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INTERNMENT

"I was to be released in February of 1921, but instead of being released I was transferred to Kilworth Camp- whatever their idea was. I remember I used to take the lads out and give them physical training and I remember one old sergeant there who said "Where did that bloke learn all this?" Of course he wasn't sure where I learned it at all. After a couple of weeks in Kilworth we were planning an escape. Then one morning, about three o' clock, an officer came into the hut and switched on the light and said, " As your names are called, pack up and dress and report for your breakfast". We were put in lorries sometime around six in the morning and taken to Spike Island. There was about eighty of us in the party and it was a convoy of lorries. There were about twelve or fourteen prisoners in each lorry. We were taken out to the island from Queenstown in an old launch. When we landed there we were put into a kind of barrack quarters. Of course we had not sooner landed there when we were planning to escape again. We got into the company of men who became famous after, one was Dick Barrett, executed by the Free State forces on the 8th December 1922. Moss Twomey from Clondulane and another was a famous Tipperary man who was later Senator Bill Quirke. The Quirkes were auctioneers and great horsey people around Fethard and Clonmel. Others were Henry O'Mahony of Passage, afterwards Chairman of the Cork County Board G.A.A. and a lad, I don't know if it's Curran or Hurton, he was from Waterford anyway, somewhere around Ardmore. I was tipped off I was to be in that bunch anyway. The usual luck, I think the following morning we were called out, told to get up and pack again and once more we were put on a boat. It was a kind of destroyer and we were on our way, to Bere Island. We were kept below decks and there were some of the sailors who were inclined to be a bit tough, they called us "The Irish so and so's" but of course we answered back in somewhat the same language. When we arrived in Bere Island we met a little lieutenant who, I'd say, hadn't too much service. He was inclined to be waving the revolver all around the place, that kind of fellow. He gave us a lecture when we were inside the gates before we were taken to our huts and he said "Not even rats can get off this island, so ye fellows won't get off it either". I happened to be the nearest to him and of course I couldn't take it, so I said "No matter where you put Irishmen they'll get out"."You won't get out of here unless you go out legs first," he replied. "That way itself, I'll get out anyway" I said. Nine days later seven of us got out."

Speaking to Matt and listening to him telling about the escape from Bere Island made me realise the great organisation that backed up the men in the I.R.A. They were able to get messages to H.Q. at all times and when a decision was made it seemed that nowhere along the line did anyone fall down on the job. In later years, after the Second World War, we had read about the great escape from Prisoner of War camps in Germany, and of the methods used by enterprising escapers in their effort to get away from their captors. But the escape from Bere Island bore all the signs of a well organised operation and it is evident that these techniques were similar to those used in Germany, in later years. Hiding for long hours in a stifling hot burrow in the summer sun and then cutting through a barbed wire entanglement within earshot of the sentries was all part of the escape. But let Matt tell it himself.

"I was told they tried tunnelling but this was a failure, so we had to find another way out. I don't know if you know the arrangements of an Internment Camp. They'd have two compounds, like, one near the huts and the other some distance away from them. We discovered that apparently in the First World War the army had made some sort of a trench in the compound away from the camp. I suppose it was used to train recruits. It was at the end of this trench that we found we could make, well you couldn't call it a dugout- more like a burrow. We were able to dig that out. How we were going to get the stuff out of the trench was the problem, so we put our heads together. We discovered that the British tommies always loved to see the Irish fellows at horseplay, so we had one crowd attacking the trench, throwing sods in and we were defending it by making up balls of earth and throwing them out. The British never copped on. We wanted the sods for a special purpose later. They were to be sewn on to a piece of sacking and that was to be used as a cover when we started to dig out the bank. Apparently we did a good job, for the Military never noticed it."

"Of course the escape was being planned all the time. As you know in the compund were several types of men, some were completely innocent and interned for no reason at all, probably caught in some round-up, others felt it was all over as they were captured and others never thought of anything but escaping. When we started first there was a kind of feeling that no one would get out and some of them felt they would hardly ever make it. But ther were several of us who were determined to make it. When the camp council, who were An Seabach, and Mick Bowler who was company Captain of Fermoy at one time, and with the brains of Professor O'Rahilly and Canon O' Kennedy, later president of St. Flannans College, discussed the matter, they settled on a plan. They decided that the only way was to get a friendly worker in the camp, a former R.I.C. man named O'Sullivan to take out a message. Eventually thye got word to Lynch that six or seven men could be got out and they sent out a list of twelve names. After a few days word came back to go ahead and the first seven names sent out were to be the men to try. I was included on that list. The others were Peader Dunne from Dublin, who was married to one of the Dalys in Limerick whose brother was executed in 1916, Richard O' Connell, later a Cumann na nGael T.D. Mick Bowler, Mick Lordon, Matt Ryan of Nenagh, who was an Intelligence Officer in the Cork City Brigade, although he was a Tippereary man, and Michael Hurton from Ardmore, County Waterford. Now if anyone can remember the summer of 1921 it was one of the hottest on record. Well the sun was blazing down and the seven of us hid in the dugout from 4,30 in the afternoon to 11.00 that night. Talk about sweat, we were almost suffocated in there. The boys back in the billet made up our beds at nightfall, with dummies in them to make it look like we were really asleep. They must have been convincing, because we weren't missed for three days. Then at eleven, Mick Lordon and myself crept out of the dugout. It was dark enough then and I had a pair of wire cutters brought in for the purpose to cut through the barbed wire entanglements. These entanglements were about nine feet wide and ten feet high, I picked a spot midway between two sentry posts and all the time we could hear the sentries shouting to each other "Number One Post Alright", "Number Two Post Alright" and so on around the camp. When I cut the wires Lordon went back to call the others and we had two bed boards, they measured 9ins, by 1 inch by 6ft. I got down on my back under the cut barbed wire and crawled in holding up the wire with the board balanced on my hands and feet. Lorden did the same at his end and the other lads crept over our bodies. The last fellow out got a bit excited and left the wire drop down on me but I got out, we suffered no other injury. Now, our camp was on the right and the military camp was on the left so we had to do a circle to get past the military camp on the left and down to a little cove. We had no compass of course but luckily we found the little road, which was more of a cart-track. On the beach there were these four fellows with a fairly big boat and we piled aboard. When we were out a bit one of them told us to "Lie down, lads" so we all got down on the floor-boards. No doubt about it they were four great men. I don't know much about oarsmen but they were four excellent ones anyway. They told us that they often had to "heave to" when stopped by destroyers who were active in the sea around that area. We landed safe enough, somewhere between Goleen and Castletownbere. I am not sure, it was a village like that, but it was somewhere between that village and Castletownbere. I don't know if you can imagine it but it was now about half eleven or twelve and we had been working at the escape for most of the day. Anyway we were delighted with our success so far and we followed a goats path up a hill as we had been instructed. We lay in the shelter of a furze brake, glad of rest. Then about twenty minutes later a young lad came up the hill, he was about fifteen years old in a short pants, and a blue jersey and he passed near where Iwas lying.

I asked him where he was going and he said he was going out to find his fathers donkey. I thought it was an awful hour for a young fellow to be out looking for a donkey. Anyway he went on a bit then turned back. When he came back I decided to take a chance "Up Cork" I said. That was the password.

He showed no suprise, "Follow me, it's not so far at all," he said. He led us to a farmers house about half a mile away and they gave us a right good feed. I can tell you we were in a right mood for it because it was now two in the morning and we had nothing to eat since twelve the previous day. I suppose we were there for about an hour and a half, when two volunteers, two O'Driscolls, Michael and Jim from Kealkill Company came in. They told us the truce was on since noon that day, 11th July 1921. Still we did not feel safe as we were still escaped prisoners and we felt caution was needed.