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THE TRUCE

Winston churchill, who was secretary of State for the Colonies had said 'One hundred thousand new special troops must be raised, thousands of motor cars must be armoured and equipped; but three southern provinces of Ireland must be closely laced with cordons of block-houses and barbed wire, a systematic rummaging and questioning of every indivdual must be put in force'.All this was to try to augment the terror methods of the time. But his ideas were to come to naught. The English people themselves reacted against the methods and the United States was beginning to take notice. The British cabinet had decided that if a solution was not reached by July, to impose Martial Law on the whole country with the exception of the six counties of Ulster, to reinforce the garrisonwith an additional 19 battalions and a strong force of marines.

Lord Birkenhead said' If I must speak frankly I think that the history of the last three months has been the history of the failure of our military methods to keep pace and overcome the military methods which have been taken by our opponents'.

And also, the amateur soldiers of the Republic, ill equipped and self trained had brought the might of an empire to its knees. And a Truce was declared.

Still Matt Flood and his comrades moved through the countryside with care. They hiked the nexzt morning from the O'Driscoll home to Newcestown, outside Bandon. This was a fairly long march for the escapees but the activity in the prison camp had kept them fit. Here they parted with Mick Lordon who was a native of Newcestown and the six piled into a Ford car sent from Cork by Sean Hegarty OC 1st Cork City Brigade and driven by young lad, Sean Power. They drove to Cork City where they stopped at Wallaces, which was Hegarty's headquarters. Matt Ryan left the party there. Hegarty asked Matt where did they want to go, Matt replied 'If get to Fermoy,we'll be alright'. Hegarty then asked if they had any arms and when they replied no, he gave Matt a Bulldog, a 38, that the young fellow had been carrying and Matt put it in his pocket.

They got to Fermoy without incident and arrived at Murphy's cottage at Duntaheen Road about one o clock in the morning. The house was in darkness and it seemed that the family were asleep. Matt was talking to the lads and the two girls who were in bed inside the window, Margaret and Statia, recognised the bass voice. Matt and his comrades outside could hear the girls arguing. It's Matt, said one It couldn't be. He's in the Camp in Bere Island' said the other. Eventuallly their father, John Murphy heard the noise and opened the front door. The six piled in and soon the girls were up and about helping their mother make tea for the party and listening to the tale of the escape. Then John Murphy got word to town and Tom Cavanagh came out in a car. He drove them down to the 'Doorelea', the Fermoy Hospital where the four of the lads were put up for the night. matt and the driver returned to Duntaheen Road and went to bed. the following morning the driver had to go back to Cork and matt went across to Newtown, and down the field, where St. Mary's is now, and in to the hospital via the back entrance. Here he mey the lads again, rested after being well treated by the nuns and nurses. Again they were on the move. One car was organised to take two of the lads on to Limrick that night and Mick Bowler had organised to visit his mother in Youghal after he had dropped Michael Hurton of Ardmore, home. Bowler asked Matt if he would like to come along for the spin, and so they set off through the quiet countryside and made their the journey without incident. Matt remembers on one part of the roadway they were on the high road when they saw the British military driving along below, the two comrades tensed for an instant but soon they relaxed again as the lorries below purred on their way, oblivious of being observed.

The Royal Hotel, Pearse Square, Fermoy

Matt returned to Fermoy and that night he was told to report to the brigade commandant at the Royal Hotel. He went into the big Hotel on the Square in in the reception room at the left of the hallway met George Power who was using the room as an office. He was liaison officer between the IRA and the British in Fermoy. Power was a bit surprised to see Matt knowing that Bere Island was a mile and a quarter from the mainland. But he was delighted at the story of the escape. George himself had been involved in an escape from the military in Fermoy when he had jumped out the side window of his home when they knocked at the front door.

'You're not going to get much rest Matt',said Lynch ' we are going to start training camps. Two of your friends from Mallow will be passing along here in an hours time so it is not worth your while going anywhere'.

While Matt waited Lynch told George to send a runner up to George Power, Senior, who was a tailor and he came down to measure Matt for a coat and whipcord breeches. Soon Dick Willis and Jacky Bolster arrived in a car driven by Owen Curtin and after a meal of tea and sandwiches supplied by Nellie Cashman, who worked as a cook in the Hotel, they were on their way.

In the car there was a Hotchkiss and a Thompson submachine gun and a couple of revolvers and automatics. The idea of the camp was they were to be trained on these weapons and also on the rifle. Of course they also had other weapons, a Peter the Painter, a Parabellum and a Smith and Wesson. The camp was held at Pyne's of Ballyvolane outside Castlelyons and on the course they let them fire about ten rounds, a burst of the Hotchkiss gun, each. ' They were all fairly good shots', recalls Matt. ' They all hit the target anyway'.

The course was by way of revision and most of the men had been on active service. Lynch felt that there was no time for resting - that they would have to keep on training. He also discouraged his officers and men from coming out into the open too much.

Of the weapons used on the course the Thompson submachine gun was new to many of the men. Most of these weapons had come in since the truce or just before it from America.

'Peace was partially declared if you like but we were stil on the move', said Matt. ' If you like, some of us anyway. After a few days knocking around the town we got another order then to proceed to Ballinganiv, outside Kildorrery to start another camp for that half of the Brigade.It was the same procedure there and we used the same weapons. Dick Willis, Jack Bolster and myself were in charge of the training. We had I think, nine days camp there. we broke up on a Thursday and then it was on the road again, this time to the Lismore area to a Mr. David Rice's house, which was our headquarters.David Rice now, would be a brother of the man in Strawhall. We arrived there on a Sunday night and we had an addition to the three of us that time, we had Jimmy Mahony, who was a famous violinist then, with us. There was a TD i Lismore, Sean Goulding who came out to the camp that night and he wanted to hear a few tunes on the fiddle fro Jimmy Mahony. That night we had a bit of a singsong with Jimmy playing a few tunes to help us along. On Monday morning there were about three or four from every battalion there and we started the training. I think we ha obout thirty four men in training and once again it was the same procedure. There was always a feeling that hostilities could break out again so we trained hard. Most of the lads didnt believe that the truce was going to last. It was comical in a way.There was a Company Captain named Power from the Lismore company, John Power, I think was his name. He sent word out to the camp on Saturday night that theBlacka and tans in Lismore were going to attack the camp. When we got that news we mobilised the whole party and we took up an ambush position near that pub, midway between Lismore and Tourtane. We had twenty- eight rifle-men, a Thompson Gun, a Hotchkiss Gun and a few lads with Grenades. We waited from nine at night until half-pat eight the following morning,and no one turned up. We were out all night for nothing. And we found out when we went into Lismore that night that it was the reverse, that tha Tans had heard about us and they were told we were going to attack their barracks and they stayed in barracks all night. So there was someone having a joke on both parties. If you like we almost broke the truce ourselves.

In the months of the truce the garrisons in Fermoy and other areas were maintained by the British. They did not start to withdraw until after the Treaty was signed on the 6th december 1921. Matt tells of the incident that occured the night it was signed. 'the night it was signed, early that night-we got orders-all active servicemen were mobilised and we were told that we should parade in full dress at Kent's of Bawnard.We proceeded there and we were addressed by General Tom Barry, and his words were,I remember to that Column,"Boys, there's going to be a sharp and short war". We understood, it was also understood in Dublin that night, that negotiations were nearly broken down.So that was the idea behind the speech. Anyway after that Tom Barry told us to fall out for a bit and some fellow went into Castlelyons and got a paper.He came back waving it and saying "The Treaty is signed, lads", Some were saying it was only a hoax, only a cod. but anyway we were dismissed and we came back to our own company areas. Then we discovered it was only too true. The Treaty had been signed'.