I.R.A. and the War of Independence in North County Longford

County Longford or more specifically East Longford’s earliest identifiable connection with the Irish Republican movement was the election of Joseph McGuinness, the Sinn Fein Candidate in the bye-election of May 1917. McGuinness who was a prison in Lewes Jail in England defeated the Home Rule candidate with Sinn Fein using the slogan ‘Put him in to get him out’ for the first time. It was a slogan which would be used in many subsequent elections to equally good effect. Not so well known is that during the War of Independence County Longford, and particularly the northern part of the county saw more I.R.A. activity than any other County with the exception of those in the Munster region. Longford’s part in that campaign now forms part of the story of Longford’s Republicanism which has been written by former librarian Sean O’Suilleabhain. It follows on an earlier book dealing with Leitrim’s Republican story written by his son Cormac and Marie Coleman’s excellent book ‘County Longford and The Irish Revolution 1910-1923’ published in 2003. County Longford was my fathers home County and it was there that several generations of the Taaffe’s farmed near to the Cavan border in the townlands of Legga and Moyne. My father and his four brothers attended the National School in Moyne and it was that same school many years later my brother George joined as the school principal. My father was the youngest of five brothers, two of whom emigrated to America as soon as they reached adulthood. The oldest, my uncle George fought as an American infantry soldier in World War 1. The next two brothers James and Frank were each in time to take over the running of family farms in Legga and Moyne while my father was a pupil in the Patrician College in Ballyfin and later in the Teachers Training College in Dublin. It was in Legga that Michael Collins addressing a public meeting on 3rd March 1918 said, ‘when the Volunteers raid for arms they will go where they will find ones that will be of some use to them.’ It was for this speech that Collins was later arrested and lodged in Sligo jail. James Taaffe and Frank Taaffe were members of the Dromard Company, Fifth Battalion I.R.A., a fact not previously known to me but confirmed by the listings in O’Suilleabhain’s book. The leading Longford I.R.A. man during the War of Independence was Sean Mac Eoin, known as the legendary ‘Blacksmith of Ballinalee’ whose biography written by Padraic O’Farrell was published by Mercier Press in 1981. Mac Eoin led the search for arms which Collins had encouraged and the first serious engagement with British forces was an unsuccessful attack on Drumlish R.I.C. barracks on the 5th January 1920. A later attack on the well-fortified Ballinamuck Barracks again led by Mac Eoin resulted in the destruction of that building. The I.R.A. attack on Ballymahon R.I.C. barracks on the 19th August 1920 was the Longford Volunteers first real success when the I.R.A. men led by Mac Eoin captured the barracks, accepted the surrender of the R.I.C. men and captured their weapons. Arva, the nearest village to the Taaffe homesteads saw an I.R.A. attack on the R.I.C. Barracks on the 2nd October 1920. The barracks was set on fire and again the I.R.A. men seized a large quantity of ammunition and guns. The shooting dead of R.I.C. Inspector Philip Kelleher by the IRA while he was drinking in Kiernan’s Greville Arms Hotel, Granard on the 21st October 1920 resulted in the ransacking of the town by Black and Tans three days later. The most famous War of Independence battle in County Longford took place in Sean Mac Eoin’s own village of Ballinalee over two days starting on the 3rd November 1920. The battle of Ballinalee is an important part of County Longford’s War of Independence story as it was there that a superb defence was put up by Mac Eoin’s men in defiance of a much superior military force. The battle ended with the withdrawal of the British forces, an outcome which helped create the legend of the fearless Sean Mac Eoin, who received an address from Athlone U.D.C. on his takeover of Athlone military barracks on 28th February 1922 which included the lines, ‘as long as the story of Ireland lasts Ballinalee and its hero will be written large upon its pages.’ Into February 1921, the war continued and the Clonfin ambush of 2nd February where a British convoy was attacked and the British Commander Francis Craven killed resulted in the surrender of its men. The action at Clonfin became another famous and memorable I.R.A. victory in the War of Independence in County Longford. The day after the ambush, the British Troops carried out numerous reprisals in and around the north of the county. Granard in North County Longford was the home of Michael Collins’s fiancé Kitty Kiernan. County Longford was also the home of Ruairi O’Bradaigh, President of Sinn Fein and one time chief of staff of the modern day I.R.A. His story and that of the Republicans of the past and recent decades is outlined in O’Suilleabhain’s interesting book which adds an amount of colourful detail to the story first told in Marie Coleman’s book almost 20 years ago.