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. 

________________________

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