Uncovering the truth about Limerick’s ‘disappeared’

As we emerge from the Decade of Centenaries the story of Limerick’s leading role in the fight for Irish Freedom is now widely known and well documented.

Historic events like the Dromkeen Ambush, the capture of Kilmallock RIC Barracks and the sacrifices of leading republican rebels Con Colbert, Sean Wall, Sean Finn and Mayors George Clancy and Michael O’Callaghan are still widely celebrated in song and story throughout the Treaty County.

This is unsurprising because these events were commemorated annually from the 1940s onwards, were frequently discussed by IRA veterans in later life and widely written about in the local press.

However one aspect of the conflict in Limerick that is the IRA’s secret executions of the Limerick men alleged to be British spies who were Disappeared by the IRA during the War of Independence.

The first of these was John O’Reilly of Newcastle West.

The first Limerick man to be ‘disappeared’ by the IRA was John O’Reilly, who was born in Limerick in 1904. He was the youngest child of Thomas O’Reilly, a labourer, and his wife, Bridget, who lived at Boherbee Street, Newcastle West.

O’Reilly had an older sister named Mary and three older brothers, Denis, Thomas and Patrick. He left his family home in Newcastle West during the War of Independence and was never seen again by his parents or siblings.

In November 1925 his mother wrote to the Minister of Justice seeking information as to her son’s fate: Sir – I would be very thankful to you if you could let me know anything about my son that is missing for the past four years as I was forced to write to this address.

He is missing since the Black and Tan trouble. His name is John O’Reilly. I have not heard of him since so I would be very thankful to you sir if you looked up this case for me and oblige – Mrs T O’Reilly.

In response Garda Superintendent John Carberry wrote to Garda Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy and reported that: It has been ascertained that a boy answering O’Reilly’s description was shot as a spy by the IRA in the Douglas area of this city [Cork] about a week prior to the Anglo-Irish Truce.

It is believed the boy was from County Limerick and he admitted being with the ‘Black and Tans’ but the source from which this information is obtained is of the opinion that he was never with the Black and Tans but was with the British Military Intelligence Staff in Co Cork Military Barracks [Victoria Barracks].

At about the time the boy was shot a number of persons believed to be spies were camped in a field known as the ‘camp field’ which was attached to Cork Barracks.

Reilly’s body, like that of more than 60 others who were disappeared during the War of Independence era, was never recovered and is believed to still be buried somewhere in the Douglas area of Cork city.

The other Limerick man to be secretly executed and disappeared was also from Newcastle West. Thomas Hanley was a Catholic ex-British soldier from Newcastle West, , who was born on November 29, 1920, had three older brothers and was the youngest child of Michael Hanley a general labourer and his wife, Ellen, who lived in Maiden Street, Newcastle West.

After leaving school, Hanley found work as a stock-taker checking freight shipments at the Newcastle West railway station. He volunteered to join the British Army in 1915 and fought on the Western Front.

On returning to civilian life, he began a criminal career as an armed robber before becoming an identifier for K Company of the RIC’s Auxiliary Division.

Hanley first came to the attention of the IRA after he and a cadre of other unemployed ex-soldiers in the town embarked on criminal careers as a means of earning a living.

Ex-soldiers in Newcastle West, including Hanley, were suspected of being involved in a spate of armed robberies in the locality.

The activities of this criminal gang intensified to the point that the Limerick Ex-Servicemen’s Association placed a notice in the local press condemning and distancing themselves ‘from the low acts committed recently by some ex-soldiers’.

On January 15, 1920, members of the local IRA unit shot and wounded Timothy O’Sullivan, a member of this criminal gang.

The ex-soldiers retreated to the town’s RIC barracks, where they sought refuge.

In September 1920 K Company of the Auxiliary Division commandeered Devon Castle, the Duke of Devonshire’s Newcastle West residence, which dominated the town square. Hanley saw this as his opportunity for revenge.

He made contact with the Auxiliaries and volunteered to act as an identifier, but his role quickly became known to local IRA officers, including Garret McAuliffe, who recalled, ‘Hanley, an ex-British Army man joined the Auxies on their patrols and went round with them in lorries.’

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In November 1920 Hanley, realising that his life was now in danger, left his family home and sought protection by living with the Auxiliaries at their barracks in the castle.

In January 1921 he formalised this arrangement by enlisting as a temporary cadet in the Auxiliary Division. McAuliffe claimed that, after enlisting, Hanley ‘went around the town in civvies’, presumably gathering intelligence information.

In February 1921 Hanley was deployed to an RIC outpost in Croom for his own protection. Although he disappeared from Newcastle West, he was not forgotten, and on June 22, 1921 two local IRA Volunteers, Owen McAuliffe and Thady Collins, got a tip-off that he had returned to the town to visit a friend, James Coffey, who lived on the Knockane Road.

At 10pm that evening, the two republicans approached Coffey’s home in stockinged feet with their revolvers drawn. They burst in and Hanley, seated at the fireside, and the two IRA Volunteers immediately drew their revolvers and opened fire.

Despite being wounded by the initial burst of fire, Hanley managed to reach the rear door of the building and escaped along a laneway.

Knowing that the sound of their gunfire would attract members of the Warwickshire Regiment stationed nearby, McAuliffe and Collins fled the scene.

Hanley had been hit by five 45 revolver bullets, but British soldiers arrived at the scene within minutes and, recognising Hanley, saved his life by immediately transporting him to the military hospital in Limerick.

The failed assassination had the desired effect, according to IRA Volunteer Mossie Hartnett: ‘This surprise raid kept this man Hanley from having any further association with the Tans and British soldiers in Newcastle West. “Spys Beware” was a warning that was now heeded.’

The county inspector for Limerick, John M Regan, cited Hanley’s shooting and his status as a veteran of the First World War as proof of an alleged IRA campaign to murder local ex-soldiers.

However, Regan’s report neglected to mention Hanley’s personal vendetta against the IRA, his work as an intelligence agent and his membership of the Auxiliary Division as likely motivating factors in the attempted assassination.

The IRA was determined to kill Hanley, and Garret McAuliffe recalled, ‘He was taken into the military hospital in Limerick, and we kept an eye on him – after the truce he went missing.’

For six weeks after the failed assassination attempt, Hanley’s life hung in the balance, but he had recovered enough to apply to the British government’s Irish Compensation Commission for compensation.

On October 10, 1921 Hanley received news that he was to be awarded £550. His brother John, who lived in New York, had bought him a transatlantic ferry ticket for America. Hanley was apparently waiting to collect his compensation payment before leaving, but he did not live long enough to do either.

Hanley’s father, Michael, stated that his son Thomas ‘disappeared quite suddenly and unexpectedly, without informing his parents of his intended departure, without bidding them goodbye and he was never seen or heard of since’.

The British Colonial Office revealed that Hanley did not collect the compensation payment which had been issued to him.

The American Consul in Ireland confirmed that the United States government had no record of Hanley ever having travelled to America.

In November 1929 Michael Hanley made a successful application to the High Court in Dublin seeking to have his son Thomas declared dead, and stated in a supporting affidavit ‘that he had heard rumours that his son had been killed in the County of Cork towards the end of 1921’.

The rumours were correct – Thomas Hanley had been abducted by the IRA on October 17, 1921 and was executed for spying and secretly buried in an unmarked grave near Macroom.

Hanley’s body, like that of O’Reilly and more than 60 others who were disappeared during the War of Independence era, was never recovered and is believed to still be buried somewhere near Macroom.

The full story of these and other killings is finally told for the first time in The Disappeared – Forced Disappearances in Ireland 1798 -1998 which is available online and in bookshops now.