Michael Robert McElligott, of Listowel, County Kerry, was a friend to my grandfather. An early member of the Irish Volunteers, Michael Robert seemingly dropped out sometime after the 1916 Rising. But secretly, he was still the leader of the local organization. Presumably, he was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. I feel confident in making this statement because it was the IRB that issued the order for Volunteers to quit parading in public. The IRB, or, Fenians, were acutely aware of the fact that all previous uprisings, insurrections, and rebellions had been doomed by betrayals. Only through strictly enforced secrecy could the Irish nation ever hope to overthrow the foreigner.
My grandfather, a trade unionist and member of the Irish Transportation and General Workers Union, was a supporter of Sinn Fein’s rebel parliament, but took a dim view of any further military adventures after the disaster of 1916. It was utter foolishness to expect the virtually un-armed people of Ireland to take on the might of Britain’s military. And in truth, what would it mean to the working men and women of Ireland to exchange the English Landlord for an Irish one? In theory, Dail Eireann’s Democratic Programme was a fine aspirational document of intent, but to the trade unionists of 1919, it was mere words while on the ground the working men were making gains far more important to the rank and file, the working class.
In the aftermath of the Great War the ITGWU was doubling its membership, expanding its rolls to include agricultural workers, farmhands, across Leinster and Munster. Prices for farm goods, held back by rationing and price controls during the war, were now climbing, as were profits and production. Farm workers suddenly held the whip hand when demanding pay increases. Having suffered through ruinous inflation (the pound devalued in the midst of the contretemps), now was the time to even up. The strong farmers and producers had no good reason not to share in the boom, it being evident to all that only meanness could possibly animate resistance to demands for increased wages. For the working man in Ireland, prospects pointed to a golden age.
And so, as the newly-christened Army of the Republic, the IRA, began a campaign of boycotts against police, and then physical attacks in the form of barrack’s sieges, trades union men like my Pop stepped aside, anticipating the words of The Who some fifty years later: “meet the new boss…same as the old boss.”
It was Christmas season in the year 1920 when everything changed for Pop. His childhood friend, John Lawlor, had come home from seminary where he was studying for the priesthood. His father, David, was a vocal supporter of Sinn Fein, and had been targeted by local police as a troublemaker. In the fall, in an attempt to terrorize and intimidate, they’d shot his cow. And then, on New Year’s Eve, they killed his son in the town square, beating him to death with boots and rifle butts.
Pop said he woke to the sound of his sisters’ crying. He ran to the Lawlor’s home and found his friend laid out for a wake. “I knew who the captain was,” he said, meaning McElligott. “I went and told him I wanted a rifle.”
“I have too many of the boys living in the bushes,” the captain told my grandfather. “It’s well you’re with us now, but I need you to stay in town.” And so Pop had to pretend he was still neutral in the fight. It almost cost him his girl, my grandmother.
Pop remained in town and became something of a pariah. With the coming of the Black and Tans the whole county was besieged with terror: Tralee was sacked, the creamery at Abbeydorney wrecked, and the village of BallyMacElligott virtually burned to the ground. Old men in Listowel were dragooned into service filling in roads that had been trenched by the IRA. When a certain district inspector was shot in the street, reprisals were taken. Captain McElligott was almost discovered when a secret dispatch was intercepted by the English – a dispatch that named Captain Michael McElligott as the leader in the town. Only that he went by the name “Bob” kept him from being arrested. A cousin of his, also named Michael Robert McElligott, and also a captain in the IRA, had gone north to help the undermanned IRA in Donegal. Home for a few days to visit his parents, he was hailed in the street by a friend. A passing Special Constable heard and, on the lookout for the rebel McElligott, immediately arrested him. Captain Bob was himself standing in the street in the moment, and exchanged glances with his cousin as he was frog-marched away. Each knew what was happening – the mistaken identity. But what was to be done? Nothing.
There are more stories to tell about Captain Bob, but for the purpose of this blog entry, and to keep it to my grandfather’s experience, let me jump forward to Bob’s tragic end.
The peninsula of Dingle was laid siege, the enemy knowing a strong force of rebels were hiding out in the mountain fastness. Somehow Captain Bob was able to break the cordon and attend a meeting on Caherconree with the leadership of the Kerry IRA. But coming down the mountain he was caught and killed. I believe my grandfather was either with him or awaiting his return in Tralee, because he was first to learn of Bob’s death. Travelling back to Listowel he informed Bob’s mother and brother before the news even reached the Listowel police. With Michael Robert’s brother he returned to Tralee. Still ahead of the news that Michael Robert was indeed the leader of Listowel’s IRA, they returned with his body by train. A hurriedly arranged funeral mass was said at St. Mary’s Church, followed by the traditional procession to the cemetery. It was there my grandfather made a dramatic reveal of where his allegiance lay.
At the graveside, with few there understanding the importance of Michael Robert to the revolution, many still thinking he, along with Pop, was a neutral in the fight, shamefully fraternizing with soldiers and police, Pop paid tribute to his friend by producing a tri-colour flag. He draped the coffin and made the salute. He told me he couldn't allow Bob to be buried without any military honor, even though it would expose himself to retribution.
“I left from the graveyard,” Pop recalled decades later. “I couldn't go home after that, so I climbed into Stack’s Mountains to go find the column.”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” they told him when he arrived at the hideway.
I like to think of the relief, bound with heartache, felt by my grandmother in the cemetery, finding the man she loved was neither coward nor quisling.
One of my most precious possessions is a photo of Captain Bob, in uniform, on the back of which my grandfather wrote simply, “my friend Bob.”
Inspired by the life of my grandfather, and weaving together the sometimes contradictory threads of politics, militarism, and social revolution, my novel, COLLINS RISING, reaches its climax during the island-wide General Strike of 1920, when for three days the Red Flag flew over the Emerald Isle.
Available on Amazon.
