Another history of 'good catholics' doing good work...(no words)

A story of Christmas treachery.

Curragheen, County Kerry, Christmas Eve, 1922.

Twenty two guerrillas from the IRA came down from their winter dugouts in the hills into the village.

They piled their arms outside the village Catholic Church and filed into Christmas Eve Midnight Mass.

They were, no doubt dirty and scruffy from living rough and avoiding Free State patrols.
They would have worn their own clothes, many perhaps with trademark IRA gear of peaked cap and trench coat. Many would also have worn bandoliers of ammunition across their chests.

No doubt they expected a rough time when the sermon came around.

On the 10th of October, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland had issued a formal statement describing the anti treaty campaign as,
'a system of murder and assassination of the National forces without any legitimate authority......the guerrilla warfare now being carried on by the 'irregulars' is without moral sanction and therefore the killing of National soldiers is murder before God, the seizing of public and private property is robbery, the breaking of roads and bridges is criminal. 

All who in contravention of this teaching, participate in such crimes are guilty of grievous sins and may not be absolved in Confession nor admitted to the Holy Communion if they persist on their evil pursuits.'

The relationship of Irish Republicans with the Catholic Church has always been complicated.

As far back as the 1860s, the Church has been against revolutionary violence and suspicious of republicanism, associated as it was in continental Europe with anti-clericalism .

But the majority of Republican activists and especially the anti- treaty Rebels in rural Kerry, were practising Catholics, which was why they risked their lives to get to mass at Curragheen that Christmas.

As the IRA men sat in the church, their arms piled outside, the Priest in attendance thought it was a good idea to break with his sermon to go and alert the Free State garrison in nearby Tralee to the presence of the guerrilla column at Midnight Mass.

At some point after midnight the 'National' Army arrived in lorries and pandemonium ensued.

Some men tried to reach their weapons, others tried to escape, almost all found themselves prisoners by Christmas morning at the behest of their church....

Women & Revolution - Saoradh
24 December 2017 at 13:14 ·