The Connection to the Bureau of Military History

Many of the details of the story of my grandfather contained in this blog come from the wonderful online Bureau of Military History Collection.  This BMH Collection is an invaluable source for all historians, and for me, it was a gold mine.

As I was researching my grandfather Frank Carney, I found one intriguing little fact that actually connects the Bureau of Military History itself to our story. There is a very good chance that the concept for this Collection was prompted by the sudden and early death of Frank Carney in October 1932.

The material in the Bureau of Military History was collected in the 1940s and 1950s when Irish Army personnel and civil servants went all over the country to interview veterans of the struggle for Irish Independence. They collected their personal accounts and these were recorded in sworn witness statements that were signed and notarised.

The idea to document the struggle for Irish Independence in this way came from a Colonel E. V. O’Carroll, of the Army G.H.Q Intelligence Staff in Dublin, in 1933. An attempt to create a history of these times had been made earlier, in the 1920s, when a section was set up within Irish Army Intelligence with the aim of collecting all documentation or written records. This didn't work out, as there were very few surviving documents. The activities of the IRA and the IRB were secret and very little was written down at all.  The idea was shelved.

It was raised again in 1933 and this time the Army Intelligence unit came up with a better plan to record the history of Irish independence. It was Colonel E. V. O’Carroll’s idea to gather personal narratives from survivors, ‘before the sources are dead & gone’.¹ Colonel O’Carroll's plan could very well have been prompted by his own personal experience, for he had lost a close personal friend just a few months before. It turns out that Colonel O'Carroll and Frank Carney were best friends at school, and E.V. O'Carroll would have known better than most how much of the secret history of Ireland had gone to the grave with death of his friend.

The connection between Colonel E.V. O'Carroll and my grandfather Frank Carney appears in a lovely little entry in the Derry Journal of November 4th 1940. It reveals the closeness of the relationship between Frank Carney and E.V. O’Carroll:

"Major-General E.V. O'Carroll, who resigned from G.H.Q. Staff, Dublin, was a school companion of the late Frank Carney, T.D. They were inseparable. Little did they think that in years to follow they would play such a prominent part in the fight for independence." ²

The two friends would also have been totally unaware that they would be so instrumental in beginning this wonderful historical record of their struggle. 

Thank you Major-General Eamon Vincent O'Carroll and all of those in Irish Army Intelligence who worked so hard to give us this superb history.³ You have given us a tremendous insight into those times, and you have breathed life into the personal history of my grandfather, the old school friend of Eamon Vincent O'Carroll. 

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References and Notes:

¹ “Bureau of Military History witness statements as sources for the Irish Revolution” by Eve Morrison, bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie

² Derry Journal, Nov 4 1940. Only one person could have written this small, but very personal, message about E.V. O’Carroll’s retirement in the Derry Journal, and that was my grandmother herself, Nora Carney, widow of Frank Carney. Only she would have had the knowledge of the two friends' childhood relationship.

³ Eamonn Vincent O'Carroll, the former Colonel, was not from Enniskillen, he was he was a Donegal man, from Meenahinsh, Killygordan.  It took a while to find him in the school records in Enniskillen, as Eamonn Vincent O'Carroll had changed his name at some stage! Edmund Vincent O'Carroll, had done well in St Michael's Intermediate school Enniskillen, finishing the same year as his good friend Frank Carney.

St Michael's Intermediate School
Fermanagh Herald 6 Sep 1913 p.5

O'Carroll was a member of the Irish Volunteers from 1918 in Monaghan. From then until the end of the War of Independence he served as a Company Commanding Officer and Battalion Adjutant for the Irish Volunteers and IRA. During that conflict he took part in raids for arms, raids on trains, an attack on British forces at Stranooden, County Monaghan, attacks on Unionist/Loyalist/Protestant targets in reprisal for the burning of Rosslea, County Fermanagh by Unionist/Loyalist/Protestant forces (1921) and an attack on Carrickmacross RIC Barracks. During the Truce period O'Carroll served in IRA training camps and became Divisional Adjutant. 

He joined the National Army at its formation in February 1922 and served throughout the subsequent Civil War. Eamon O'Carroll continued to serve with the Defence Forces until his retirement on 18 October 1940 while serving at the rank of Major General in the role of Quartermaster General. Eamon O'Carroll passed away on January 7th 1941.

From Army Records - Ireland, Military Service Pension Index, 1916 - 1923

Commandant Frank Carney

It is difficult to know when exactly Frank Carney became totally committed to achieving an independent Ireland. It may always have been there, a cultural need acquired from his parents in that small Enniskillen home.  Alternatively, the notion that Ireland could and should be free may have come later, after he had joined the small group of Irish Volunteers in Enniskillen in December 1915.

What is certain is that in 1918 Frank Carney was devoting everything he had, his knowledge, his skills and his energy, to the cause of Irish freedom. By the end of that year he had built the Irish Volunteers in Fermanagh into a fighting force, with eight fully staffed companies, each well organised and tightly drilled.  At 22 years-old, Frank was now Commandant Frank Carney, Officer Commanding for the whole of County Fermanagh, and one of Michael Collins' trusted IRB leaders.

Frank left us very little of his own story, there was no diary and only a few pieces of writing. In one of these precious snippets he let us know when it was that he joined the Irish Volunteers. He wrote this in a letter to the Derry Journal in 1927, at a much later stage in his life when he was standing for election in Dáil Eireann for the first time. 

Frank was responding to a damaging attack in a letter published in the same newspaper in the previous week. The writer was saying that Frank's published profile was all lies:

“Mr Carney did not join the IRA in 1916. He was then in the British Army, and did he not remain in it till 1919?” ¹ 

His rejoinder appeared in the very next issue of the Derry Journal:

“Not only was I connected with the Volunteers in 1916, but I was actually a volunteer in December 1915 as my service in the British Army terminated earlier that month. In Easter Week, 1916, I was one of those Volunteers who were to march to Galway to receive the arms from Roger Casement, my commanding officer at that time being Professor Frank O’Duffy, now Secretary to the Minister of Education” (Frank Carney)² 

The commanding officer at the time, Francis O’Duffy, had re-organised a small company of Irish Volunteers in Enniskillen during 1915, and it is this that Frank had joined when he left the British Army. However, by the end of 1916 the Enniskillen Volunteer company was dwindling away, and its commander Frances O'Duffy had found his focus changing:

“When Sinn Féin began to spread as a movement, I devoted most of my time to its organisation, as it was evident that the most urgent need at that time in Fermanagh was sound national propaganda.”
(Frances O’Duffy) ³ 

It was much the same story throughout the whole of Northern Ireland during the war years, when there were few Irish Volunteer groups, very little leadership and next to no activity. The few companies that existed were commandeered to help the growing Sinn Féin political movement.⁴ 

In early 1918, with the World War still raging, it was Britain's Lloyd George who breathed new life into the Irish Volunteers. At the beginning of the year he began to talk about bringing in conscription for Ireland and he brought forward a bill that was ratified in April 1918. The reaction was immediate, with protests against conscription throughout Ireland. Irish families had suffered greatly in what was now called 'Britain's War', and men were now prepared to fight against it. There was a surge in membership in the Irish Volunteers everywhere.

In Fermanagh at this time, Frank Carney came into his own. As new recruits came into the Volunteers, Frank trained them into soldiers and built them into fighting units, a role that he had perfected in the Inniskillings:

“It was about this time also that the late Frank Carney, T.D., became connected with the Movement, firstly in the capacity as a Drill Instructor. Mr. Carney soon had the Companies throughout the county under proper discipline and doing rifle and open formation drill.” 
(James J. Smyth, Captain IRA) ⁵ 

Frank was demonstrating the soldiering skills and capabilities that were exactly what the Leadership of the Irish Volunteers was looking for in 1918, so it is not really surprising that he came to the attention of one Michael Collins. 

Michael Collins

Michael Collins was Director of Organisation of the Irish Volunteers from mid-1917, theoretically under the leadership of Chief of Staff, Richard Mulcahy.  However, from his appointment Michael Collins took control of the Volunteers, he set about re-organising and re-structuring them with the aim of turning the disparate groups of fighters into a National Army:

"He insisted on weapons and tactical training, the procurement of weapons and proper administration. He compiled lists of officers and equipment from the affiliation forms he insisted upon being returned to him and slowly and methodically drew up a detailed picture of what was available". 
(Commandant Peter Young, Military Archives, 1998)⁶

Despite having many roles in that year, Collins insisted on working hands-on with each of his commanders:

"His contacts with the local commanders were not peripheral. He knew them personally, from his work after 1916 and especially through the IRB"

(Commandant Peter Young, Military Archives, 1998)⁶

The IRB, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, was a secret, oath-bound organisation that had played a key part in recent Irish History. The leaders of the 1916 Rising were IRB members, and the Rising itself was organised under the auspices of the Head Centre of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

In late 1917, Michael Collins was General Secretary of the Brotherhood. In this role, Collins organised the IRB conventions in Dublin where all country Centre Heads of the IRB came together, and through this he could build a personal relationship with each one in turn:

"As Sectetary of the IRB, Michael Collins organised both conventions and all country members of the Brotherhood were requested to meet him before attending the conventions."  (Vincent MacDowell 1997)⁷

Harry Boland & Michael Collins -
both IRB Leaders

It was almost certainly through these IRB channels that Collins learnt of the prowess of the young Frank Carney. Michael Collins was actively looking for soldiers who had the passion, skills and ability to take a group of men and to build them into a regular army battalion and Frank Carney fitted that profile precisely. It was even better if his Volunteer Commanders were sworn members of his secret Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Again, we don't know exactly when Frank Carney was asked to join the IRB - one didn't apply, the only way in was by invitation. However, we do know that he was a 'prominent member of the IRB' 4  and that Michael Collins appointed him Commandant of the Irish Volunteers for County Fermanagh in late 1918:

“Mr. Nulty, who is attached to the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, Dublin, left Enniskillen at the end of 1918 and was succeeded by the late Comdt. Frank Carney, T.D. Mr. Carney was Officer in Charge of the whole area.” (James J Smyth, Captain IRA)⁵

Frank Carney was at this point directly responsible to Michael Collins as his superior officer both in the Irish Volunteers, and in the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

We learn later that Michael Collins put a great deal of trust in Commandant Frank Carney, for there remains a record of one, quite amazing, incident that occurred in January 1920.

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References:

¹ Derry Journal, Friday June 3rd 1927, Page 7

² Derry Journal, Monday June 6th 1927, Page 7

³ Frances O’Duffy Captain 'C' Company, Enniskillen Battalion, Irish Volunteers, 1913, Chairman Monaghan Dail Court, 1919-1920. Bureau of Military History, WS Ref #: 665

⁴ Robert Lynch, The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition 1920 -1921, Irish Academic Press, 2006

⁵ James J Smyth, Captain IRA, Leitrim, 1921, Bureau of Military History, WS Ref #: 559

⁶ Peter Young, "Michael Collins a Military Leader",  in Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State, Mercier Press, 1998. Commandant Peter Young (1950 - 1999) was Officer in Charge of the Military Archives.

⁷ Vincent MacDowell, Michael Collins and the Brotherhood, Ashfield Press, 1997