British Voices by William Sheehan

the garden it was too late, and there was no sign of my gunmen.
    What had happened in the house was that Major Smyth had opened the door of the back bedroom and walked in, with a torch alight on his belt. All the gunman, who turned out later to have been Dan Breen had to do was to shoot Smyth through the heart. At this there was some confusion, during which Captain White, a very nice man with an excellent war record, was killed, and Cpl. Worth wounded. A little later, from the garden, I heard a single shot, which made one think that there might still be a gunman in the house. But, far from that, it was a most unfortunate accident, which involved Professor Carolan being shot by mistake while being questioned. He was taken to hospital, but died some weeks later.
    In 1924 Dan Breen published his memoirs in a book called My fight for Irish Freedom , a copy of which was sent to me by one of my former colleagues. In it Dan Breen gives a highly imaginative account, full of flagrant lies, of this affair. He gives details, and these may well be true of his escape and of the time he spent in the Mater Hospital and other places, until he was able to resume his activities. Incidentally he seems, strangely enough, not to have been proud of having murdered Colonel Smyth in the County Club, Cork, because he just records – ‘He was shot dead in the County Club in the heart of Cork City’.
    After this, the situation was clearly hotting up. Sean Tracey, who had been with Dan Breen at Fernside, was shot in an affray in Talbot Street, and other gunmen were captured. During all this time, Michael Collins, the head of the IRA, was at large. There was a high price on his head, but he seemed to led a charmed life, enjoying many narrow escapes from death or capture, until he was eventually killed in an ambush during the civil war after the Treaty.
    In November, information was coming in well and we were beginning to get on top of the IRA, who were becoming desperate. I happened to receive information from three different sources to the effect that something was going to happen, but there was nothing definite.
    In the evening of Saturday 20 November, I received orders to collect my fellows and search the railway yards at Inchicore, where it was thought that ammunition might be stored. We went there and searched for several hours, but there was obviously nothing to be found, so we slept in railway carriages, and in the morning I telephoned the Castle and asked whether I was to be relieved. Our Adjutant, Hyems, said ‘I am sorry to say that there have been some raids by the “Shinners” and I am afraid that they have got some of our fellows’. So it was agreed that we should return to our lodgings. I was at that time sharing a flat at 28 Upper Pembroke Street, with a colleague, Murray, and on getting back there I found a very distressing scene.
    In the flat next to Murray’s and mine, I saw the body of my friend ‘Chummy’ Dowling, a grand ex-guardee, wounded three times in the war, lying full length on the floor. As he was to have relieved me he was in uniform and had obviously been shot through the heart, probably by a small Sinn Féiner because there was a bullet hole in one corner of the ceiling. In the doorway of the bathroom was Price’s body. Murray had already been taken to hospital. Colonel Woodcock, commanding the 1st East Lancs, had been shot three times, but survived. Likewise Captain Keenleyside, Adjutant of the same battalion. Colonel Montgomery had been shot on the stairs, as he came up after breakfast. He died some time later. Mrs Woodcock wrote a full account of all this in Blackwood’s Magazine a few months later.
    In addition, Peter Ames and Bennett, who had been in 28 Upper Pembroke Street, the evening before when I went out, were murdered in their beds in Lower Leeson Street. Two officers, temporarily at the Gresham Hotel, while going on leave, or returning, I think, were also shot