Paddy Daly

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Paddy Daly, sometimes referred to as Paddy O'Daly, served in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence[1] and subsequently held the rank of Major-General in the National Army in the period 1922 to 1924.

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[edit] Easter Rising

Daly was born in Dublin in 1888. He fought in the 1916 Easter Rising under the command of his namesake Ned Daly, leading the unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park. He was later wounded in the particularly vicious fighting near the Linenhall. He was subsequently interned in Frongoch for his part in the rebellion until 1918, when he was released as part of a general amnesty for Irish prisoners.

[edit] War of Independence

In the War of Independence (1919–1921), he served as leader of the "Squad", Michael Collins' assassination unit[2].

On 19 December 1919, Daly along with Dan Breen led an abortive ambush, at Ashtown railway station near the Phoenix Park, on the British Viceroy, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland, Lord French, as he returned from a private party which he had hosted the previous evening at his country residence in Frenchpark, County Roscommon. Lord French escaped the ambush but Martin Savage was shot dead.[3]

Daly and the men under his command were responsible for the killing of many British intelligence officers as well as informers and alleged informers -notably on Bloody Sunday (1920), when they killed 14 British agents. Daly himself personally killed several people, including, Frank Brooke, director of Great Southern and Eastern Railway, who served on an advisory council to the British military, in June 1920.

Daly was also involved in the attempt to free Sean Mac Eoin from Mountjoy prison in April 1921. He and his men hijacked a British Army armoured car in Clontarf and shot dead two soldiers in the process. They then gained entry to Mountjoy, but were discovered before they could free MacEoin and had to shoot their way out. They later abandoned the armoured car. Towards the end of the war, in May 1921, the two principle fighting units of the IRA Dublin Brigade, the "Squad" and the "Active Service Unit" were amalgamated after losses suffered in the attack on the Custom House. Paddy Daly was put in command of this new unit, which was named the Dublin Guard.

[edit] Civil War

After the Anglo-Irish Treaty split the IRA, Daly and most of his men sided with the pro-treaty party, who went on to found the Irish Free State. He was appointed to the rank of Brigadier in the newly created Irish Army, which was inaugurated in January 1922. When the Irish Civil War broke out in June 1922, Daly commanded the Free State's troops who secured Dublin, after a week's fighting. He was subsequently placed in command of the Dublin Guard, a unit of pro-treaty IRA men from Dublin who proved to be the best troops available to the Free State. In August 1922, during the Irish Free State offensive that re-took most of the major town's in Ireland, Daly commanded a landing of 450 troops of the Dublin Guard at Fenit, County Kerry which went on to capture Tralee from the anti-treaty forces.

As the Civil War developed into a vicious guerrilla conflict, Daly's men were implicated in series of atrocities against anti-treaty prisoners (see Executions during the Irish Civil War), culminating in a series of killings with landmines in March 1923. Daly claimed that those killed were accidentally blown up by their own mines, but this has since been proved to have been fabricated[citation needed]. Recent revelations have indicated that he was acting on orders issued by Defence Minister Richard Mulcahy.

[edit] Subsequent career

Daly married a sister (first name unknown) of Elizabeth (Cissie) Murtagh who was the first wife of Michael Love who also served in the IRA and Irish Free State Army. Daly resigned from the National Army in 1924, after a scandal involving the alleged sexual assault of a woman in Kenmare. He volunteered his services for the Army again in 1940, but was appointed as a Captain to the non-combatant Construction Corps, due to something of a pariah status within the National Army. However, on his death in 1960, he was buried with full military honours appropriate to a General's rank.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Michael Collins: A Life; James Mackay P132
  2. ^ Michael Collins: A Life; James Mackay P132
  3. ^ Michael Collins: A Life; James Mackay P139
  • A History of the Irish Army, John Duggan (1991)
  • Ireland's Civil War, Calton Younger (1966)
  • Green Against Green, Michael Hopkinson
  • The Squad, T Ryle Dwyer (2005)
  • Kerry Landings, Harrington.