Curfew now lasted in Dublin from midnight till five in the morning; one could not be out of doors without a permit during those hours.Hold-ups by armed soldiers on the streets increased , more houses were raided at night. Curfew made me keep respectable hours. I had always looked forward to the long talks which lasted till morning while I sat on the floor. Long acrimonious discussions, games of mental ping-pong in which ideas were clarified and hammered into shape, or became molten and fluid at our next meeting.   Often enough our oblique imps would switch us away, or one left in despair with a sense of frustration.I was not asked since I was last in town where I had been in the interval.    Walks in the night on rainy pavements luminous from street lamps when talk continued at a street corner or hall door.We found it as difficult to go to bed as to get up.Intimate beaks of banter which picked on thoroughly, yet an aloofness that left personal life alone.Books to be read and discussed, calls on friends at unexpected hours; throughout the intimate warmth of friendly Dublin life with an escape to the mountains for a long walked if one got fed up and wanted to be alone.

It was a real treat to sit in St. Stephen's Green watching patterned flower beds around the galloping Clydesdalish bronze horse supporting George the Second, or the delight of ruffled glint in the leafy trees. Grey-blue and steel-grey skies, patched and streaked with slashes of dark and white clouds, moved slowly to mix to fleeting satisfaction; they brought a cold wind that spiralled worn dead leaves along the path.    Children from Cuffe Street stretched on the grass, knarled men from the slums with bitter faces and undersized bodies sat on wooden seats, women gossiped, small girls in bare feet, or with one boot and stocking, carried young brothers half their size, mothering. Nursemaids pushed prams to and fro as they flirted with the red-faced keeper.In the National Gallery there were a few good pictures to be looked at, and books to be read heard in the National Library.

Wind was dull in the city; it was more like a draught save when a gale swept in.The night sky and the moving moon had nothing to do with city life. I now had the taste of the country firmly in my teeth. There was a definite friendliness and ease about Dublin, but also an air of polite helplessness. It was more tolerant.A quiet aloofness lingered round the mellow austerity of its eighteenth-century houses in a number of large squares, but the mood became strident and frowsy in the blight of the slums. Dignified wealth and open-mouthed poverty alternated their strophe and antistrophe in the capital.

The city's breweries, distilleries and biscuits were not much of an economic asset; unskilled labour predominated, and was quickly affected by trade conditions.A walk through by-streets to St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Coombe, by Thomas Street to the duplicated forms in Guinness's Brewery brought one more in touch with the haphazard life and trade of Dublin.

The new Auxiliary Force could be seen, moving swiftly in open Crossley tenders, seated on each side with rifles held across their knees.Wearing officers' khaki tunics, Glengarry bonnets angled, they had a dashing neat appearance.    They were conscious of their power and soldierly snap.They felt impressive.People stopped to look at them.‘Why aren't they attacked?' I asked Diarmuid O'Hegarty.    ‘It would be easy to lob an egg.'

‘That will come, don't fear,' he said.

Four months ago cadets had been sent out as defence officers to instruct the RIC in the defence of barracks and to strengthen morale. Then they had been formed into an Auxiliary Police Division, commanded by a divisional staff. Individual companies were moved from place to place throughout Ireland and were controlled directly by the Police Adviser throughout their divisional staff.

In the evening time I did Grafton Street between four and six.Cadets and officers were in mufti and uniform; it was easy to pick them out when they wore civies. We passed each other or sat drinking tea at nearby tables in Mitchell's café or the Grafton Street Picture House. That was stupid, I would admit to myself, as I drank my solitary tea, for a cup of tea was not worth fighting for; but Dublin was my city and I would not admit the right of foreign troops to deprive me of the habit.

Some of their hip pockets jutted out in rigid lines; all would be armed.I carried a Smith and Wesson .45 and a Parabellum underneath my coat; the revolver seemed to follow the contour of my iliac bone, automatic was strapped over my heart. I could reach it in a quick draw as if I were fixing my tie.Daily I practiced quick draws so that there would be no fumbling when I was in trouble. Weapons were now an undisturbing part of us; they could not be noticed even by one of ourselves, Before I left home my brother Frank's service Webley had been sent back from Greece.Then it had looked like a small piece of artillery.   It was heavy, awkward, my had shook when I tried to hold it steady; no wit seemed to be as relative and as indispensable as a fountain-pen.

Terence McSwiney's hunger-strike in an English prison was coming to an end.The result was inevitable; we hoped he would not be released when his body was almost used up. Feeling at home seemed to have sent impulses abroad to the European press; it seemed the most important event that had occurred in Ireland.In Washington women picketed the British Embassy, longshoremen walked off British boats. Ireland went into mourning when he died on the seventy-fourth day of his fast.He had become a symbol of part of a new nation; disciplined, hard, clear, unsentimental, uncompromising, a conscious using of vigour to build up strength.

Kevin Barry, a young medical student, was court-martialled in Dublin.He had taken part in an attack on a military lorry.A young English soldier had been killed.After dawn on the morning of the hanging crowds waked along the streets to Mountjoy under a cold November sky.Outside the gaol gate armoured cars moved through the kneeling people who said the rosary aloud.Tin-hatted Tommies with fixed bayonets stood in rows on the sides of armoured lorries. A quiet crowd, tense with emotion, hardly speaking to each other.‘The poor boy, the poor boy,' a woman cried, ‘God help us all.' Tears came as she swayed on her knees, both hands held up; those near her began to cry, some could not stop, gulping noises continued for a long time.A girl kept saying aloud, ‘Mother of Perpetual Succor, help us; Mother of Perpetual Succor, help us.' Aeroplanes circled with a metallic beat the noise crashed above the rise and fall of Hail Marys. ‘Bad luck to ye, wouldn't less than that do ye,' shouted d a man who straightened a fist at the sky.   Kevin Barry was a symbol of the enthusiasm of youth; resolute in giving, he, for the people, was the nation, which, however warped, futile and misdirected, had youth, life and a spirit of sacrifice.

It had been intended to rescue him by blowing in part of the gaol wall.  Rory O'Connor was to be in charge of the demolition party, but the British, alarmed at the gathering crowds, had strongly reinforced the gaol garrison.

Our Headquarters Staff had become more organized. Throughout the city were their offices and duplicate offices, and those of government departments of Dáil Éireann, houses where ministers and staff officers could be met; others in which they ate and slept.They carried on their work as if they controlled the city.Dublin for over seven hundred years had been held by the British. It was their sea-opening to the plains and their principal base; for the past hundred years it had been the centre of separatist Ireland. Hidden meshed of either government stretched in tenuous nets below the everyday life, but the enemy web was no nearer to the surface.Dublin Castle, the great symbol of misgovernment in the people's minds, was again a fortress which higher officials seldom left openly.   Towns built around a King John keep or a Tudor castle were again garrisons, their influence varying between their armed strength and the people's resistance.The gap between the two was becoming more impenetrable; it was deepened by a steady withdrawal of the factors in which a joint life once met.

I saw Mulcahy, the Chief of Staff, to discuss the situation in Munster, talk of operations and read reports. He would spread out a number of half-inch maps as he talked, and point a pencil at barracks or battalion headquarters. He said, ‘I see,' at intervals when I answered questions about the relative strength of our men and the British.

In general, the Staff were too absorbed in routine to dissect minor points in tactical evolution.   Roy O'Connor, Director of Engineering, had not yet devised a simple container for throwing petrol or inflammatory material under pressure from a distance; the blowing up of some men who had been experimenting with a Stokes trench mortar had deprived us of a useful weapon against posts and barracks.We had no armour-piercing bullets.Munitions Department had few hand grenades, there were no rifle grenades, no explosives worth talking about.There was no standard landmine for dealing with armoured cars or steel-coated lorries on the roads. A man was lucky if he had two fills for his automatic or revolver; no brigade had more than forty or fifty rounds for each rifle; there was not much shotgun stuff, an it was useful only when it had been refilled with buckshot pellets.It was hard to keep our weapons in repair, harder still to keep arms and stuff dry and clean.Police and military raids were becoming more thorough; they tapped walls, tore up floors, dug up back yards, measured heights and lengths of rooms to try to ferret out hiding-places.

Headquarters Staff officers were always spoken of by their initials:CS, Chief of Staff; ACS, Assistant Chief; MD, Minister of Defence; DO, Director of Organization; DI, Director of Intelligence; DT, Director of Training; AG, Adjutant-General. They signed their names in different ways.Mulcahy used a hieroglyph; some of the others used their ranks without names.   Michael Collins in clear writing always signed his name in full. A hand grenade was now an ‘egg'; an ambush was a ‘job', a ‘hit-up' or a ‘bush'; papers might be spoken of as ‘dope', and explosives made by our Director of Chemicals, Jim O'Donovan, were ‘war flour' or ‘Irish cheddar'.

O'Connell, known as Ginger, was Assistant Director of Training.Ginger was willing to discuss Foch's principles of Henderson's essays, call down the weighty Clausewitz, or suddenly illustrate a point from a textbook or from wide browsing. Hw quoted precedents from the guerilla tactics of the Boer War of the Cuban fight.   Von Lettow Vorbeck, he spoke of with admiration; we had to read of his campaign in German East Africa, cut off for years from Germany and supplies, against the British.He could deal with training in a mildly scientific way though he smacked of the textbook. It was always easy to talk to him. Owing to lack of arms, however, we could only dribble at fighting; precedents gained in other countries as a result of hard fighting might be stimulating to talk about, or to be proved possible, but we could only much around.The other members of the staff knew little or nothing about training and operations, their strong points were organization and administration. The training staff, as far as the country was concerned, dealt with training through short notes in the monthly issues of An t­-Óglach , which was smuggled to all brigades.

Ginger was of medium height and portly. He had a rather heavy red moustache, was inclined to baldness, about which he laughed but with apprehension. He had a slow, reflective manner of speech and when he laughed at his own jokes, an expectant chuckle, dry at the base.Energetic men were ‘thrusters' and ‘stout' fellows; there were others who ‘saw the other side of the hill;.He savoured the detailed circumstances of the plugging of a detective or the bloody mess of a successful ambush.His knowledge of strategy and general line of thought in terms of our fight evidently made contribution to the CS who now referred to men ‘who saw the other side of the hill'.

Staff officers and Dáil officials changed their offices to avoid suspicion.There was a constant movement, an unceasing watchfulness, but small sign of any tension. Communications were carried by special messengers as telephones could not be used.   The post office was used only for correspondence sent to people who were not associated with the movement or suspect.   They would then pass on the letters to our officers. This made for extra clerical work and paper records; or made meetings of individuals more necessary to relieve the load on, and the danger run by, dispatch carriers.

With Desmond Fitzgerald, Director of Publicity, I met foreign journalists and labour men who were getting angles from either side.    It was a mild adventure for some, an exciting thrill for others, to talk to men of the hidden government, for whom Castle officials, seen earlier in the day, were hunting. Mick Collins was busy as Minister of Finance and as DI.His armed intelligence squad moved about looking for enemy officials, secret-service men and detectives. Collins was often with Arthur Griffith, Vice-President of the Ministry.   Griffith had watched the development of the military aspect with misgiving; since the ‘German plot' arrests of 1918 the IRB had gained more control in all organizations.Griffith had hoped to build up a constitutional movement, Sinn Féin, and through it slowly to absorb the power and control of the British.Some of us thought that he was not a separatist, and I did not like to see Collins become more friendly with him.My doubts voiced the pseudo-military mind of the IRA and its fear of constitutional respectability.

One Saturday Collins said, ‘Mind yourself tomorrow, Earnán.'No other explanation. Probably there was to be some kind of a general round-up.The last time he had told me to watch out had been on Armistice Day, 1991, when men from the Dublin Brigade had been mobilized to wipe out Lord French and his staff as they took the salute during the march past.   Volunteers, who had lined the streets, and their concentration at the saluting base outside the Bank of Ireland, had been demobilized as they ere ready to hit up the well-drilled lines of chest medals.

That night I went to a céilidhe run by a literary society, actually by a company of the fourth.   An excited captain from the University whispered to me in the dressing room: ‘My God, it's awful, a HQ job, damned awful.' He cracked the joints of his fingers with loud snaps. He laughed with a nervous whinny as he pressed back his hair, then his hand pressed tightly and grasped the other till the tendons were white.At the college I had heard him talk of footling military details amongst girls and non-Volunteers with pauses and chuckles as he covered his mouth with his hand.Once he had been a legend, now I thought him windy.He had been out in '16.I did not know what all this talk of his meant.Later I gathered tags from two others who talked as if I knew what was to happen. Next day British secret-service officers, who had steadily improved their system until it now overshadowed ours, were to be shot in Dublin.‘The other battalions are on the job', said a law student. ‘All attacks are to be timed, but I have my doubts. Won't you come back with my bunch? It will be tough. Maybe it a no-come-back job.'

I went home to the Sears' house in Terenure. He was a member of the Dáil and thought it too risky to sleep at home as he was well known. I had not many houses I could change about to; I was unattached to a unit and made my own arrangements.   I lay awake for a long time.I found it hard to sleep, thinking of what would happen; how many people besides myself knew about it, who should not?I tried to read bits about headstrong Bhima and the hero Arjuna in the Mahabharata , but sleeping officers and Volunteers overhauling guns jumped into the pages.Dublin would no longer be a picnic.

Next day a stop press; thirteen British officers scattered through the city and suburbs had been shot dead, three had been wounded, others had escaped. Some had been killed in bed with their wives. Dublin was jumpy, passers-by were nervous; they spoke less as they walked, and groups at street corners took on a new significance.Something would happen, but what?The British would not take that lying down.The city had been safe enough so far. Its people had not experienced the desolate remoteness of the country during the raids off threatening soldiers, drunken. Tans and fiercely arrogant Auxies.Dublin had not felt the loneliness and awed night of a country town or small city controlled by its garrison.

Soldiers held up men walking in threes or fours. Crossley tenders nosed up and down as if the Auxiliaries did not know what to do next.   Heavy lorries stopped outside flats and private houses; soldiers hurriedly helped to move the belongings of other intelligence officers, and those who might be open to attack, to the Castle or to an hotel which was heavily guarded.In the afternoon the crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park had been surrounded by soldiers, police and Auxiliaries: twelve killed, eleven seriously wounded, fifty slightly wounded by machine-guns and rifles.I had heard the distant rattling.

Steel-plated Lancias and armoured cars with swinging turrets dashed through the streets; they curved in towards the footpaths, people scurried.The troops had blood in their eyes.Streets were suddenly held up by soldiers and men in plain clothes; at the top of Dawson Street I saw two lorries spill out Auxies who snapped on bayonets as they ran to cut a part of the street.They hit men with the butts of their rifles.I was told at McGilligans in Leeson Street where I often slept that it would not be safe for me to stay the night.Kathleen McGilligan was worried; ‘Seán MacBride will find you a place and – get there as soon as you can… what's that?'A sound of shooting.Seán MacBride was the son of Major John MacBride who had been executed after Easter Week. We voiced our fears as we walked.

It was seven o'clock.   Soldiers and Auxiliaries were firing over the heads of the moving people shouting, ‘Go home, you bastards, go home.'   Curfew should begin at twelve o'clock.   Seán MacBride brought me to the flat of an Abbey Theatre dramatist. It was on the top floor of a four-storey house.‘I have two guns and an egg,' I said. ‘I'll fight if there's a raid.'

‘I'll take one.'But he did not know how to work a Parabellum.   Sitting on the stairs I shoed him the action, the use of the safety-catch and how to clear a jam.We were welcomed.I was introduced to Lennox Robinson, whom I had often seen at the Abbey, and to Thomas MacGreevy.They did not object to us remaining there the night.It was risky to be outside now.Robinson played Beethoven on a pianola; MacGreevy took his turn to press on the wide wooden pedals.The instrument coughed and wheezed when the movement of the feet was irregular, or the music came in pauses.Robinson pedalled furiously, his long body bent itself as the notes jerked out. ‘Should I tell him we'll fight?' I whispered.

‘No, better not,' said Seán, ‘there's not much chance of a raid anyhow.'I got drawn into the music and I felt still inside, but squeaking wood or a cluster of shots would enter as a motif.Seán was trying to take his mind away from the brooding horror of the day and the outside street.

Our attempts to talk had been short meaningless sentences.MacGreevy clicked the switch.‘It's better to put it out; nearly all the other houses are without a light.' Robinson closed the pianola.   We sat in front of the fire.   MacGreevy talked.He had been a gunner officer in France.He had a sensitive face; he must have suffered in the hell of the World War. I ate hazel-nuts out of a red bowl.   We, watching the twisting yellow of the flames, sat on the floor. ‘It will go hard with any prisoners taken tonight,' I said.

There was a feeling of uncertainty as if something was going to happen.We talked in whispers as if afraid of the sound of our own voices; outside in the street the noise of heavy cars and sharp commands.Later, as we looked out of a window, we saw an armoured car stop below close to the curb under an arc-lamp.Men with dark bonnets jumped down; they were joined by others from a tender which pulled in.There were few people on the street.Three men walking on the footpath were held up.They were backed against a shop window.They held their hands over their heads.I saw an Auxiliary hit one of the men in the face with his fist. The three were searched, something was brought over to the lamp-post,the armed men crowded around whilst it was being looked at. I heard a voice shout, ‘Run for it.' The three ran towards the corner of Clare Street, spreading out.A tearing smash of rifle-fire, the metal snap of bolts throwing out cartridges. One man twisted and sprawled forward out of sight.The rifles flared again.

 We went away from the window thinking we might be seen.   We ate nuts.In the darkness the crash of the nut-shells boomed up and down the room.. Heavy cars, armoured evidently, from the vibrations, rattled; soft gliding noises of tenders, revolver-shots in the dull distance, close by the jerky beat of a Vickers gun.From the next room came low voiced whenever a loud burst of shooting woke us up.   The others could not sleep. ‘Do you think we have their beds?', I asked.

Troops drove through the street at a more rapid rate.    Shops were raided at all hours of the day, and streets held up; in the dark, houses were searched, often half a street at a time.At night I could see soldiers moving quietly on rubber soles as patrols, or in extended order, followed perhaps, by the cobbled bumps of a steel-plated Lancia, or I watched the shafts from a moveable searchlight turned on houses.   A wreck of a car might noise along, followed at a short distance by a strong smooth engine without lights.   That was a night trap for those who might attempt to tackle the first one, or who would off their guard when it passed. One night the house opposite to me was raided. I saw figures outside my gate as I laid out automatic magazines on a chair.A searchlight swept on to the fronts of the nearby houses and picked out a swarm of soldiers trailing rifles as they left the house without prisoners.

A week after ‘Bloody Sunday' sixteen Auxiliaries were killed in an ambush by the West Cork men in the mountainy pass of Kilmichael. They had killed some of the men who went out to take their surrender, and the column men wiped out the rest of them.

In two recent raids the British had found papers of Mulcahy, Chief of Staff, whom they had nearly captured.   That captured information seemed to be the most reliable insight their secret service could get of the movement.   Amongst the papers were plans for a systematic destruction of docks, warehouses and technical plant in England.   Touts, spies and secret-service men were thick in Dublin, but they worked too much in the dark of faulty psychology.

I was given a message by word. The CS wished to see me urgently that night in Ranelagh on the south side.I met him with Ginger and Emmet Dalton.Ginger was now DT. Dick McKee, who had been brigadier of Dublin and Director of Training, had been murdered at the Castle with his vice-com Peader Clancy, on the morning after ‘Bloody Sunday.'

Mulcahy had a thick fair moustache, although his hair was dark.It looked out of place in relation to the moustache, but I suppressed my smile. He was more than usually serious. On the table was a large-scale map of the south of Ireland. ‘We intend to give you command of the martial-law area,'he said. ‘You can move around selecting your staff as you go through the brigades.'The marital-law area comprised five counties.   ‘I would suggest Liam Lynch,' I said.   ‘He is a good officer; he has his command well organized; he could use that as a basis from which to work outwards.'   ‘You know Limerick, Tipperary and part of Cork,' Mulcahy said. ‘You will soon become familiar with the remainder of Cork and with County Kerry.'   We discussed likely staff officers for the new command. Organized and training an area was one thing, I thought; taking command of a province with twelve brigades was a big responsibility.Would I meet with hostility?How would the other brigades take the appointment?Cork county had no great love for GHQ officers.Its brigades had developed of themselves; within the past three months the concentration of British had intensified.   In their new development they might not be willing to be dictated to.I was younger than any of the officers.They would probably like someone with the weight of years and gravity.   Of course, I could grow a moustache, but many of them knew me. Aloud I said, ‘All right, sir. I will do my best.'

‘Before you go to the south there is an operation the Staff would like you to undertake.What do you think of the Auxiliaries?'

‘They are a fine body of men and a tough problem.'

‘We must tackle them at once. The adjoining Cork brigades will co-operate in taking Macroom Castle where there's an Auxiliary company.   I want you to capture Inistioge, the headquarters of the Auxiliaries in County Kilkenny.'

‘Kilkenny county has done little fighting.'

‘You will have help from the Waterford men.'

‘Waterford hasn't done much either and I don't' know any of the officers in Kilkenny.'

‘You can summon a brigade staff meeting and meet them.'

‘Are there any flying columns in Kilkenny?'

‘No, I don't think so,' said Mulcahy. ‘Are you prepared to undertake the job?'

I hesitated.   Operating with men whom I did not know, in an area that I had never previously visited and which had seen much fighting, did not appeal to me. Besides I had been directly ordered to capture a post which our best command would not undertake.

‘This is your last independent operation. When it is over you will command the martial-law area.'

‘Yes, sir,' I said, ‘I'll take Inistioge.'

It was easy to say ‘I'll take Inistioge.' That night I thought over the problem. I had no information about the strength of the Auxiliaries or of the British in the county, or even of our men there. It was hard enough to capture a small police barracks.Why didn't the Staff supply us with small artillery, trench mortars, Stokes guns, machine-guns, or rifle grenades, even with decent landmines?   We had not anything like a good supply of ammunition for our rifles.Why didn't the Staff pay attention to pure staff work, leaving the political field to the others? The Chief of Staff was a member of Dáil Éireann, the Director of Intelligence was the Minister of Finance, the Director of Organization was a Secretary to the Dáil, the Director of Engineering was the Secretary of the Local Government Board.

Next day I met Mulcahy in Parnell Square, in Banba Hall.

‘Have you any plan of action to outline?'

‘We might attack a barracks near their headquarters and wait for their reinforcements, then Inistioge might be tackled while its garrison was weakened.'

‘Well, you'll see the situation for yourself when you reach Kilkenny.' We shook hands.‘Good luck now, Earnán.'    I saluted and was walking out when he called me back.

‘Is there any activity down town?' he asked.‘I'm going to Brusnwick Street technical schools.'

‘No,I've just come across the Liffey and through O'Connell Street; no hold-ups and mot much activity.I'll scout the way for you.'

‘And what about yourself?'

‘I'm armed.'

‘No, you could not be replaced either, ‘ he said, smiling slowly as he gripped my arm.‘Don't you know that?Take care of yourself and good luck.'

That was the first sign of personal regard I had received from him.I was happy as I walked across town, whistling.

Lloyd George yet had faith in unofficial reprisals: burning of creameries, factories, shops, town halls, private houses, went on. Towns showed jagged stumps of broken teeth where fire had spread; raiding parties smashed property and looted. Perhaps the Premier thought the destruction of the economic life would cow the people and turn them against the Dáil and the IRA; but it irritated neutrals and made our friends more bitterly staunch.The American elections would soon be due; if reprisals wore out weak links in the separatist chain, martial law, which admitted serious trouble, would be necessary.

Rory O'Connor, DE, went to England on a tour of inspection.He was responsible for operations there.He was responsible for operations there.Irishmen and me of Irish descent in the cities had been organized in units on the lines of the Irish Volunteers.They could destroy power plants, warehouses and supplies, and burn the houses of Tans, Auxiliaries and officer.The counter demonstrations would throw light on the destruction in Ireland and possible slow it down. At the end of November fires burst out in English warehouses and docks.The plans for a thorough destruction of the Liverpool docks had been captured by the British when they raided a house in which Dick Mulcahy had been. He escaped but the left his attaché case behind containing other important papers.   The British were now aware of an organized attempt on the Liverpool docks.The Dublin Squad was to have been sent over to reinforce the Liverpool Irish and to fight in the docks area.

I left my paper in a concealed cupboard. There was no sense in risking my notes and papers in a county like Kilkenny.I left my two guns in another dump.I felt I had a tough job before me, and I knew nothing about the type of men there.A friendly checker brought me through a side door at Kingsbridge station, which was carefully watched by enemy intelligence.Seated in a carriage, I waited impatiently for the train to pull out.

Passers-by scanned the windows in a casual way or glanced sharply with well-trained yes.I tried to read a magazine; but always behind the page was a sense of being cornered in a carriage, open to a stray memoried snapshot.   At a junction police and Tans came on board, but they did not search.The engine-driver walked off the train; he would not drive armed police.   The Tans threatened him.Two pulled guns and one said, tapping his ribs with a Webley, ‘Do you know what this is?'An hour later a new driver who was willing to drive armed police was found; but they remained behind on the platform when the train started.   The new driver had been threatened by railway workers as to what would happen to him when he came back.

I passed by the police on the platform on Kilkenny station, outwardly calm, but confused enough in my mind on the difficulties I sensed would lie before me.

THE BOLD BLACK AND TAN

The town of Balbriggan they burnt to the ground

The bullets like hail were all whizzing around.

Lloyd George said to Greenwood, ‘Now this is our plan,

We'll conquer Ireland with the bold Black and Tan.'

From Cork on to Limerick, Clare and Mayo,

Lies a trail of destruction wherever they go.

We'll shoulder our rifles, we'll fight to a man

And we'll humble the pride of the bold Black and Tan