Come Here To Me!

A number of recent publications on the 1916 Rising (you might have noticed there’s been quite a few!) have included the wonderful maps of the Dublin Fire Brigade’s Chief Officer Thomas P. Purcell, showing the destruction to the city following the 1916 Rising. I’ve used them a few times on the blog, most recently in an article on 1916 looters.

The innovative Purcell, engineer and quick thinker, was followed by Captain John Myers, who assumed the position in 1917 and held it for ten years. That meant he would hold the position throughout the revolutionary period that followed Easter Week  and into the birth of the Free State.

Evidently, he was sympathetic to the republican movement. In 1920, when the Church of Our Lady of Refuge in Rathmines went up in flames, local IRA men feared an arms-dump would be revealed in its remains. One IRA man would describe Myers as “a very fine fellow and, from the national point of view, thoroughly sound and reliable in every way.” Volunteer Michael Lynch remembered:

I told him the true story and asked him to see that the Rathmines people got no inkling whatever of the fact that some dozens of rifles and revolvers were lying in the debris under the floor of the church. He told me not to worry, that nobody would ever know. The incident passed unnoticed by anybody.

Just as Purcell had produced the detailed maps in 1916, Myers would do likewise in 1922, following the bombardment of the Four Courts and the Battle of Dublin. As with the maps of his predecessor, they reveal the sometimes surprising extent of  damage as a result of combat in a crowded urban environment:

Myers map showing destruction in the area of the Four Courts, 1922. (Thanks to Las Fallon, DFB historian, for map)

The Four Courts complex was occupied by Republican forces on 13 April 1922. In an event that had strong echos of the occupation of buildings by republicans in 1916, a green flag was raised above the complex. ‘Easter Week Repeats Itself’ was a popular Republican poster at the time, seeking to draw a continuity between the events of 1916 and 1922.  Among those to seize the building was 1916 veteran Liam Mellows, as well as Rory O’Connor, Ernie O’Malley, Peadar O’Donnell and Seán MacBride, son of the executed 1916 leader Major John MacBride.

The seizing of the Four Courts troubled not only the new Free State authorities, but also the British state. General Macready informed Winston Churchill days after the Republican seizure of the building that “”it is vitally important to avoid a general conflict, because it is probable Rory O’Connor…hopes to embroil British Troops in order to bring about unity in the Irish Republican Army against a common enemy.”

Militarily, the Republicans were up against it in terms of strategy and capability. Ernie O’Malley would later recall that “it seemed a haphazard pattern of war. A garrison without proper good, surrounded on all sides, bad communications between their inside posts, faulty defences..relieving forces on our side concentrated on the wrong side of the widest street in the capital [O’Connell Street].”  The bombardment did eventually come on 28 June, and the new Free State drew on the British state for support. Two borrowed eighteen-pounder guns were utilised to attack the Four Courts from across the Liffey. Days later, War News, the newspaper of the Republican forces, would encourage their supports to “rally to the flag”, insisting that “The attack on the Four Courts… is a complete failure…Despite continuous heavy gun and rifle fire, the defences of the Four Courts are intact.” This wasn’t quite the case in reality.

The battle led to the destruction of the Public Records Office, the forerunner to the National Archives of Ireland. Historians have spent decades debating if this was a deliberate act of destruction, or a tragic casualty of the fighting. Regardless,Peter Cottrell, in his history of the Civil War, recounts how:

A column of smoke rose over 200ft in the air as the ensuing fire consumed centuries-old documents. For hours fragments of ancient documents floated over Dublin and the event led Churchill to write to Collins after the fighting saying that “the archives of the Four Courts may be scattered but the title-deeds of Ireland are safe.”

What is interesting about the map produced by Myers above is the extent of the damage to buildings in the vicinity of the Four Courts, primarily caused by the debris of explosions. The area around the Four Courts was heavily populated, with a high density of tenement accommodation.

Myers map showing the destruction of Upper O’Connell Street (Sackville Street), 1922. (Thanks to Las Fallon, DFB historian, for map)

Myers second map shows the destruction in the area that became as ‘The Block’,  which included the Hammam and Gresham Hotels. Oscar Traynor commanded the Republican forces here, which included small contingents from the Irish Citizen Army and the Communist Party. Buildings were seized on 29 June, in the hope of diverting the Free State from its assault on the Four Courts.

It was evidently clear from the beginning of the Battle of Dublin that the Free State’s availability of armoured vehicles provided it with a crucial upper-hand. Todd Andrews, later to pen the classic memoir Dublin Made Me,  recalled that “a single armoured car approached, opening up this time exclusively on the Tramway Office. I was returning fire rather futilely with my rifle when a hall of bullets caught my firing slit blasting sand from the barricades with great force…I was stunned for a while.”

By 5 July, the Republicans surrendered ‘The Block’, with some senior figures, including Éamon de Valera, successfully escaping before this. Despite the call to surrender, 1916 veteran Cathal Brugha would instead choose to die with a gun in his hand, emerging from ‘The Block’ to engage Free State soldiers. Michael Collins was moved to write to a friend that “when many of us are forgotten, Cathal Brugha will be remembered.”

This map could have looked much worse than it does; as Padraig Yeates notes in his history A City in Civil War, “another conflagration was averted only when gallons of whiskey and other spirits were removed from Gilbey’s and from Findlater’s before the flames reached them.” Las Fallon, in his history Dublin Fire Brigade and the Irish Revolution, quotes Myers himself describing this as “the most critical period of the whole of the fire fighting.” Las also notes that “in total, eighty buildings were destroyed or partially destroyed in the battle for Dublin.” While the Pro Cathedral survived the flames, St. Thomas’s Chruch, which was Church of Ireland, was destroyed.

Much like Captain Purcell before him, Myers had done his best under stressful conditions. Joseph Connolly, an Irish Citizen Army who had participated in both the Easter Rising and the Civil War, would later assume the role of Chief Officer himself.

Captain John Myers. This image appears on the front of Dublin Fire Brigade and the Irish Revolution, available here for €7.50..