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Michael O’Connell (1887 – 1936) Vice-Commandant/Intelligence Officer of the IRA’s No 2 (Mid) Tipperary Brigade

Early Days:

Michael (‘Mixey’) O’Connell was born at Ballyduff House, Thurles on 9 June, 1887 and was the third son of Mary-Anne Hogan and Michael O’Connell senior, a progressive farmer and founding member and first Secretary of the farmer-owned Centenary Cooperative Creamery. Reared in a household where the cooperative movement was a prominent topic, O’Connell was imbued with a sense of Gaelic traditions, gained a keen interest in both local and national affairs and by the end of 1914 had joined the Irish Volunteer movement which had spread throughout Ireland in response to Ulster’s resistance to Home Rule. In January 1917, he married Bridget Shelly of Parnell Street, sister of the famous Tipperary hurler, Hugh Shelly, and shortly thereafter they bought and moved into the building at 24 Liberty Square in order to start a family and run a public house and grocery business. In July 1917, Bridget O’Connell succumbed to an illness of some weeks and died unexpectedly at the age of 32 years, just under four months after giving birth to her only son, Michael Joseph O’Connell.

O’Connell’s Volunteer activities intensified shortly after his wife’s death. He focused all of his time and resources on reorganising and developing the Irish Volunteer Movement for Mid-Tipperary in the aftermath of the 1916 rising; the central location of his public house on Liberty Square offering an ideal setting for such gatherings. Consequently, the premises became a prime location for accumulating arms for the Volunteers with O’Connell using the shop proceeds to purchase rifles and ammunition from the many soldiers on leave from the Great War that frequented the establishment. At the beginning of 1917, Jim Leahy, from Boherlahan, the man who would become O/C of the Mid-Tipperary IRA Brigade, went to work for O’Connell, thus cementing the public house as a central place in subversion and as the Brigade headquarters of the Mid-Tipperary Volunteers until 1921, with the work and activities being directed by Jim Leahy and Michael O'Connell. The pub also served as a dispatch centre for a major portion of the south of Ireland where dispatches from the Irish Volunteer Headquarters, Dublin, came by post to O'Connell who, in turn, arranged to have them forwarded to their destinations. The public premises and its immediate surroundings became a social outlet for many of the Volunteers who were not shy in provoking clashes with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), which resulted in frequent raids and arrests. One such raid took place on 4 March 1918, when an attempt was made by police to arrest Jim Leahy. In a dramatic chase, Leahy dashed from the premises and escaped across the river Suir, an event which is today commemorated by a plaque located by the river Suir bridge in Thurles.

By mid-1918, the Mid-Tipperary Volunteers had been restructured and organised on a territorial basis with companies organised into three battalions, which covered the eastern section of North Tipperary and all of Mid-Tipperary. Officers were elected by their own units with Jim Leahy becoming the Brigade Commandant and Michael O’Connell the second-in command and Intelligence Officer for the Brigade. Throughout 1918, O’Connell took part in drilling, the manufacture of bullets and bombs for the brigade, numerous raids for arms on all the large houses owned by members of the Ascendancy class and seizures of rifles from the National Volunteers of Thurles. A desirable raiding location was Molloy’s Hardware House (now Allied Irish Bank, Liberty Square) which stocked arms and ammunition and stored blasting supplies for quarries throughout Mid-Tipperary. Having previously being employed in Molloy’s, O’Connell had keys to the magazine, and in the Summers of 1917 and 1918, after having mobilised at O’Connell’s public house, the Volunteers conducted a number of successful midnight raids. These were some of the first raids for military equipment that were carried out in the country and the sizeable salvages of gelignite, arms and ammunition were used extensively by the IRA throughout Mid-and South-Tipperary in the upcoming War of Independence.

District Inspector Hunt:

On the morning of 12 May 1919, Seán Hogan was arrested and taken to Thurles RIC barracks on Friar Street. Hogan, a prominent member of the South Tipperary Volunteers, was involved in the Soloheadbeg ambush the previous January which resulted in the deaths of two policemen, and consequently his Volunteer comrades (principally Dan Breen, Seán Treacy and Séamus Robinson) believed that the gallows were the likely outcome of his capture. Assuming that Hogan would be transferred under heavy police escort to Cork Prison, the men agreed on an in transit train rescue attempt and ultimately chose Knocklong railway station as the location for such. The following day at O’Connell’s premises, arrangements were made to watch the RIC barracks and that if Hogan was sent to Cork by train, O'Connell would send this information via code telegram to Hogan’s comrades. The code would refer to Hogan as ‘greyhound’, and as O’Connell was a greyhound enthusiast, it was expected to mean nothing if it fell into the hands of the police. O’Connell also arranged for a Volunteer to travel on the same train as Hogan and signal as they pulled into Knocklong. Throughout the day a number of Volunteers monitored the movements of Séan Hogan while he was in custody and reported these to O’Connell who in turn, with the help of his neighbour and friend Joe McLoughney, communicated these by telegram to Hogan’s comrades. After receiving information that Hogan was to be transferred to Cork on the evening train, O’Connell went up to the train station. On seeing Hogan being escorted onto the train by a party of four RIC, he rushed back to his public house and the final telegram was sent, which stated that Hogan was on the 6:30 p.m. train to Cork. Although there was some confusion with the telegrams, the rescue attempt turned out to be a successful albeit bloody affair. Two policemen were shot dead by the Volunteers, Sergeant Peter Wallace and Constable Michael Enright, while several of the Volunteers involved were seriously injured. Following the incident, an exhaustive search was undertaken by both police and military. In Thurles, the investigation into the Knocklong affair was led by District Inspector Michael Hunt. Hunt had earned himself a notorious reputation among Republicans. His pursuit of all those connected with the illegal activity of the Volunteer movement in the years leading up to the War of Independence had awarded Hunt numerous recommendations for good police duty while his meticulous and aggressive tactics caused much consternation amongst the brigade and battalion officers of the Mid-Tipperary Volunteers. The deaths of the two RIC men at Knocklong particularly appalled Hunt, who was their immediate superior. Over the next six weeks, DI Hunt focused all of his efforts on finding all those responsible. As his investigations progressed, he procured evidence that identified the acting brigade commandant of the Mid-Tipperary Volunteers Michael O’Connell (O’Connell took over as Commandant after Jim Leahy was arrested in December 1918) as being directly involved in the rescue. Hunt had discovered the ‘greyhound’ telegrams and had O’Connell under close surveillance. O’Connell knew he was being investigated and was aware that his actions carried the death penalty. Around the beginning of June 1919, he decided that killing Hunt would be an effective method of disrupting investigations into the Knocklong rescue and approved plans to assassinate the District Inspector. On 7 June 1919, military and police, led by District Inspector Hunt, carried out an extensive and vigorous search of O’Connell’s premises with revolvers drawn, while armed guards, with bayonets fixed, stood outside the house for hours. Considered ‘a dangerous fellow’, the police ‘rushed his room’ and subsequently questioned him about his involvement in the Knocklong rescue. O'Connell was arrested under the Defence of the Realm Regulations on a charge of having firearms in his possession. DI Hunt was happy to get this chance as he strongly suspected O’Connell’s involvement in the Knocklong rescue and wanted him in custody while investigations progressed. Just over two weeks later, Hunt was shot and killed by three Volunteers on Liberty Square. This was the first deliberate assassination of a policeman in what would come to be described later as the War of Independence.

Mountjoy Prison and The Sacking of Thurles

Michael O’Connell was taken to Cork prison and sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for illegal possession of arms. At that time, Volunteer prisoners had been under orders to defy prison regulations if denied political status. Following months of disturbances, the Volunteer prisoners including O’Connell began a determined hunger strike and were transferred, under strong escort to Mountjoy Prison where they continued their hunger strike and maintained disorder until being released under the Cat and Mouse Act (legislation enabling the government to release hunger strikers for health reasons and re-arrest them at a later date). O’Connell was released from Mountjoy Prison on the morning of 18 October, 1919. In the meantime, five men had been arrested and charged with the capital murder of the two policemen killed at Knocklong on 13 May 1919. Knowing he was likely to be arrested too, O’Connell went ‘on the run’. However, he was captured in late November 1919 and, as he anticipated, was charged with the murders.

During O’Connell’s imprisonment, the brigade council passed a resolution to keep the business running until his release with Jim Leahy taking over management. At a brigade council meeting held in O'Connell's in early January 1920, it was decided that Drombane and Holycross RIC barracks should be attacked with the mines for the attacks being made in advance at O’Connell’s. Shortly after these attacks, Constable Finnegan of the RIC called on Jim Leahy at O’Connell's public house and told him that a number of Thurles Volunteers involved in the recent RIC barrack attacks were to be arrested. Leahy, taking confirmation of Republican hostilities from Finnegan’s comments, and accompanied by three Volunteers, shot Constable Finnegan on the night of 20 January 1920, resulting in Finnegan dying from his wounds the following morning. Shortly after the shooting, all available police and military took to the streets of Thurles in what the Tipperary Star described as ‘A Night of Terror in Thurles’. Fourteen houses and business premises belonging to prominent local Volunteers were badly damaged in retaliation for the shooting. The Tipperary Star detailed the attack on O’Connell’s which was severely damaged by exploding grenades and ‘bore traces of 15 rifle shots. In addition, eight shots passed through the window of one room in the apartment adjoining which a child was sleeping (O’Connell’s infant son). Bullet marks are in the bedroom of Mr Jim Leahy, manager of Mr. Michael O’Connell’s. Mr Leahy luckily quitted the room, which is on the fourth storey, on hearing the first bullet coming through his window, which is riddled in many places.’ This was the first time that the police had retaliated in the Irish War of Independence, and after this incident the pattern of unofficial reprisals started to gather momentum culminating in the adoption of ‘Official Reprisals’ authorised by the government by the end of 1920.

Hunger Strike Following several trials and remands in Limerick and Armagh, O’Connell was transferred back to Mountjoy prison pending the continuation of the Knocklong case where he was confined to his cell 22 hours a day with no visitations. On Easter Monday 5 April, 1920, 100 IRA prisoners, including O’Connell, began one of the largest hunger strikes in Mountjoy Prison demanding prisoner of war status. The protest attracted worldwide attention and soon tanks, machine guns, and soldiers blocked the entrance ways to Mountjoy, fearful that a death in the prison could initiate a riot in the twenty thousand supportive crowds that had gathered outside. The Irish labour movement attempted to resolve the crisis by calling for a two-day general strike that was by far the biggest in Irish history. Meanwhile, the prisoners’ health deteriorated. O’Connell, now on hunger strike for nine days, received a visit from his brother Dr John O’Connell who described him as in a ‘state of collapse’, while others described O’Connell as having ‘those fainting fits again’ and ‘weak but determined’. A letter from O’Connell’s mother Mary appealing to the chief secretary described the emotional time for his family: ‘I appeal to you for the mercy of my son just dead on hunger strike’. On the evening of the April 13, the prison doctor ‘apprehended that the danger point was near at hand’ for O’Connell and admitted him to the prison ‘hospital with influenza’. In the face of this incredible working class militancy the British authorities released all of the hunger strikers, some being carried out by friends at the point of death. O’Connell was involved in the biggest trial in the country at the time and as such there were specific orders to transfer him under escort to the King George V hospital, a British Military facility, and return him to Mountjoy after treatment. Such was the disorganisation and confusion in releasing the prisoners that O’Connell was taken to St. Vincent’s hospital and ‘released by mistake’ following his recovery. He immediately went ‘on the run’. While on the run, O’Connell was elected as a Sinn Féin member of North Tipperary County Council in the May 1920 elections.

‘On the Run’

Dismayed by this mistake, police and military received orders to immediately begin vigorous searches for O’Connell throughout Mid-Tipperary. While ‘on the run’, O’Connell received much help from his network of friends, particularly the late Dan Hackett, chairman of the Centenary Creamery and the Dunne’s of Eyremount, who sheltered O’Connell for several months. During this time, O’Connell took up the position of brigade quartermaster of the Mid-Tipperary IRA and joined the Active Service Unit (the ASU or Flying Column was essentially the strike force of the Brigade comprised of men ‘on the run’) and took part in all activities with them. O’Connell progressively involved himself in offensives, which culminated in an attack on Littleton RIC barracks on 31 October 1920 that immediately led to an operation coined ‘The Defence of Thurles’. This was essentially an IRA driven, two night long pre-emptive planned strike on the streets of Thurles against local RIC carrying out property destruction in reprisal for the destruction of Littleton barracks. Prior to the operation, the men mobilised at O’Connell’s pub where they were armed by members of Cumann na mBan. Although there were some reported close encounters, including grenades being thrown into O’Connell’s public house, neither side suffered casualties.

O’Connell’s business had been left in a neglected condition while he was ‘on the run’. The business had suffered due to the attention which he had been giving the Volunteer movement. As a member of the North Tipperary Council, much of his time was also dedicated to management of council finances. Unsuccessful in their searches for O’Connell, the ‘Black and Tans’ frequently raided and looted his shop, destroyed the stock and paid it so much attention that O’Connell’s nearest friends were afraid to visit the premises. One such raid resulted in a policeman being shot at the rear of the premises in January 1921.

Spike Island: On Monday, 15 November, 1920, military entered O’Connell’s public house and finally arrested Michael O’Connell. Police reports state that he was officially arrested for being ‘a highly dangerous recognised trusted leader of great local importance to the Mid-Tipp IRA’ (O’Connell had been acquitted in the Knocklong murder trial in July 1920, the Grand Jury concluding that the ‘greyhound’ telegrams may have concerned O’Connell’s private business). The arrest likely saved him from being shot, as O’Connell was a ‘marked man’ on a list of names to be shot by the ‘Black and Tans’ in Thurles on 10 March 1921.

O’Connell was imprisoned in Limerick and Cork jail before being interned indefinitely on the fort of Spike Island in Cork, the largest British-military-run prison camp in the Martial Law area in May 1921. The running of the camp was very much in the style of a prisoner-of-war camp where internees were subjected to brutal treatment. Food and water were insufficient and frequently unfit for human consumption while no visits of any kind were allowed.

Following the truce in July 1921, the internees demanded unconditional release and undertook two separate hunger strikes which were ultimately abandoned. Weary of their confinement and with no signs of release the internees overran and destroyed the camp in mid-October and began a third hunger strike. When the British soldiers took back control of the camp, the internees were marched to the moat which surrounds the internment camp and endured three cold and very wet October nights there without food before finally being permitted to return to a demolished sleeping quarters. There were incidences of cardiac disease and malnutrition and it is believed that O’Connell at this time began to suffer from the effects of rheumatism. Because of the destruction caused due to the riot, the camp was determined to be uninhabitable and all prisoners were subsequently transferred to either Kilkenny or Maryborough (Portlaoise, County Laois) Prison. This marked the end of Spike Island as an internment camp.

Civil War and Conclusion

In December 1921, Michael O’Connell was released from Maryborough Prison. In favour of the Treaty, he served with the National Army when the Civil War broke out and was in several fierce engagements in Templemore and Thurles where up to 90 irregulars were captured. O’Connell then took charge of the Thurles garrison until hostilities in the Thurles area ceased. He then returned to his business and acted as Intelligence Officer for the troops in Thurles and Templemore and was part of efforts to bring about an early end to the conflict in late 1922 and early 1923. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State, O’Connell continued to be an active member of the North Tipperary County Council. He established a firearms dealership in 1922 and ran it alongside his public premises, while raising his only son, Michael, up until his death in March 1936. His death came after a short illness and sources suggest that his health never recovered after the hardships endured on Spike Island. In 1941, O’Connell was posthumously awarded a military service pension under the Military Service Pensions Act, 1934.

The events of a century ago have now passed out of living memory and with the aims of the centenary commemorations in mind, to ensure that this complex period in our history is appropriately remembered, the following inscribed plaque will be unveiled by Michael O’Connell’s grandson (also named Michael O’Connell) on 14 August 2021.

This building, O’Connell’s Public House, was the headquarters of the Mid-Tipperary Brigade, Irish Republican Army, during the War of Independence, 1919-1921. Operations were directed from here by the proprietor and Intelligence Officer Michael O’Connell, 1887 – 1936 Ar son Saoirse na hÉireann