Barrowhouse Ambush May 1921

Patrick Whelan, Ned Gleeson, Liam Langton, John Langton, Keith Langton, Martin Langton, Pascal Lacey, Ger Gibson and Nessa O’Meara Cardiff. These are the members of the Barrowhouse Ambush Commemoration Committee responsible for organising the ceremonies on Saturday, 21st May surrounding the unveiling of the new memorial for William Connor and James Lacey and the launch of Nessa O’Meara Cardiff’s book on the ambush. The reawakening of interest in the Irish War of Independence saw a great gathering of folk to honour the memory of the two young Barrowhouse men who lost their lives on a May day 101 years ago. I was honoured to be invited to take part in the service at St. Mary’s Graveyard and to address some words to those who gathered around the grave of Connor and Lacey. In addressing the people in attendance I was conscious that my words could apply to so many other areas around Ireland which saw action during the War of Independence. That conflict was a complex one of military republicanism and of a people’s resistance to British Rule. For that reason the story of the Barrowhouse Ambush is important to our understanding of the history and legacy of our revolutionary past. It’s a struggle which continued long after the Treaty and has now evolved as a political struggle involving Irish, English and Northern Ireland politicians with American and European Union politicians in the background. The Barrowhouse Ambush occurred on a day in May 1921 when five other men suffered violent deaths attributed to political violence in Ireland. The deaths of William Connor and James Lacey lead to reprisals by the RIC and the Black and Tans stationed in the Athy R.I.C. Barracks. Patrick Lynch’s home and workshop were among several premises the subject of arson attacks the night after the ambush. Local narratives about the Barrowhouse Ambush are not always in agreement. New information and fresh interpretations can contradict accepted version of events. The accepted knowledge in the public domain in relation to War of Independent incidents generally is not always correct and as further research unfolds new information can give us a better understanding of those difficult times. The memorial unveiled that Saturday and the launch of Nessa O’Meara Cardiff’s book on the Barrowhouse ambush is a community’s way of confirming the importance of James Lacey and William Connor in the historical tradition of Barrowhouse and its neighbourhood. They were just two of the 2,850 who were killed in a war defined in popular imagination by IRA ambushes and Black and Tan reprisals with assassinations on both sides. The Barrowhouse Volunteers who took part in the ambush were undoubtedly committed Nationalists and Republicans whose motivation was an idealism fostered by the Irish Volunteer movement and developed by the Sinn Fein Clubs to end British Rule in Ireland. William Connor and James Lacey, both of Barrowhouse, were just 26 years of age when they joined James’s brother Joe Lacey, Paddy Dooley of Killabbin, Joe Maher of Cullinagh, Mick Maher and Jack O’Brien, both from Barrowhouse and Joe Ryan of Kilmoroney on that fatal day, 16th May 1921. 101 years later, the Barrowhouse community came together to remember its War of Independence dead and to commemorate the two young Barrowhouse men who died before they had the opportunity of knowing any of their relations who came after them. The Barrowhouse Ambush Commemoration Committee, under the Chairperson of Nessa O’Meara Cardiff, responded magnificently to the need to remember the two young men from Barrowhouse who paid the ultimate price in a people’s struggle for political freedom. I understand that the initial print run of Nessa’s book was sold out but further copies are now available at the Barrowhouse ambush online site. The past week saw the death and burial of Gretta McNulty, formerly Gretta Moore who grew up in Offaly Street as part of that great community, a mix of young and old. Gretta and the Moore family lived in No. 7 Offaly Street and when the Taaffe family arrived in Athy in 1945 they settled into No. 6 before moving after 8 or 9 years into No. 5 Offaly Street. Offaly Street was then home to a vibrant community of mostly young families and Gretta’s death sadly further depletes the shrinking list of Offaly Street neighbours and friends of old. When Gretta and Frank McNulty married in 1962 they moved into No. 9 Offaly Street where they lived for 9 years or so, reinforcing Gretta’s strong alliance with the street where as a young girl she had forged many long lasting friendships. Those precious friendships forged in youth are receding further and further in the fading memory bank of those of us who remain.