INQUEST EXPOSES PRISON SCANDAL

ON June 1, 1946 the Army Council of the Irish Republican Army sent a letter to the Secretary of the Republican Prisoners Release Association, 9 North Frederick Street, Dublin.

Headed Oglaigh na hEireann, Ard-Oifig, it read: “A chara, The attention of the Army Council has been drawn to the activities of your organisation and I have been directed to state that the publicity which you gained as a result of the hunger strike of our late Adjutant-General was taken as being support for your organisation only.

“I am to state on behalf of the Army Council of Oglaigh na hEireann that many of the statements which came from platforms under the auspices of your organisation were not representative of our aims and objects.

“We would be glad that in the future any further statements which are made from your platforms are in keeping with the traditions in which our organisation was founded and we regret that no such publicity was given.

“The Army Council have authorised me to inform you immediately of this attitude of your organisation which is regretted.”

The letter was signed by the Secretary to the Army Council.

The Republican Prisoners Release Association, founded at the end of 1945, had issued a constitution in April. Bell states that “the provisional National Executive included some of the most famous militant Republicans: ([Maurice] Twomey and [Jim] Killeen from the ‘thirties and Simon Donnelly, who had not been in the IRA since the Troubles” [1916-23].

However, the Army Council letter to the RPRA foreshadowed a divergence which would shortly become public. Apparently views were being expressed on the hunger strike protest platforms which were not in keeping with the basic Republican position.

The inquest on Sean McCaughey was held in Portlaoise Prison itself. Coogan explains that the deputy coroner refused to allow Sean MacBride, counsel for the next of kin, to cross-examine the governor.

CROSS-EXAMINATION

Mr MacBride: Are you aware that during the four-and-a-half years he was here he was never out in the fresh air or sunlight?

Dr Duane: As far as I know he was not.

Mr MacBride: Would I be right in saying that up to twelve or eighteen months ago he was kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to speak or associate with any other persons?

Dr Duane: That is right.

Mr MacBride: Would you treat a dog in that fashion?

Mr McLoughlin: That is not a proper question.

Mr MacBride: if you had a dog would you treat it in that fashion?

Dr Duane: (after a pause replied) No.

Mr MacBride: Did you have to attend the prisoner for a nervous breakdown?

Dr Duane: he suffered from a nervous condition for a time.

Mr MacBride: By reason of solitary confinement?

Dr Duane: I don’t know.

Coogan states that “replying to his own counsel, Major Barrows, the prison governor, said of McCaughey:

“He refused to wear prison clothes, and a man could not go out in the air without clothes, from the health point of view. Decency forbade it, and apart from that, his health would not stand it. You cannot have a naked man walking about a prison.”

The jury’s verdict was “that the conditions existing in the prison were not all that could be desired according to the evidence provided; but there was no reflection on the Governor, Medical Officer or Staff intended.

All of that was the understatement of the decade — or of several decades! Coogan concludes: “If the (Hayes) affair had not brought McCaughey southward, he might have survived the war, though, given his temperament, he might have been killed in a police battle, been executed or died during one of the jail strikes.”

Bell says, p 253: “Generally, conditions at Portlaoise became public only during the inquest on McCaughey and subsequent questions in the Dail (sic).

“Many with no Republican connections were appalled that a civilised government could allow men to go naked for four-and-a-half years, prohibited from attending Mass because they ‘were not properly dressed’ and kept men in solitary for seeking political status.”

Owen Sheehy Skeffington, a member of the 26-County Senate, writing in the Irish Times on October 14, 1962 — de Valera’s 80th birthday — put it on record that in his estimation the two blackest marks in de Valera’s career were the railroading to death of George Plant and the prison treatment and hunger strike death of Sean McCaughey.

To return to Major Barrows, he was of course a former British army officer whom Fianna Fail later sought to make a scapegoat for conditions in Portlaoise. His father before him had been a British prison official.

“The Governor at that time (February 1947) and for twelve years before was Major Barrows. He used to boast that he was the only governor who had been a prisoner in his own jail.

“That came about when he was in charge of the prison in Dundalk (now the Garda barracks) in July 1922. The Republicans under Frank Aiken captured the town and promptly clapped the governor in a cell in his own jail. But it did not last long for the Free Staters counter-attacked.

“He was in charge in Portlaoise during McCaughey’s period and was obliged to give evidence at the inquest . . . it was a dramatic inquest which the coroner tried to muzzle . . . During the time I was there I found Barrows all right, but I wouldn’t like to be an ordinary prisoner under him.”

‘ON THE PHONE’

Willie Stewart of Dundalk had received twelve strokes of the cat-o’-nine tails as well as being a blanket man in Portlaoise. He said that Mac Curtain was “the most honourable of the Portlaoise prisoners” at that time.

Stewart had his own unusual brand of humour, which no doubt helped him through his many trials. When Tomas was conducting an Irish class in the big cell some time between 1943 and ’46, they fell to translating surnames. The name Barrows, of course, came under scrutiny and the Governor was baptised! ’Mac a Trucail’.”

Among the members of the new Sean McCaughey Cumann of Sinn Fein was a man later to become Uachtaran of Conradh na Gaeilge — Annraoi O Liathain as Co Chorcai. He said later that the old veterans in the organisation made matters somewhat difficult for the new members flushed with enthusiasm.

RESURGENCE

Bell states: “In June 1946, during Wolfe Tone Week, an independent group of Republicans, suspicious of the (would-be) Clann [na Poblachta] men, out of sorts with the IRA because of old scores and new suspicions, had brought out their own newspaper, Resurgence.

“Essentially it was a reaction to the death of Sean McCaughey. While the editors offered little new, they had been determined not to go the way of the Clan (sic). The committee joined Sinn Fein as a group and in August 1946 began publishing Resurgence as a monthly . . .”

A reader has brought to our notice the section on Sean McCaughey in Belfast Graves which was published by the National Graves Association in Belfast in 1985.

In the course of the article it says: “Throughout Ireland’s struggle for freedom, captured Republican Volunteers have steadfastly refused to be branded as criminals. This resistance has often led to Irish Republican prisoners being treated worse than ordinary prisoners, sometimes worse than animals.

“Inhuman treatment of Irish prisoners we expect from the British administration in the North, but we would do well to remember that the Free State is capable of, and has used, such treatment of Republican prisoners in the past . .

“Sean McCaughey was born in 1916 in Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone. His father was prominent in Sinn Fein; in fact he had worked in the organisation since 1906 when it had been founded.

“In 1921 the family moved to Belfast and he attended school in Ardoyne (the Holy Cross National School). He grew up in the area of Cave Hill where Wolfe Tone swore his great oath that he would break the British connection or die in the attempt.

“So this was the background of a young man who in 1934 joined the IRA.

“At the same time as being a member of the Movement, he played an active part in the Gaelic League. he won a scholarship to the Donegal Gaeltacht and was a very keen hurler and Gaelic football player.

“When he had completely mastered the Irish language, he became a teacher and passed his knowledge of all things Irish to his pupils.

“Just before Christmas 1938 he was appointed OC of the Ardoyne Company of the IRA, and was also appointed to the Belfast battalion Staff.

“When the British began the great round-up of Republicans in 1938, Sean managed to escape the net and went on the run. He helped to build the Movement so successfully that the British named him as a dangerous enemy and issued his photograph to all RUC men.

“During 1939 he had been in the 26 Counties and had been arrested and served a short term of imprisonment. [He was held with others when returning from training in the Dublin mountains. His imprisonment was spent in the Curragh Glasshouse under the name ‘Sean Dunlop’.]

“After his release he returned to his unit in Belfast . . . He rose to become OC of the Northern Command and (later) a member of GHQ Staff . . .

MASSIVE TURNOUT FOR FUNERAL

“There was a massive turn-out for his funeral in Dublin. Sixty men, all of whom has been in Free State jails, formed the Guard of Honour.

“Not only were Republicans there but also many young men and women who were fired by this man’s tremendous courage. Sean McCaughey’s fight will be remembered alongside that of the heroic H-Block men and Armagh women in the annals of Irish history,” the article concludes.

Fifty years on from Sean’s sacrifice, his cousin Frank McCaughey of Clones, Co Monaghan was Ulster honoree at the May 1996 Testimonial Dinner. original from Clogher, Co Tyrone, Frank was a colourful Sinn Fein councillor in Clones from 1960 to 1985.

In 1979-80 he was Chairman of Clones Urban District Council and remains a faithful Republican activist to this very day, following in the footsteps of his famous hunger striker cousin of 50 years ago. And in Limerick prison, nine Republican prisoners loyal to the principles of Sean McCaughey and the H-Block martyrs fasted for 24 hours on May 11 to commemorate McCaughey’s sacrifice and highlight their own demand for political status. Because of their protest by then they had been denied fresh air and sunlight for three months.

(More next month. Refs. The IRA by TP Coogan; The Secret Army by J Bowyer Bell; Harry by Harry White; Belfast Graves by the NGA, Belfast; Irish Times, October 14, 1962 and Army Council letter, June 1, 1946.)

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