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The Ballycotton Job

by Thomas G Mahon

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Trellis said: " The saga of Ireland’s Civil War following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 was a harsh reality that significantly shaped the social and political landscape of the country well into the modern era.

The anti-Treaty IRA knew from th The saga of Ireland’s Civil War following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 was a harsh reality that significantly shaped the social and political landscape of the country well into the modern era.

The anti-Treaty IRA knew from the beginning that finding enough arms and ammunition to advance their cause would be crucial in the attempt to overturn a seriously compromised bargain with the British that neither relinquished the whole island nor granted true independence.

Before the bloody fighting began, the first grab at needed munitions occurred in February 1922 when anti-Treaty IRA men attacked the Royal Irish Constabulary base in Clonmel, Co. Waterford obtaining hundreds of rifles and ammunition.

At the end of the following month, what had been building up in the minds of the anti-Treaty elements within the IRA’s Cork No 1 Brigade led by the brilliant strategist Séan O’Hegarty, the execution of the bold plan to seize the repatriating British supply ship Upnor with all her guns and bullets, unfolded almost faultlessly.

Mahon writes superbly on this historical episode. His telling is engrossing and scrupulous. The use of the word “Job” in the book’s title suggests a British-style ‘caper’ story’ – but it was certainly more than that. The author adroitly supplies the reader with the necessary historical framework and delves into the personalities and background of key players both Irish and British including the aforementioned mastermind of the Upnor’s seizure, O’Hegarty, as well as the outgoing Commander of the Royal Navy in Ireland, Admiral Sir Ernest Gaunt.

Mahon lays out a fascinating build up to the seizure and delivers insightful analysis when describing the fallout. The subject of the book is extensively and impeccably researched. Among other sources, he has probed UK government records from The National Archives in Kew, the Churchill Archives, witness statements from Ireland’s Bureau of Military History, and interviews from the Archives of University College Dublin, and drawn material from numerous journals, newspapers, and books.

Additionally, he has undertaken site inquiries, taking us to the streets and vistas of Queenstown (now Cobh), the islands of Cork harbour, and, of course, Ballycotton itself. While there are some helpful, if basic, maps laid out in the book, a small gripe is the absence of photographs to visually invigorate the story. Perhaps we’ll see them in second edition.

On April 3, 1922, Winston Churchill, then the Secretary of State for the Colonies, told the House of Commons that the Upnor “was piratically captured upon the high seas by a gang of Republican conspirators hostile to the Provisional Government [of Ireland] … whose control over Cork and this district is practically non-existent”. As the author observes, Churchill placed blame on the Provisional Government and gave misleading figures on the number of arms and explosives seized.

The British were keen to minimize the embarrassment and significance of the affair and, in a relatively short period of time, press and public attention on that island waned. Yet in Ireland, Michael Collins, formerly the head of the IRA during the War of Independence, but now chairman of the pro-Treaty Provisional Government as well as now commander-in-chief of the new National Army, was seething.

The Irish Civil War erupted in June 1922 with the bombing by the National Army of the Four Courts in Dublin that had been held by anti-Treaty forces. Cork city’s IRA was subdued the following August and, in May 1923, hostilities ended. It was a brutal confrontation and the guns and munitions from the Upnor, dispersed and deployed, surely furthered the bloodshed.

Mahon’s book serves as an important reminder of the complexities and intertwining of Anglo-Irish history and relations that continue, albeit under less strained circumstances, to this day and most notably seen in the post-Brexit world and tangle of the Northern Irish Protocol. ...more "

Aug 04, 2022 09:48AM · see review