Raids, Elections, and the Border Campaign
1955–1956
AS TOMMY MCDERMOTT and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh were building up the IRA in Longford and Roscommon, similar progress was under way throughout the country. In order to get weapons and publicity, the IRA raided British Army barracks in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland (Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh, and Tyrone) and in England. The first raid was in June 1951 at Ebrington Barracks in Derry; it netted rifles, machine guns, and ammunition. A raid in England in July 1953 went less well. Three volunteers, Cathal Goulding, Manus Canning, and Sein Stephenson, sneaked into Felstead School Officers’ Training Corps in Essex and loaded a van with rifles and machine guns, including a Browning machine gun and an anti-tank gun. The van, which was overloaded and traveling poorly, aroused the curiosity of police. The IRA team was stopped, arrested, and subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison. The loss of Goulding was especially important, as he was in the thick of the IRKS reorganization.
The failure at Felstead was followed by a successful raid on Gough Barracks in Armagh. An IRA training officer, Leo McCormack, noticed that there were no magazines or ammunition in the guns of the barracks guards. He passed this information on to general headquarters in Dublin, who investigated further. The raid was primarily planned by Charlie Murphy, Tony Magan’s adjutant general. Among other things, Murphy had SeAn Garland from the Dublin IRA enlist in the British Army at Gough Barracks, which enabled Garland to supply inside information. In June 1954, the IRA seized an armed sentry whose weapon was not loaded, replaced him with a uniformed and fully armed IRA man, and backed up a truck to the armory. The truck was filled with weapons and driven off through the gate, picking the IRA sentry up on the way out (Garland remained behind, “deserting" back to the IRA later). In October 1954, the IRA raided the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers barracks in Omagh, scaling the walls at 3:30 A.M. A sentry, with a knife to his throat, screamed out and raised the alarm. Shots were exchanged and two IRA volunteers, Joe Christle and Joe Mac Liathiin, were shot. Five British soldiers were wounded. The camp’s lights were turned on and the IRA, including Christle and Mac Liathbin, retreated. IRA men jumped into waiting cars that sped off, leaving a number of volunteers behind who were captured by the local police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and the B Specials, Northern Ireland’s armed militia. After the Omagh raid, the IRA leadership, aware that their activities in the north would raise concerns with the Dublin government, instituted General Order No. 8, which directed volunteers about to be caught with arms in the south to dump them or destroy them. It proscribes defensive action. It was a pragmatic decision, taken by people leading an organization that had almost been destroyed by Fianna Fáil in the 1940s. Throughout the 1950s, the leadership was at pains to not antagonize the Dublin government.
Map of Northern Ireland
Concurrent with this military activity, the leadership also built up Sinn FCin. Paddy McLogan, Michael Traynor, and another Republican, Frank MacGlynn, drew up far-reaching amendments to its Constitution which were accepted at the 1950 Ard Fheis. Sinn Féin remained committed to the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed in 1916, but it also sought to establish “social justice, based on Christian principles, by a just distribution and effective control of the Nation’s wealth and resources.” As it was in the 1930s, when Matt Brady supported those accused of killing Richard More O’Ferrall, a fundamental element of Irish Republicanism is a commitment to social change in favor of people who have been underprivileged, oppressed, and victimized by the powers that be, whether they be landlords, employers, or Irish and British politicians. There is among Republicans a gut-level understanding that a commitment to social justice is embedded in their fight for national liberation. This commitment resonated with Ó Brádaigh. His father publicly supported the underdog, and Ruairí had chosen a career teaching teenaged students in a vocational school rather than the university-bound children of wealthy people. As part of Sinn FCin’s political development, the party put forth an abstentionist candidate in a 1954 by-election in Louth for a vacancy in the DGlILeinster House. Ó Brbdaigh, among others, worked for Sinn FCin in the election.
Because it is an all-Ireland political party, Sinn Féin was keenly interested in building a constituency in the North. Unionists-who are largely Protestant and support the union between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom-constituted roughly two-thirds of the northern population. Nationalists-who are largely Catholic and support a united and free Ireland-constituted roughly one-third of the population and suffered at the hands of Unionists, who viewed them as traitors. Sinn Féin saw the May 1955 Westminster election as an opportunity to present itself to its natural constituency, the second-class citizens of Northern IrelandIrish Nationalists. Sinn Féin nominated candidates in all twelve constituencies, half of whom were in jail following the Omagh raid. The moderate Nationalist Party was caught by the move. If it put forward candidates, it would split the Nationalist vote and guarantee Unionist Party success. Such a move would also challenge IRA prisoners who were in jail in support of Northern Nationalists. The Nationalist Party skipped the election.
On weekends, southern Republicans, including Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, went north in support of Sinn Ftin’s campaign. The Sinn Féin candidates, who were abstentionists, pledged to take their seats only in an All-Ireland Parliament and received more than 150,000 votes. Two IRA prisoners from the Omagh raid, Phil Clarke for Fermanagh-South Tyrone and Tom Mitchell for Mid-Ulster, were elected. This was a slap in the face to the Stormont and British governments and set off maneuvering to overturn the elections. As convicted felons, Clarke and Mitchell were not eligible to hold their seats. Clarke’s opponent filed a petition and was declared the victor. The Irish Times commented that only Sinn Féin welcomed the petition, for it allowed the party to claim that the majority of voters in Fermanagh-South Tyrone were disenfranchised. Mitchell’s situation was less clear cut. His opponent did not file a petition and the seat was declared vacant. In an August 1955 by-election, Mitchell won again and his margin of victory increased. A petition was filed and Mitchell was disqualified, but further investigation led to the disqualification of the Unionist candidate. In a second by-election, a Nationalist Party candidate entered the contest and split the Nationalist vote, and a Unionist was elected.
Sinn Féin also stepped up its activity in the south. In June 1955, a number of candidates contested the 26-county local elections, and not as abstentionists. The party adopted the view that participation in a County Council was not tantamount to recognizing the state. There would be County Councils in the All-Ireland Republic and participating in them offered Sinn Féin members an opportunity to serve constituents and build the political side of the Republican Movement. Among those working for Paddy Ruane, a candidate for the Galway County Council, was a young Republican from Milltown, Frank Glynn, and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. Glynn remembers Ó Brádaigh as someone who “never took no for an answer.” When people complained that something was not getting done, Ó Brádaigh’s view was that the person should “just get out and do it.” Ó Brádaigh “led from the front.” Sinn Ftin’s efforts in Galway were successful, and Ruane was one of seven Sinn Ftiners elected to county or city councils.
North and south in the mid-1950s, Sinn Ftin, the IRA, and Irish Nationalism in general were on the rise. Southern politicians were concerned but took no direct action against Republicans. In the north, the Stormont government saw trouble brewing and acted. In July 1955, Nationalists in Newtownbutler organized the County Fermanagh Feis, an annual festival celebrating Irishness. The feis was an affront to those who claimed Northern Ireland for Britain. That the prime organizer of the feis, Canon Tom Maguire, was joined on a platform in the feis field by TomLs Mac CurtLin of Sinn Féin and the IRA demonstrated that the feis was a cultural and political event. It was a day filled with clashes with the RUC. Stormont had banned any parades or processions associated with the event. Following Mass, a group of people wearing white shirts with green armbands and carrying a banner with a picture of Patrick Pearse, the 1916 leader, set off for the field. A group of about
