day, as IRA volunteers watched over him, Matt Brady was moved by British military ambulance to the Longford Infirmary, where he recovered slowly, under the watchful eyes of both the IRA and the RIC. In October, Mac Eoin was alerted by Crown Solicitor T. W. Delaney that a warrant was to be issued for Brady’s arrest. The IRA got there first and moved him to the Richmond Hospital in Dublin, under the care of friendly physicians. Mac Eoin was probably also the source of a Long-ford Leader article that gave Matt Brady a cover story that explained his injuries:
On Thursday forenoon as Mr. Matthew Brady, a well-known Longford horseman, was riding a thoroughbred into town the horse slipped opposite the pump in the Market Square and threw him violently to the ground. Blood gushed from his mouth and nose and he was rendered insensible. A large crowd quickly collected and the priest and doctor were sent for. Rev. Father Newman, Adm., on arrival considered the case so bad that he anointed the injured man on the spot. Subsequently a motor car was procured and the priest and Mr. E H. Fitzgerald, U.D.C., took him to the Co. Infirmary, where he lies in a very precarious state.
From the spring of 1919 the IRA grew quickly and its capabilities expanded rapidly. In Dublin, it was led by Mick Collins, who was ruthless. On Sunday morning, November 21st, 1920, IRA men under his direction broke into homes and hotel rooms and executed fourteen suspected British spies. Some were shot in front of their wives. That afternoon, also in Dublin, British forces took their revenge by firing indiscriminately into a crowd at a football match in Croke Park, killing twelve and wounding sixty. In the countryside, the IRA was especially active in Cork, Tipperary, Clare, Kerry, Limerick, Roscommon, and Longford. Noteworthy IRA leaders were Tom Barry in Cork and Sein Mac Eoin in Longford. Barry directed the IRA in battles at Kilmichael and Crossbarry. His policy was to burn out two pro-British homes for every proRepublican home burned out. Sein Mac Eoin directed the IRA in what became known as the Battle of Ballinalee. In October 1920, the IRA executed an RIC inspector in Kiernan’s Hotel in Granard. In response, British auxiliary troops, in spite of fire from Mac Eoin’s men, torched buildings in the town. A few days later, the auxiliaries set out on a reprisal raid on Ballinalee. Alerted to what was coming, Mac Eoin arranged an ambush, killing several auxiliaries.
Mac Eoin’s exploits became the stuff of legend. In January 1921, he was staying with sympathizers when the home was raided. He escaped, but an RIC district inspector was killed. Mac Eoin then led another guerrilla ambush at Clonfin, during which several British forces were killed. In March 1921, after visiting IRA general headquarters in Dublin, where he met with Collins and Cathal Brugha, Mac Eoin was arrested on the train at Mullingar. He tried to escape and was wounded for his efforts. In prison, he was elected as a Sinn Féin T D (Teachta Dila, member of the Diil) to the Second Dáil Éireann. In court, he was charged with murder. He fought the charge but was found guilty and sentenced to death. Twice Mick Collins tried to break him out of prison. Mac Eoin’s reprieve came when the IRA and British authorities entered into a dialogue that led to a truce and Collins and am on de Valera insisted that he be released. At the first session of the Second Dáil Éireann in August 1921, IRA commander and rebel politician Sein Mac Eoin was granted the honor of proposing de Valera not as president of the Dáil but as president of the Irish Republic.
Matt Brady missed direct involvement in Mac Eoin’s rise to fame. He rode out the Anglo-Irish War (also known as the Black and Tan War) in hospitals in Dublin under the nom de guerre Tom Browne. It was not an easy existence. RIC and British troops were in and out of the hospitals as patients; when he played cards he would hold his hand so that the obvious bullet wound there was not recognized. The hospitals were also raided regularly. He was moved at various points to the Mater Hospital, to Linden Convalescent Home, and to private homes. There were some problems with hospital staff. A nurse at Richmond Hospital reported to the secretary that Brady suffered from a gunshot wound, not the kick of a horse. Dublin Castle, the seat of British power, got the report, but Mick Collins had agents there. When the British arrived, Brady’s hospital bed was empty. The IRA ordered the hospital secretary to leave Ireland within twenty-four hours and the nurse had her hair cropped.
Matt Brady’s presence in Dublin was an open secret among Longford Republicans. He was “available" for his officers, and engaged in “I.O. [Intelligence Officer] work in [the] Mater and Richmond Hosp.” Certainly wounded RIC and British troops were a source of information that he passed along. Longford people visited him, including Joe McGuinness’s wife. While “in his own keeping,” he followed the revolutionary situation in Dublin. From the Mater he watched cabs and lorries arrive with prisoners at nearby Mountjoy Prison. He later recalled for his children a demonstration outside the prison as six IRA members were hanged there, in pairs, on March 14, 1921, two at seven, two at eight, and two at nine in the morning.
Also in Dublin at this time was May Caffrey. A graduate of the St. Louis Convent in Monaghan, she spent a year back in Donegal studying Irish and then qualified for the National University in Dublin. On campus, she majored in commerce and played camogie, which is similar to hurling. She was on the 1921 team which won the prestigious Ashbourne Cup; the team photo is proudly displayed in Ruairí Ó Brádaigh’s home. Her teammates included fellow Republicans, including the sister of IRA member and future Taoiseach (prime minister) SeQn Lemass. Off campus, she transferred to Dublin Cumann na mBan. Her brother Jack was also at the university and in the IRA; during holidays, she continued to organize Cumann na mBan in Donegal. As a Cumann na mBan volunteer in Dublin, she helped provide packed lunches for Sinn FCiners on polling day in the local council elections in 1920, helped hide “wanted men, and marched in formation to protest meetings and demonstrations outside prisons during hunger strikes and executions. It was standard practice for RIC men based in the countryside to visit Dublin and help the police identify people from their areas who might be on the run or visiting on business; Sein Mac Eoin was captured returning to Longford from an IRA meeting in Dublin. As a counter, the IRA asked people from the country living in Dublin to identify these RIC officers. May Caffrey was asked to identify an inspector from Donegal who was expected to arrive in Dublin on a particular train, res sum ably so the IRA could assassinate him. She was at the station with the IRA when the train arrived, without the RIC officer.
In July 1921, the British entered into a truce with the IRA, presenting an opportunity that brought Matt Brady and May Caffrey together. Matt, under relaxed conditions, transferred to Longford County Home and took a job as a steward. May, who had finished her degree in commerce, was teaching in Bray, County Wicklow. The job of secretary to the County Longford Board of Health became available, and they met when both took the civil service examination. With her degree, May Caffrey was better qualified and she got the job, commencing December 5, 1921. Her letter of appointment was signed by Liam T. Cosgrave, Aire Rialtais PLitiliil (minister for local government) of the Second DLil Éireann. She took up residence in the County Home. Among her duties were the registration of births, deaths, and marriages in County Longford and sending board meeting minutes to the department of local government of the stillrevolutionary Ddil Eireann via a “cover address" in Dublin.
In 1920, Westminster passed the Government of Ireland Act, which created two Home Rule Parliaments in Ireland, one in Belfast for the six northeastern counties and one in Dublin for the rest of the country. Republicans rejected the bill, but unionists immediately formed a government for Northern Ireland, with Sir James Craig as prime minister. In 1921, with a truce and negotiations under way, Republicans believed they could reunite the country and achieve international recognition of the Republic. Instead, in London, representatives of DLil Eireann—including Arthur Griffith and Mick Collins but not am on de Valera—signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty on December 6, 1921. The Treaty confirmed partition, contained an oath of allegiance to the British monarch, and placed the 26-county Irish Free State firmly in the British Commonwealth.
Republicans split over the treaty, which was ratified by the DLil. Protreaty Republicans included Mick Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Seán Mac Eoin. Mac Eoin, in the DG1, seconded Arthur Griffith’s motion “that Ddil Éireann approves of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, signed in London on December 6th 1921.” Éamon de Valera led the opposition. When it was ratified, he resigned as president of the Republic, moving Ireland from rebellion against the British
