came to me except my own son.’
Smyth’s teenage son, Thomas, had witnessed the whole thing; he was just over five yards from his father when he was shot.
Smyth was hit four times, the most serious wound was from a bullet that entered his back, passed through a lung and lodged in his chest, just above the heart. At the time Smyth’s wife and three of their seven children were in the country on holiday. In the commotion his six-year-old second son raced from the house vowing ‘to catch those who shot Dada’. He returned later saying that the men had run off.
‘Was it not a cowardly thing to shoot him in the back without giving him a chance of defending himself?’ Smyth’s sixteen-year-old daughter said next day. ‘He always carried a revolver,’ she added, ‘but he hadn’t it with him last night, so he could not put up a fight against his would-be murderers.’
‘We had made a right mess of the job,’ McDonnell complained next day.
‘But I can assure you,’ Slattery said, ‘I was more worried until Smyth died than Mick was. We never used .38 guns again; we used .45 guns after that lesson.’
Although Smyth was mortally wounded, he lived for five weeks before finally succumbing as a result of complications caused by an abscess of the lung resulting from a bullet wound. He died on the afternoon of 8 September 1919.
The reaction in Dublin Castle was to use the killing as an excuse to ban Sinn Féin. It was an ill-conceived act that played directly into the hands of Collins, who would henceforth have little difficulty in outmanoeuvring Sinn Féin moderates and implementing a more militant policy. The checks that de Valera had placed on the militants were wiped out by the banning of the political wing of the movement. To some Irish people this amounted to a British declaration of war, and it was intended to appear as such.
Back in the spring of 1919 Ian Macpherson, the chief secretary for Ireland, had wished to ban Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan, and had written to Bonar Law on 16 May 1919 acknowledging that it would mean ‘ open war with all its horrible consequences’. Law and Edward Carson, the two staunchest unionists, thought this would be a mistake. ‘To proclaim Sinn Féin means putting an end to the whole political life of Southern Ireland and that could not be effectively done,’ Law had warned. In the circumstances Macpherson had to back off, but after an attack on British soldiers in Fermoy on 7 September, followed by Detective Sergeant Smyth’s death next day, Dublin Castle announced the drastic measures that the chief secretary had predicted would amount to ‘open war’ just four months earlier – Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan were all banned, along with Dáil Éireann. ‘We had allowed these members to sit together in consultation if they wished,’ Macpherson wrote to Bonar Law on 13 September, but when they ‘conspired by executive acts to overthrow the duly constituted authority then we could act.’
Sir Warren Fisher, the head of the British civil service, would later conclude that the Dublin Castle regime was ‘almost woodenly stupid and quite devoid of imagination’. He could hardly believe the folly of banning Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan. ‘Imagine the result on public opinion in Great Britain of a similar act by the executive towards a political party (or the women’s suffrage movement)!’ he exclaimed.
The DMP raided Sinn Féin headquarters at 6 Harcourt Street on 12 September 1919. Collins was in the building when the police arrived at 10.30 a.m., backed up by two army lorries with British soldiers. ‘We had no warning of this raid at all,’ Eibhlín Lawless, one of the young secretaries recalled. ‘Collins was upstairs in our room.’ J. J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell had come in to talk to Collins and had left the door to the room open as he left.
‘I was getting up to shut it when I saw a policeman
Smyth’s teenage son, Thomas, had witnessed the whole thing; he was just over five yards from his father when he was shot.
Smyth was hit four times, the most serious wound was from a bullet that entered his back, passed through a lung and lodged in his chest, just above the heart. At the time Smyth’s wife and three of their seven children were in the country on holiday. In the commotion his six-year-old second son raced from the house vowing ‘to catch those who shot Dada’. He returned later saying that the men had run off.
‘Was it not a cowardly thing to shoot him in the back without giving him a chance of defending himself?’ Smyth’s sixteen-year-old daughter said next day. ‘He always carried a revolver,’ she added, ‘but he hadn’t it with him last night, so he could not put up a fight against his would-be murderers.’
‘We had made a right mess of the job,’ McDonnell complained next day.
‘But I can assure you,’ Slattery said, ‘I was more worried until Smyth died than Mick was. We never used .38 guns again; we used .45 guns after that lesson.’
Although Smyth was mortally wounded, he lived for five weeks before finally succumbing as a result of complications caused by an abscess of the lung resulting from a bullet wound. He died on the afternoon of 8 September 1919.
The reaction in Dublin Castle was to use the killing as an excuse to ban Sinn Féin. It was an ill-conceived act that played directly into the hands of Collins, who would henceforth have little difficulty in outmanoeuvring Sinn Féin moderates and implementing a more militant policy. The checks that de Valera had placed on the militants were wiped out by the banning of the political wing of the movement. To some Irish people this amounted to a British declaration of war, and it was intended to appear as such.
Back in the spring of 1919 Ian Macpherson, the chief secretary for Ireland, had wished to ban Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan, and had written to Bonar Law on 16 May 1919 acknowledging that it would mean ‘ open war with all its horrible consequences’. Law and Edward Carson, the two staunchest unionists, thought this would be a mistake. ‘To proclaim Sinn Féin means putting an end to the whole political life of Southern Ireland and that could not be effectively done,’ Law had warned. In the circumstances Macpherson had to back off, but after an attack on British soldiers in Fermoy on 7 September, followed by Detective Sergeant Smyth’s death next day, Dublin Castle announced the drastic measures that the chief secretary had predicted would amount to ‘open war’ just four months earlier – Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan were all banned, along with Dáil Éireann. ‘We had allowed these members to sit together in consultation if they wished,’ Macpherson wrote to Bonar Law on 13 September, but when they ‘conspired by executive acts to overthrow the duly constituted authority then we could act.’
Sir Warren Fisher, the head of the British civil service, would later conclude that the Dublin Castle regime was ‘almost woodenly stupid and quite devoid of imagination’. He could hardly believe the folly of banning Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan. ‘Imagine the result on public opinion in Great Britain of a similar act by the executive towards a political party (or the women’s suffrage movement)!’ he exclaimed.
The DMP raided Sinn Féin headquarters at 6 Harcourt Street on 12 September 1919. Collins was in the building when the police arrived at 10.30 a.m., backed up by two army lorries with British soldiers. ‘We had no warning of this raid at all,’ Eibhlín Lawless, one of the young secretaries recalled. ‘Collins was upstairs in our room.’ J. J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell had come in to talk to Collins and had left the door to the room open as he left.
‘I was getting up to shut it when I saw a policeman
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