Come Out, Ye Black and Tans

For the day that’s in it.

One hundred and one years ago today County Mayo was the location of the last major engagement of the War of Independence.

At Carrowkennedy the IRA were waiting for the enemy.

Only four weeks after the disaster at Kilmeena Michael Gilroy’s West Mayo Flying Column scored a brilliant success against Crown Forces.

He knew that the Lewis Gun that the Brits had on one of the lorries was decisive in any firefight.

His column had orders to concentrate their fire on the man operating that weapon.

It was the decisive tactical tweak that led to the IRA’s success that day.

Realising that they were on the losing end of the firefight some of the Tans took refuge in a cottage and held a family hostage.

There was a stand off and then the Brits surrendered.

Contrary to the order from GHQ in Dublin Gilroy spared the Tans.

IRA orders at the time stated that they should have been executed.

Eight Brits died in the ambush and the wounded among the 16 who surrendered were afforded medical assistance.

It goes without saying that had the British prevailed in the ambush then the IRA volunteers would not have been treated with the same degree of humanity.

In a guerrilla war, the enemy can often be your main supplier of weapons.

At Carrowkennedy the IRA captured 22 rifles, eight drums for the Lewis gun, several boxes of grenades, 21 revolvers, and about 6000 rounds of rifle ammunition.

Gilroy then ordered his men to pour petrol over the two lorries and the car and set them ablaze.

I first heard of the Carrowkennedy ambush when I was a young boy.

An old lady told me that she had concealed a dispatch detailing the successful IRA operation in her home in Westport County Mayo.

It was almost discovered by a raiding party of Tans.

That was my grandmother Julia, who was heavily pregnant, as these British War criminals ransacked her home.

Fortunately, the Brits came away empty-handed on that occasion.

That dispatch was successfully delivered to GHQ IRA by a guard on the Westport to Dublin train.

The courier was her husband Joe, my grandfather.

He had been intimately involved, as a member of the Brigade Staff, in the intelligence operation that tracked the movements of the unit of Tans that would be ambushed at Carrowkennedy on June 2nd 1921.

So, in a sense, he was taking a written report of his own work up to Mick in Dublin.

Every time my grandfather performed that courier role for the IRA through Martial Law areas he had a death sentence on his person.

Moreover, the Tans would not have given him a quick end.

Lest we forget…