47
the garrison
during the
week and had
personally led
a raid out onto
Rathmines
Road where
he captured
the three unfortunate
civilians. Sheehy-Skeffington
was returning home after
unsuccessfully attempting to
form a citizens' action group, to
prevent the widespread looting
that was going in the city.
Dickson and McIntyre happened
to be in the area. All three
were executed on Capt Bowen-
Colthurst's orders the following
morning.
Following this, Portobello
remained home to units of
the British Army deploying
to the Great War, as well as
being involved in the War of
Independence thereafter, until
its handover to the National
Army in 1922 after the Treaty.
Thereafter, it served as GHQ
of that new army, becoming
the home of its Commander
in Chief, Gen Michael Collins,
until he departed on that ill-
fated journey to the South of the
country in August of the same
year.
Throughout the life of the new
state, the barracks housed units
of the National Army. In 1953,
it was renamed after Cathal
Brugha
1
, who had spent part of
his youth in the Rathmines area
prior to becoming involved in the
Irish Volunteers. The barracks
became home to the 2nd
Infantry Battalion in the 1960s
and the 2nd Cavalry Squadron
(formerly 2nd Motor Squadron)
moved there in the mid-1990s
on the closure of Griffith
Barracks. On the re-org of 1998,
Eastern Command HQ became
2 (E) Bde HQ and subsequently
2 Bde HQ, housed in Cathal
Brugha Bks. Finally, in 2012,
2 Inf Bn was disestablished and
merged with 5 Inf Bn to form
7 Inf Bn, headquartered in the
barracks.
Troops on the backs of trucks
prepared to depart the barracks
to travel to the range for
firing practice. Cathal Brugha
Barracks.
Troops marching in Cathal Brugha Bks 1922
HISTORY OF CATHAL BRUGHA BARRACKS
1
Cathal Brugha, a veteran republican revolutionary, had fought in the 1916 Easter Rising, been IRA Chief of Staff (1917-
1919), first President of Dáil Éireann (1919) and Minister for Defence (1919-1922). Taking the anti-Treaty side in the Civil
War, he died on 7th July 1922 as a result of a bullet wound sustained in action against National Army troops.
