The Scariff Martyrs

Introduction

Sometime between 11.30 p.m. and 12.30 a.m. on the night of 16 November 1920, on the bridge connecting Killaloe in south- east Clare to Ballina in north Tipperary, four young men were shot dead by British crown forces, having been arrested earlier that day in the north-east Clare parish of Whitegate.1 Three of the men, Martin Gildea, Michael 'Brud' McMahon and Alphie Rodgers, had been active members of the Scariff Company in the 4th Battalion of the East Clare IRA. The fourth, Michael Egan, was a civilian who was the caretaker of Williamstown House in Whitegate, where the other three had been sheltering while 'on the run'. British authorities reported that the men had been shot while attempting to escape. That was immediately countered by local claims that the men had been murdered in cold blood.

In social memory, the victims are referred to inter­changeably as 'The Scariff Martyrs', 'The Killaloe Martyrs' and 'The Four Who Fell', depending largely on where the reference is made. The story endures as a landmark on the historical landscape and consciousness of east Clare with multiple commemorations, sites of memory and songs. Because of the way the story unfolded, three areas of east Clare inherited an enduring relationship with the incident: Whitegate, where the men were captured; Killaloe, where they met their deaths, and Scariff, where three of the men worked and where they were collectively buried on Saturday, 20 November 1920.

Until the Glenwood ambush in January 1921, where six members of a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)/Black and Tan patrol were killed by the East Clare IRA, the incident in Killaloe had been the most significant event of the Irish War of Independence within the brigade area. It represented the single biggest military blow to the Clare IRA during the entire war, with three of its active members killed at one time.

The incident took place during arguably one of the most crucial months of the entire War of Independence. The president of Dáil Éireann, Éamon de Valera was close to the end of an intensive tour of America, where he was attempting to secure recognition of the Irish republic. Three weeks earlier, on 26 October 1920, Lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney died after seventy-four days on hunger strike in Brixton prison in England. Ten days after the Killaloe bridge incident, members of D Company of the Auxiliaries, highly trained ex-officers sent in to further bolster the RIC and Black and Tans, murdered republicans Harry and Pat Loughnane with astonishing brutality in Galway. Two days later, seventeen Auxiliaries attached to their colleagues in C Company in Macroom, were killed in the Kilmichael ambush on 28 November, led by Tom Barry of the 3rd West Cork IRA Brigade. That four-week period included the hanging of eighteen-year-old Kevin Barry, the elimination of the 'Cairo Gang', a British intelligence network by Michael Collins' 'squad' and Bloody Sunday. In the same month a twenty-four-year-old-pregnant woman, Eileen Quinn, was shot through the stomach by British forces as she sat outside her home in Kiltartan, Co. Galway and died eight hours later, by which time a cover up had already begun. In just seven days from 20 to 27 November 1920, British forces in Ireland killed at least thirty Irish men, women and children, including four under the age of fourteen. In the same month, fifty-seven members of the British forces were killed by republicans, including British army, intelligence servicemen and members of the RIC. With a whirlwind of violence sweeping the country, the story of the Scariff Martyrs began to fade from the national discourse and was perhaps from that moment the preserve of the local.

During the revolutionary period, the four young men, forever bound together in history, lived in the same area. Rodgers, McMahon and Gildea worked in the same small town, where they were employed in the principle stores in Scariff, two of whom (McMahon and Rodgers) were the sons of those business owners. Michael Egan had lived in Tuamgraney for a period and was a frequent visitor to Scariff town where he worked as a part-time postman.

Egan was born in Rinskea in Co. Galway on 26 October 1897 (the townland became a part of Clare a year later) to farm labourer and herdsman, Daniel Egan and his wife, Mary. At the time of his death, he had only recently turned twenty-three and was the youngest of the four men. He was the oldest son of the Egan family and was one of ten siblings, with only his sister Bridget being two years his senior. Decades after his death, his neighbour Mary Joe Holland cried when describing to her daughters how Egan was 'as innocent as the flowers of May and was a really lovely innocent young man and fierce gentle and nice, always smiling and always had a kind word'. In the autumn of 1920 at a house dance held in Drewsborough, Tuamgraney, nineteen year old Mary Hill from the townland of Ballymalone, my grandmother, danced with Michael, telling her son many years later about the shy and gentle countenance of the young man she was one of the last to dance with before his death.15 Even the press at the time characterised Michael as a 'most inoffensive young man'.16 Egan was not a member of the IRA. He was tragically pulled into the story by his decision to allow Rodgers, McMahon and Gildea to stay in the house where he was caretaker and his attempts to divert crown forces when they came to Williamstown looking for the men.

Michael 'Brud' McMahon was born on 12 April 1893, to Thomas and Bridget McMahon. He was the second eldest of four sons born to the couple who ran a hardware and grocery business in the town of Scariff. Having attended Scariff National School, Michael was sent with his brothers to Cork City for secondary education. At the age of eighteen, he was living in Cork City, while attending school with his brother, Patrick. His older brother, Denis, was working at Robert Scott and Co. Ltd, a large Hardware Merchants on St Patrick's Quay.17 The three brothers lodged with Margaret Carbery in Sheare's Street. Margaret previously lived in Scariff, where her husband, RIC Constable John Carbery was based and where he died of pleurisy in 1898.18 Evidently, a relationship was maintained between the McMahons and the RIC man's widow, a union of gentler times. In the revolutionary period, Michael seems to have taken a leading role in the cultural revival and was recognised as 'a member of the Fáinne' (Irish-speaking) and 'one of the principle people involved in the attempt to revive the Irish language in east Clare'.19 He was also well known in Carrigaholt and Ring Irish colleges and frequently contributed articles to the press, advocating the promotion of Irish.20 Described as 'very sincere', 'Brud' was a senior figure in the Scariff IRA Company at the time of his death.

In 2012, 100-year-old Matthew Birmingham told me that Mollie Behan, owner of the Burton Arms Hotel in Carrigaholt, had fallen for McMahon while he was staying there while attending the local Irish College. According to Birmingham, Behan, who in 1916 had sheltered local leaders during the Easter rebellion, never married because she 'had a particular standard' and 'could not find anyone to match McMahon and so would not settle for anyone else in her life'.21 A family rumour indicated that McMahon was also romantically linked to Lillie Corbett, who in 1920 was a twenty-four year old from Scariff who shared McMahon's interest in the Irish language. Lillie later moved to France where she joined the French Sisters of Charity.22

Martin Gildea has been reported as being aged inter­changeably as twenty-four and twenty-seven.23 In fact, Gildea was born on 16 May, 1890 at Ashbrook, Woodlawn, in the parish of New Inn, Co. Galway, making him thirty years old at the time of his death, the oldest of the four and at a senior age for an IRA Volunteer.24 Martin was born to Michael Gildea and Nora Kelly, who both worked at the estate of James Ryan, owner of Ashbrook House. After both her father and Ryan disapproved of her intention to marry Michael, Nora secretly followed Gildea to America, where they married and began a family.25 Having returned years later due to Nora's ill health, Michael resumed his employment as a coachman for Ryan and moved his family into a house on Ashbrook estate.26 There, Martin was born soon after their return. Tragically, Nora Gildea passed away in April 1899 at the young age of thirty-eight from phthisis, a progressive wasting disease, worsened by giving birth three months earlier.27 Her register of death shows that her daughter and Martin's baby sister, Honoria, died just eleven days earlier. Martin was then only eight years of age.28 As young man, he worked in Fahys Grocery Store in Loughrea, before later moving to Kilcullen in Co....