Meelick Ambush remembered

Two members of the IRA’s East Clare Brigade, Christopher McCarthy and Michael Gleeson, were killed at Woodcock Hill in Meelick. Historian Padraig Óg Ó Ruairc looks at events surrounding their deaths and the plans to commemorate the 90th anniversary on Sunday, June 26
IT was when a daring IRA plan to raid the Limerick to Ennis train went badly wrong that two volunteers were shot and killed during the War of Independence.
On June 15, 1921 eight IRA volunteers under the command of John McCormack went to Woodcock Hill early in the morning to raid the Limerick to Ennis train. McCormack had planned the operation because he suspected there was a British spy active in the area and was hoping to capture the mailbags on board the train. McCormack hoped if they examined the letters in the mailbags, they might find proof that would reveal the spy’s identity.
On the morning of the raid, the IRA built a low, stone barricade across the railway line at Woodcock Hill, Meelick about half a mile east of Cratloe Railway Station. They placed a red flag on top of the barricade so the train driver would be able to see it easily and would stop the train.
Tom Bentley, an IRA volunteer from Cratloe, had gone into Limerick and boarded the 12 noon train to Ennis so he could signal to his comrades if there were British soldiers or Black and Tans on board. If there were British troops on board, Bentley was to start waving his hat out the window of the railway carriage as the train approached the stone barricade at Woodcock Hill.
That morning, a party of about 30 British soldiers from the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Scots Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant A Gordan, boarded the train at Limerick. At 12.15pm, as the train approached the barricade, Bentley frantically signalled to McCormack and the IRA volunteers waiting to raid the train that there were British troops on board.
Instead of stepping onto the railway line to hold up the train, the IRA men remained hidden. When he spotted the barricade built across the railway track, the train driver, a man named Sullivan from Limerick who was a staunch supporter of the fight for Irish freedom, guessed the IRA had planned to raid the train.
Knowing that there were British soldiers on board and that the IRA would be heavily outnumbered if a fight broke out, Sullivan put on steam and sent the train crashing through the barricade. As the train was passing the ambush position, one of the British soldiers put his head out of the window of a carriage.
McCormack fired a pot shot at him as the train passed. The train broke through the stone barricade without stopping and went on to Cratloe station but the British soldiers on board now knew there was a group of IRA men at Woodcock Hill.
McCormack was afraid that when the train reached the next station, the soldiers would call the British Army post at Ballycannon, who would rush reinforcements to the area to capture them. He went to the farm of Mike Collins, who lived a few hundred yards away and returned with a hedge clippers to cut the telegraph lines. McCormack climbed a telegraph pole but the rivet in the hedge clippers snapped after he cut the first wire. McCormack sent Lieutenant James O’Halloran to Goggins’ house, which was just south of the railway line, to get tools for cutting the rest of the telegraph wires.
When the train reached Cratloe, the British soldiers forced all the civilian passengers off and Lieutenant Gordan climbed aboard and ordered the engine driver and his crew to reverse the train back along the track to the point where the IRA were at Woodcock Hill.
As the train approached the bend where the IRA were, Sullivan repeatedly blew the steam whistle to warn the Republicans that the British soldiers were returning, until Lieutenant Gordan drew his revolver, put it to the back of Sullivan’s head and threatened to “blow his brains out” if he made another noise.
Gleeson and McCarthy were in charge of a group of volunteers armed with rifles  waiting at the top of the field. When they saw that something was delaying McCormack and O’Halloran in cutting the telegraph wires, they walked down the field towards them to see what was happening. As they reached the edge of the railway line, the train loaded with British troops swept around the bend of the track a hundred yards away.
According to McCormack, who was still on top of the telegraph pole, “O’Halloran was just about to enter the back door of Goggins’, which was about 40 yards or so away, when I noticed the train reversing from Cratloe. I shouted to the men to disperse, jumped off the pole myself, ran across the railway line and flung myself over a wall and ran until I got over a hawthorn hedge that provided me with cover from view.”
The British soldiers opened fire with two machine guns as soon as they caught sight of the IRA men at the railway line. As they attempted to retreat, Christopher McCarthy was wounded by the opening volley and fell to the ground.
Michael Gleeson had already reached the top of the field and a place of relative safety when he noticed McCarthy was missing. Although Gleeson must have realised that there was little chance of saving McCarthy, he refused to abandon him and started back down the field as the British soldiers began advancing up the hillside from the railway track.
Gleeson raced down the open field through a hail of British rifle and machine gun fire. He reached McCarthy and helped him to his feet. In a desperate attempt to escape, Gleeson drew his revolver and staggered uphill supporting McCarthy with one arm and firing back at the British soldiers with his free hand.
They had only covered a short distance when Gleeson was shot and both men collapsed to the ground. Gleeson was unable to continue but McCarthy managed to stagger on. Within a few seconds, the advancing British soldiers surrounded Gleeson and shot him dead where he lay. McCarthy carried on through the fields but was soon outrun and was captured and killed by Lieutenant A Gordan and a group of the Royal Scots, who shot him several times and stabbed him with their bayonets.
Meanwhile, on the southern side of the railway track, McCormack was lying flat, hidden from the British soldiers but to make good his escape, he needed to climb over a thick fence of wire and hedge in full view of the soldiers. The train was only a short distance away and if the British soldiers made a search of the area, he was likely to become the third casualty that day. When he realised McCormack’s difficulty, James O’Halloran attempted to draw the British soldiers’ fire and attention and give McCormack a chance of escaping. From behind a stone pier, O’Halloran opened fire on the British soldiers. He came under heavy rifle fire but stood his ground and succeeded in wounding one of them before his rifle jammed and he was forced to retreat. By this time, O’Halloran’s action had allowed McCormack to escape unseen. All the other IRA volunteers had also managed to get away safely.
In later years, McCormack had no doubt that O’Halloran had saved his life. “I believe it was his action saved my life, as his shooting attracted the attention of the soldiers in his direction and thus enabled me to get away,” he said.
When the fighting ended, the British soldiers went to the scene of the killings and forced a number of the farm labourers to help them remove the two bodies. Christopher McCarthy’s body had been placed on a wicker gate and Michael Doherty and another farm labourer were ordered to carry it. Doherty lifted back the covering that had placed over McCarthy’s body and saw that his throat had been cut and his chest was riddled with bullet wounds. Immediately, Doherty received a blow of a rifle butt from one of the Royal Scots, who replaced the covers on McCarthy’s body.
Both bodies were taken to the house of the Collins family where the soldiers guarded them until British reinforcements arrived and took them to Limerick. Gleeson and McCarthy were buried in the Republican plot in Meelick churchyard alongside Patrick White, who had been shot by a British sentry at Spike Island Prison, Cork earlier that month.
This event, subsequently known as The Meelick Ambush, was the only occasion in County Clare during the Irish War of Independence when two Republicans were killed in action fighting against the British forces. The courage and self-sacrifice of Gleeson and McCarthy, who took up arms in the cause of freedom, has not been commemorated since the 50th anniversary of the ambush in 1971.
To mark the 90th anniversary, the recently formed Meelick Ambush Commemoration Committee is currently fundraising to meet the cost of erecting a monument close to the site of the ambush, which will be unveiled in a special ceremony this month.
The committee has produced an illuminated certificate, available to anyone who is willing to make a donation towards the cost of erecting the monument. Contact Johnny White (087 6341039) or Cathal Crowe (087 1368882) for more details.