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WITH LYNCH IN ACTION

'Our first stop after Mallow was Ballyclough, where we were on guard at the creamery, then it was on to Freemount, that's outside Charleville, where we had a training camp. You know this was an area where the whole Column would put up, it could be any place. There would be generally four men to every farmer's house. Then there would be a centre, it would be the headquarters. I think Murphys was the name of the farm. Well, we'd assemble there every morning at about nine o'clock and O'Malley would take the lads out on tactical exercises, training, and we had this old house where I would try to get the lads to learn how to handle the Hotchkiss. O'Malley was so interested in it anyway that one day he came in and left someone else in charge of the lads. I had got to the pitch where I had the lads loading the gun. When O'Malley went near the weapon I said "The gun is loaded now". The saftey on the Hotchkiss is you turn the cocking handle down, that makes it safe, and if you bring it up, you release it. The first position is for semi-automatic and you bring it up altogether for automatic. I was explaining all that to them anyway when in walks me bold head-quarters officer. When I said the gun is loaded, he replied "That's alright, I'll be careful".

'So he sat down and I also sat down because he was an officer. Well it was a good job there was no fellow in front of the muzzle, I always made sure of that like, a saftey precaution. Anyway he sat down and whatever way he tipped the trigger four or five shots went off and a woman milking a cow outside in the yard, believe you me, the bullets went between her legs and riddled the bucket. There was milk flying out of four or five holes. I kept looking at the woman waiting for her to fall over. I was sure she was hit for she was directly in the line of fire. But O'Malley said cool-like "It's alright". But he could never say anything to me after that for he knew that I'd remind him of the incident.

'Of course at the camp we had rifle drill, lectures, and range practise. Of course we didn't actually have range practise but we went through the motions with a little home-made aiming disc. You know one fellow lay down and the other aimed at it. Then we taught them to take first pressure, you see some fellows had the habit, if they were left alone, of pulling the trigger and you couldn't hit a house that way. The important thing that time was to train them to aim, and I was asked umpteen times why a fellow should restrain his breathing. It was a good question if you like. But you had to explain that if he did not restrain his breathing the gun may go up or down. They copped on quick. They were all intelligent. They were easy to train. Really there was no training in them. Early on they were picked as leaders due perhaps to their local popularity and sometimes, not often mind you, it didn't work out. They were lucky. They were fortunate that in most cases it did. But there were always the talkers who could go to a meeting and get themselves elected but they were no use when it came to active service. This is my opinion about some of them, that they talked so much that they were soon in trouble and in gaol. Then some other fellow was elected. When you were in gaol you were a casualty, remember that, and another fellow got your rank and what ever position you had, and that was that.

Matt Flood posing with Liam Lynch's portrait

'I remember up in Hickey's of Badger's Hill, Lynch got the idea that he'd call all the Company Captains together. He gave them several tests like picking a likely ambush spot in their area on the map or something simple like that. Well he came out afterwards and I was having a smoke and he said "I don't know who made some of them captains". I replied "How were you made an Officer?". "Ye voted me" said Lynch. "Well", I said, "That's how they were made too".

'The ambush at Ballydrochane happened about eight days after the Mallow Barracks affair and I think I'm right in saying that it was the first time the I.R.A. had used machine guns in action. We went into position before dawn; dawn in October would be about seven or half-past so we must have left camp at four or five in the morning. We marched to the scene and I carried the Hotchkiss on my shoulder all the way. Liam Lynch, Ernie O'Malley and Sean Moylan were in charge and we were prepared to take anything from one to five lorries. We were in position and we waited. You know the tension that every fellow fells...I imagine it anyway...before the real thing. The waiting is long and the only difference here was that Lynch was standing near me. I spoke to him "I don't know how soon they'll come. But I think I'll ease the springs in the gun to take the pressure off".

"Thats a good idea", said Lynch. So I let the mechanism go forward. Then he started talking and telling me yarns and he said to me, "You were never in gaol", "No thank God", I replied. I didn't think I'd be in gaol a little more than a week after that. Well anyway I said innocently "If you were in gaol you wouldn't be here".

Liam Lynch

'The strange thing, they did arrest Lynch and several other big ones in the City Hall when they arrested Terry Mac and they gave all assumed names of course. After a day or two they kicked them all out of gaol and kept Terry Mac, little knowing that they were after hunting Liam Lynch out. I thought he was chancing his arm but he said "That's a fact".

'He was a nice fellow to talk to but as the fellow said "Don't stand on his corns". The signal when things were wrong for Lynch was, he had a habit of rubbing his forehead above his glasses. Just across the eyebrows. I don't know what liking he took to me but it lasted even up to the end. I met him a month or two before he was killed and we got on very well together. I can still picture him in that long sort of rain-coat he wore and his keen eyes peering through the glasses down the road looking for the approaching lorries.

'He was a very genuine man, strict in his habits and he didn't drink or smoke. It is hard to explain to those who were not born then...to explain the Irish Republican Army...because it was different from any other army. Where else would you get a General going out at night guarding his troops while they slept. That was Lynch. It wasn't his job but he'd be out there. He was a very humane man also, his instructions were, if you could at...don't kill. If you like that was a hard thing to do but he'd be happy if you could bring off a stunt without anyone being killed. That was the kind of fellow he was but he was strict as well. If he found you had taken a drink it was back to your unit. I'll tell you a story about that. 'At the time we were training we were between Mallow and Ballydrochane and Dick Willis, Jack Bolster and myself, wherever we got the few bob, went into the village on a Saturday night and had a couple of pints, that would be the most of it. As we were going to start back I said "Bejapus, Dick, if we meet the big fellow on the road he'll smell it for sure". "There's sweets in every shop...they call them sen-sens", said Dick.

'They were a very smelly sweet with a kind of perfume from them which could take away the smell of the drink. Well it was a good job we got them for well on the road back we met Lynch. "Where were you...Having a walk around? Getting to know the locality?" Lynch said as he looked suspicious. "Yes" I said. But bejay he nearly had his nose in my mouth and I knew what he was on. I was standing to attention and afraid I'd be sent back. But that blooming sweet saved us. 'You could never tell whether he was feeling the strain of his responsibilities, but the only thing was you could meet him, whether it was telling on him or not, you could meet him late at night. I might go down and have a look at the sentries...and I'd meet him along the way. He'd say, "What, can't you sleep either?" "Tis a grand night", I'd say..."Down for a walk". But that seldom happened.