Mulcahy was appointed by Ashe to personally get the news from Pearse, who at that stage was incarcerated in Arbour Hill prison.10 On Mulcahy’s return, Ashe addressed the men, emphasising that ‘We came out under Pearse as soldiers and it is our duty to surrender on his orders.’11
Approximately 1,800 Volunteers obeyed their superior officers in the same manner as Mulcahy and the Fingal Brigade did. But a nationwide sweep of what the authorities considered were Sinn Féin sympathisers added significantly to the overall figure of men and women arrested. For example, during the period 1 May–3 July, 3,226 men and women, who hailed principally from the metropolitan area and the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Galway and Wexford, were inspected in the vast parade ground of Richmond barracks and were then either retained therein or were dispersed variously to Kilmainham jail, the Royal Showgrounds, Ship Street Barracks, Arbour Hill or to the hospital wing of Dublin Castle. (Women were initially confined in Ship Street but were moved to Kilmainham later.)
By the end of the process, 171 individuals were tried, ninety death sentences were passed and fifteen were carried out, all according to the tenets of active service Field General Court Martial (in camera and without legal representation and sworn statements) according to the extensive emergency powers of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), 25 November 1914. In addition, 1,867 others, having been deported in cattle boats from the North Wall, were held captive in a number of English prisons, especially the prisons of Knutsford, Lewis, Pentonville, Reading and Stafford, along with the detention centre of Frongoch in north Wales.
As well as a lack of food, water and opportunities for proper sleep, the unusually hot weather for that time of year caused generalised fatigue and disorientation among the detainees in Richmond Barracks. Furthermore, given the bandaged, dusty and dishevelled state of many of the detainees, as well as the crush of humanity, the military authorities, proceeding with urgency, found it difficult to do their job properly, other than by the general cooperation of their charges, the active assistance of certain soldiers, the evidence of the ‘G’ division detectives and the happenstance of Volunteer livery and paper evidence. For instance, one person the authorities were interested in finding was Mulcahy. However, as luck would have it, the RIC driver who brought him to see Pearse at Arbour Hill made a search but failed to identify him. Also, the ‘G’ men, who made up the plain-clothed detective section of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) were far less able to cope by the time it came to assessing those who, like the Fingal Brigade, were among the last to arrive.12
Eventually, on 2 May, Mulcahy and 307 other detainees were moved on to cattle boats destined for Knutsford Prison.13 At least the cover of night gave them the benefit of avoiding the hostile attention of the soldiers’ wives living close to Richmond Barracks.14 All the same, should others have observed them, the likelihood is that they would not have approved, because, while some parts of the city were enthusiastic, most were not, regarding the insurrection as an ‘insane and criminal’ act.15 However, the executions would dramatically change everything within a fortnight: ‘They [the leaders] believed in Ireland. They believed that she would never prosper under British rule … they fought with magnificent courage … it is necessary to point out their virtues because it is those and their ideals that non-rebel Irishmen are remembering today.’16
Even so, in the meantime, on the way to Knutsford, which was a military prison situated about fourteen miles south of Manchester in Cheshire, Mulcahy was much more optimistic than his fellow travellers were: ‘I am as happy as the day is long – everything is working out grand’, by which remark he meant that ‘By sending us to prison they have made heroes of us.’17 He would spend more than six weeks there, the first three weeks of which were passed in solitary confinement. But, more than that, Knutsford was a demanding environment due to the fact that the prison authorities armed those who were already imprisoned there, i.e. soldiers who had been found guilty of misdemeanours such as being drunk or overstaying their leave, and authorised them to guard the Irish, a role they seemingly took cruel delight in.18
Then, on 17 June, he was moved on to Frongoch. In that facility, where captured German soldiers had originally been confined, there were two camps, north and south. Both camps ultimately housed a maximum of 1,863 men, but by the time he arrived, 17 June, the south camp, otherwise known as the distillery from its previous existence, where the poorer living conditions prevailed, had already reached its quota of 1,100 prisoners; so he joined approximately 200 internees in the north camp, rising to about 700 before being steadily reduced when men were either freed or sent to the south camp. After a while, all of the internees were recognised as prisoners of war and were duly allowed to organise their own affairs, which they had already begun to do along military lines.19
On 11 July, after the Military Staff – about thirteen men under the command of J.J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell – had been sent to Reading Jail, Mulcahy, internee number 344, was promoted to the rank of captain and was put in charge of ‘D’ Company.20 As such, probably soon afterwards, he became one of the north camp’s fifteen orderly officers, who implemented the daily schedules of the huts: ‘Their duties began at reveille when they saw all the men on parade for count, supervised the fatigues for the day; and saw that their men were present on time; and generally kept things going.’21
On occasion, they pleaded a case on behalf of their charges. For example, on 4 October, in a thirteen-page letter, Mulcahy, along with four others, sought the legal advice of Tim Healy in order to properly fight the case of some men who refused to clean out the soldiers’ ash pit.22 A month later, he and all the other hut leaders were court-martialled for insubordination due to their collective refusal to respond to roll call. On this occasion the roll call was used to try to track down those who, having resided in England, Scotland or Wales before the Rebellion, were eligible for conscription. Gavan Duffy was engaged as defence counsel. Even so, Mulcahy’s request to speak out was allowed by the court and, after some humour, he was complimented for the cogency of his defence. Nonetheless, along with everyone else, he was found guilty.23 However, the sentence was nominal.24
And so, upon arriving in Frongoch, his comrades knew that Mulcahy had played a decisive role in one of the significant successes of the Rebellion, an event later referred to in the lore of the period as the Battle of Ashbourne.25 For that reason, he was ‘held in high esteem’.26 Also, ‘He appeared to be a man of intelligence above the average, a clear thinker and with an abundance of energy … He was always cool, calm and collected.’27 Obviously, therefore, after his steady promotion up through the Volunteer ranks, his self-assured performance at Ashbourne and his willingness to both represent and discipline more than fifty men, he had started to overcome his earlier self-consciousness.
Arguably another reason for Mulcahy’s newfound enterprise was the fact that he had been accepted into Collins’ West Cork/London coterie, which is not to say that he was party to the roughhousing which Collins enjoyed. I sat with you at the same meeting in Frongoch when you organised it [the IRB] and when I came out of Frongoch I was invited by you and by Mick Collins and I would not go. I know you are one of the people who started the whole damn thing in Frongoch. Moreover, Collins, then developing a reputation as a calculating agitator and troublemaker, was determined to go further:28 ‘He established what he called a “Supreme Council” which, of course, was only supreme in Frongoch.’29
In later years Mulcahy expressed his opinions on those developments. For instance, ostensibly in his testy critique of Béaslaí’s life of Collins – ‘[an] ill-informed and distorted picture Béaslaí seems to have of Frongoch conditions and control’ – he claimed that he had no involvement with Collins’ IRB group: ‘I was apparently always accepted as an IRB man but was never “involved”.’ Also, it is noticeable that his defence of Collins happened to suit his own argument that he was neutral:
I have no recollection of any group that made itself assertive or critical in any way of the camp controller or general camp organisation or activities. Collins was no doubt a very important centre of such a group or companionship as such. Based on a West Cork and an IRB centre, a distinctive group or part of his grouping would be the internees who
