BLOODY SUNDAY SUMMARY EXECUTIONS OF THREE IRA VOLUNTEERS Dick McKee with Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune, were killed by their British in Dublin Castle on Sunday, 21 November 1920, a day known as Bloody Sunday that also saw the killing of a network of British spies by the Squad unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by British forces. Following the attack on the British spy network ‘the Cairo Gang’on Saturday 20 November Dick McKee, Peadar Clancy and the other IRA high-ranking officers, who had planned the attack, met upstairs in Vaughan’s Hotel. McKee and Clancy had just left the building when crown forces surrounded it. McKee and Clancy returned to the house were they were lodging in, Fitzpatrick’s, Gloucester Street, they were arrested shortly after on a tip-off. McKee had managed to burn all incriminating papers, including the list of those officers to be executed that morning. McKee, Clancy and Sean Fitzpatrick were arrested and taken to Dublin Castle guardroom. Brigadier General Ormonde Winter head of the British Secret Service in Ireland and two Auxiliary Division officers, Captain Hardy and Captain King, were the British who interrogated Clancy, McKee and Connor Clune Conor Clune, McKee and Clancy 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 British Intelligence. Refusing to talk, they were “shot while trying to escape” on the evening of 21 November. Their bodies covered in bruises and riddled with bullets were returned to their families. The Islandbridge Barracks was renamed Clancy Barracks and Marlborough Barracks was renamed McKee Barracks in their honour. A number of streets in Finglas are also named after Clancy, McKee and Clune. A commemorative bust of Clancy, funded by the people of New York, is also displayed on top of a plinth in the main square in Kildysart, Co. Clare, while the local school in Cranny is named ‘Peadar Clancy Memorial N.S.’ in his honour and displays his picture. On 18 November 2000, a plaque was unveiled by the son of Sean Fitzpatrick, at 36 Lower Gloucester Street, Dublin, now Sean MacDermott Street, at the house in which Clancy and McKee were arrested on 20 November 1920. Conor Clune Conchobhair Mac Clúin was a native Quin, County Clare. His parents John and Bridget had a family of 10 children. His uncle was Patrick Clune, was Bishop of Perth, Western Australia, who became the first Archbishop of Perth in 1913. Conor a Gaelic League enthusiast, from a young age he was active in Gaelic League circles, rarely spoke English preferring to speak his native language on every occasion possible. Peadar Clancy Peadar Mac Fhlannchadha;was from Carrowreagh East, Cranny, County Clare .. The Clancy’s were Fenians, their home had been the meeting place for republican resistance since the 1860s.. He served with the Irish Volunteers in the Four Courts garrison during the 1916 Easter Rising under the command of Edward Daly who was executed in 1916. During the Rising he single-handedly captured Lord Dunsany and Colonel Lindsay. Peadar. was second-in-command of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish IRA during the War of Independence., and organised the escape of leading Republican prisoners from Mountjoy Jail on 29 March 1919. Clancy was also implicated in the Republican escape from Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England on 25 October 1919 Richard “Dick” McKee, Risteárd Mac Aoidh was from Phibsborough Dublin. He joined the Irish Volunteer in 1913, and served in G Company, Second Battalion of the Dublin Brigade. During the 1916 Rising he fought in Jacobs Factory, under the command of Thomas MacDonagh. McKee was later incarcerated by the British in Knutsford gaol and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales. When he returned to Ireland he became active again and he was one of the prime innovators in the formation of the flying columns. After the executions of the British spies in Ireland ‘the Cairo Gang’ he was arrested, McKee was betrayed to Crown forces by an ex-British Army soldier, James Shankers Ryan, Recommended rEading Death in the Castle: Three murders in Dublin Castle 1920, written by Sean OMahony, and published by 1916–1921 Club records both the life and deaths of the three Republicans. Fuair siad bas ar son saoirse na hEireann, dílis ar son Éire Aontaithe, I ndíl cuimhne i gcónaí. Fíor Gael aid ©MMcNally
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 10:51:53 +0000
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