Some of this story came down from the ancestors. Along the way the dead forgot a name here and there or took a particular detail to the grave, depriving the living of the whole story.

 

 

 

 

Part 1: “The Bible”

 

“. . . when an old person dies, a whole library disappears.”

 

— Simone Schwarz-Bart

 

 

“My great-grandmama told my grandma the part she lived through that my grandma didn't live through and my grandma told my mama what they both didn't live through and my mama told me.”

 

— An extract from Corregidora by Gayl Jones.

 

 

Cork City Gaol took in a new prisoner in the 1860s when a man called Kiely stepped through the gatehouse to begin a three-and-a-half-year stay. Kiely owned a hatter’s shop on Patrick Street in Cork. The front of the shop faced the main street, while the rear backed onto the English Market. Kiely had the contract to supply silk hats to the Catholic Church in Munster, allowing him to provide a comfortable life for his wife and children in an area of Cork called The Lock.

 

A cell in Cork City Gaol.

 

There are two stories surrounding his arrest and imprisonment. The first goes that Kiely contributed to a secret fund, deemed illegal by British authorities, which sought to alleviate the suffering of the poor in the city. Kiely had survived the Great Famine and the memory of his city swollen with starving refugees, described by the Cork Constitution in April 1847 as “walking masses of filth, vermin and sickness,” might go some way to explaining his motivations.

 

The USS Jamestown arrived in Cork from Boston that same month carrying 800 tonnes of famine relief to augment an already vastly inadequate public relief programme. The Jamestown’s commander, Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, accompanied Father Theobald Mathew around the city, and his account gives a further insight into Kiely’s world:

 

“I saw enough in five minutes to horrify me, hovels crowded with the sick and dying, without floors, without furniture, and with patches of dirty straw covered with still dirtier shreds and patches of humanity; some called for water to Father Mathew, and others for a dying blessing.”

 

However, another story goes that he was contributing money to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), who would launch an unsuccessful rebellion in 1867. This story seems the more likely considering IRB activity in the city and the high-profile arrests and imprisonments of James Mountaine and Brian Dillon around the same time.

 

Whether Kiely contributed to rebellion or the relief of indigence matters not, because the British authorities discovered his name on an incriminating list and arrested him. Kiely and the other men refused to swear an oath on an English Bible at their trial, hence the court produced an Irish version. Kiely’s wife — whose first name is also only known to the dead generations — discovered the Bible in his coat pocket when she collected his clothes from the gaol. Kiely had no memory of pocketing the Bible, presuming he’d absentmindedly taken it with him as he stepped down from the dock.

 

 

Kiely’s stay in Cork City Gaol was a tragic one. His son, Alfie, died at only five months old, while Kiely himself later succumbed to tuberculosis. Following his arrest, Kiely had handed over the management of the shop to a trusted friend — another name we don’t know — believing at his death that his friend would take care of his family. This friend proved to be a most untrustworthy custodian, stealing every penny and item of stock from the business. In Cobh, he boarded a ship for America, leaving Kiely’s family destitute.

 

Kiely had four or five children. Other than the tragic baby Alfie, we know how two of them landed: One of his daughters became a nun and died in San Antonio, Texas, in 1924; his other daughter, Mary, went into service before marrying James Gray, a coachman, with whom she had four children. Mary inherited Kiely’s Bible from her mother, who in turn gave it to her son, Jim Gray, on his wedding day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2: “The Gun”

 

 

“And so ended for us what we called the scrap; the people later on, the trouble; and others, fond of labels, the Revolution.”

 

— An extract from On Another Man’s Wound, Ernie O’Malley’s account of the War of Independence (1919–1921).

 

 

Jim Gray fought in the scrap, serving as Brigade Transport Officer in the Cork No. 1 Brigade, Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1920 his Commandant, Tomás MacCurtain, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, ordered Gray to acquire a handgun for his personal use. To this end, Gray ingeniously posed as a loyalist to secure the permit for a revolver from District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

 

This gun would bind Jim Gray, Swanzy, and Tomás MacCurtain together.

 

On the night of 20 March 1920, a gang of RIC men with blackened faces entered MacCurtain’s home on Thomas Davis Street in Blackpool and murdered him in front of his family.

 

At the inquest into his murder by coroner James J. McCabe, which heard evidence from 97 witnesses, the Cork jury came to a verdict.

 

"We find that Ald. Thomas McCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, died from shock and haemorrhage caused by bullet wounds and that he was wilfully murdered under circumstances of the most callous brutality and that the murder was organised and carried out by the R.I.C. officially directed by the British Government. We return a verdict of wilful murder against David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of England; Lord French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Ian McPherson, late Chief Secretary of Ireland; Acting Insp. General Smith of the R.I.C.; Divisional Inspector Clayton of the R.I.C. and District Inspector Swanzy and some unknown members of the R.I.C."

 

— As recorded in Intelligence Officer, Cork No. 1 Brigade, Seán Culhane’s witness statement to the Bureau of Military History (WS0746).

 

The Cork Brigade had no choice but to act. Seán Culhane stated: “From evidence given at the inquest and as a result of information we gathered at the time, there was no doubt among the Officers of our Brigade that District Inspector Swanzy, R.I.C. was the prime instigator in this murder. Members of the murder party actually left Swanzy's home on that night to carry out the murder. Feeling was very high in the Brigade over this exceptionally brutal crime, for not alone was Tomás MacCurtain the Lord Mayor but he was also Brigade Commander.”

 

Culhane discovered that Swanzy had left Cork under an assumed name for Lisburn in Co. Antrim, later confirmed by General Headquarters. The Cork Brigade ordered Culhane to Belfast and Dublin to make the arrangements:

 

“When all the necessary information was gathered and we were satisfied that Swanzy was still there I reported back to Dublin and sought further help as it was General Headquarters which financed the job. I met Mick Collins and, after a frank discussion, he remarked that the job was much too big for me. I probably looked immature as at the time I was not yet twenty years of age. He said it was a job for experienced men and mentioned about picking selected men from Dublin. I made a strong protest to him and informed him that my orders were very emphatic and that it was solely a Cork Brigade job. After thinking it over he said he would leave the decision to the Minister for Defence.

 

“Later I accompanied Dick Mulcahy to the Minister (Cathal Brugha), where Mick Collins had already arrived. The Minister questioned me very closely as to my proposed plan of action, which I fully detailed to him. Whether due to my youth or innocence I was not overawed by the presence of such important figures, so after a lot of questioning I apparently established my point for at the finish Cathal Brugha said ‘Go ahead and do the job’.”

 

Intelligence Officer, Cork No. 1 Brigade, Seán Culhane.

 

The Cork Brigade selected four men to go with Culhane: Dick Murphy, “Stetto” Aherne, C. McSweeney and Jack Cody. Culhane decided later that two men would stand a better chance of escape and sent all but Dick Murphy, Captain of ‘G’ Company, 1st Battalion, home. Culhane and Murphy enlisted Seán Leonard, who worked at a garage in Belfast owned by a Loyalist, as their driver. On 22 August 1920, Culhane and Murphy brought the Cork hammer down on Swanzy, symbolically using MacCurtain’s personal revolver.

 

“We were not too long waiting until the congregation started coming from the Church so when I observed Swanzy and saw the direction he was taking I gave the tip to Dick Murphy and we moved towards the corner, about a block away from the Church, where we had provisionally selected for the job. When he was only a few yards away from us I said to Dick “That's him”. I fired the first shot getting him in the head and Dick fired almost simultaneously into his body. It transpired at the inquest held later that either of the shots would have proved fatal.”

 

The two men escaped under fire. After abandoning the car outside Lisburn, they made their way across the hills to Belfast. Of Leonard’s fate, Culhane reported:

 

“I had asked Seán Leonard to accompany us and promised him a job in Fords Works in Cork. He preferred, however, to take his chance and said if apprehended he would say he had to do the job under compulsion with a gun to his body. He was later arrested and tried for his life. As far as I know he was sentenced to death, later commuted to fifteen years’ imprisonment.”

 

Their train home passed through Lisburn, where Culhane saw “a number of houses on fire, which we heard later were houses of Catholic sympathisers.”

 

In Dublin Culhane and Murphy met Collins at Vaughn’s Hotel, who took their revolvers, promising to send them on to Cork later, an auspicious move by Collins as the military searched the two men when they arrived home. For whatever reason, Collins never sent MacCurtain’s gun to Cork. The revolver eventually surfaced in the collection of the Independence Museum in Kilmurry. Still bound together decades later, Jim Gray identified the revolver as belonging to his Commandant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 3: “The Outrage”

 

 

“I regret to inform the Dáil that on last Friday evening an outrage unparalleled in our history was committed at Cobh . . .

 

“It is impossible to find words to describe this dastardly outrage. In its deliberation, and in its savagery, it has no parallel. The soldiers were unarmed and defenceless. They were on the most friendly terms with the people of Cobh . . . And when they come ashore to spend their few hours' leave amongst our people, they are mown down by machine-gun fire from four murderous ruffians wearing Army uniform.

 

“It is almost inconceivable that any civilised country could produce even four men who could plot and carry out a deed so foul and so callous. The annals of savagery may be searched, but I doubt if any worse instance of murderous cowardice can be found. It is a stain upon the honour of our country which has made our people at home and our friends abroad hang their heads in shame . . . The one consolation we have is the knowledge that, outside the murderers themselves, there is no citizen who does not realise and abhor the enormity of the crime.

 

“In the name of the Irish people I have tendered sympathy to the victims of the outrage and to the British Nation. The Government will leave no stone unturned to bring the criminals to justice. A reward of £10,000 for their detection has been offered, but I am confident that our people do not require any such incentive to induce them to give their whole-hearted cooperation in the hunt for the murderers.

 

“The Irish nation is bound to do all in its power to alleviate the sufferings of the victims of this horrible crime committed on Irish soil, and the Government will see that such reparation as is possible will be made to the sufferers.

 

“I realise that no remarks of mine adequately could represent the feelings of the Government and of the Dáil on this occasion. I can only ask the Dáil to join with me in expressing its abhorrence of the foul deed and in tendering to the relatives of the dead and injured, and their relations, the sympathy of the Irish Nation in this wanton and murderous outrage.

 

“I move that the Dáil do now adjourn as an expression of that sympathy and as an evidence to the British Nation and to the civilised world of the regret and humiliation which we feel that such a crime should be committed in our country.”

 

— William T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council, speaking in Dáil Éireann, Tuesday, 25 Mar 1924.

 

 

“Wherever I have gone in the past I have held up my head and I have been proud of being an Irishman. For the first time in my existence, when I read of the Cobh outrage, I felt ashamed of being an Irishman. I am ashamed that among our section of the human family four men could be found capable of doing what was done on that occasion at Cobh. I am ashamed that four men could be found to get below the level of the worst kind of brute creation.

 

— Denis John Gorey, speaking in the Dáil on the same day as Cosgrave.

 

 

As part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922, Britain retained a barracks on Spike Island in Cork. On the evening of Friday, 21 March 1924, a group comprising 50 British soldiers and several civilians landed on the pier in Cobh. A Rolls Royce Silver Ghost waited for them to disembark. The Cork No. 1 Brigade had originally commandeered the vehicle during the scrap.

 

That evening it was back on Brigade business.

 

Five anti-treaty republicans disguised as Free State soldiers manned the Rolls Royce. Armed with Lewis machine guns they opened fire, killing one, an 18-year-old private, Herbert Aspinall from Rochdale.

 

William T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council at the time of the outrage.

 

The men then fired on the HMS Scythe, a British destroyer, as they drove out of Cobh. The Scythe reported no casualties. The inquest held on 24 March returned a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder’ in the death of Aspinall. The Free State government later proclaimed the guilt of five men in the Freeman’s Journal on 14 May 1924: Sandow O’Donovan, Frank Busteed, Peter O’Shea, Jim Gray, and his brother, Miah.

 

The five men emphatically denied the any involvement in the outrage, releasing a statement the following day to the same publication:

 

“The reasons which prompted the Free State authorities to accuse us are obvious. We have been on the run for the past two years, and they assumed they we would not be in position to defend ourselves. We have no intention of facilitating the Free State authorities to get out of their difficulties by allowing this charge to rest on our shoulders. It is our considered opinion that the Proclamation as issued is an attempt to justify the shooting of us in the event of capture.”

 

They went on to refer to the government’s proclamation as libellous, but there is no doubt that at the very least the Gray brothers were involved. The attack in Cobh was very likely an effort to exploit a mutiny of some senior officers in the Free State army and finish the job against the British. Cosgrave agreed: “The murderers could have had only one motive in their murderous minds — that of embroiling our people in a struggle with Great Britain.”

 

The Gray brothers, fearing the Free State government intended to settle the score, went into exile: Jim to Weimar Germany and Miah to the USSR, only returning five years later. Jim still had his grandfather’s Bible, which Philip Dixon Hardy and Sons, of Upper Sackville Street in Dublin had published in 1849. The ancestors of a man called Kiely and Jim Gray still have the Bible 171 years later.