Book Excerpt: Liam Lynch’s first raid on the British military was a resounding success

Patrick Ahern of the Fermoy Company felt that being based in a garrison town such as Fermoy with such a large concentration of British soldiers made the acquisition of arms paramount for the local Volunteers, with which Liam Lynch, as O/C of the IRA’s Cork No. 2 Brigade, agreed.

In July, Lynch and his intelligence officer, George Power, began actively discussing the possibility of attacking and disarming a party of British soldiers somewhere in Fermoy. Lynch approached GHQ to gain formal sanction for such an operation and, after some correspondence, permission was secured — provided casualties on either side could be avoided. Lynch had long noticed that a party of soldiers attended the Wesleyan church in Fermoy town, about half a mile from the barracks at the eastern end of the town. These soldiers could inadvertently help provide a major arms haul for the brigade.

Volunteer Lar Condon later claimed he was the originator of the actual plan carried out, ‘which was to have a few of us sauntering along and suddenly fall on the military when we would immediately be joined by a number of others who up to this point would, to all appearances, be just idling away the morning in town’. Lynch agreed to his suggestion.

Several meetings were then held with officers of the Fermoy Company, and other companies of the battalion. Naturally, the Fermoy Company carried out the preliminary scouting work and submitted regular reports. Ahern recalled the scouting work on the movement of the soldiers through Fermoy town: The movements of the Wesleyan Church party were kept under observation for about three months. The party usually marched in fours from their barracks via Barrack Hill, the Square, and Patrick St to Walker’s Row — the site of the Wesleyan Church. 

The rifles were carried at the slope until the party were within a short distance of the church when the arms were changed to ‘the trail’. One recurring debate between Lynch and his officers was whether the soldiers’ guns were in fact loaded. A recent news report had made mention of an accident in Cobh, which saw a soldier on church parade injured by the discharge of a bullet from his own rifle. 

Additional intelligence also indicated the guns were to always be loaded as per instructions. John Fanning, a member of the Fermoy Company, was sure the British soldiers had been given such an order because of an earlier attempt to disarm a soldier in the Castletownbere district. The final meeting on the proposed Fermoy attack took place two days before the planned date for execution and was presided over by Lynch. At this meeting, all the key details were agreed upon.

THE ATTACK

In the early hours of Sunday, 7 September, Leo O’Callaghan was to position his car on Patrick Street so that when the attack took place it would be behind the enemy party, ensuring their way back to the barracks was blocked. Lynch was in this car along with four others as O’Callaghan drove the vehicle close to the town gas works, which were to the east of the Wesleyan church on the opposite side of the road. O’Callaghan proceeded to drive his car slowly towards the military from behind. Just as they reached the church, he swung the car across the road to cut off their retreat. 

As Lynch and the other passengers emerged from the car, the brigade O/C blew a sharp whistle. He then called on the military party to surrender, but the soldiers immediately prepared to resist, so the assigned Volunteers rushed the group. The confused struggle which followed, in which shots were fired, lasted for just over a minute.

Condon, part of the rushing Volunteers, recalled how, within seconds, he and the others of the Fermoy Company, ‘fought the soldiers with sticks and the Araglen and Clondulane men joined in. We, the first three, had revolvers and we produced these.’

Ahern stated that the soldiers were only ‘disarmed after a tough fight on the part of some’.

In one highly dramatic moment, Lynch jumped for a rifle lying on the road but fell. As he briefly lay on the ground, a soldier rushed at him swinging a rifle butt but was hit by a bullet. The sole casualty of the Fermoy arms raid — perhaps the same soldier who swung at Lynch — was Private William Jones, the first British military casualty caused by the Irish Volunteers since the Easter Rising. Jones was a 20-year-old Welshman from Carmarthenshire. Tragically, he was due to be discharged that week so he could return home to be married. Ahern estimated that several shots were fired in the melee, and three or four other British soldiers were wounded. 

THE AFTERMATH

The Cork Evening Echo later reported that Jones was shot through the heart, while another British soldier was almost fatally wounded. A third soldier, a Private Lloyd, was shot through the neck but later recovered. The paper also noted that ‘others of the party were badly injured on the head by bludgeons’ and alleged some of the Volunteers used the ‘spokes of wheels as weapons’.

Records of the number of arms seized in the raid varied, with claims of anything from 14 to 19 rifles, and possibly in addition, one bayonet. In any event, it was a major haul for the brigade in what was a mostly successful operation and the first major engagement members of the Irish Volunteers had had with the British Army since the Easter Rising.

In the immediate aftermath, most of the captured rifles were placed into O’Callaghan’s car before he drove off with Lynch and his other passengers. Another car used by the Volunteers also took some of the captured rifles and several of the participants.

When O’Callaghan’s car left Fermoy, the group realised that Lynch himself had been wounded during the raid. The wound did not appear to be serious and so elated was he at the success of the Wesleyan raid, Lynch actually joked about it. On meeting his brigade O/C in the aftermath, Condon felt Lynch had been injured by ‘possibly a wild revolver shot from one of our own men’. Power later described it as ‘a flesh wound in the shoulder … How we didn’t know, but the wound had the appearance of being caused by a rifle bullet … a clean entrance and exit.’ 

It is a possibility that the source of the shot that injured Lynch was well known among the men who took part but played down in future accounts to prevent any embarrassment on the part of the Volunteer responsible. While the wound was not overly serious, it was deemed necessary for Lynch to have it treated and get a degree of rest and recuperation that lasted for several weeks.

Two days after the raid, Lynch, having been moved and tended to in several locations, was brought across county lines into the Waterford No 2 (or West Waterford) Brigade area, and he rested in the home of the Kirwan family who lived beneath the Comeragh mountains.