www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE
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Cook and staff, Rath Camp, 1921.
Guard Tower at the Rath Camp 1921.
Hare Park huts, Curragh Camp, circa 1914.
and space for exercise. The wooden huts were arranged in four
symmetrical rows, referred to as 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D' Lines.
Beyond the main barrier, the camp was surrounded by
another fence consisting of five single strands of barbed wire
about four-feet high. The Rath Camp was regarded as escape-
proof. To add to the difficulties of intending escapees, a large
searchlight was mounted on the watchtower of the main mili-
tary camp. During the hours of darkness, the beam from the
searchlight lit up the entire Curragh plain. The capacity of the
camp was for a war-time battalion, or about 1,000 men, but
when it was eventually filled, there were around 1,300 intern-
ees and overcrowding resulted.
By the beginning of March 1921, the camp was ready for
business. The Leinster Leader, a weekly newspaper published in
Naas, carried a report in its 12 March issue that 'another intern-
ment camp, conducted on the same lines as the Ballykinlar
Camp, has been opened at the Rath, Curragh. A large number
of prisoners,' the report continued, 'have been transferred from
the Hare Park Camp to the Rath, where no visits are allowed'.
It went on to report that fifty prisoners from the west, includ-
ing a priest, passed through Naas on their way to the Curragh,
while thirty prisoners from Athlone military barracks were
transferred to the Rath Camp, along with a further seventeen
prisoners from Maryborough Jail.
The Rath Camp remained one of the main detention centres
during the War of Independence and was the scene of the
biggest mass-breakout from a prison camp when over fifty
internees escaped through a tunnel in September 1921. It was
closed after the signing of the Treaty on 6th December 1921.
Interned: The Curragh Internment Camps in the War of Inde-
pendence by James Durney and published by Mercier Press will
be launched by Col Brendan Delaney in the Curragh Military
Museum at 19.33pm on 25th July 2019, and will be available for
purchase on the night and in all good bookshops.
