the country and Cork had a history of rebellion going back the the Desmond Rebellion. There was more radical population in Cork than elsewhere and the neighbour counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Kerry and Waterford were obviously influenced by their proximity to Cork.

mattman_iflaf

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

... It'd be interesting to see what Sinn Féin membership was like in the two counties, as a proportion of the population in the county. I have the figures somewhere.....

I'd certainly be interested in those figures, are they publically available ? More to the point is there anywhere one can find out what actual activities took place in Count Laois ? My interest is from a family perspective. My Grand Uncle's memory card notes : "B" Company, 2nd Batt., I.R.A., Leix Division. He died 25-Feb-1922 supposedly hit by a falling tree. I wonder was this as a result of his activities ? I know little else other than a rumour he dug trenches for the IRA. Anyone know of a means of tracing more on this ?

Dr.Nightdub

Mattman, when he died the Truce was still in effect and the Civil War hadn't yet begun, so he may have been given an IRA funeral - check the archives of the local paper (the National Library also has most of them on microfilm).

After that, your best bet is the Bureau of Military History: the Military Archives website has an index of the various witness statements given by IRA veterans, he may be mentioned in some of those. I think they're due to be put online by the end of this month.

snafuk35

mattman_iflaf wrote: »

I'd certainly be interested in those figures, are they publically available ? More to the point is there anywhere one can find out what actual activities took place in Count Laois ? My interest is from a family perspective. My Grand Uncle's memory card notes : "B" Company, 2nd Batt., I.R.A., Leix Division. He died 25-Feb-1922 supposedly hit by a falling tree. I wonder was this as a result of his activities ? I know little else other than a rumour he dug trenches for the IRA. Anyone know of a means of tracing more on this ?

Check out the Laois County Library Local Studies Collection
Local Studies Department
Laois County Library HQ
Kea-Lew Business Park
Portlaoise
Co. Laois

I am sure the library has micro films and hard copies of local newspapers from the period so there are sure to be mentions of incidents including an unsual death by a falling tree.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/culturenet/archives/laois/laois-county-library-loca/

You could also check out the Military Service Pension files:

The Military Service Pensions Collection is a unique collection of records, files, maps, drawings and diagrams. The files relate in the main to applications by individuals and/or their dependants for the award of pension and gratuities for veterans who served as members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, the Irish Republican Army, Cumann na mBan, the National Army/Defence Forces and kindred named organisations on active service or who were casualties or wounded while on duty during the period from April and May 1916 through to 30 September 1923.

If a Laois veteran spoke about the death of an IRA member during a tree felling it is likely to be mentioned somewhere among those files.

Contact:

Officer in Charge,
Military Archives,
Cathal Brugha Barracks,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6

mattman_iflaf

Thanks for the great info. Some searching to do...

theholyghost

This thread is a really extreme example of uninformed people speculating wildly about a subject rather than researching it.

People throw out the assertion that there wasn't much activity in, for example, Laois and ask why?

The answer is simple there was a great deal of activity but there wasn't a Tom Barry to write a book about it nor a Neil Jordan to make a film about it so unless you actually do some research it won't be apparent.

Try reading The Quiet County by Michael Rafter to find out about raids, interception of military supplies, burning of and attacks on RIC Barracks , Black and Tan retaliation, the fundraising activites and contributions of oridinary people etc. during this period in Laois. Let me quote the preface by Ted Fennelly, as it is instructive:

It is because of this lack of awareness of what actually happened, rather than the apparent lack of subversive activity in Laois, which is exposed as a nonsense in this book, that the author, rather tongue-in-cheek, hs titled his tome, The Quiet country.

It is pretty insulting to read some of the claims on here that the county was "too full of Protestants" or "too planted" etc. Such opinions smack of something else. It is also a bit insulting to the memory of the volunteers in Laois and elsewhere who risked life and limb and had to flee their homes (members of my family did) so that 90 years later people on the internet would be free to criticise them for not doing enough. Those people were real warriors not keyboard warriors.