Irish Civil War: ‘Rather gruesome to talk of’ — Why the conflict in Kerry was so bitter and divisive 

A wall of silence has long surrounded the scale and brutality of the violence in Kerry, not least the deaths of 173 people

Anti-Treaty IRA prisoner being escorted by National Army troops patrolling the Kerry-Limerick border area in 1922. Picture: National Library of Ireland

It is widely accepted that the Civil War in Kerry was more bitter, visceral, divisive, and protracted than in most other parts of the country. There was, as local IRA commander Dan Mulvihill observed, “no middle path”; you were either on one side or the other.

The first engagement of the Civil War in Kerry came two days after the assault on the Four Courts began. The fighting in Listowel between a newly-established Free State army garrison and republicans claimed the life of the war’s first victim in the county, Private Edward Sheehy, a native of the town.

In the days after the fall of Listowel to republicans, many of the anti-Treaty IRA in Kerry went to Co Limerick to help to defend the mythical ‘defence line’ between Limerick and Waterford that bordered what became known as the ‘Munster Republic’. 

This series of articles going online each day this week will also be published in 'Darkest Days — the Civil War in Cork and Kerry' in the Irish Examiner (print and ePaper) on January 9, 2023. 

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The arrival of almost 1,000 Free State forces in seaborne landings at Fenit and Tarbert at the beginning of August triggered the conflict in earnest. The landings included members of the Dublin Guard under the notorious Paddy O’Daly and the First Western Division under Michael Hogan.

The speed and ease with which the Free State army captured Tralee, Listowel, and many of the other major urban centres was extraordinary.

Tralee had been captured within hours of the arrival of the Lady Wicklow at Fenit on August 2, and Listowel and Killarney were taken by the Free State army over subsequent days.

This map from the 'Atlas of the Irish Revolution' details some of the violent encounters and controversial killings in Kerry from June 1922 to May 1923, but omits numerous IRA ambushes, National Army arrests, and additional killings, especially of National Army troops. Map courtesy of Cork University Press

The so-called Battle for Killorglin at the end of September 1922, which resulted in significant destruction of property and disruption to civilians, has been described as the last significant large-scale engagement between the Free State forces and the IRA in Kerry — at least in an urban setting.

While the Free State army was in control of the major towns by the end of September — with the notable exception of Kenmare — they had little or no control in rural areas, particularly on the Iveragh Peninsula. 

The IRA retreated to the hills and valleys and proved an elusive enemy as guerrilla-style warfare ensued. One army report noted that “this country is so difficult and extensive that it affords excellent cover and easy retreat for the Irregulars”. 

This early period of the conflict was also characterised by ambushes and attacks, particularly in rural areas, as well as the extrajudicial killing of prisoners, including the brutal murder of Fianna Éireann member, 17-year-old Bertie Murphy on the steps of the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney at the end of September at the hands of Colonel David Neligan.

There were also targeted IRA killings including the murder, on Innisfallen Island near Killarney, of two off-duty medical orderlies with the Free State army, who were aged just 18 and 20, which was widely condemned. Such incidents highlighted the very young age at which so many combatants tragically died.

The course of the war in Kerry changed dramatically in January 1923 with the promotion of Paddy O’Daly to the top army job in the county, in succession to WRE Murphy.

O’Daly, a former member of Michael Collins’ squad during the War of Independence, approached the war with determination and ruthlessness. IRA prisoners in Tralee jail spoke of the screams and shouting that resonated from his office across the yard at Ballymullen barracks in Tralee during his tenure, as the torture of prisoners continued.

Along with senior officers including David Neligan and Ned Breslin, O’Daly and the Dublin Guard were, as Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh claimed, “the crack core element, comprised of the Dublin Active Service Unit and of Collins’ hit squad. You could not get a more determined, a more ruthless group sent in to confront the anti-Treatyites in Kerry.”

The last stand

March 1923, dubbed the ‘Terror Month’ in Kerry, remains synonymous with the depths of depravity and bloodshed to which the war descended. When five Free State soldiers were killed in an IRA-planted trip-mine explosion at Knocknagoshel on March 6, Paddy O’Daly and his peers were enraged.

Major General Paddy O'Daly, head of the Kerry Command of the Free State Army from January 1923. Picture: NLI/Military Archives/Owen O'Shea

Within a week, 17 Republican prisoners were blown up and killed when explosives planted by the army in roadway barricades were detonated. The deaths at Ballyseedy near Tralee, Countess Bridge in Killarney, and at Bahaghs near Caherciveen raised allegations that elements in the army in Kerry were out of control and had abandoned any pretence of observing the principles of warfare.

It would be wrong to conclude that the Kerry Command operated in a vacuum or without sanction from on high.

WT Cosgrave, for example, was speaking the language of extermination at this time. The Free State, he said, would not hesitate in pursuing its opponents and, if necessary, would “have to exterminate 10,000 Republicans” if it was to survive.

In a message to the Kerry Command in February 1923, Cosgrave stated that he appreciated “most heartily the very honourable action” of army officers in the county. It was, perhaps, no wonder O’Daly famously remarked that nobody had asked him to “take my kid gloves to Kerry and I didn’t take them”.

Kerry, in many ways, represented the last stand of the anti-Treaty IRA, militarily and symbolically.

A week after Liam Lynch had been killed and the war was coming to an end, a group of IRA members was besieged in a remote rural cave on a cliff-face at Clashmealcon overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

In the dramatic days that followed, two Free State soldiers died, two IRA men drowned, another fell as the rope which he was climbing was cut, and another three Republicans were executed at Tralee jail. Two days after the executions, the Civil War came to an end.

Late revelations

What did more to inflame anti-Free State sentiment and buttress republican support in Kerry than these incidents themselves was the cover-ups that followed. The government rejected republicans’ versions of the events of March, defended the Kerry Command, and held investigations which were nothing more than a sham.

National Army forces boarding a ship as part of the seaborne landing operations in Kerry  in August, 1922. Picture: National Library of Ireland

Presided over by Assistant Adjutant General Eamonn Price from general headquarters, and Major General O’Daly and Colonel Jim McGuiness of the Kerry Command, the inquiry into events at Ballyseedy, Bahaghs, and Countess Bridge was a whitewash.

The extent of the cover-ups were often only revealed in later years. It wasn’t until 2008, for example, before the government files in relation to the killing of prisoners at Bahaghs were released by the National Archives. Those files also reveal how the families of those killed were denied compensation on the basis that those who died were alleged to have been involved in planting the mines in the first place.

The Cumann na nGaedheal government would continue to express confidence in Paddy O’Daly and his regime in Kerry.

Effects on society

The toll of the war on ordinary civilians in Kerry was enormous and widespread and remains the forgotten story of the Civil War.

The effects on economic, commercial, community, and social activity was immense, and remains one of the most important legacies of the conflict.

The level of intimidation, robbery, looting, kidnapping, and other criminal activity, as well as extensive disruption to transport and communications is revealed in the compensation claims which are held in the National Archives. The files hold just over 1,200 applications for compensation from individuals and business owners in Kerry who were at the mercy of general brigandage, crime, and lawlessness in this period.

The vast majority of incidents are connected to those on the republican side. An anti-Treaty IRA, increasingly unable, militarily, to undermine the army presence in the county, engaged in other methods which discommoded and impacted civilians as much as it did their enemies in the Free State army.

The theft of vehicles, foodstuffs, clothing, and animals — as well as attacks on supporters of the government and their property — was widespread. Overt or suspected allegiance to the Free State regime brought with it the danger of assault and attack.

This phenomenon was coupled with IRA attacks on railway services, the removal of rail lines, the seizure of mail, attacks on post offices and postal staff, the theft of motorcars, the cutting of roads, the destruction of bridges, the seizure of food supplies, and countless other means of disrupting ordinary life. In some cases, this resulted in loss of life. The relief of many citizens in Kerry when a new army force came to the county to attempt to curb this widespread campaign of disruption and destruction being pursued by the anti-Treatyites was palpable.

However, the actions of the army in the early months of 1923 did much to undermine that attitude and did much to reinforce republican sentiment.

Wall of silence

There were 86 Free State army deaths in Kerry, if combat fatalities and accidents are included. A total of 73 republicans died, 42 of them in extrajudicial killings, according to research by Tom Doyle and Orson McMahon. The war claimed the lives of 14 civilians. The entire death toll in Kerry can therefore be placed at 173.

Why was the war in Kerry so bitter, divisive and protracted?

The remote and rural terrain which facilitated a guerrilla-style conflict, with the IRA having the upper hand in the country and the army in control of the towns, certainly prolonged the conflict.

The divisions within the IRA which pre-dated the Civil War were also a factor. During the War of Independence, IRA headquarters believed that the Kerry brigades were inefficient and lazy and the tensions with Dublin which were created in 1920-21, as a result of that attitude, endured thereafter.

WT Cosgrave told the Kerry Command in February 1923 that he appreciated 'most heartily the very honourable action' of army officers in the county. He was also reported to have said the new state would 'have to exterminate 10,000 republicans' if it was to survive. Irish Examiner Archive

Moreover, the presence of so many “outsiders” among the army in Kerry from August 1922 — particularly the Dublin Guard and the First Westerns — reinforced a belief that those not native to Kerry were imposing their might and will on a county on the periphery and far removed from the capital city.

The behaviour of many in the senior ranks of the army, as well as the cover-up of some of the most appalling incidents left a very long, divisive, and enduring legacy. The killing of prisoners, coupled with their treatment in custody, as evidenced in the accounts in the Military Service Pension Collection, ensured that the scars ran deep for generations.

A heretofore understated factor in the conflict was the widespread campaign of disruption and criminality indulged in by anti-Treatyites who were hell-bent on making Kerry unpoliceable in their efforts to place Kerry beyond the control of the army.

Commercial and economic activity particularly was hampered by the widespread chaos and disruption.

The wall of silence about the horrors of the war in Kerry stood tall for generations. A public silence prevailed: Weeks after the conflict ended, the Kerry People newspaper insisted that the people of the county “should try to forget what has happened”.

This was compounded by a private silence: The traumas and turbulence went unspoken in homes across Kerry in the decades which followed.

Politically, the events of 1922-1923 were very rarely mentioned by the county’s TDs and hardly ever from an election platform. These things, according to Donal O’Donoghue, a Fianna Fáil TD and anti-Treaty IRA member, were “rather gruesome to talk of”.

A century later, the veil of silence is slowly but steadily being lifted.

• Owen O’Shea is a Kerry-based historian and author. His book, No Middle Path: The Civil War in Kerry is published by Merrion Press.

• He is one of the historians participating in Kerry Civil War Conference — History, Memory And Legacy at the Siamsa Tíre Theatre in Tralee from February 23 to 25. It is a key event under the community strand of the 2023 Decade of Centenaries programme. 

You can get more information including how to book by clicking on the conference website, KerryCivilWarConference.ie.