In the London Music Hall

“I was walking in Tottenham Court Road one day when I ran into Frank Carney, who was over on a mission for the I.R.A.”

So writes Robert Brennan in his book "Allegiance". He then goes on to give us two precious stories about my grandfather, Frank Carney. The first is an anecdote about their evening out together in January 1920 following that casual meeting in Tottenham Court Road. The second is an account of the following day, when Robert Brennan accompanied Frank Carney on his top secret mission in London.¹

Robert Brennan 1916

The storyteller, 39 year old Robert Brennan, was a Wexford man who had been Sinn Féin’s National Director of Elections in 1918.²  Now Director of Publicity for the Provisional Government,  he had set up a daily propaganda paper, the ‘Irish Bulletin’ in November 1919. The Bulletin had a been very effective, much to the displeasure of the British and they were very anxious to shut it down. Robert Brennan had been sent over to London by Arthur Griffith in January 1920, to find an alternative method of publishing the Irish Bulletin, should the British prove successful.³

It was at this time that Brennan met Frank Carney on the Tottenham Court Road and he recognised Frank immediately. The two men shared that common bond, for Robert Brennan was high up in the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He had been sworn in by Sean T. O’Kelly in about 1908, and he was a long-time Head Centre for Wexford.¹ Brennan would certainly have met Frank Carney at monthly Brotherhood Centre meetings in Dublin.⁴

In his account of that day in 1920, Brennan gives us a brief description:

“Frank was a small, slight man from Fermanagh who had been in the British Army. He had been gassed in France and had been invalided home. On his recovery he had joined the Volunteers, subsequently becoming Brigade Officer Commanding of County Fermanagh.”⁵ 

Having met, the two friends then agreed to go out to a music hall that evening to see George Robey, a famous comedian of the day. They did not take their seats for the early part of the show but ‘adjourned to the bar’. Eventually, Brennan heard a lot of applause and he assumed that Robey must have arrived on stage. Brennan went to take his seat, but he was alone, for apparently Frank Carney was still ‘adjourning’ in the bar!

Brennan then saw a sketch on the stage which provoked him into action:

"It was not Robey but a sketch in which two men in British uniforms were reminiscing about the war. A caricature of an American swaggered on to the stage, spitting right and left. One of the British soldiers said:

"You know where that fellow comes from?"

"No, where?" said the other.

"It's a place called America.... It was discovered by Christopher Columbus."

"Why?"

This provoked loud laughter. The American said:

"Did I hear youse guys discussin' the war? You know, we won that war for you."

One of the British soldiers said to the other:

"This fellow must be very hard of hearing!"

"How come?" asked the American.

"Well that war was  going on for two years before you heard of it!"

This was too much for Robert Brennan, who believed that the British would have lost the war, but for the Americans.  He stood up and said so in a voice loud enough to get the attention of the entire music hall! Some of the audience laughed, thinking this was part of the show. When they realised that it was not, they turned on Brennen shouting;
"Shut Up!" "Sit Down!" "Throw him out" .

It was at this point that Frank came to take his seat beside him.  Frank asked what was going on. Brennan replied:

“I'm objecting to this show, because …”

Brennan got no further, for Frank jumped in and yelled loudly:

"All right, I'm objecting to it too, who's going to throw us out?"

Ushers promptly arrived, dragged them out and dumped them unceremoniously in the street. The two Irishmen went from there to a local pub. Robert Brennan finishes the story:

"After some time, Frank said,

"What was all that about?"
"They were sneering about the Americans' claim that they won the war, and I protested."
Frank laid down his glass and looked at me in astonishment.
"Do you mean to say that that's what we were thrown out for?"
"Sure," I said.
"Well, by God," he said, "you are a mug."
"And what about yourself!"
"Never mind about me. I did not know what it was all about. I've a good mind to go back and apologise to these people for interrupting their innocent pleasures."
"They would only throw you out again."
"I suppose so," Frank said sadly, "people are very unreasonable."

It is nice to see that my grandfather had such good manners, even when under the influence!

We leave the story there with the two friends drinking in that London pub. The following day they were up early, for there was more serious work to be done.

__________________________

References and Notes:

¹ Robert Brennan’s book ‘Allegiance’ is reprinted in the Bureau of Military History, WS Ref #: 125 , Witness: Robert Brennan, Publicity Department, Dail Eireann, 1921

² Robert Brennan (1881 – 1964) fought in 1916 in Wexford Town, he surrendered  and was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted and he was sent to Dartmoor prison in England where he became a close friend of Éamon De Valera . He was released in the General Amnesty of June 1917. In 1926 he was asked by De Valera to manage the establishment of the Irish Press and he went on to be General Manager from 1931 to 1934. He was then sent to America by the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, as Secretary of the Free State's Irish Legation in Washington.  In August 1938 he was promoted to Minister Plenipotentiary, Ambassador, to the United States, a post he held until 1947.

³  The move to England was never needed, as the British never did manage to shut down the Irish Bulletin completely. Five issues of the Bulletin were issued each week from 1919 until the Truce in July 1921. The Irish Bulletin was circulated largely outside Ireland, bringing news of the War of Independence to overseas readers. The British were so threatened by this that Dublin Castle organised the circulation of counterfeit issues of the Bulletin for about a month following a raid on Bulletin offices in March 1921, at which all the plant was captured. The attempt to deceive public opinion failed completely and was abandoned. See "Dáil Éireann Department of Publicity: History and Progress", Royal Irish Academy, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy No. 102 NAI DE 4/4/2

⁴  The Brotherhood was organised in ‘Circles’ to guarantee secrecy. Each man was in a cell or ‘circle’ where he knew the man above, to each side and below him. He did not know any others. This ensured that if the man was captured, he had information about very few people. The Leader of each area in Ireland was the centre of that area's circle and was known as the ‘Centre’ or ‘Head Centre’. Centres met regularly in Dublin with the General Secretary, who until mid-1919 was Michael Collins. See ‘Michael Collins and the Brotherhood’, Vincent MacDowell, 1997, Ashfield Press.

⁵  Frank was not, in fact, in France at all. This was a commonly held belief at the time. See The Carney Brothers in World War 1

From Fermanagh to the Tottenham Court Road

The year 1919 must have been very frustrating for Frank Carney. In most of Ireland, it was a year of excitement, change, momentum and military action, but not in the north, and not in Fermanagh.

In January there was the very first sitting of the new Dáil in Dublin, following Sinn Féin's landslide victory in the elections the previous December. The War of Independence began that month, and in April the Irish Volunteers were declared to be the National Army of Ireland. They were renamed the ‘Irish Republican Army’. The IRA was active in many counties in late 1919, carrying out the order of the new President, Éamonn DeValera, to remove the police from all communities in Ireland.

 

Members of the First Dáil at 2nd meeting, 10 April 1919

First row, left to right: Laurence Ginnell, Michael Collins, Cathal Brugha, Arthur Griffith, 

Éamon de Valera, Count Plunkett, Eoin MacNeill, W. T. Cosgrave and Ernest Blythe. 

In the north the situation was very different.  Frank Carney was now Commandant of the Fermanagh battalion of the Irish Republican Army. He had eight companies of men in 1919, in Enniskillen, Tempo, Arney, Cavanacross, Irvinestown, Belcoo, Wattlebridge and Lisnaskea, but none of them had been active.¹ There were major problems preventing Frank, and indeed all of the other northern Commandants, from taking their first actions in the War of Independence.

 

Irish Volunteer Companies in Fermanagh in 1919

Most of the population in the south supported, or at least tolerated, the IRA. In the north there was a large Protestant population who were adamantly against any talk of independence under Dublin. Many of these folk held arms, some from their membership of the well organised Ulster Volunteers, and they would not hesitate to use them if they felt threatened.² 

 

Edward Carson inspects a group of armed Ulster Volunteers in 1914

Equally, any IRA action would often draw down a violent backlash from the more extreme Protestant activists, resulting in direct attacks on the local Catholic population. As a result of this many Catholic areas turned against the IRA blaming them, as much as the Protestant activists, for their misfortune. The upshot of this was that support for the IRA was minimal.² 

Another major problem was the lack of weapons. Frank Carney’s troops had very few guns and most were doing field training with wooden replicas or other substitute implements.  The few guns that they had came largely from ex-soldiers returning from the war but there was a limited supply of these. In the south, IRA Companies were attacking police barracks and stealing supplies of weapons and ammunition. An attack on a northern police station would require a great deal of weapons, which the Fermanagh battalion did not have, and it would also risk the predictable backlash.

Michael Collins 1919

Frank Carney needed more guns, and the man in charge of gun supplies in Dublin was Michael Collins. During 1919 Michael Collins became Minister of Finance in the Provisional Government and in the Irish Republican Brotherhood he was made President, a title he kept until his death. From mid-1919, he pulled back from his hands-on work  with the Army to focus on his crowning role, that of Director of Intelligence. As part of this role, he retained total control of gun running.³

Frank Carney must have knocked at his door many times during the long months of 1919, without success. All Commandants countrywide were short of arms, and the queue was long. Those from Wexford, Cork and Kerry would take precedence, for these counties would use the weapons immediately on highly productive raids on Police Barracks, thus releasing even more arms.

It took until the beginning of the next year for Frank to finally reach the head of the queue. And that is why, on that January day in 1920, Frank Carney was walking down the Tottenham Court Road in London.

_______________________

References:

¹ Bureau of Military History 1913-1921, WS Ref #: 654 , Witness: Francis O'Duffy, Captain IV, Enniskillen, 1913; Chairman Monaghan Dail Courts, 1919 - 1921

² “The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition 1920 -1921”, Robert Lynch, Irish Academic Press, 2006

³ “Collins and Intelligence 1919-1923, From Brotherhood to Bureauracy”, Eunan O’Halpin, in Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State, Mercier Press, 1998

Winning His War Pension

1916 was a bad year for the Carney family. The year had begun with the tragic news that James had been killed in Gallipoli. Frank Carney had been hospitalised in the previous December, and had been invalided out of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He had excelled in the British Army and the feeling of rejection must have weighed heavily. Another major problem was that the Carney family had now lost two incomes, for both boys had been having their money sent home.

One way that Frank could help alleviate the family's financial burden was for him to try to obtain a pension from the British Army, and he applied for this in early 1916.  He had been in the army for a very short time, for just over one year, so the chances of success were not high. Sure enough, there was a very quick rejection note sent back from the British Army in April.

Patrick Crumley M.P.

Frank's father was now in his 60s, and there was no income coming into the house, so Frank persevered. There was at the time a War Pensions Committee set up in each county to help folk appeal pensions and entitlements decisions from the army. This body had been set up by the British Government, and the Fermanagh War Pensions Committee had all the elite of the County on its board. However, the appeal to the War Pensions Committee must also have failed, for Frank Carney went on to take his case even higher.

For the next step, Frank won the support of  a very eminent gentleman, Mr Patrick Crumley, who was MP for South Fermanagh at that time.

‘Honest Pat’ Crumley was a Catholic who was heavily involved in local politics, being on both the Enniskillen Board of Guardians and the Urban District Council. He was a much respected gentleman and in 1915 he became the first Catholic for three centuries to be appointed the Deputy Lieutenant of County Fermanagh.¹ 

Pat Crumley became an MP in 1912 and on the 20^th December 1916, 'Honest Pat' took to the floor of the House of Commons in London to raise the plight of Frank Carney and his family. This from Hansard: 

Mr. CRUMLEY

asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he will say why No. 1122, Sergeant F. Carney, 5th and 4th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, has been refused a pension or allowance on being discharged from the Army as no longer physically fit; is he aware that ex-Sergeant Carney is the son of a fisherman aged over sixty years who finds it impossible to support an invalid son who is unable to work, and that his only brother, No. 7830, Sergeant J. Carney, Royal Inniskillings, who contributed to the support of the home, was killed in Gallipoli, having served through the African campaign and been dangerously wounded in France when he won the Russian Cross of St. George; and will he, in the circumstances, have ex-Sergeant F. Carney's application reconsidered and a pension granted to him if possible? ² 

The question was asked of the Financial Secretary to the War Office who was Henry Forster, later to become Lord Forster, Governor General of Australia. Mr Forster gave a very logical response to Mr Crumley’s question:

Mr. FORSTER

This man's disability, bronchitis, had existed for several years before he joined the Army, and was not aggravated by his military service (which was all at home). He is therefore not eligible for a pension. I am inquiring about the other son.

In what looks very much like a pre-planned pincer movement, a Liberal MP for South Edinburgh, James Myles Hogge, then joined the discussion:

Mr. HOGGE
Was the man accepted as medically fit?
Mr. FORSTER
Presumably.
Mr. HOGGE
If he was accepted as medically fit, why did the War Office refuse a pension?
Mr. FORSTER
No one knows better than my Hon. Friend the rules under which we have to administer pensions at present.

The efforts of Frank Carney and Mr Pat Crumley eventually paid off, for Frank was granted a one-off gratuity of £48 in May of 1917. This was a large amount of money in those days, equating to roughly one year's salary for a Sergeant in the British infantry, and it was almost certainly delivered in gradual payments.

Frank Carney's Army Record

Another result of this campaign was that Frank became committed to helping other survivors and relatives obtain their entitlements from the British Army. In April 1918 he took his first public steps into political life when he was elected to the Fermanagh War Pensions Committee:

Fermanagh Herald, Friday, April 19, 1918

In later years, Frank was actively engaged in fighting against the British Army, they were his enemy. However, it seems that Frank retained a positive regard for those that he had served with and for his time in the British army.  In November 1916, six months after the Easter Rising, Frank applied for his army medal. This was the silver medal that he was entitled to for simply being in the Army during the war.

From Frank Carney's Army Record

During the Irish War of Independence and the beginning of the new Free State, the feeling towards those Irish people, both living and dead, who had become soldiers in the British Army changed dramatically. For many years there was great animosity to ex-British Soldiers, and only in the last few years here in Ireland have we openly laid wreaths on the graves of those who died in the First World War. Frank Carney, a staunch republican, was not one of those who condemned soldiers who had fought and died, and it is an indication of the true bravery of this man that he was not afraid to say it.

In a lovely little piece in the Irish Times at the time of Frank’s death, the writer of an ‘Irishman’s Diary’, who knew Frank Carney very well, says:

“Mr Carney was an ex-Serviceman having served in the Inniskilling Fusiliers during the War, and he never failed to champion the cause of the ex-soldiers at times when their champions were few.” ³ 

The same writer adds a little fact that he says he feels should be made public:

“When he joined the IRA, before the Truce, Mr Carney wrote to the British Pensions Department announcing his intention to fight against the British Forces and refusing to accept the pension any longer. The British authorities, however, ignored Mr Carney’s representations and his pension warrants piled up for several years.”

If this is true, then it is highly likely that Frank returned the hard-won pension very soon after it was awarded in May 1917. That precious stipend was probably a great help to his poor mother, Eliza Carney, and yet it is very likely that she saw precious little of the pension bonanza! 

_________________________________

References:

¹ 'Honest Pat' - Patrick Crumley DL, MP, Malachy McRoe, Clogher Record, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2011), pp. 541-550, Published by: Clogher Historical Society

² Hansard NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS. HC Deb 20 December 1916 vol 88 cc1446-50

³ The Irish Times, Thursday, October 20, 1932, page 4

Episode 1 - Worthy of Honour
Episode 2 - Born to be a Soldier
Episode 3 - The Carney Brothers in World War I

Worthy of Honour

Recently there was an article in a well respected Irish History site that mentioned Frank Carney T.D. They were discussing an incident that had taken place in Portobello Barracks on June 28^th 1922, as Michael Collins was gathering forces and armaments for an assault on the Four Courts. Frank Carney was the pivotal person in this controversial incident.

Someone had added a comment to this article, and I was struck by the words that she had written:  “... fair play to Frank Carney (whoever he was)”. 

This harmless comment hit home quite deeply. Frank Carney, whoever he was. It prompted me to look again at the information I had on my grandfather, Frank Carney. I took out the photocopies of the many newspapers that had pictures and columns on what they termed his ‘striking’ funeral.¹ 

It had begun in St Andrew’s Church in Amien Street, Dublin on Thursday, October 20th 1932. The tricolour-draped coffin was carried into the church by the President, Éamon De Valera, and other members of the Executive Council of Dáil Éireann. The church was crammed with dignitaries, which included every member of the Irish Government benches and many of the opposition. There were representatives of Fianna Fáil and IRA Cummans from all over Ireland present in the church. A guard of honour was provided by Dublin IRA men who stood to attention  around the coffin. The list of  Dáil Deputies, Senators and Army officers who accompanied the coffin as it left the church reads like a who’s who of Irish Independence.

It seems that a great deal of people in those early years of the young Irish State knew exactly who Frank Carney was, and they came out in their hundreds to say their farewells to him.

An 'immense concourse' took part in the cortege that accompanied the horse-drawn carriage on its way to Amiens Street Station.  From there a train bedecked with floral tributes carried the coffin from Dublin to his home in Derry, stopping along the way to pick up more wreaths at Omagh and Strabane.

In Derry the train was met by thousands of people and they formed a cortege which moved off slowly, pipe bands leading the way.  A hundred of his Old IRA colleagues marched behind the hearse, each one waiting for the honour of carrying his coffin for just a few yards. Bitter Civil War enemies, with wounds that were recent and raw, walked side-by-side to accompany their former Commandant to his home in Westland Villas. Huge crowds lined the streets throughout, guarded on either side by policemen. Just a few years ago they were sworn enemies of this former IRA Commandant, and yet the reports say that the Derry policemen all raised their arms and saluted him as he made his last journey. Frank Carney, 'whoever he was', had won the respect of all sides.

The funeral the next day was the biggest that Derry had ever seen, with twenty-five clergy needed to conduct the mass in St Eugene’s Cathedral. And yet Frank Carney was not even a Derry man. He had been born just 36 years before in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, and he had spent precious little of his short life in this town. Still the Derry dignitaries from all walks of religious, social and political life joined the great and the good from all over Ireland to honour this little Fermanagh man. The Derry Journal reports that this was truly a national event and that it was organised by two members of Dáil Éireann who consulted with the widow, Mrs Nora Carney. Nora Carney is reported as attending the funeral with her two oldest children, nine-year-old Eilis, and eight-year-old Maeve.

The lengthy graveside oration was given by Seán T O’Kelly, Vice President of the Executive Council and future President of Ireland.  His powerful words reached out to the thousands who gathered there:

'If we would honour a man worthy of honour, let those of us who cherish true Irish ideals and honour the patriots of our nation, best do so by trying to emulate men like Frank Carney, his courage and his sacrifice.”

This was Frank Carney, who at only thirty-six years of age was a man worthy of these great honours, a man worthy of this great funeral.

And yet his story has not been told. Even us, the descendants of the six very young children that Frank Carney left behind, we know very little of him.

This man, who was worthy of such great honour, has a story that is worth being told. The time has come to discover this story, and to tell it - or to make an attempt at least.

___________________________________

Episode 2 in this series - Born to be a Soldier

References:

¹ Newspapers from the dates 18th to 29th of October 1932  collected by my niece Tilly including:

Irish Independent, Thursday, October 20th, 1932

Irish Press, Thursday, October 20th, 1932; Friday, October 21st, 1932

Irish Times, Friday, October 21st, 1932; Monday, October 24th, 1932

Donegal Democrat, Saturday October 22nd, 1932

Derry Journal, Tuesday, October 25th, 1932; Saturday, October 29th, 1932

² Oration of Sean T. O’Kelly reprinted in full in Donegal Democrat Saturday, October 29 1932