Introduction
Historical memory of the Irish revolutionary period has for many years awarded a special place to the Irish Republican Army’s West Cork (Cork No. 3) Brigade. While the justice of this position can be debated, West Cork’s prominence remains well established within the popular imagination. The area is notable for many critical events and compelling personalities. It is probably best known for hosting two highly significant sites of nationalist commemoration that reflect both sides of the Civil War divide: Kilmichael and Béal na mBláth. Both of these sites hosted episodes that have generated long-running and heated debates and competing theories over what actually happened, as well as highly politicised commemorative events.
The celebration of West Cork can be traced to the emergence of a first wave of mainly Republican histories of the conflict period. The publication of Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story 1916–1921 in 1947 drew attention to major and also relatively forgotten episodes in West Cork, as part of the wider coverage of the entire county. However, the release of Tom Barry’s Guerilla Days in Ireland in 1949 dramatically increased public awareness of West Cork. Indeed, that memoir quickly became the most iconic and widely read account of the Irish War of Independence. With its heavy emphasis on Tom Barry’s leadership and the activities of his flying column, it detailed the Republican’s most successful military episodes from an IRA perspective. Barry’s egocentric perspective was further indulged in Ewan Butler’s Barry’s Flying Column: The Story of the IRA’s Cork No. 3 Brigade, in 1972.
However, that narrative focus was challenged to some degree the following year by Liam Deasy’s memoir, Towards Ireland Free: the West Cork Brigade in the War of Independence 1917–1921. Deasy’s more extensively researched account widened the focus to the entire brigade area and covered the neglected years between 1916 and 1919. The book quickly received a scathing denunciation from Tom Barry in his pamphlet, The Reality of the Anglo-Irish War 1920–1921 in West Cork: Refutations, Corrections, and Comments on Liam Deasy’s Towards Ireland Free. Barry objected to a number of Deasy’s interpretations of events, which differed from his own, most notably the ‘false surrender’ at the Kilmichael Ambush. Published shortly after Deasy’s death, this pamphlet brought to the surface many of the tensions that had existed between the brigade leadership since the War of Independence. Some of the personal animosity that is also readily apparent in the accounts published in this book, which are based on the interviews and notes of Ernie O’Malley undertaken between 1949 and 1956. This book shows that long before the 1970s, elements of the history of the Irish revolution in West Cork were contested by some of the key Republican protagonists.
This bias towards focusing on West Cork can be seen in more recent publications too. Although Peter Hart’s The IRA and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923 (published in 1998) was a county-based study, the key case study chapters focused heavily on West Cork. This attention on West Cork can be seen again in David Fitzpatrick’s edited collection, Terror in Ireland 1916–1923 (dedicated to the memory of Peter Hart). Although it encompassed studies of violence across the island, it is noteworthy that the two Cork chapters again focused entirely on West Cork (one on Kilmichael and one on spies and informers), taking up themes which both Tom Barry and Peter Hart had engaged with in much detail.
However, with the public release of the Bureau of Military History (BMH) witness statements (WS), our knowledge of the Irish revolution throughout the county, and indeed the country, has advanced. These statements provide another layer of evidence from the perspective of both the volunteers and the military elite. The West Cork testimony features statements from senior figures like Florry Begley, Liam Deasy, Maurice ‘Mossy’ Donegan and Ted O’Sullivan, who also appear in this book. These individuals willingly participated in the bureau’s project to construct a public history of the revolution. However, this book also includes material from IRA veterans who did not cooperate with the Bureau – Stephen O’Neill, Billy O’Sullivan, Barney O’Driscoll and Jack Fitzgerald. Thus, the Ernie O’Malley notebooks offer valuable veteran testimony not available elsewhere. In addition, while the BMH witness statements generally stop at the Truce of 1921, O’Malley’s interviews also cover the Civil War years.
The O’Malley interviews are found in a series of notebooks kept in the University College Dublin Archives (UCDA). Up until 2012 public access to this testimony had been limited to researchers who were willing to attempt to decipher his notoriously difficult handwriting. However, a recent project to transcribe and publish the interviews, undertaken by Mercier Press and Cormac O’Malley, is gradually bringing the contents of the notebooks to a far wider audience. This series of books constitutes part of an array of new sources now available on the revolutionary period.
Owing to the great number of interviews conducted by Ernie O’Malley in County Cork, we have broken with the county focus adopted so far in the series and divided County Cork into sub-regions. This first volume for the county focuses on the area constituting the West Cork (Cork No. 3) Brigade, from the point when it was established in 1919. Additional volumes will contain interviews from the men of North Cork (Cork No. 2 and No. 4 Brigades), Mid-Cork and Cork city (Cork No. 1 Brigade). We have included all the West Cork interviews bar one (a very brief conversation with Ralph Keyes, a former battalion commander in the Bantry area).
During the War of Independence, the Cork No. 3 Brigade comprised seven battalions: 1st (Bandon); 2nd (Clonakilty); 3rd (Dunmanway); 4th (Skibbereen); 5th (Bantry); 6th (Castletownbere) and 7th (Schull). During the Truce period, the brigade was subdivided and reorganised, with the new Cork No. 5 Brigade established along the far western part of the county. Cork No. 5 Brigade was made up of five battalions: 1st (Schull); 2nd (Skibbereen); 3rd (Drimoleague); 4th (Bantry); and 5th (Castletownbere).
Ernie O’Malley’s interviews with former IRA activists were held roughly a quarter of a century after the end of the Civil War. These conversations were conducted and transcribed by O’Malley, thus forming a rough draft of a Republican oral history of the military campaign, especially during the Civil War. The voices of the interview subjects are clearly heard. The narrative is episodic and personalised, with the interviewee at the centre of most of the events recounted. However, O’Malley’s influence over the interviews can also be seen – he decided who to interview, who to exclude, what subjects the conversations focused on and what subjects were omitted. The voices heard in these notebooks are thus filtered through O’Malley. That should not diminish their value, but it does require readers to approach this material critically.
We also wish to add an important disclaimer to our transcription. It reflects the best efforts of three period specialists to decipher O’Malley’s appalling writing. Anyone familiar with the O’Malley notebooks can sympathise with the difficult task of creating a reliable transcription. In some places we have added words in square brackets to make grammatical sense of the transcription and in some places have added a suggestion with a question mark where we are uncertain about what has been transcribed by O’Malley. Readers should be aware, though, that mistakes are easy to make, and occasionally the effort depends on informed guesswork. We advise any readers relying on a specific passage of this book for an important argument to return to the source material at the UCD Archives and confirm the exact transcription themselves.
Overall, Ernie O’Malley interviewed approximately 450 people in the course of his project, out of a mass movement of up to 100,000 members across the island. His interview subjects were a tiny and fairly unrepresentative sample. From the O’Malley interviews published so far, we can see that a very high percentage of them were very senior IRA officers at the top of the organisation. Roughly 25 per cent of the conversations occurred with commanders of either an IRA brigade or a division, placing them in charge of hundreds or thousands of Volunteers. As the IRA was a decentralised organisation, O’Malley probably wanted to capture the geographic variance in different locales. He sought testimony from those in the best position to understand the conflict: the top military commanders and their staff officers. Voices from the strictly political or civilian end are almost entirely missing from his conversations. Members of Sinn Féin and the underground Dáil Éireann administration are absent, except when they were also leading figures in the IRA. We hear nothing from those involved in Republican humanitarian groups such as the White Cross. Ordinary supporters of the Republicans, who donated funds, opened their homes to fugitives and boycotted the British state, do not have a place here. Similarly, Irish trade unionists are excluded.
The military narrative itself is shaped by those interviewed by O’Malley. We hear largely from top military commanders who were opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and were active fighters during the Civil War. Largely absent are those who dropped out, who refused to fight, who withdrew from the IRA or who joined the Free State Army or the neutral IRA. Perhaps most remarkable is the lack of women interviewed. This series is appropriately called The Men Will Talk to Me, as Cumann na mBan is almost entirely missing from these conversations. The handful of women interviewed usually acted as witnesses of atrocities committed on Republican men. Overall, O’Malley seems to have the greatest interest in IRA hardliners: Éamon de Valera’s ‘legion of the rearguard’.
The O’Malley interview transcripts only sometimes include O’Malley’s questions. However, we should assume he was asking questions throughout these conversations. The reappearance of certain common themes reflects O’Malley’s direction. He appeared drawn to material that informed his own research interests. The project seems in some ways a personal journey for O’Malley to better understand the Republican defeat in 1922–23. His questions and the subject matter covered reflect his own views as a participant in the Irish revolution, as well as his role as its historian and witness. Leadership is frequently explored, with contributors offering candid assessments of different officers. O’Malley’s interest in this subject may have stemmed from his service as an IRA headquarters organiser, where he frequently assessed individuals’ capacity for command. By seeking such judgement from the contributors, he seemed to want to link individuals with local military performances. There are also frequent questions about the functions of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), especially in regards to its impact on the Anglo-Irish Treaty split. O’Malley was not a member of the IRB, so he had little personal understanding of its internal workings and seemed to want to educate himself as to the importance of the IRB in the division of the IRA over the Treaty. He may have been influenced in this by Republican propaganda depicting the Treaty split as essentially an IRB plot to seize control of the government.
Assessments of the IRA general headquarters staff generally, and Michael Collins specifically, also often appear in these interviews. O’Malley seems to be fascinated by Collins’ emergence as the Civil War strongman. Particular attention is paid to attempts by Collins and his inner circle to recruit officers into the new National Army. O’Malley appears to be interested in whether this was done unethically. He also tries to draw out information about the shooting of suspected civilian informers. This interest predates the intense scrutiny this aspect of the revolution has received from modern historians. O’Malley’s own memoir, On Another Man’s Wound, reveals how deeply he was affected by his shooting of three captured British soldiers.
Interviewees were frequently queried about the attitude of the Catholic Church in their areas. This seems particularly relevant to the deteriorating political position of Republicans and their general loss of communal legitimacy during the Civil War. O’Malley also often explored the different peace moves that occurred after he was imprisoned. He was especially interested in Liam Deasy’s unilateral call for a ceasefire in January 1923 and the assumption that this may have led to a general Republican collapse.
Prison narratives are emphasised throughout these testimonies. O’Malley concentrates on the torture endured by certain activists, even securing supporting statements from other witnesses in some instances. Again, this focus is not surprising, considering that O’Malley himself was captured twice, tortured, escaped from jail and undertook a hunger strike. He gives prominence to the systemic aspect of the Republican prison experience so often ignored by historians.
There are just eight interview subjects in this book, which seems scant considering the importance attributed in the literature to West Cork’s role in the Irish revolution. Tom Barry probably had a major influence here, specifically the 1949 release of Guerilla Days in Ireland, which occurred just as O’Malley was beginning his interviews. O’Malley seems to have avoided ground already covered by Barry’s narrative, which focuses on the area around Bandon. Five of these eight interview subjects operated outside the Bandon Battalion, which had been the most dominant battalion in the West Cork Brigade. The dynamic IRA leader Seán Lehane also takes a central role in much of the narrative, rescuing a critical figure from neglect. The interviews give prominence to the far western coastal portions of the Cork No. 3 Brigade area (largely organised by Lehane), which was reconstituted as the Cork No. 5 Brigade during the Truce period.
Five of the eight subjects participated in the IRA’s campaign in Ulster. They basically comprised the Cork leadership element of the northern campaign in early 1922, with three of the interviewees serving as brigade commanders there. Their testimony describes the campaign from its inception, which seemed to be of particular interest to O’Malley. In his interviews outside Cork, he frequently asked individuals elsewhere if their anti-Treaty unit participated in a rifle exchange with the National Army. This occurred secretly in May 1922, as Free State rifles supplied by Britain were swapped with IRA rifles, which were then sent to arm the IRA in Ulster. This level of close cooperation was little known outside the IRA at the time of the O’Malley interviews, though it became public knowledge after the release of Florrie O’Donoghue’s biography of Liam Lynch, No Other Law, in 1956.
The West Cork interviews seem to have been conducted specifically to detail the IRA intervention in Ulster, as well as to give prominence to the Cork No. 5 Brigade. O’Malley may have also wanted to document the gruesome torture of Cork No. 5 Brigade commander Ted O’Sullivan, which he had become aware of when in prison.
The last of the interviews in the book is with Liam Deasy, whose Civil War surrender both appalled and fascinated O’Malley. The lack of a proper transcription of that conversation, which is unique in this book, may reflect O’Malley’s own difficulties carrying out a conversation on such a critical and contested subject. This was the least successful dialogue in this book, characterised by poor note-taking, a less continuous narrative, and the lack of a second draft transcription (which was evident in the other interviews). The contrast is greatest with the Florry Begley interview. Though constrained by Begley’s unwillingness to allow notes to be taken during the interview (O’Malley later made his first transcription of Begley’s comments from memory), the writing and order of the narrative in this instance was much clearer than in the other interviews. A more successful rapport between interviewer and subject is reflected in the quality, depth and length of the Ted O’Sullivan interview. Overall, the written outcomes of all the conversations were influenced by the quality of the relationship that developed between O’Malley and his subject during the course of the interview.
Considering the historiography of Cork and the revolution, O’Malley’s West Cork interviews are striking for what they omit. The interviews seldom mention the Kilmichael Ambush; there is no discussion of the so-called Bandon Valley massacre; and there is little talk of Béal na mBláth and the killing of Michael Collins. One could speculate that such topics might have been considered too sensitive to discuss. However, when considering the O’Malley interviews as a whole, a more likely explanation is that O’Malley did not think those events were critical to the overall Republican narrative.
There is also little discussion of the inner workings of the three IRA conventions of 1922, which split the army into three factions. We hear almost nothing about the IRA’s ruling executive and O’Malley seems uninterested in IRA headquarters policy, which he himself helped shape. He had probably already settled in his own mind his explanation for these events, and thus felt little need to collect additional material about them.
O’Malley was trying to accomplish a number of things with these interviews. One was to add missing voices to the Irish revolutionary narrative, especially from the anti-Treaty IRA military elite. Secondly, he was trying to gather further information for his own work as a historian, filling in the blanks in order to construct new explanations of the IRA’s defeat (something of a Republican post-mortem). These interviews, undertaken and transcribed in the final decade of O’Malley’s life, probably signal his intention to add another layer to what became The Singing Flame, or to write a Civil War version of Raids and Rallies. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, at the core of this endeavour lay O’Malley’s burning desire to understand what he had experienced during two wars. He felt compelled to ascertain what he had missed while on active service or during imprisonment, and to gain a deeper and wider appreciation of the spectacular events he had lived through, witnessed and ultimately survived.
