Peadar Clancy

Early life

Clancy was one of seven sons and six daughters born to James and Mary Clancy (née Keane), of Carrowreagh East, Cranny, County Clare in 1888. The Clancy home had been the meeting place for local Fenians since the 1860s. Though the Fenians had been instrumental in reawakening Irish culture through the Gaelic League, drama and the Gaelic Athletic Association, this form of "advanced nationalism" was not popular at this time. From a young age Clancy was a keen Gaelic Leaguer and was engrossed by national activities. Educated at the local national school, which was close to his family home, at sixteen he became apprenticed in the drapery business of Dan Moloney, in Kildysart. On completing his apprenticeship he went to Newcastle West, County Limerick, where he worked as an assistant in the drapery business of Michael O'Shaughnessy on Bridge Street. From there, he moved to Youghal, County Cork, where he lived at 6 North Main Street, from which address he wrote to his infant nephew in Chicago on 17 October 1912. In 1913 he went to work for Harkin's General Drapery, at 70A New Street in Dublin.

Easter Rising

On coming to Dublin, Clancy joined the Irish Volunteers upon their inception, becoming a Volunteer in "CO" company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade. During the 1916 Easter Rising he served in the Four Courts garrison, alongside Dick McKee. Clancy was to distinguish himself in combat, when, with a group of Volunteers, he repelled an infantry attack at Church Street Bridge and forced an enemy retreat towards the Phoenix Park on Easter Monday. Shortly afterwards, Clancy personally burnt out a sniper from a house, and during the course of the Rising single-handedly captured Lord Dunsany and Colonel Lindsay. Lord Dunsany, though wounded by Clancy, said of the Republicans after his release: "Although in different uniforms, we are all Irishmen and you are all gentlemen." For the "courage, leadership and intelligence" shown during this period, he was promoted to Lieutenant by Captain Frank Fahy. After the Rising he was court-martialed and sentenced to death for his part in the rebellion; but his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for 10 years. He remained in English jails until June 1917, and upon his return to Dublin he helped to re-organise the Volunteers.

Republican Outfitters

After his release, Clancy started a drapery business of his own, called The Republican Outfitters, which was located at 94 Talbot Street. According to Dan Breen, it was one of the best-known meeting places in Dublin for the IRA, and was so closely watched that it was never advisable to remain there for long. By 1917, it was advertising as The Republican Outfitters: Clancy, Brennan and Walsh. Clancy's initial partners in the business were Maurice Brennan, Thomas Walsh (who, like Clancy, had been in the Four Courts garrison at Easter 1916, had been sentenced to death, but was later reprieved) and other comrades. By 1920, the initial partnership had been dissolved, Brennan and Walsh had gone out on their own at 5 Upper O'Connell Street (which was also used as a base by the Volunteers, with Walsh acting as intelligence officer of the 1st Battalion) and Tom Hunter had become part proprietor of the Talbot Street business with Clancy.

Sinn Féin

After his release from prison he was selected as the Sinn Féin candidate in the East Clare by-election, but his candidature was not ratified by IRA General Headquarters (GHQ) and Éamon de Valera was chosen at a second convention in Ennis. Clancy, in a letter to his brother M. J, who lived in Chicago, wrote about the divide in Irish society over the war and the split in the Volunteers, which he believed had resulted from the position adopted by John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party:

There is a very vast range of subjects on which I should like to write to you about; particularly with regard to the great European war. There has been a very pointed and sharp division of opinion in Ireland with regards to it, created to a very great extent by the attitude that Mr. Redmond has taken up. I understand that diversity of opinion obtains to a very great extent in America too, but our sources of information from America are altogether one sided in this country since the Government has prohibited the circulation of the Irish World and the Gaelic American in Ireland.

Clancy took part in de Valera's election campaign, and addressed a number of meetings throughout his native county in the summer of 1917. After the election, on 24 July 1917, Clancy again wrote to his brother on the outcome and the position the Republicans would adopt: My Dear Brother, I got your letter about ten days ago & as you hoped I was then free. We were released about a month ago. Needless to say we were not sorry to get away from England’s jails and jailers. Since my release I had a busy and exciting fortnight. We had an election in East Clare - a parliamentary election. There were two candidates a Sinn Féiner and an Irish Party man. Our man won by the magnificent majority of 2,975. He was in jail with me. His name is de Valera. For one year & two months England treated him as if he were one of the worst criminals and Ireland confers on him the highest dignity it is in her power to confer. Another comrade of mine was elected to represent South Longford while we were yet in jail. As the vacancies occur the same thing will happen everywhere throughout the country until we have wiped out the vile Redmondites who have betrayed Ireland.

In 1918 Clancy was sent to County Tyrone to support the Sinn Fein candidate in the 1918 East Tyrone by-election. While in Cookstown, County Tyrone Clancy was attacked and stoned by persons opposed to the Sinn Fein candidate Seán Milroy.

War of Independence

During the Irish War of Independence, Clancy became immersed in the underground movement and carried out a number of daring feats, which ensured his rise to become the second-in-command of the Dublin Brigade, IRA, with the rank of Vice-Brigadier. He was also attached to GHQ where he held the rank of Director of Munitions. His immediate superior was his Easter Week colleague Dick McKee.

Clancy, along with chief of staff of the Volunteers Richard Mulcahy, was instrumental in the escape of leading Republican prisoners from Mountjoy Jail on 29 March 1919. Among those to escape were Piaras Beaslaí, J. J. Walsh, Paddy Fleming and Thomas Malone. Clancy and Mulcahy were both in charge of those who were to help the escape plan from outside the prison, while Michael Collins and his intelligence squad were to look after the plans of escape within the prison. In all nineteen prisoners escaped. The escape was considered a major coup by Republicans and was a boost to morale.

The Squad, also known as the Twelve Apostles, was a counter-intelligence unit established in September 1919. This unit was to function as an urban flying column, which was to specialise in the killing of British intelligence agents and those police who were attentive in combatting the IRA. At its inaugural meeting the IRA leadership was represented by Peadar Clancy, along with Dick McKee, Michael Collins and Mick McDonnell.

Clancy was also involved in the Republican breakout from Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England on 25 October 1919. Michael Collins had taken a particular interest in the escape, and actually visited Austin Stack in the prison to finalise the arrangements. In all six prisoners were to escape, among them Piaras Beaslaí who had again been arrested.

During the last three months of 1919, no less than twelve different ambushes were planned on the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord French. In most cases the target failed to show, or was either too late or too early to suit his would-be assassins' designs. On one occasion Peadar Clancy and Dan Breen waited for two hours outside the door of the practice of Dr. James Ashe, a specialist on Merrion Square whom French occasionally visited.

On 19 December 1919, the Squad assembled at Kelly's, known locally as the Halfway House, on the Navan Road in Cabra. They planned to ambush Lord French, as he made his way from Ashtown railway station to the Phoenix Park. The Lord Lieutenant escaped the ambush, but one of the Volunteers, Martin Savage, was killed.

Arrest and interrogation

Having concluded the meeting, they dispersed. Collins, Clancy and some of the others went to Vaughan's Hotel. While they were in the hotel, the porter, Christy Harte, became suspicious of one of the guests, a Mr Edwards. Edwards had made a late-night telephone call, and then left the hotel. Harte informed the Volunteers, who then quickly left the building.

In the confusion, Conor Clune had been overlooked and remained in the hotel. The hotel was then raided a few minutes later. Clune was the only one arrested as he was not registered as a guest. This, according to Seán Kavanagh, a member of the Squad, would ultimately cost him his life. Clancy and McKee were also arrested in the early hours of the morning in another part of the city, though the Cairo Gang assassination plan was already in motion, for the next day.

They were captured in Sean Fitzpatrick's of Gloucester Street and brought to Dublin Castle. It was later discovered they were betrayed to the British authorities by Irish former soldier James "Shanker" Ryan, variously described as "a ne’er do well", "a drunken bousey" and "a tout". The Squad, led by Bill Stapleton, later killed Ryan, in February 1921, in a pub near the Five Lamps in Dublin.

Upon their arrest, the three men were taken to the old detective office in the Exchange Court. According to T. Ryle Dwyer, the room was being used as a kind of guardroom, and was furnished with some beds, tables and some stores, which included a box of hand grenades.

Brigadier-General Ormonde Winter, head of the British Secret Service in Ireland, and two Auxiliary Division officers, Captain Hardy and Captain King, were the personnel who interrogated Clancy, McKee and Connor Clune.

Death and inquest

According to T. Ryle Dwyer, the prisoners "supposedly" got hold of hand grenades and threw them. One of the sentries testified that he and a colleague heard a noise behind them and noticed that two of the prisoners had thrown the grenades at them. They dived for cover behind some mattresses, but the grenades did not detonate. One of the prisoners was also said to have got hold of a rifle according to one of the guards, which he levelled and fired at the guard commander as he entered the room, but missed. The prisoner then turned the rifle and fired another shot at another guard. The guard said he then fired at the prisoner, and the prisoner dropped, and that the guard commander also fired at the prisoner.

The guard commander said, on hearing a noise, he entered the room, and "the prisoner McKee fired at me", and that McKee then turned and fired at the sentry. The guard commander also claimed to have dropped McKee. He then said he saw Clancy with a shovel, and that Clancy was attempting to strike another guard. One of the guards (who had dived behind the mattresses) then fired at Clancy and he fell. A fourth witness was to tell much the same story.

According to Sean O'Mahony, they were tortured in the guardroom in order to extort from them the names of the Volunteers who had earlier that morning shot the fourteen members of the Cairo Gang. Refusing to talk, they were "subsequently murdered" on the evening of 21 November 1920.

The condition of their bodies when returned by the British authorities to their families supports this assertion. There were extensive signs of discolouring, which seemed to indicate extensive bruising. A military doctor claimed that large staining could occur, and this would depend on the way the bodies had been lying. He also said that Clancy had been hit with up to five bullets, which made eight wounds; Dick McKee had three wounds caused by two bullets. He said McKee had no bayonet wounds, but there was a bullet lodged underneath his skin on the right of his chest. Clune, he said, had nine wounds caused by seven bullets. T. Ryle Dwyer also states that David Neligan was adamant that they had not been bayoneted.

Collins arranged for the collection of their bodies when they were released by the military. They were taken to a small chapel at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral. According to Ernie O'Malley, Collins had the bodies of the men examined to ease the minds of their comrades. Piaras Beaslaí contends that the examination showed that McKee had been "savagely mistreated", and said a bayonet had punctured his liver. In addition, he had also suffered broken ribs.

Burial and legacy

The bodies of McKee and Clancy were laid side by side at a requiem mass in the Pro-Cathedral. Both were dressed in their Volunteer uniforms and their tricolour-draped coffins bore their caps and belts. Michael Collins risked his security to be present at the service. According to Richard Mulcahy, Collins was distraught at their deaths, as they were "the two men who fully understood the inside of Collins’ work and his mind, and who were ever ready and able to link up their resources of the Dublin brigade to any work that Collins had in hand, and to do so promptly, effectively and sympathetically."

A photograph of Collins was actually published in the Evening Herald carrying one of the coffins out to the waiting hearse. Collins then went to their graveside, and was filmed stepping from the crowd to lay a wreath on the grave, on which he pinned a farewell note, which read: "In memory of two good friends ― Dick and Peadar ― two of Ireland's best soldiers."

Later Collins, through his intelligence network, discovered the name of Corporal James 'Shankers' Ryan of the Royal Military Police, who was responsible for the arrest of the two Volunteers. He was killed by The Squad at Hynes' pub in Gloucester Place on 5 February of the same year.

Clancy and McKee were buried in the Republican plot in Glasnevin cemetery. Peadar Clancy was 32 years old at the time of his death. The Islandbridge Barracks was renamed Clancy Barracks and the former Marlborough Barracks was renamed McKee Barracks in their honour. A number of streets in Finglas were also named after Clancy, McKee and Clune. In 1939 a commemorative plaque was erected on the external wall of the guardroom of Dublin Castle in Exchange Court next to City Hall. A commemorative bust of Clancy is also displayed on top of a plinth in the main square in Kildysart, County Clare. Part of Moore Street in Kilrush was also renamed as Clancy Street.

Conor Clune's body was brought home to County Clare for burial. His coffin was draped with the tricolour, but when a British officer objected to it, the presiding priest removed the national flag.

When Clancy was imprisoned in Mountjoy prison in 1920, he led a hunger strike with his fellow prisoners. Clancy refused all concessions from the prison authorities, eventually gaining the release of all hunger strikers (see: 1923 Irish hunger strikes in 1923 Irish hunger strikes. It was in Mountjoy that Todd Andrews first met him. In his memoir, Dublin Made Me, Andrews described Clancy's personality: "I was overcome by the extraordinary impact which Clancy’s personality had on me. I had never heard or seen Clancy before nor indeed did I ever see him again but he left an indelible impression of the superman, a man whose commands I at least would have a compulsion to obey as if I had been hypnotised ... In the presence of Clancy I felt a mere puppet on a string."