Dan Breen and the IRA by Joe Ambrose Page B

behind a hedge which looked out over the station road.
    McDonnell, Breen and Keogh commandeered a large farm cart in the yard and attempted to move it out onto the road. The cart proved heavier than expected and it got stuck. At this moment two traffic police showed up on foot, heading in the direction of the station. The ambushers scarcely had time to register their presence when they heard the convoy of cars coming from the station. Before they knew it, French and his protectors were drawing perilously near.
    â€˜As the cars approached, the men behind the hedge opened fire with revolvers and grenades,’ Byrne said. ‘The first car to come was a dark blue one. Sitting beside the driver was a man in civilian clothes who, we learned afterwards, was Detective Officer Nalley. He was firing from a revolver. As the car came clear of the corner, I let fly a grenade which hit the back of the car and exploded. The next thing I saw was the peeler being blown across the road. The second car was stopped right opposite to our men behind the hedge. This car was a closed one – khaki-green in colour. The third car was a box Ford type, with a canvas roof, which flew by with a continuous fire on it. The fourth car which came along was an open Sunbeam car and in it were a soldier driver and a sergeant. The sergeant was lying across the back of the car and firing from a rifle. Where we were standing we were an open target for him. In fact you could hear the bullets whistling by, finding a billet in the wall behind us. As this car was disappearing around the wide bend of the road leading to the Ashtown Gate of the Phoenix Park, I heard Martin Savage saying something and it sounded like this: “Oh, lads, I am hit”. The next moment he was dead, lying on the road.’
    Breen’s leg had been injured and he was bleeding copiously.The driver of the khaki-green car climbed out of his vehicle waving a handkerchief. McDonnell accepted his surrender and asked him where Lord French was. The soldier – Corporal Appleby – said that the lord lieutenant had been blown to pieces in his car. Appleby’s false information was accepted, in the heat of battle, at face value. In reality, French got away unscathed. Some of the ambushers wanted to shoot Appleby but McDonnell decided to let him go.
    â€˜As we had only bicycles, we could not get Martin Savage’s dead body away,’ said Byrne. ‘The next thing is we were told to get back into town and to travel in twos. I was about to get away when I was told to act rearguard action to Dan Breen who, after mounting his bicycle, had to lean on Paddy Daly’s shoulder … We travelled along until we came to the Cabra Road and proceeded down as far as St Peter’s church, Phibsboro, where we turned to the left, then to the right and along down Connaught Street on to the Phibsboro Road.
    â€˜At this time, I was cycling near Paddy Daly and Dan Breen. Paddy said to me: “You carry on Vinnie. We are all right now, I’ll look after Dan” … Needless to say, on the night of the attack, I called over to Mick McDonnell’s and met Tom Keogh there. The whole conversation was about the loss of poor Martin Savage and having to leave him behind us. Perhaps while on this subject, it might be well to mention that Martin Savage was a grocer’s assistant, working in Kerr’s of the North Strand. On the morning of the ambush, he left the shop to bank some money for his employer. Instead of going to the bank, he came out to the job. It was, I believe, stated in the newspapers that a large sum of money was found in his possession.’
    Paddy Daly, who during the Civil War played a critical part in the defeat of the anti-Treaty forces, eventually became something of a republican bête noir . There were Civil War stories – perhaps apocryphal – about Daly mistreating republican prisoners, manhandling women, and indulging in conduct unbecoming