Sean Treacy (rebel)
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- This article is about the Irish Republican Army leader. For the Irish Labour Party politician, see Seán Treacy.
Sean Treacy was one of the leaders of the South Tipperary Brigade of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence. He helped to start the conflict in 1919 and was killed in a shoot out with British troops in Talbot Street, Dublin in October 1920. Although sometimes spelled as 'Tracy', his surname is more often spelled as 'Treacy' (Tim Pat Coogan also spells it as 'Treacy' in his book 'The I.R.A.'). It is important to make distinction between this Sean Treacy and another Tipperary man of the same name - born in 1932 (s. Seán Treacy who became Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann.
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[edit] Early life
Treacy came from a poor small-farming background in west County Tipperary. He left school aged 14 and worked as farmer, also developing deep Irish nationalist convictions. He was a member of the Gaelic League, the Irish Republican Brotherhood since 1911 and the Irish Volunteers since 1913. He was arrested in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916 and spent much of the following two years in prison, where he went on hunger strike on several occasions. From Dundalk jail in 1918 he wrote to his comrades in Tipperary, "Deport all in favour of the enemy out of the country. Deal sternly with those who try to resist. Maintain the strictest discipline, there must be no running to kiss mothers goodbye" [1] In 1918 he was appointed Vice Officer-Commanding of the Third Tipperary Brigade of the Volunteers (formally named the Irish Republican Army in 1919). He was impatient for action and was disappointed that the IRB leadership forbade attacks on the police in 1917.
[edit] The Soloheadbeg ambush
On 21 January 1919, Treacy and Dan Breen, together with Seán Hogan, Seamus Robinson and five other volunteers, helped to ignite the conflict that was to become the Irish War of Independence. They shot dead two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary- Constables McDonnell and O’Connell - near their homes at Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary. The RIC men were transporting gelignite explosives; when they refused to surrender them and offered resisence, the Volunteers shot them dead. Robinson was the organiser of the action, while Treacy was the logistics expert.
"On the eventful day Dwyer saw the explosives, 160 pounds of gelignite, being loaded on a cart and heading off with a guard of two policemen. He cycled ahead and watched as they took the long route to the Soloheadbeg quarry. He took the short route and informed the anxious Volunteers of the convoy's size and movements. The horse was being led by two workmen Edward Godfrey and Patrick Flynn, while the two policemen, Constables Patrick MacDonnell and James O'Connell, walked behind with their rifles slung over their shoulders. As they passed Cranitch's Field near the quarry the policemen were called on to surrender by masked men. When they took up firing positions, Sean Treacy, followed by Breen and Robinson, opened fire." IRA sympathisers seldom point out that the raid failed in its ostensible objective. The IRA abandoned the horse, cart and gelignite on the road less than a mile away. All these items were recovered by the authorities. [citation needed]
[edit] The Knocklong train rescue
As a result of the action, South Tiperary was placed under martial law and declared a Special Military Area under The Defence of the Realm Act. After another member of the Soloheadbeg ambush party, Seán Hogan was arrested on May 12th 1919, the three others (Treacy, Breen and Seamus Robinson) were joined by five men from IRA East Limerick Brigade in order to organise Hogan's rescue. Hogan was being transported by train from Thurles to Cork on May 13 1919, and the men, lead by Treacy, boarded the train in Knocklong. A vicious close-range struggle, involving man-to-man combat ensued on the train. Treacy and Breen were seriously wounded in the gun fight. Two policemen died, but Hogan was rescued. He was brought by his rescuers to the nearby village where the local butcher, severed his handcuffs with a cleaver.
[edit] Clandestine life and death
A thorough search for Treacy and others was mounted afterwards. Treacy had to leave Tipperary for Dublin in order to avoid capture. In Dublin, Michael Collins employed Treacy on assassination operations with "the Squad". He was involved in the attempted killing of British general Sir John French in December 1919. In the summer of 1920, he returned to Tipperary and organised several attacks on RIC barracks, notably at Ballagh, Clerihan and Drangan before again seeking refuge in Dublin. On October 11, he and Dan Breen were almost captured in a safe house - Fernside- in Drumcondra in the north city. The two IRA men had to shoot their way through a police cordon. The owner of the house, Dr. Carolan, was killed and Breen was badly wounded by gunshot. On 14 October 1920, in Talbot St. in Dublin, Treacy was recognised by a police detective and in the ensuing gunfight he was killed, in front of the 'Republican Outfitters' at No. 94 Talbot Street. A small bronze shield above the door commemorates the spot. His coffin arrived by train at Limerick Junction station and was accompanied to St. Nicholas Church, Solohead by an immense crowd of Tipperary people. He was buried at Kilfeakle graveyard, where despite a large presence of British military personnel, a volley of shots was fired over the grave. Sean Treacy's death is remembered each year on the anniversary of his death at a commemoration ceremony in Kilfeakle.
The song Sean Treacy, also called Tipperary so Far Away is about Treacy's death.
[edit] References
- ^ Michael Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, page 116
