The Squad (24 page)

The second group ‘had only just gone upstairs,’ Slattery said, ‘when we heard shooting downstairs.’

The door to McMahon’s bedroom was unlocked and they found him sharing a bed with another officer who was still asleep. The other officer woke up with a start as somebody shouted, ‘Hands up’. He later said that he opened his eyes to see some seven men in a semi-circle around the bed.

One of the raiders searched a cabinet but found nothing.

‘Where are your guns, Mac?’ the same man asked.

‘Look here, we are two R.C.’s; the guns are in the bag,’ McMahon replied, pointing to a portmanteau.

The portmanteau was put on a table, broken open, and two guns were taken from it. At this stage they could hear shooting in the street. ‘Are you fellows all right?’ somebody shouted. ‘They are surrounding the house.’

The raiders began to withdraw from the room. McMahon and the other man were still in the bed. ‘A s I was turning over in the bed I saw McMahon raise his right arm,’ the other man said. ‘I heard a shot, and he rolled over on the right hand side of the bed. Then came a whole lot of shots.’

The other man rolled under the bed and lay on the floor:

‘I saw McMahon’s two legs stuck out underneath the bed. I spoke to him and felt his heart, but I knew he was dead and he was lying face downward.’

While he lay under the bed, he heard somebody smashing glass as if trying to break out a back way. ‘Come out this way,’ he heard one of the men shout. ‘I lay quiet for some time, as I thought they might come back and I had no revolver.’

‘We succeeded in shooting Lieutenant McMahon,’ Slattery said. But they left the man who had been sharing the bed, ‘as we had no instructions’ to shoot him. ‘We discovered afterwards that he was an undesirable character as far as we were concerned, and that we should have shot him,’ Slattery added.

‘We went downstairs and tried to get out but found the British forces in front of the house,’ Slattery continued. ‘We went to the back of the house, and a member of E Company, Jim Dempsey, and myself got through by getting over a wall.’ Frank Teeling followed them but was shot by auxiliaries in the garden of No. 21.

‘I am done lads,’ Frank Teeling cried as he slumped back on the ground while the others escaped.

‘Are you wounded?’ one of the auxiliaries asked.

Teeling did not answer. He opened his pistol and shut it again, having obviously loaded it. The auxiliaries shouted for him to throw the pistol away, which he did, over his right shoulder. It was found to be fully loaded.

The officer upstairs remained under the bed for some minutes. He then dressed and went downstairs to look for Peel. He was told at first that there was someone lying in the yard, but that was Frank Teeling, whom he recognised as one of the men who had been around the bed upstairs.

The two auxiliaries who had gone for help had been intercepted crossing the Canal Bridge by the IRA covering party, who took them to a house on Northumberland Road, where they were questioned and then taken out the back and shot dead.

A nurse and another person who had witnessed those shootings raced to Beggar’s Bush, where Brigadier General Frank Crozier was re viewing a parade.

Crozier promptly took a lorry load of men to Mount Street and entered No. 22. He remarked that ‘the dingy dirty house resembled a bad billet in France shot up by French mutineers.’ One of his men had a pistol to Teeling’s head and was counting, giving him until ten to start naming his colleagues. Crozier promptly put a stop to this and ordered that the wounded Teeling be brought to King George V Military hospital.

While all of that was going on Vinny Byrne’s team had been going about their business less than a quarter of a mile away in Upper Mount Street. They had mobilised outside St Andrew’s church, Westland Row, at 8 a.m. Herbie Conroy brought a sledgehammer, in case they had to break in any doors. He had some ten men reporting, including a first-aid man. They all turned up on time. ‘As we proceeded up Westland Row, I called my first-aid man and asked him had he got plenty of bandages, etc.’

‘I have nothing,’ he replied.

‘Did you not hear the instructions I gave you last night?’

He found that there was no first-aid stuff when he got home.

‘I may be able to get some in Jackie Dunne’s dump in Denzille Lane,’ Byrne said. ‘I went into the dump, met Jackie there and asked him had he any first-aid outfits. He searched around, but found none.’

‘Would this be any use to you?’ Dunne asked, producing a .38 revolver.

‘Give it to me,’ Byrne replied. ‘It might come in handy.’

‘When I returned to my group, I handed the .38 to the first-aid man, telling him he might find use for it.’

They walked up Holles Street, into Merrion Square, and turned into Upper Mount Street. ‘When we came to No. 38, I detailed four of five men to keep guard outside,’ Byrne said.

Michael Lawless was stationed on the steps outside the front door, while Byrne and Ennis went to the door and rang the bell.

As soon as the servant girl opened the door Byrne put in his foot to ensure that she could not close it again and said they were looking for Lieutenant George Bennett and Peter Ames. He entered the hallway beckoning the other men to follow.

‘Lieutenant Bennett sleeps in there,’ the maid said, pointing to the front parlour, ‘and the other officer sleeps in the back room down there.’ Byrne told Ennis and Tom Duffy to go to a back room and look for Ames.

‘I gently tried the handle to open the door, and found that it was locked,’ Byrne continued.

‘You can get in by the back parlour. The folding doors are open,’ the maid said.

‘Thank you.’

‘I went into the back parlour, with Seán Doyle and Herbie Conroy each side of me,’ Byrne continued. ‘A s I opened the folding door, the officer, who was in bed, was in the act of going for his gun under his pillow. Doyle and myself dashed into the room, at the same time ordering him to put up his hands, which he did.’

Doyle went around the bed and pulled a Colt .45 from under the pillow. Frank Saurin entered and began searching through Bennett’s stuff. ‘I was interested principally in the papers these intelligence officers might have,’ Saurin explained.

Byrne noticed a Sinn Féin tie in one drawer along with what he thought were photographs of the 1916 leaders. ‘I ordered the British officer to get out of the bed. He asked me what was going to happen.’

‘Ah, nothing,’ Byrne replied, ordering him to walk in front of him to the back room.

Meanwhile Ennis and Duffy had found Ames in a room at the back of the house. Duffy covered Ames with a revolver as Ennis asked him to identify himself.

‘I am a British officer,’ he replied. He said he was not armed, but Ennis put his hand under the pillow and took out a .45 Colt automatic, fully loaded, as well as a pouch with about fifty rounds of ammunition. He put the pistol in his pocket and gave Duffy the pouch.

As Byrne and the others were bringing Bennett to the back room, there was shooting in the street and the doorbell rang.

‘Open the door,’ Byrne ordered.

A British soldier, a dispatch rider with the rank of private, had left Dublin Castle a short time earlier on a motorcycle with a side car. On turning into Herbert Place, near Mount Street, he had been held up by armed men who ordered him off the motorcycle and took it away. It did not seem to be his morning. As he walked along Upper Mount Street he saw Michael Lawless at No. 38 but as he got within thirty yards of him the man produced a pistol and told him to put up his hand and come towards him. He was then ordered to knock on the door, but nobody answered.

‘Open the door, boys,’ Lawless shouted.

The door was then opened and the private was half pushed and half pulled into the house, while a major’s batman witnessed the scene from across the road in No. 28. He informed his officer, Major Carew, who fired at the volunteer outside No. 38. The batman got his gun but could not see the man outside the building so he went out into the street.

Meanwhile the dispatch rider was told to put up his hands and was kept under guard in the hall. Byrne and his prisoner returned to the back room. Ames was standing up in the bed facing the wall, and Byrne told Bennett to do likewise.

‘The Lord have mercy on your souls!’ Byrne said to himself. ‘I then opened fire with my Peter. They both fell dead.’ Doyle had joined in the shooting.

‘As I came into the hall, the servant girl was crying,’ Byrne said. ‘I tried to comfort her and tell her that everything would be all right. Then I looked at the soldier. I did not know whether to finish him off or not.’

‘Well, he is only a soldier,’ Byrne thought to himself. ‘So I told him not to stir for fifteen minutes.’

‘As we came out of the house, fire was opened on us from a house on the other side of the street. We retreated down Mount Street, at the same time keeping the house, from where the firing came, under fire.’

Meanwhile Saurin was still in the house. ‘In my anxiety to make a thorough search I was unaware that the squad had left and, hearing some shooting in the street, I walked to the door of Bennett’s room,’ he explained. ‘I heard a noise and, looking down the hall, I saw a British soldier outside the room where the two bodies were. I wheeled to shoot but the soldier jumped into the room.

‘Come on,’ Tom Ennis cried. He was on the doorstep. The batman across the street was shooting at the retreating squad with what appeared to be a .22 automatic. Ennis and Saurin fired at the batman who jumped back into the doorway of his house. It was only afterwards that they learned that the officer across the street was Major Carew, a much-wanted intelligence officer. He was the man who had led the group against Seán Treacy. It was later mistakenly suggested that he was one of the targets on Bloody Sunday, ‘but he put up a good show and escaped,’ according to Mark Sturgis. ‘A party went to his house,’ Sturgis added. ‘He did not let them in and fired from the window hitting two – this lot made off and he escaped unharmed.’

Byrne and his men crossed Mount Street, turned right into Verschoyle Place, and continued down until they came to Lower Mount Street. ‘A s we came near the corner, the firing was very heavy,’ he recalled. ‘I saw Tom Keogh dashing across Mount Street and, as he was running across the road, he dropped one of his guns. He quietly turned back and picked it up again.’ At this time the firing had eased somewhat. Keogh went down Grattan Street, while Byrne and his men went down the lane behind Holles Street hospital.

‘Here I came upon my first-aid man again,’ Byrne noted. He was very excited.

‘Oh, Vinny, what will I do with this?’ he asked, taking out the .38 pistol.

‘Give it to me and you make yourself scarce and away from us,’ Byrne replied, feeling sorry for the man who was getting on in years. ‘The remainder of us carried on until we came to the quays on the South Wall, where we expected a boat to carry us across the river, but, when we arrived there there was no boat, it being on the other side. However, it crossed back for us, and we all safely boarded it.’

Meanwhile Ennis and Saurin had retreated down to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, where they took the ferry across the Liffey to the north side. ‘I had to walk to the east side of Clontarf, armed, and with my pockets full of enemy documents,’ Saurin explained. ‘Amongst the papers I had Ames’ notebook which showed their system of intelligence work was similar to ours insofar as they had agents or touts working on identity numbers for patrol purposes.’

Having left Mount Street on the morning of Bloody Sunday, Crozier went to Dublin Castle, and had just got there when word came though about what had been happening around Dublin. Crozier felt the intelligence officers there were a snobbish bunch. They were ‘mostly “hoy, hoy lah-di-dahs” in mufti’, he wrote, and, on reflection at any rate, he seemed to take a certain vicarious satisfaction at seeing them taken down a peg

‘What!’ exclaimed an officer holding a telephone as he went distinctly pale.

‘About fifty officers are shot in all parts of the city – Collins has done in most of the secret service people.’

Cabs, sidecars and all modes of conveyance began arriving at Dublin Castle as undercover agents sought information and refuge. ‘Panic reigned,’ David Neligan noted. ‘The gates were choked with incoming traffic – all the military, their wives and agents.’ They were seeking protection within the castle walls. ‘A bed was not to be found for love or money,’ he added. ‘Terror gripped the invincible spy system of England. An agent in the castle whose pals had been victims, shot himself. He was buried with the others in England. The attack was so well organised, so unexpected, and so ruthlessly executed that the effect was paralysing.’ Neligan concluded that ‘the enemy never recovered from the blow. While some of the worst killers escaped, they were thoroughly frightened.’

On the afternoon of Bloody Sunday a mixed force of RIC, auxiliaries and military, raided a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary. They approached the grounds from different directions. The auxiliaries stated that people just outside the grounds fired on them as they approached from the Royal Canal end. ‘The firing was returned and a number of casualties was sustained by people who were watching the match,’ read the official statement issued that evening from Dublin Castle.

There were undoubtedly IRA men at the game as there was a great deal of overlapping in membership between the IRA and the Gaelic Athletic Association. Indeed, in many areas the IRA companies were established on the basis of GAA clubs. It was, therefore, quite conceivable that some shots were fired at the approaching crown forces.

People at the game though said that it was the auxiliaries who fired first. The castle authorities stated that the intention was for a British officer to go out on the field about fifteen minutes before the end of the game and announce with a megaphone that all males were going to be searched leaving the stadium and that any men who tried to get out by other means than the exits would be shot. However, even before he reached the ground the shooting had started about fifteen minutes into the game.