Born to be a Soldier

Frank Carney learnt his soldiering skills in the British Army. It is difficult for us today to understand how an ardent Irish republican could have volunteered to join the British Army in 1914. There was no conscription here in Ireland during World War 1, so there was no need to go to war. However times were very different then, and there was a long tradition of soldiering in Ireland. At the turn of the century over 40% of the entire British Army was Irish born and ‘the fighting Irish’ were highly prized by the British in any conflict.¹ In the small streets of Frank Carney’s Enniskillen neighbourhood,  the British army had an even stronger pull and in 1914 the young men flocked to join-up in 'defense of small countries'.

Abbey Street is one of the streets going down to the river

Abbey Street in Enniskillen, where the Carney family lived, was a row of tightly-packed two-storey houses in a poorer area of the town. At the bottom of the small street was the River Erne, that runs through Enniskillen going northwards towards Lough Erne. Frank’s father, Edward Carney, was a fisherman, and he would have fished for salmon on the River Erne using a hand-held net in a small, flat-bottomed wooden boat, called an ‘Erne cot’.

The Castle Barracks, Enniskillen

Frank was born on the 25^th April 1896, the youngest surviving child of Edward Carney and Eliza McCaffrey. There was quite a big age gap between Frank and the other four children in the family. There were three sisters, Lizzy, Mary Ann and Alice, and the eldest of the family was his brother, James, who was seventeen years his senior.

Their home was in a small group of streets in Enniskillen very close to two different military barracks and many of the young men of the neighbourhood were soldiers in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

In 1898,  when Frank was just two years old, his brother James left home for the first time. He joined the 1^st Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers based at that time in Omagh.²   The following year the British Government decided to embark on another war in South Africa, which became known as the Second Boer War.  James Carney was shipped out with the Royal Inniskillings, and he fought in many different battles during the three years that he was there. Somehow he managed to survive what was largely a disaster for the Inniskillings at the hands of the Boers.

The 1st Inniskillings and the Dublins
at Battle of Tugela River, South Africa

James returned a hero, with medals and commendations for bravery. But he must also have regaled his young brother with tales of the cleverness and effectiveness of the Boer guerilla fighters. This early knowledge of the Boers would have helped Frank Carney appreciate the guerilla warfare concept of Michael Collins, and he retained his respect for the Boers right into his Dáil life. In 1927 when the newly forming Irish Army was being discussed in Dáil Éireann, Frank Carney recommended that they would do better to look to the Boers, rather than the British Army, as their model:

“This is not a country at all for making a pocket edition of the British Army. The most suitable method of warfare to be conducted by us for defensive purposes is the method that had been tried and perfected by de Wett in South Africa and by our own guerilla fighters here in Ireland.” ³ 

After South Africa, his brother James Carney was discharged from the army, but a couple of years later he joined up again and continued to serve with the Royal Inniskillings throughout Frank’s childhood.

Frank attended secondary school in St. Michael’s Intermediate College located at that time in Belmore Street, Enniskillen, quite near to their home.⁴  This was a fee-paying Roman Catholic grammar school and it must have been quite unusual for a child from the Carney's deprived neighbourhood to attend this grammar school. It is unlikely that his father Edward could have raised enough money for the fees so young Frank had probably  won a scholarship to St Michael’s College. If so, it had paid off, for Frank passed with honours in 1913:

Fermanagh Herald, Friday, September 5th 1913

He was also a singer and it is recorded that he won first place in the Men’s Solo in the Fermanagh Feis in 1913 when he was 17 years old. Interestingly, a ‘James Carney’ from Enniskillen came in second place. Could this be brother James, perhaps?

Fermanagh Herald , Saturday, June 20th 1913

Patrick Pearse,
leader of the 1916 Rising

This Fermanagh Feis was one of the indicators of a radical change in attitudes towards Irish culture and the concept of Nationhood in Ireland during Frank's teenage years. The Fermanagh Feis was started in 1906 by Cahir Healy who was secretary of the local branch of the Gaelic League. Cahir Healy was a Donegal man, from Mountcharles, and he had come to Enniskillen as a journalist to work on the Fermanagh News. He had set up a branch of the Gaelic League in Fermanagh and he persuaded Patrick Pearse, future revolutionary, to open the Feis in 1906.

The Gaelic League had begun in 1893 in Dublin with the aim of reversing ‘anglisation’, and restoring the Irish language and culture among its people. The Gaelic League was structured in small local branches throughout Ireland, and Cahir Healy was pivotal in promoting the Gaelic League in County Fermanagh. He had also built up a relationship with Arthur Griffith through writing articles for Griffith's ‘United Irishmen’ publication and when Griffith founded a new political group called 'Sinn Féin' in 1906, Cahir Healy was right there beside him.⁵ 

The Gaelic Leaguers and Sinn Féin were beginning to have some impact on the Roman Catholic population of Enniskillen when Frank Carney was in his late teenage years. There was also a very active group of Irish Volunteers.  The Irish Volunteers had been set up in November 1913 and had been achieving great success recruiting in Enniskillen during 1913 and early 1914. This was largely in reaction to the activities of a violent Protestant group, the Ulster Volunteers, who had been founded in 1912 to oppose the Home Rule Bill. They had been very active throughout Northern Ireland, but were particularly bad in Enniskillen. Many local men had joined the Irish Volunteers simply to defend their own neighbourhoods, and by 1913 there was a battalion of over 300 active members.

However, with the outbreak of war the Irish Volunteer battalion fell apart. Francis O’Duffy, who was Captain in the Enniskillen Volunteers in 1914, records that the war, “disorganised the Volunteers in Enniskillen and throughout Fermanagh.” ⁶

He goes on to explain:

“There was a large number (about 70, as far as I can remember) of members of the British Army reserve in the Enniskillen Battalion of the Volunteers. When these were called up their comrades marched to the station to give them a send-off and many of these comrades soon followed them.”

Gaelic Leaguers, Sinn Féin and Irish Volunteers answered the call from the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. In the small old streets round Frank Carney's home, Head Street, Mary Street, Strand Street, Dame Street and Abbey Steet, the Inniskilling Fusilier tradition ran deep. From here many young men went to fight in that first year of World War 1.

Frank Carney was an unlikely candidate in that he was a small, slightly built young man who had been sickly all of his life. Nonetheless, on August 19^th 1914,  three days before the first shots were fired in France, Frank signed up to join his brother James and his fellow Enniskillen men in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

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References:

¹Lar Joye, Director of the Military Collection at the National Museum of Ireland in A Sovereign People RTE Documentary December 1915

² James’ war record was provided by his father in an obituary printed in the Impartial Observer, on 27^th January 1916. His army number at this time was 6054, and we can tell from this number that he joined the Inniskillings in about August of 1898.

³ Frank Carney, Dáil Debate on the Army, Thursday, 25 October, 1924, Dáil Éireann Debate Volume 26, No.8

⁴ Frank's school was confirmed in an entry in the Fermanagh Herald on Saturday, February 27, 1932; Page: 5, on Frank’s re-election to the Dáil, which read: “Mr Frank Carney who has been re-elected on of the Fianna Fail members for Donegal, is a native of Enniskillen.  He was educated in St.Michael’s Intermediate School. He is a good speaker.” 

⁵ Public Records Office of Northern Ireland,  Introduction to the Cahir Healy Papers. Cahir Healy appears later in our story, at time when Frank Carney is a major player in Fermanagh Sinn Féin.

⁶ Bureau of Military History 1913-1921, Testimony of Francis O’Duffy, Captain ‘C’ Company Enniskillen Batallion, Irish Volunteers 1913 -1915. Francis O’Duffy became involved in Sinn Fein in Fermanagh and in 1919 he moved to Monaghan  as Chairman of the Monaghan Dail Court. He was interned in Ballykinlar Jail, where Frank Carney was also interned from January to December 1921.