Hunger Strike in Belfast Jail

Frank Carney's arrest appears on a page in the Freeman's Journal, and on that single page there is a snapshot of the escalating drama in the War of Independence.  It is all there on page 5 of the issue dated Tuesday, March 30^th 1920, the everyday heroics and tragedies in the fight for Irish freedom.

The Freeman's Journal, Tuesday
March 30th 1920, page 5

There is a report on the inquest that is taking place in Cork. The Lord Mayor, Tomás Mac Curtain, was murdered in his own home in front of his wife and son, by men with blackened faces. The beleaguered policemen are taking the law into their own hands, and in this case they were retaliating for the death of one of their own colleagues.¹

There are more murders by policemen reported on this page, two IRA men shot in their homes. All of these are in the wake of sustained attacks on police barracks and policemen throughout the southern counties. What the Fremman's Journal does not yet report is that the force that became known as 'the Black and Tans', the most vicious of all the British Police forces, begins to arrive in Ireland this same week, on March 25th 1920. 

Ireland is out of control. Another article on this same page illustrates just how bad it has become. Here we are told that General Shaw, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, is being recalled to London.  He is to be replaced by General MacCready, who is to ‘strengthen the administration of the law in Ireland’.

The Freeman's Journal, Tuesday March 30th 1920

“As if by way of a parting shot from General Shaw,” the Freeman’s Journal goes on to report, “there has been accelerated activity by military raiders during the last couple of days, and arrests have been made in the provinces of Ulster, Munster and Leinster.”  

The Freeman's Jounal gives some dramatic reports of those who were arrested in this round-up but Frank Carney's entry is a simple statement announcing the arrest of Mr Francis Carney U.D.C. Enniskillen. 

This mention of Frank in the Freeman’s Journal on March 30^th begins a sequence in which we can trace his activities from March through to early May 1920:

Monday March 21 – Carney House Raided

Frank Carney’s house, 18 Abbey Street, Enniskillen where he lives with his mother and father, is raided and searched by members of the RIC. It is not known what is found, but Frank is not arrested. (Reported in the Freeman’s Jounal, Tuesday 30^th March 1920)

Saturday March 27 – Frank Carney Arrested

An IRA Captain who served under Frank Carney tells us in his Bureau of Military History testimony:

 “Early in 1920 plans were being laid to burn vacated Police barracks and Income Tax offices. Each Battalion Area had its work set out for them. Before these plans matured Mr. Carney was arrested.”² 

The Freeman's Journal, 
Tuesday 30th March 1920

Frank is arrested in Enniskillen on March 27^th and he is transported to Derry Jail.

In the Derry Journal of April 2nd we learn that these prisoners arrived in the city under military and police escort, and they were conveyed by 'motor lorries' to the prison.
"Along the route to the jail, the prisoners sang 'The Soldiers Song' and other Republican songs. At the entrance to the prison they were cheered by sympathisers."

We read in this same ariticle there is now pandemonium in Derry Jail, with over 80 Republican prisoners there, and 'normal prisoners' being moved on to Sligo. In Belfast, people are arriving to the Jail from all over Ireland;
"Two destroyers arrived in Belfast Lough from Queenstown with 38 political prisoners."

Mountjoy prison in Dublin is full, and the prisoners there are protesting at their treatment. The Derry Journal reports that a large number of them are permanently in handcuffs.

Tuesday April 20 – Move to Belfast Jail

Derry Journal, 21st April 1920

After three weeks in Derry Jail, Commandant Frank Carney is taken by train to from Derry to Belfast Jail. He is in a group of prisoners from Tyrone, Donegal, Fermanagh and Derry who are moved to Belfast’s Crumlin Road Jail under heavy military escort. This Jail is totally controlled by the military at this time.

Monday April 26 - Hunger Strike Begins

Six days after Frank's arrival in Belfast Jail, the prisoners decide to go on hunger strike;

“The prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs and Mountjoy went on hunger-strike about this time, and strong appeals were being made by some of the Belfast prisoners to join them. General O'Duffy (Eoin O’Duffy) was in charge  of the prisoners. A general meeting was held and it was unanimously decided to go on hunger-strike."  (James McKenna in his Bureau of Military History statement)³ 

Anglo-Celt, April 30 1920

Eoin O'Duffy was arrested in Omagh in late April and is now leading the Ulster and Connacht prisoners in the jail. The prisoners are demanding their immediate release, and they advertise this in newspapers nationwide;

“On behalf of 145 uncharged and untried men in Belfast Prison, we demand immediate and unconditional release. Failing this, we go on hunger strike on Monday 26^th April, 1920. Signed on behalf of the prisoners, Dan Healy Commandant; Owen O’Duffy, Ulster and Connaght; Philip Lennon, Leinster; Thomas Clifford, Munster. – Prison Council”(Anglo-Celt, Friday April 30^th 1920)

Along with his comrades, Frank Carney goes on hunger strike on April 26th.

Friday May 1 1920 - Frank Carney Rushed to Hospital

After just a few days on hunger strike, Frank Carney becomes seriously ill and is released. He is rushed to the Mater Informum Hospital. (The Mater in Belfast)

“After a few days fast the late Frank Carney, T.D., and a few others who were not very robust were carried out on stretchers. This led to a general release on the sixth day and we were all conveyed to the various hospitals, from where we were discharged in about a week.” (James McKenna, OC North Monaghan Brigade, IRA, 1921)³ 

Fermanagh Herald, May 8th 1920

Not all prisoners were released. About 70 were deported to Wormwood Scrubs prison in England. On their way they were marched to Belfast Docks where they were attacked by dock workers. Their British Army escorts stood idly by while the prisoners were pelted with bolts and metal bars thrown down from the boats. The hunger strike continued in Wormwood Scrubs.

Following his brief hunger strike, Frank Carney was back on his feet with amazing speed, and shortly after this we have news of some of his daring raids.

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Notes and References:

¹ This coroner's inquest into the death of the Lord Mayor was highly significant. It passed a verdict of willful murder against British Prime Minister Lloyd George and against certain named members of the RIC. Michael Collins later ordered the killing of the police officers involved in the attack. RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who had ordered the attack, was fatally shot with Mac Curtain's own revolver while leaving a Protestant church in Lisburn on 22 August 1920, sparking a pogram against the Catholic residents of the town.

² Bureau of Military History 1913-1921, WS Ref #: 559 , Witness: James J Smyth, Captain IRA, Leitrim, 1921

³  Bureau of Military History 1913-1921, WS Ref #: 1028 , Witness: James McKenna, OC North Monaghan Brigade, IRA, 1921

* Note: All the Newspapers quoted in this article were accessed from Findmypast.ie

Tension in the north - and in the Council Chamber

The newspapers throughout Ireland screamed the headlines, overwhelming success for nationalist parties! This was the dramatic outcome of the Local Elections in 1920 with Sinn Fein, Labour and other nationalists taking control of 172 of Ireland's 206 borough and urban district councils.

In the north of Ireland the reaction was far from elation, for the results sent disturbing quakes throughout the radical Unionist supporters. Lloyd George’s new Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, had introduced partition for the first time, proposing separate Northern and Southern parliaments. Edward Carson and his Unionists had strongly resisted both Home Rule, and partition. When this became inevitable, Unionists had insisted that the north should be made up of only those counties with a Unionist majority, which was, they argued, six counties rather than the whole nine counties of Ulster. Now in these local elections two of those proposed 'Six Counties', Fermanagh and Tyrone, proved to have, in fact, Nationalist majorities.

Worse still for Unionists, Derry had elected its first Catholic Mayor in three hundred years. All of this helped to create a Protestant backlash later in the year, when Unionists James Craig and Edward Carson marshalled their Ulster Volunteers and set them loose on the Catholic population.¹ 

North Ward Result
Fermanagh Herald 24 Jan 1920

The tension had not yet begun in early February when Frank Carney took his seat on the Enniskillen Urban District Council as one of two new Labour Councillors. Frank, his Labour colleague, Mr W. E. Campling, and an Independent Labour Councillor, Bernard Keenan, had helped make up a nationalist majority on the Council.²  

As soon as the outgoing Chairman, Nationalist Party member Joe Gillen, called the meeting to order, Frank Carney was the first to speak.³ Frank proposed that the outgoing Chairman should continue in office for the new session. He was quickly seconded by the other Labour Councillor, Mr Campling, in what everyone present must have known was an orchestrated manoeuvre.⁴ 

Fermanagh Herald 24 Jan 1920

There had obviously been a pre-election pact between the three nationalist parties, Sinn Féin, the Nationalist Party and Labour. Sinn Féin had agreed not to put up any candidates, so that the Nationalist Party could win the Catholic vote. In return,  Sinn Féin people stood equally unopposed as Labour candidates, to win the workers vote. The completion of the agreement was that the elected Labour Councillors would support Nationalist Joe Gillen as Chairman.

The amicable ballet that had opened this first Council meeting continued with the appointment of Councillors to the various committees. This time it was agreement between the nationalist group and the opposing Unionists. Each side put forward delegates for a committee, and all were approved unopposed. Frank Carney was appointed to the 8-man Public Health Committee. It all went fairly smoothly.

At the next meeting of the Council, the gloves were off. Frank Carney threw the first punch, arriving in the meeting with a radical proposition. A letter had come to Enniskillen from Monaghan County Council explaining that they had passed a resolution protesting against partition of any kind. Frank proposed that this anti-partition resolution should also be passed by this Council, the Enniskillen Urban District Council.⁵ 

Unionist James Cooper was quick  to object and he then to proposed an amendment which clearly illustrates the Unionist mindset of the time.⁶  The amendment stated,

“That we the Urban District Council of Enniskillen do hereby declare that we neither require nor wish for Home Rule of any description whatever. At the same time we rejoice to see that in the present Home Rule proposals before Parliament the loyal and peaceable County of Fermanagh has been grouped with the other loyal and peaceable counties which are henceforth to join the Parliament of Northern Ireland. The Co.  of Fermanagh is largely owned, occupied and populated by Unionists who pay two-thirds of all rates and taxes collected in the county and who would abhor to be grouped with the anti-British element of which the proposed Parliament of Southern Ireland will consist.”

Ulster Herald 6 Mar 1920

Several Councillors joined the discussion, but Frank Carney was getting heated, and he stated that he thought that his own resolution was inadequate,

“I am in agreement with Mr Cooper about the present Home Rule Bill, and I would not pick it off a Christmas tree! What we want is self-determination. The resolution does not go far enough!”

Now was the time for the Unionist Councillor, James Cooper, to make it public that he knew exactly who these ‘Labour’ Councillors were,

“When this board was being formed, two of the members said that they came to represent a particular section of the people, that their motto was Labour first, Labour second and nothing but Labour. They were to have no politics whatever, but Labour was to make a bridge between the Unionists and the Nationalists in the Council”

James Cooper went on to include a third man, the Independent Labour Councillor who we know was Bernard Keenan.⁷  Mr Cooper declared that these three 'neutral' people, the two Labour and the Independant Labour, were all now against the Unionists.

Although no-one in the room mentioned the words 'Sinn Féin', it was all out in the open now, and the Chairman, Mr Gillen, acknowledged this subtlety,

“The Independant Labour man and the two other Labour men know who their best friends are, and there is no use in anyone trying to camouflage them one way or another. You would have to rise very early in the morning to be able to do that.”

So at this early stage of their membership of the Urban District Council, Frank Carney, Mr Campling and Bernard Keenan were all revealed to be Sinn Féin men. Shortly after that meeting in early March the Council members would learn a great deal more about at least one of their new colleagues, when arrests were made in Enniskillen.

____________________________

References and Notes:

¹  “The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition 1920 -1921”, Robert Lynch, Irish Academic Press, 2006

²  Fermanagh Herald 1903-current, Feb 7^th 1920, page 3, Irish Newspaper Archives

³ Joe Gillen was a business man in Enniskillen owning a pub and a furniture store. He was a famous footballer in his youth, and his playing career was spent in goal for Enniskillen Celtic. He was club secretary of Fermanagh IFA in 1903, helping them to their best ever year in 1905. In 1906 he became chair of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone league until the first world war intervened. He died in 1939 at the age of 59, a wreath from the IFA on his coffin indicated the esteem they felt for Mr Gillen.

⁴ Walter Ernest Campling was born on 8 Dec 1882 in Fort Canning, Singapore, possibly the son of a soldier. There is a lovely little story about Walter as a child. Walter was chosen to act as Queen Victoria's Drummer Boy when she did her tour of Ireland in 1900. When she was leaving at Belfast she asked to see him and gave him a rose from her bouquet. He had saved this flower in the pages of the family bible but when it was opened after his death to show one of his sons, it disintegrated into dust. He became a drummer in the 4th Battallion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers after joining on 18 Jan 1897. Walter was badly wounded in WW1. He had his kneecap shot off and multiple shrapnel wounds. Most of the shrapnel was removed but one piece was inoperable. He used to walk with a stick. He had achieved the rank of Quarter Master Sergeant in the Army. When he was medically discharged he joined the Tax Office where he worked as a clerk until he died on 10 October 1931.

⁵  Ulster Herald 1901-current, March 6 1920, page 6, Irish Newspaper Archives

⁶  James Cooper, Solicitor and company director. Born 26th February 1882. Educated at Portora Royal School and Wesley College, Dublin. Member of Enniskillen Urban District Council. Chairman of Fermanagh County Council from 1924 to 1928. Deputy Lieutenant for County Fermanagh. Custodian of the Enniskillen Savings Bank. An Ulster Unionist member of the British Parliament who sat for Fermanagh and Tyrone from the general election of 1921 until the general election of 1929 when he retired. He died 21st July 1949.

⁷ I believe that Bernard Keenan is the same ‘B. Keenan’ that Francis O’Duffy mentions in his statement to the Bureau of Military History. If so, he was, like Frank, and ex British soldier who was drill instructor in the Irish Volunteers in Enniskillen pre-1915. Bureau of Military History 1913-1921, WS Ref #: 654 , Witness: Francis O'Duffy, Captain IV, Enniskillen, 1913; Chairman Monaghan Dail Courts, 1919 - 1921

The Speech from the Heart

The small, slightly-built young man was speaking from the podium with deep, personal passion, appealing for votes from his own people. Frank Carney was addressing a room full of workers gathered to listen to the candidates for the election to the Enniskillen Urban District Council on January 9th 1920. Usually less than exciting, these Local Elections were important in Ireland in that they provided a barometer of Irish people’s support for Sinn Féin and for the continuing War of Independence. It also gave 22 year old Frank Carney the platform to launch himself on his political career, though surprisingly he did not stand as a Sinn Féin delegate. 

This was the first Local Elections since 1914, and Sinn Féin were fighting them with a total determination to win,  as they did in the national election of 1918. This was true in most of Ireland, with the exception, of course, of the northern counties where politics was a much more complex affair. The election for the Enniskillen Urban District Council held on January 15th is a typical example, and here no Sinn Féin candidates stood at all.

Fermanagh had a majority Catholic population, and the Urban District Council in Enniskillen had held a Nationalist majority since 1914. These Nationalists were standing again, and they were  from the old school of the Irish Parlimentary Party and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. It is obvious that a deal was struck so that no Sinn Féin candidates would stand against the Nationalists here, but candidates would be allowed to stand under the Labour Party banner. There were four Labour candidates, and Frank Carney was one of these.

The Labour Party in Ireland was also a nationalist party, committed to Irish independence. It had emerged from the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in 1912 under the leadership of James Connolly and Jim Larkin. They also had a small militant wing in their union, the Irish Citizens Army, which was formed in 1913 to protect demonstrating workers.

As preparations for the Rising were being made by the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1916,  James Connolly was brought into their confidence. Connolly was then appointed Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, de facto Commander-in-Chief of the Rising. Connolly's leadership in the Easter Rising was considered formidable. Michael Collins said of James Connolly that he "would have followed him through hell.”

James Connolly's Execution

With Connolly's dramatic execution following the Rising and Jim Larkin's emigration to America, the Labour Party had lost its strength and direction. In the 1918 national elections, the Labour party agreed that they would not stand at all against Sinn Féin, thus allowing what was in effect a plebiscite on Irish Independence. Now it was 1920, and Labour was back in strength, supporting both Irish Independence and left wing socialist ideals. One of these Labour candidates was the young Frank Carney who put on his Labour hat to canvass Labour votes from the workers of Enniskillen.

National Library of Ireland

In a way Frank was now free. He did not have to promulgate the Sinn Féin manifesto. He could talk from his heart about the poor of the neighbourhood in which he grew up and where he still lived. The ‘Back Streets’, as this area was known, was the poorest in Enniskillen, and they had also lost so many young men in the Gallipoli  that the area later became known as ‘The Dardanelles’. Frank Carney spoke from his heart, and with great passion, when he addressed a gathering of workers in Enniskillen Town Hall on Friday January 9th 1920. The Fermanagh Herald reported that this was a Labour candidates' meeting, and the workers were now to chose which of these gentlemen would win their votes.

Frank Carney’s Speech - Fermanagh Herald Jan 10 1920

I have the honour of being selected as one of the Labour candidates at the forthcoming municipal elections. You would ask, quite naturally, what is our policy? Our policy is Labour.

Frank Carney

We want to raise the workers above the level of the beasts of the field. We want to get them a decent living wage, to enable them to have their children warmly and comfortably clad and booted, and properly educated so that they would hold their own in after life.

Labour in this town has made its demands very moderately, in a milk and watery sort of way, but we have got our shoulder to the wheel and we mean to keep it to the wheel until Labour comes out on top. 

Our object in trying to get representatives of Labour on the Urban Council is this: In the past Enniskillen was run by a lot of traders from God knows where. The majority of them did not belong to this town. What had been done by these civic fathers, the capitalists, for the town of Enniskillen, for the working man?

Forthill Enniskillen, started in 1845

They had got them the Forthill. The working man’s wife could send a nurse up the Forthill to give the kiddies an airing. What else had they got? They had got a concrete sidepath in the Brook for the elite to walk on.

The city fathers had promoted lectures on the dangers of tuberculosis, but what did the workers get to prevent their children from developing tuberculosis? Did they get anything more in wages to enable them to by milk to build up the constitutions of the children, or boots for them when they were going to school, or warm clothing? We know ourselves the miserable starvation wages they had been in receipt of and were in receipt of yet.

The civic fathers promoted lectures on domestic economy and hygiene. We all know that the wives of the working man are the only experts in this community on domestic economy, and why? Because they themselves, their mothers and their grandmothers had been educated in the science of domestic economy from the cradle to the grave. They had to be economists or they would have died the week after they were married owing to the starvation wages their husbands were receiving.

What did the workers get in the way of sanitation in Enniskillen? Look at the Back Streets. What had they got there? There are prehistoric institutions there and such conditions might be all right in a Kaffir kraal, but they were absolutely abominable in a town like Enniskillen.

The Labour candidates would be asked what did they know about Enniskillen, but what did some of these city fathers know about Enniskillen? Some of these traders walk about the town with their fat cigars and expected the working men to bow and scrape to them. The workers are now going to have a say in management of the town or know the reason why.

If Labour candidates were not returned it would be the workers’ own fault.
Frank Carney January 19th 1920

___________________________

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.

______________________________

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

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! 

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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

The Carney Brothers in World War I

During the War of Independence in the early 1920s, Frank Carney's colleagues in the Irish Volunteers were fully aware that he had served in the British Army. Some found this to be a problem and they were slow to trust an ex-British soldier. Others respected him for his time in the British Army, believing that this experience had helped to make him such an effective leader. The story of his army career had become embellished, and there was a widely held misconception that he had served in France, and also that he had been gassed in the trenches. Frank had never actually made it to the trenches, rather it was his older brother, James, who suffered the full horror of that awful war.

Frank's brief army career began on the 19th of August 1914. His Army records show that the nineteen-year-old Frank was 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighed in at just 110 lbs or 7.5 stones - a perfect size for a jockey, were he so inclined. The army surgeon signed him off as fit for service, a fact that was later to cause some controversy in no less a place than the British House of Commons!¹ 

Army Record 11122 Francis Carney

He was assigned to the 5th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, a new battalion created especially for war service. At the same time, his brother James Carney was in the 2nd Inniskillings, a battalion of  battle-ready regulars who were based at that time in Dover. On August 23rd 1914, two days after the first shot was fired in France, Sergeant James Carney was shipped off to war.² 

The 2nd Inniskillings  arrived at Bertry Station in Northern France at 4.30am on August 25th, and as soon as they met up with the rest of the 4th Division nearby,  they went straight in to battle.³  This was the battle of Le Cateau, where both sides were using modern quick-firing artillery, with airbursting shrapnel shells that caused total devastation. The Germans had a much greater force, but despite this the British held their position. The onslaught had caused very heavy British casualties and the Inniskillings lost 163 of their compliment of 675 men. James Carney again managed to survive, as he had done in the Boer War. However, for the next 10 days the Inniskillings were involved in a savage 200 mile fighting retreat.⁴

Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in France

At the barracks in Omagh, Frank had taken to army life and was doing well. On September 29th, after just one month of service, he got his first promotion and was made lance corporal. Three weeks later he was corporal and on the 14th of December,  just 4 months after sign-up, he was  promoted to Sergeant. According to World War One experts the speed of this promotion is extremely unusual, especially for someone who is not in battle. It is obvious from this that Frank Carney was thriving in army life.

Army History 11122 Francis Carney

By October 1914, his brother James Carney and the 2nd Inniskillings had made it to Flanders and they were dug in on the front line. On the 20th October, the Inniskillings were in a trench that was in the first line of defense and they were under constant heavy bombardment.They, like all regiments in the war, recorded their daily activities in their 'War Diary' and it makes harrowing reading. The War Diary for the 2nd Inniskilling Fusiliers for that day reads simply:

20th  Oct LE GHEER 

Enemy attacked our position at 7am and continued to press home the attack till 6 pm. Our  advanced posts were driven in. Casualties 6 killed & 16 wounded.³

One of those wounded on that day was Sergeant James Carney.  James had gone out under heavy machine gun fire to bring back a wounded comrade, and in doing so, he had sustained severe wounds. James was eventually shipped to hospital in England and then back to the barracks in Omagh to recover from his wounds.⁴ 

James Carney was awarded a medal for gallantry in rescuing his comrade, and in September of the following year, the local papers carried the news that Sergeant James Carney had been awarded the Cross of the Order of St George.

Fermanagh Herald, Friday, September 10th 1915 &
the Cross of the Order of St. George

Meanwhile Frank’s 5^th battalion of the Royal Inniskillings had moved to Dublin. In early 1915 they were at the Curragh in Kildare, and in April they were shipped to Basingstoke in England in preparation for war service.⁵  However, Sergeant Frank Carney was not with them. His lung problems had become apparent and a decision must have been made at some point that Frank was not fit to go into war service. He was transferred in June 1915 to the 4^th Battalion of the Inniskillings stationed in Clonmany, Co Donegal. The role of this  battalion was to provide reserves to be sent wherever needed and it is likely that Sergeant Frank Carney was training in the new recruits, a role that he was later to use to great effect in the War of Independence.

James Carney

His brother James had recovered from his wounds by October 1915. His battalion, the  2^nd Inniskilling Fusiliers had suffered such great loss in France and Belgium that they had been withdrawn into the reserve army. For some reason James was not sent back to his own battalion, instead he was transferred to the 1^st Inniskillings who were suffering greatly in that hellhole that was Gallipoli. The 1^st Inniskillings had been in Cape Helles, Gallopoli since April.  On November 1^st 1915, a batch of reserves were sent to Cape Helles, and with them was Sergeant James Carney.⁶  This time, he didn’t make it home.

At Cape Helles the battalions rotated their shifts in the deep trenches at the front line.  On the 27th December 1915, the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers relieved the 1st Border Regiment in the firing line. The trenches were flooded due to heavy rain, but still all four companies were engaged in enemy fire for the entire day. The War Diary records:

Cape HELLES 27^th December.

Battalion relieved the 1st Border Rgt in the Firing Line. Weather very infirm –  trenches in bad condition due to heavy rain, marked increase in enemy shelling. The Batt took about 200 yards additional firing line in the direction of Gully Ravine. All four companies in the firing line. Improvements to Saps and Fire Trench. Casualites 1 Killed 2 Died of Wounds, 1 Wounded ⁶

James Carney was one of those who died that day. He is remembered in a marker in Twelve Tree Copse Cemetry in Gallopoli, and his name is on the Monument in centre of Enniskillen.

His young brother Frank Carney was never to make it to the trenches, as his army life came to an abrupt end on  December 2^nd 1915. He was discharged directly from the hospital, the record reads, ‘No longer physically fit for War service’.

Army Record 11122 Francis Carney

Frank Carney had served in the British Army for one year and 107 days. During that time he had learnt quickly and he had learnt a great deal. He took all of this back to Enniskillen, later to join in a very different war.

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Episode 1 - Worthy of Honour
Episode 2 - Born to be a soldier

References:

¹ This will be revealed in the next post,  'The Army Pension'

² From the website "The Long Long Trail, the British Army 1914-1918", The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers Records

³ War Diary of the 2nd Inniskilling Fusiliers, UK National Archives, Catalogue Reference:WO/95/1505

⁴ Details of this incident and of James' service appears in an obituary printed in the Impartial Reporter of 27th January 1916. This was discovered by the team at the Royal Inniskilling Museum, Enniskillen and I am forever grateful that they kindly forwarded this treasure to me.

^{5 "}The Skins go to War", Royal Inniskilling Museum Newsletter, http://www.inniskillingsmuseum.com/newsletter-feed

⁶ War Diary of the 1^st Inniskilling Fusiliers, UK National Archives, Catalogue Reference:WO/95/4311, Image Reference:407

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.