On the afternoon of 7 January 1921, George Lennon’s column gathered near Stradbally where Andy Kirwan had organised vehicles; only three cars were initially available, and carrying fifteen men, the small convoy set out for Bunmahon, where a rendezvous had been arranged with an officer of East Waterford’s Dunhill Battalion. The West Waterford ASU was being brought in at the request of Paddy Paul to augment his own forces in a large-scale ambush being planned for that night near Tramore. Jim Power, OC 2nd (Dunhill) Battalion of the East Waterford Brigade, was gathering his own forces (approximately fourteen men armed with rifles and shotguns) at Reisk, about two miles north-east of Dunhill, to commence a cross-country march to Tramore at 5 p.m. It was intended that Martin Cullinane, the man he had sent to Bunmahon, would guide Lennon’s column to this point, where both groups would march to Tramore together.

In 1921, however, motor vehicles were not always noted for reliability, and despite having the mechanical skills of ‘Nipper’ McCarthy available, the convoy suffered several mishaps on the road and took several hours to travel from Stradbally to Bunmahon. Cullinane waited anxiously until 5.40 p.m. and then returned to the Reisk Road where he met Jim Power and his party, and they set off on a trek of five miles across the dark fields to Tramore.

At this time, Paddy Paul took up position at the site of the intended ambush at Pickardstown, a mile north of Tramore. Apart from the West Waterford ASU and the Dunhill Battalion, Paul had arranged for another twenty men from the Waterford City Battalion to join him. He had directed that the entire force should be in position at Pickardstown by 6 p.m., but had not allowed for the length of time that a night march cross-country can take.

Willy Keane, Paul’s vice commandant, was ordered to gather twenty men from the City Battalion and march them cross-country to the Metal Bridge at Pickardstown, but he had not been briefed about the forthcoming ambush. This was an incredible omission, which led people to believe that some friction existed between the two, particularly because Paul had notified Jerry Cronin (by now OC of the City Battalion’s ‘A’ company) of the forthcoming ambush and had shown him a sketch of the proposed dispositions.

Keane later recalled:

The men selected by me were paraded in the grounds of the Mental Hospital, Waterford, at about 7 p.m. on January 6th 1921 and I issued to each man a shotgun and about forty cartridges. I myself was armed with a Webley .45 revolver and about thirty rounds of ammunition. On reconsideration, I now recall handing out about six Lee-Enfield rifles which would make our strength fourteen shotguns and six rifles.

One of the selected group, Nicky Whittle remembered:

Willy Keane, the vice brigadier, distributes the ammunition and the guns. I get eleven rounds of buckshot for my shotgun. The vice brigadier in a low voice speaks a few words of guidance to the men: he tells them they have some distance to travel and a tough job to do. He announces that all men will follow the call of a curlew, which will be given at regular intervals by Tom Brennan, who knows the district intimately. We avoid the roads and trudge through the fields, and the whisper goes around that our destination is to be near Tramore.

The majority of actions of the Irish War of Independence were not properly recorded for several years after the events for various reasons, with the result that many details were confused or forgotten. Due to the circumstances of the Tramore ambush, however, an internal inquiry was ordered by the IRA which involved the taking of statements from several of the key participants only a few months after the incident. These statements, dictated to Pax Whelan, give an unusually vivid picture of the events of that night.

At 7 p.m., Paddy Paul was still waiting at Pickardstown alone, except for Jim Power’s vice commandant.

He later recalled that the ambush he was planning:

... had as its primary objective the securing of much-needed arms and ammunition and secondly, the drawing away of the enemy from more hard-pressed areas ... I wanted to have this action in the heart of an area which was regarded by the enemy as absolutely quiet and safe. The terrain thereabouts was absolutely flat and unsuitable for our operations in daylight and this fact therefore compelled us to adopt a night attack, although I realised that night operations are always dangerous because of the inability to control forces and the likelihood of their becoming scattered and detached. There was also a very good road network in this area which made it an easy matter for the enemy, equipped with motor vehicles, to surround us ... it was these considerations which influenced the carrying out of the Tramore ambush as a night attack.

Paul described the details of the plan:

The general plan was to get the enemy out of barracks in a position on the road where they could be boxed in and attacked from four sides at close range ... the ambush party were arranged in four separate parties, each occupying one position on one side.

The site of the intended ambush was close to the Waterford— Tramore railway line which ran directly from south to north at that point. Just to the east of this line, and running alongside, was the ‘new’ Waterford-Tramore roadway which abruptly turned west and passed through the railway embankment under local landmark the Metal Bridge before passing uphill to Tramore Racecourse. Before the road reached the Metal Bridge, two roads branched away from it — one (the old Waterford road) travelling north-east, the other travelling south-east to Ballinattin. Paul had originally planned to deploy his forces as follows: the West Waterford ASU in a position on the Glen Road, west of the Metal Bridge, deployed near a barricade. The ASU were the best armed and most experienced men in the ambush party, and Paul intended that they would initiate the ambush. This position did not offer a particularly good line of fire and Lennon later redeployed his men slightly. A shotgun party of ten men from Dunhill Battalion were positioned on the railway line overlooking the Waterford-Tramore road. These men had a very limited amount of ammunition; one source suggests no more than two shotgun shells each. In 1921 Paul claimed that ‘orders were given to all men [at Pickardstown] not to fire until the first lorry had struck the barricade’. In 1953 however, he claimed that these ten men, ‘were instructed to pour whatever number of shots they could into the lorries as they came near enough to them and then withdraw’. This confusion of orders would have far-reaching consequences that night.

Another group of men from both Dunhill and Waterford City Battalions placed along the Ballinattin Road, overlooked the Metal Bridge, which was separated from the main road by very marshy ground. This group was divided into ten men with shotguns, close to the main road, led by Jerry Cronin, and six riflemen further uphill. Another four riflemen from Waterford city were ‘manning the position on the road junction between the old and the new roads. These men would be in a position to bring enfilade fire to bear on the rear of the enemy troops, presuming that these came into the position as we had it arranged they should.’

Paul’s preparations for what became known locally as the Pickardstown ambush, have been described as ‘elaborate’.

A modern-day soldier in Ireland’s Special Forces who reviewed the dispositions observed:

This plan is far too complex, the whole principle of an ambush is Keep It Simple. Command and control, vital in a situation which can go wrong very quickly, is non-existent here. The commander would have had poor contact with even the group on the Ballinattin Road, and none at all with the groups on the railway and beyond it. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and this particular plan practically required the enemy to be cooperative to work. It might be necessary in a large-scale ambush to have the troops dispersed, but here they’re spread so thinly that the British would have had no trouble overwhelming two of the three groups - incidentally, the three main groups couldn’t even see each other, let alone support each other. Most of all, the commander has missed the best tactical ground here — the railway embankment. An ambush party here would have had good cover and an excellent field of fire. A more experienced leader would have put all the rifles here with the shotguns as flank security, and nearly twenty Lee-Enfield rifles in trained hands were capable of putting down a hail of fire, enough to drive some of the British unit off the road and onto the marshy ground where it would have been difficult to reorganise. Last of all, this ambush took place at night, which unless your men are very well trained, led and deployed, can be a recipe for disaster. But overall, this whole ambush was a disaster waiting to happen.

Later in 1921 Liam Lynch, by then one of the IRA’s most proficient guerrilla leaders, reviewed Paul’s plans and noted:

Waterford No. 1 Brigade should not have undertaken such a large operation for the following reasons (a) Operation too big as men had never before fired a shot; (b) Men had neither discipline, morale or arms for such a fight, especially night fighting.

Lynch also commented on Paul’s failure to make use of the vital tactical ground offered by the railway embankment: ‘Waterford No. 2 men [West Waterford ASU] should have been more at rear of barricade along No. 2 position [railway embankment] — as it was the fighting fell only to the shotgun men who naturally did not fight at all.’

The architect of this impending disaster, Paddy Paul, was a young man with a great deal of experience of war, but very little experience of command. He undoubtedly possessed many leadership qualities that included a drive and determination that was sorely needed in East Waterford at the time.

IRA Chief of Staff Richard Mulcahy later noted of him:

Personally, I could not get any good of any officer in Waterford, or get any scrap of organisation in the brigade as a whole, until the present brigade commandant took command some months ago. He has put the brigade on something like a satisfactory footing, I think.

Paul, however, had not been trained in guerrilla warfare by the British army nor had he the benefit of the sort of training course that Liam Lynch had organised in Glenville the previous September. Neither was he a natural tactician.

A party of men from Dunhill eventually arrived at Tramore Racecourse after 7 p.m., where another six men from Jim Powers 2nd Battalion were waiting.

On arrival, Paul ordered Power:

... to take all the men into a field where he divided them into parties and gave them their orders ... We then proceeded towards Metal Bridge where we expected to meet a party from [City] Battalion. On the way we were told that the Black and Tan’s had returned to barracks. The party from No. 1 Battalion came along and we were put into positions.

The party from No. 1 (City) Battalion arrived after 9 p.m. Three men from this group were deemed to be under the influence of alcohol and were not allowed to participate in the ambush. William Keane and three others went to work preparing a barricade, thirty yards west of the Metal Bridge, using farm carts borrowed locally.

Originally, according to Jim Power:

The idea was to go to the Marine Hotel, Tramore, and fire on the Black and Tans there. The Tans would send word to Waterford of the attack and we would then ambush the enemy force coming out from Waterford to relieve the Tans in the Marine Hotel.’

Since the Black and Tans had already returned to barracks for the night, the plan was modified; a small party would move in to Tramore and attack the RIC barracks in the middle of town, in the expectation that reinforcements would be dispatched from Waterford. Soon afterwards, the West Waterford flying column finally arrived, parking the cars on the Glen Road a mile from the ambush site. George Lennon subsequently recounted: ‘We had several mishaps on the road and didn’t get to the place of ambush until near 11 p.m.’

William Keane recalled that:

Pax Whelan inspected the guns and ammunition of the men from the East Waterford Brigade and placed them in position for attack. George Lennon, vice commandant of the West Waterford Brigade was also there and I remember him inspecting the guns of the Dunhill company before putting them into position.

Lennon’s 1921 statement (dictated to Pax Whelan) continues:

I met Commdt of No. 1 [Paul] and went to a position he allotted us on Glen Road. Our position commanded the Railway Bridge and road up from it, a barricade was placed on road about thirty yards from bridge. I placed an outpost of two shotguns and a rifleman down near barricade to protect our right. I was given to understand that first lorries were to be allowed up so far as barricade and we were to be the first to fire. When we had taken up positions a feint attack on barracks was decided, the object being to draw enemy. I gave Commdt No. 1 Brigade two men to help in attack.

Paddy Paul opted to lead the attack on Tramore RIC barracks personally — why he felt it was necessary to do this when his correct place was at his command post at the Ballinattin Road is not quite clear. Perhaps the insinuations of faint-heartedness on his part after the attack on Kill RIC barracks still rankled. Paul opted not only to lead the attack on Tramore barracks, but also to bring some of his most experienced men with him, including Jim Power, Mick Bishop and Pat Keating. Also in this party (all of whom had volunteered) were Martin Cullinane and Nicky Whittle.

Jim Power struck an ominous note when he related:

Before I went to [RIC] barracks I went to men in position on railway to get a revolver. I asked the man in charge where his position was and what his orders were; he showed me his position and told me his orders were to fire on first lorry and then get away as best he could. The man in charge of riflemen on Ballinattin Road told me he had no orders at all.

Paddy Paul’s account of the feint attack was as follows:

A few of us went up to Tramore, which was about a mile from the ambush position, and began an attack on the RIC barracks there. This attack was merely a feint to induce the Tans inside to call for reinforcements and for this reason, we did not cut any wires. We left the telephonic communication intact so that they could ring up Waterford. A few men went in rear of the barracks but I don’t think they were able to do anything there.

After the departure of Paul’s group, the ambush party at Pickardstown settled in to wait. Most accounts describe this night as ‘very cold’ with a clear, starry sky. Already some men were becoming anxious;

O’Neill, the man in charge of the rifle party on the Ballinattin Road, later claimed:

The late VC [Willie Keane] was on my right. I went to him and asked what the signals were for ‘Open Fire, Cease Fire and Retreat’; he said he didn’t know but would find out. After a time I saw him again, but he didn’t know the signals. The Commdt of No. 2 Brigade [Pax Whelan] then came up and I asked him if he knew what the signal to fire was and he told me to wait until the other parties had started and then to open fire. He also told me to be sure and keep any fire ‘down’ as I might be endangering men on the Railway Line by my fire.

George Lennon had clearly not been entirely happy with the position allocated to him by Paul, having moved his men slightly, while Pax Whelan had taken the eminently sensible step of walking around the ambush position himself and had observed that there was a strong chance of two of the IRA positions firing on each other. As for the Dunhill men on the railway line, one later stated that: ‘I was told to fire on the first lorries and then get away.’ According to another: ‘I was ordered by brigade commandant [Paul] to fire on the first enemy lorry that approached.’

Back in Tramore, the attack on the RIC barracks was beginning.

According to Nicky Whittle:

Suddenly a Mills bomb exploded in front of the barracks. It was Comdt Pat Keating, who in his socks had dashed across the road in front of the barracks and flung the bomb through the fanlight over the barrack door.

Paddy Paul remembered:

Keating, myself and another West Waterford man opened up fire on the front of the barracks. We could not get close to the door of the barracks because of the barbed wire which was in front of it but when our fire opened, the Tans inside returned it and after a while began to throw grenades out at us. The grenades came fairly close to us, but in the position we were, we had cover from them. In the dark we could not even see them coming to us. The first intimation we had was when each one exploded ... After some time we concluded that it was time now to return to the ambush position so as to be ready to receive the enemy reinforcements when they arrived. Going down the road we met some of the men from the ambush position coming up to enquire about us.

The feint attack on the RIC barracks had taken about fifteen minutes. During the attack, one Black and Tan sustained a serious stomach wound.

Nicky Whittle remembered:

Our next job was to get back to the ambush centre as fast as possible. We moved at the double. On the way I am joined by a member of the West Waterford column [Pakeen Whelan]. As we run together, I pass him a couple of slices of bread. As he munches them he asks: ‘What is the strength of the barrack garrison in Waterford?’ I reply ‘About 300.’He flung away a crust he had been about to eat and muttered, ‘Oh Cripes!’

According to George Lennon’s 1921 statement:

‘After the attack men returned and I put my two men into their positions. The Commdt of No. 1 and some officers with him were near to my position at this time.’ Pakeen Whelan and Nicky Whittle quickly took up their positions, Whittle joining the shotgun party on the Ballinattin Road. It seems likely that a terse discussion then took place near the Metal Bridge between Paddy Paul and the others for ten minutes. It was now nearly fifteen minutes to midnight. Suddenly, according to Lennon: ‘I saw glare of lights coming on Waterford Road. I told Commdt of No. 1 to get back to his position as quick as he could, that military were coming; he ran towards it with the others who were with him.’

These were the headlights of one of four Crossley tenders, carrying nearly forty soldiers of the Devonshire Regiment, with a few RIC men acting as guides. The British had arrived with speed and in strength. This was twice the size of the force that Lennon had faced at Piltown Cross, and Paddy Paul was not even at his post.

Based on the subsequent award of a decoration, the officer in charge of the British party was Lieutenant Frederick Charles Yeo. He was well known to the Waterford IRA, who almost invariably referred to him as a ‘notorious blackguard’ due to his penchant for beating captured IRA men. ‘Notorious blackguard’ or not, Yeo was a formidable enemy. As a private soldier, he had gone to war with the Royal Engineers in the second month of the First World War, and over the following three years he had been promoted to sergeant, winning the Military Medal along the way. He had been commissioned as an officer in late 1917.

According to one of the four IRA riflemen posted at the road junction between the old and new roads:

‘We noticed the glare of lorry lights on our rear coming on Old Tramore Road and a small Crossley tender passed going towards the Metal Bridge; when about twenty yards from the Bridge it was fired on.’

One of the Dunhill men on the railway embankment later state:

‘I ordered my party to fire on the first lorry and they did so. We then retreated. We fired about two shots per man.’ At the road junction, ‘after about three minutes another lorry passed with no lights and stopped just beyond the Ballinattin Cross. I could hear shouting and someone saying “Come on you Bastards!” “Open Fire!” After a while we fired a few rounds down the road at the first lorry.’

On the Ballinattin Road, Jerry Cronin ‘waited until the men on flanking position on my right between the new and old Tramore Roads had fired, then I opened fire’. The Devonshires were already deploying and returning fire. With the Dunhill men on the railway having already withdrawn as ordered, the British concentrated their return fire on Cronin’s shotgun party. Nicky Whittle recalled that ‘a hail of bullets began to spatter all around us. All the guns in our section now opened up on a single lorry. In a matter of seconds gunfire was literally cutting the grass from off the top of the ditch from which we were firing.’

According to Jim Power’s 1954 account:

Whilst all this was going on, Bishop, Cullinane, Paul and I went across, under fire, to the rifle party engaged on the Ballinattin Road ... with great difficulty and under a cross-fire from our own men and the British we eventually made our way up to our comrades on the Ballinattin Road and took up position with our comrades there.

Positioned as they were, Lennon and his column were not able to see the ongoing battle:

[Paul] was only gone a few minutes when firing broke out from some of the positions opposite, I couldn't say from which one; it was probably directed at first lorry. The first lorry stopped at other side of bridge. The headlights were shining underneath the bridge. The other lorries seemed pretty far back, none of them came into our position at all. There was pretty heavy firing for about ten minutes from the other side of the embankment. We threw a Verey light near the first lorry on road, it showed a good light around but we couldn't see anything.

Back at the Ballinattin Road, things were going from bad to worse.

According to the leader of the four riflemen at the road junction:

Another lorry had now come behind us and we were in danger of being surrounded, and we took cover. Another lorry was now about one hundred yards further behind us. The enemy left lorries and were marching down the road; some of them stopped near us and we could hear them saying: ‘There is an ambush here, we’ll make Tramore pay for this! ’They went in extended order to Ballinattin Road ... we retreated as our position was untenable.

Seconds later, thirty Devonshires were forming up at the road junction to begin an assault on the Ballinattin Road. Paul and his small group reached the road, between the shotgun party and the riflemen, just as the position was becoming desperate.

Paddy Paul recalled:

Making a quick survey of the position I realised then that something had gone wrong because only the men on the Ballinattin Road and the road junction were engaged. The enemy lorries, or some of them, had not come into the ambush position and I could see some of them on the road in rear of our position ... as it was now, we were in serious danger of being surrounded by superior forces, so I passed the word on to withdraw towards the position in which I then was.

Mick Wylie, one of the shotgun party:

‘I noticed some of the shotgun men passing me up the road; after about six passing I retreated up the road myself. I had gone a short distance when I was hit in both legs’.

Willy Keane said:

A comrade of mine named Mick Wyley of Waterford city was badly wounded in the legs as he stood beside me against the ditch. He told me he was unable to stand and asked for my help. I got hold of Wyley, slung him over my shoulder and carried him over the ditch on the eastern side of the Ballinattin Road under heavy fire from the British on the opposite side. He tried to crawl up the hill, but when I saw he couldn’t do it I picked him up again and carried him up over the top of the hill and out of the line of fire.

Nicky Whittle recalled:

To hold our position was now impossible and we fell back under cover of the ditch towards our riflemen. I was moving in a crouched position when suddenly I heard the sound of the voices of English soldiers at the other side of the ditch. I pulled out involuntarily. It looked that we were being surrounded. The next thing I was aware of was the sharp stab of a bullet in the back of my neck. It was a British officer who fired at me with his revolver. I have a recollection of jumping into the air. As I fell he got me again with another bullet in the small of the back. It was probably a matter of seconds before I came to and regained consciousness ... I clearly recall that I could discern the voices of our own lads at the side of the road ... they were firing from the shelter of the ditch. From the other side of the road I could hear the British officer’s voice urging his men, ‘Get out lads and get into them! ’There was no sign, however, of his orders being obeyed, the only response from his men being a chorus of shouts of ‘Bayonet the Bastards!’

Paddy Paul:

‘I could plainly hear the talk of the enemy soldiers and their officers and from their talk I gathered that the soldiers were very nervous, but they seemed to be well led by their officers who rallied them and encouraged them to pursue us’.

Beside Paul, Martin Cullinane saw:

‘some of the shotgun men went up the road behind us. I asked “what’s up?” and someone said the enemy were coming up the road - we were surrounded. I asked brigade commandant [Paul] what would we do. He said nothing.’

According to O’Neill, who was in charge of the rifle party:

Suddenly there was a lull in the firing of enemy. I asked the brigadier if they were surrendering. I thought the first lorry was at the time. I ordered my men to cease fire — one of my men continued and the brigadier then gave the order to ‘cease fire’. The enemy then started to fire again and we fired some more rounds. As it was then getting hot we shifted position ... twenty-five yards further up. At that time the shotgun men were retiring towards our position. We were again about to open fire; the enemy seemed close now and [Mick Bishop] told us not to fire as it would give away our position. We lay down on the road and the enemy fire came over our heads.

John Riordan, with the flying column on the far side of the railway embankment, summed up their situation thus:

‘We were “in the dark” in every sense of the word. Nobody seemed to know exactly what was happening. ’

According to Lennon:

The firing died down on the other side and after a short time it started again. We saw an enemy soldier running across road underneath bridge at this time; we fired another Verey light underneath bridge and ordered my men to fire a volley under bridge. I don’t think it had any effect. I had a pretty good idea of what was after happening. I held a consultation with my own officers and we decided to hold our position for some time longer, as we could easily hold them back from coming up from the bridge. I sent two scouts to our left through a bog towards the railway line, they came back and reported that they heard someone breaking through bushes. [The Dunhill men withdrawing from the railway.] The volley we fired under the bridge was the only shots fired by my party during the scrap with the exception of a few shots fired at the lorries away back the Waterford Road.

O’Neill’s account recalls:

‘Another man [Michael McGrath] and myself advanced down the road about fifteen yards. Then I got over the fence in front. As I did so I heard the other man being surrounded and captured. ’Both the shotgun and rifle party had abandoned the Ballinattin Road and were escaping across the fields. Willie Keane and Jerry Cronin were carrying Mick Wylie to a safe house where he was given first aid. But there were a few IRA men still left on the Ballinattin Road, including Nicky Whittle and Michael McGrath.

George Lennon recalls:

The firing died down with the exception of an odd shot on hill over Ballinattin Road. We could hear the enemy (they had English accents) interrogating someone near Ballinattin Road, this was followed by some shots and we could hear someone crying and groaning; a lot of shooting was going on and cries of ‘Halt'. This died down after about twenty minutes.

Nicky Whittle, lying wounded on the road, was shot a third time by a Devonshire:

Pulling up a few yards from where I lay, he fired into me with his rifle. Fortunately for me the previous wounding’s seem to have left my body numb to any sense of further pain ... the fact that I did not moan apparently gave the British soldier the idea that he had wasted a good bullet on a dead man. I recall feeling in my mind a contempt for the fellow who had fired into a man on the ground ... I heard the sound of running footsteps coming up the road. The English soldier shouted: ‘Halt, who goes there?’ A voice responded ‘Friend’. Then there were two shots in rapid succession and the British soldier dropped to the ground beside me ... it was Connie Dorgan of Waterford who had shot him ...

I should point out that a number of the British officers were in mufti [civilian clothing] that night, hence the challenge of the British soldier. This soldier, badly wounded in the groin, was the only casualty suffered by the Devonshires that night. His agonised cursing and shouting was clearly heard beyond the Metal Bridge. Other Devonshires were quickly on the scene, the soldier carried away, and Whittle examined and assumed to be dead.

Nicholas Whittle:

The group of British soldiers around me rushed to the other side of the road shouting ‘Bayonet the Bastards, bayonet the Bastards’ as they ran. They had discovered Tom O’Brien of Dunhill, who had fired his last cartridge and was crouching close to a bush. I recall hearing the officer’s order: ‘Don’t kill him, take him prisoner.’ I heard Tom O’Brien’s voice for a moment, then the sounds of the butts of rifles beating him into insensibility. He never moaned, which suggested that he was knocked unconscious after the first blow. Once again I heard the officer’s voice saying: ‘Take him down to the lorry.’ Then I could clearly discern the skithering sound on the road of Tom O’Brien’s boots as they dragged him along the road.

By now, Lennon:

... knew that the game was up as far as a successful ambush was concerned. I sent men to withdraw the outpost near barricade and told them to fall back on Glen Road. I fell in men and withdrew back towards racecourse. We could have remained longer and put up a good fight but our line of retreat would be cut, they could have come up under bridge to us but could easily surround us. We abandoned the cars and retired across country, west towards Dunhill and Kill. The ambush would probably have been a success if the lorries were allowed to run into barricade.

This was the only sane option to take. There were forty British troops only a short distance away and over two hundred and fifty more were less than ten miles away, most of whom could be expected to be on the scene quickly. Liam Lynch later noted that ‘Waterford No. 2 vice OC [Lennon] showed his qualities on this occasion as a leader.’

According to John Riordan:

The order was given to abandon the cars and move westwards. This was easier said than done, as we were all strangers in the locality and did not know that particular bit of country at all. However, my British army training came in handy here, as I was able to take my bearings from the stars and guide the party safely to the west without contacting any enemy forces.

This involved a hard forced march for fourteen miles across country; by dawn, the party had reached the vicinity of Stradbally where they went into billets for the day.

It was here Andy Kirwan received a strange request from Pat Keating:

I remember him asking me to have him prayed for (as dead) in Kill chapel the following Sunday. He explained to me that his reason was that word would go around that he was dead (killed at Tramore) and that, when the British got to hear this, it would cause them to ease off in their efforts to track him down. Pat seemed to have a presentiment of either being caught or killed in action in the near future.

This was to have fatal consequences for Jack Fitzgerald of Kilrossanty, then living in England. Hearing a report of the ‘death’ of his old friend Pat Keating, he immediately returned home where finding the rumour to be untrue, he joined the flying column and was later killed in action himself.

It later transpired that two deaths had taken place at Pickardstown, under decidedly sinister circumstances.

According to the Munster Express of 15 January 1921:

After the engagement at Pickardstown three dead bodies of civilians were seen on the road by the military, one of whom was subsequently identified as Michael McGrath, carpenter, Poleberry, Waterford. At least ten of the attackers are also stated to have been wounded. Two of the bodies were taken into a lorry, and on returning for the third it was found that it had been carried away by the attackers.

This was actually Nicky Whittle, who despite having been shot three times, was painfully crawling away from the ambush site. He eventually reached the house of a relative where he was hidden. The following day he received medical treatment from Dr Purcell of Waterford who also treated Mick Wyley.

Subsequently, at a military inquiry held at Waterford military barracks, a British army medical officer stated that in the case of one of the dead IRA men:

‘The cause of death in my opinion was due to laceration of the brain, haemorrhage, and shock. The wound could have been caused by a gun shot. Death was instantaneous.’

Michael McGrath’s death certificate states that cause of death was due to ‘gunshot wound in head’. The cause of death of the other dead man (Tom O’Brien, unidentified at the time) was ‘due to a gunshot wound passing through the heart and lungs’. In both cases the court added a strange rider: ‘That no blame whatever attaches to the military or any member thereof.’

The IRA later carried out an internal inquiry into the failure of the ambush. Pax Whelan attributed the failure to ‘the premature firing in position No. 2 on the railway embankment’, although he noted that this group appeared to have received conflicting orders. Liam Lynch’s judgement was that ‘the failure of ambush and loss of life’ rested either with Paddy Paul or the officer in charge of the Dunhill men on the railway. He also noted Paul’s absence from his post and Jim Power’s failure to warn Paul that some of the ambush party did not understand their orders. It was the final judgement of Richard Mulcahy that ‘the matter should be left lie’.

In later years, the opening salvo by the Dunhill men became a thorny issue. In a 1954 account, Jerry Cronin even blamed Lennon’s ASU for firing these shots. Ironically, the outcome of the ambush could have been far worse. Had things gone according to plan and the British trucks advanced to the barricade, no more than one truck of the Devonshires would have been in the flying column’s killing zone. The Dunhill men on the railway line would have opened fire on the remaining three trucks and without ammunition would have been quickly overwhelmed, leaving the Devonshires in a position to catch the ASU in a pincer movement. The Ballinattin group would not have been in a position to lend support. It is very likely that the action of the Dunhill men, attempting to obey their conflicting orders, saved several lives that night.

Shortly after the Tramore ambush, martial law was imposed on County Waterford. One of the provisions of martial law allowed the execution of IRA men captured while bearing arms.