Mags GarganMemoirs of an Old Warrior: Jamie Moynihanís fight for Irish freedom 1916-1923
J. Anthony Gaughan
This account of the war of independence and its aftermath is based on the recollections of Jamie Moynihan.
Born in Coolea, West Cork, in 1893, he joined the local company of the Irish Volunteers in 1917 and thereafter until the end of the Civil War in 1922 was one of the most active members of the republican movement in Muskerry and mid-Cork. He claimed to have been involved in the first and last actions of the War of Independence.
Moynihan recorded in considerable detail the ambushes in the Cork area and an excellent map outlines their various locations. There is also an interesting map showing how local IRA companies facilitated communications between activists and managed to keep districts safe for the Flying Column.
For Moynihan and his comrades in the Column, the greatest threat came from informers.
He illustrated this with an account of a proposed ambush on the Coachford-Dripsey road. Mrs Mary Lindsay, resident of Leemount House, Coachford, learned of the proposed ambush and informed the military authorities. She also told the local curate, Fr Ned Shinnick. He sent a timely warning to the men at the ambush site, but they ignored it as they were aware he was very much opposed to ambushes.
In the event, the ambush party found themselves surrounded by superior forces and, as they made their escape, apart from suffering other casualties, eight Volunteers were captured – five of whom faced a firing squad soon afterwards.
Mrs Lindsay was kidnapped and executed by the IRA.
For Moynihan, there were three types of informers: paid spies, unpaid informers and ex-RIC officers. The unpaid informers were particularly resented by the IRA. As a result of the actions of such persons in the vicinity of Bandon, in one month in early 1921, nine members of the Flying Column were located and shot by the Crown forces.
The West Cork Brigade had also to cope with British spies and agents, 16 of whom they ‘executed’ before the Truce and they visited the same treatment on four more after it.
Informers
Moynihan does not name the informers, merely indicating that a perusal of the newspapers of the time would identify them. He was in no way coy about naming one paid informer: Paddy ‘Crux’ O’Connor. A sergeant-major and veteran of the World War, he joined an IRA company in Cork city. With a daring ruse, he prevented a convoy of Auxiliaries from entering fully into an ambush. Subsequently, he operated out of Victoria barracks and led parties of the Black and Tans seeking out activists.
In one such raid, six of his former comrades were captured, tortured and shot. After the Truce, he was spirited away first to London and later to New York, where he was tracked down by the IRA and ‘executed’ in 1922.
Like most of the IRA, Moynihan opposed the Treaty. He recorded the manner in which the Irish Free State army, compring the Pro-Treaty IRA and others, gradually took control of most of the country.
Eventually the strongest concentration of the anti-Treatyites remained in the south west. In the months before the end of the Civil War, the beleaguered leaders of the anti-Treatyites sheltered in Moynihan’s home area.
Here he was given responsibility for the security of Liam Lynch, OC of the anti-Treaty forces. Statements, attributed to Lynch in the months before he was mortally wounded in 1923 indicate that he was somewhat out of touch with reality, yet Moynihan continued to idolise him to the end.
This account of the War of Independence and especially the Civil War is from a very narrow perspective. Even more disappointing is the almost palpable bitterness in the narrative of the Civil War.