An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir July/August 2017 www.dfmagazine.ie 38 | by JOSEPH EA CONNELL JNR G eneral Michael Collins's convoy left Portobello Barracks on Sunday 20th August 1922, and made its first stop at Maryborough Jail (now Portlaoise Prison), where Collins discussed transferring some of the prisoners there to Gormanstown camp to relieve the overcrowded conditions. He also spoke with some of the prisoners, including Tom Malone, about ending the Civil War. He asked if Malone would attend a meet- ing to "try to put an end to this damned thing". As he left, he slapped one fist into his hand and said "That fixes it – the three Toms [Malone, Tom Barry and Tom Hales] will fix it". At Limerick Barracks the OC of the Southern Command, Gen Eoin O'Duffy, met Collins and discussed his belief that the war would soon be over and under- stood that Collins wanted to avoid any rancour. The convoy then headed through Mallow, and spent that night in the Impe- rial Hotel in Cork City. The next day, Collins and Dalton visited some local banks in an effort to trace Republican funds lodged during their occu- pation of the city. (During July the IRA col- lected £120,000 in customs revenue and had hidden this money in the accounts of sympathisers.) At each bank, Collins told the manager to close the doors, and had the bank directors identify the suspicious accounts. He concluded that "three first- class men will be necessary to conduct a forensic investigation of the banks and the Customs and Excise in Cork". He and Dalton also travelled the 30 miles to Macroom where Collins met Florence O'Donoghue, who was in the IRA but was neutral in the Civil War. The first phase of the civil war was ended, O'Donoghue wrote. He and many others recognised at this point that the IRA/Re- publicans could not win the war, and that Collins came south searching for peace. Collins was desperately trying to bring the war to a close, as well as trying to give some face-saving agreement to the lead- ers on the other side. It is thought that he asked O'Donoghue how to stop the war and to mediate for him. Collins's party left the Imperial Hotel on Tuesday, 22nd August. The convoy went through Macroom towards Béal na mBláth about 8am where it stopped to get direc- tions, then through to Bandon. In Lee's Hotel in Bandon Collins briefly met with Maj Gen Seán Hales, OC of the Free State forces in West Cork. It is thought that Hales was informed of a meeting Collins had intended with Civil War neutrals in Cork that evening, and that he had met with O'Donoghue and others the day before, and they discussed how an end to the war could be achieved. In the early morning, the ambush party met in Long's Pub. The men who assembled at Béal na mBláth were not a column, but officers who gathered to hold a pre- arranged staff meeting. When Florence O'Donoghue met with surviving members of the IRA/Republican ambush party in 1964, they said they were unaware that Collins was in the area until that morning. The plan to ambush the party was decided on as part of the general policy of attack- ing all Free State convoys, not as a specific plan to ambush this convoy. They saw the opportunity to overpower an enemy convoy on its return journey and they decided to take up the challenge and ambush it. In the late afternoon a message was received that Collins's party was in Bandon, but as it was thought unlikely that the convoy would come through Béal na mBláth a second time the ambush party began to disassem- ble the mine and evacuate the position. Originally, the ambush par ty num- bered between 25 and 30 according to varying sources. Collins's convoy left the Eldon Hotel in Skibbereen at 5pm and headed back to Cork. The convoy detoured around Clon- akilty on the way back because of a road- block. (It has never been fully explained why the convoy returned the same way they came out in the morning. However, when the anti-Treaty forces left Cork city they blew up most of the bridges and cut most of the roads, so there were few pass- able ways to travel in the area.) In Bandon, Collins again met Gen Hales, who was the brother of Tom Hales, by coincidence a member of the ambush party. "Keep up the good work! 'Twill soon be over" was Col- lins's parting salute to Hales. On the road out of Bandon, Collins said to Dalton: "If

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