Mid Clare and Ennis brigade 1915 to 1922 Ruan barracks raid

[mgallery]

Hi

My grandmother who I hardly knew was a member of the mid Clare and Ennis brigades. We have her cumann na mBan medals. Her brothers were also active as part of Inch volunteers. Michael Quinn was captain of Inch volunteers and the first chairman of a free state county council.
I have Mico's obit where it talks of his imprisonments in Belfast and being on hunger strike in Wormwood Scrubs (under Austin Stack). Both received full military funerals.
I now have just got their accounts of their military service when the applied for pensions.
My grandmother Maggie Quinn later Margaret Gallery was matron of the tb sanatorium at Ballyalla where she hid men on the run, fed volunteers and she also did despatches and intelligence. She gives names dates and titles of people she hid and mentions the aftermath of Ruan Barracks attack. She says her commanding officer was Mrs P Roughan.
Mico says he was one of the founder members of the volunteer movement in Clare and talks of the difficulty of getting halls for meetings. He openly drilled the volunteers after mass in Inch in the field beside the search. He is mentioned in the Art O'Donnell statements. His account gives names and dates of actions including that on Ruan Barracks and he also talks of intelligence work in the uk after he was on hunger strike in Wormwood scrubs under Austin Stack. He was also imprisoned in Belfast in 1918 when the prison was broken up. He got turned down for a military pension and appeals as he says he cannot believe someone who gave so much service (and ruined his health) was being rejected. He gives Father Roche as his CO.

If anyone can help me to put names historical events to these dates great. They are both noticeably absent from the books on the period. Mico is mentioned once. His cousin who was in the Sinn Fein club in Ennis (Mungovan) is hardly mentioned either.
here is some of what I have

Michael Quinn, knock house inch, 17th March 1935 - transcript of letter to Military pensions board

I organised a company of the Irish volunteers at Inch in 1914 and the few companies in Clare at the time usually held private meetings at the Clare hotel Ennis but we decided in 1915 to come out in the open and hold public convention, but to ensure a hall was the great difficulty. I acted as secretary and got refusal everywhere even the Gaelic League refused the user of their hall on the grounds that they were not political. I later received leave from the Ennis District Council and Board of Guardians (of which I was a member) to hold our meeting in the board room, but the local government board of the day heard of this through the minutes and sent down a sealed order forbidding the use of the board room for such a meeting. Certain people in Ennis were boasting that we were down and out so we decided in the bold course of action of taking the board room by force and defying the F.G.B the matter was the subject of a sworn enquiry later with the ,ain object of dismissing the master of the union Mr Frank Garrett R.I.P but they failed in their objective. I attended with Frank Barrett and his brother Michael a volunteer convention in Limerick in April 1916 as delegates from Clare. I attended the Plunkett convention with Frank Barrett in 1916. I again attended with him a volunteer convention in dublin in September 1917.
I organised with Captain Joseph Barrett and his brothers the capture of Inch RJB Hut in january 1918 but it had to be abandoned due to a heavy fall of snow. I was absent through being in Lisdoonvarna when the attack place in the 19th July 1919. I together with Capt Joe Barrett and the late Joe McMahon of Kilmaley boarded a troub train in Ennis Railway stn in January 1918 with the object of getting arms. I purchased a service revolver from an RIC constable in Ennis 1918. I procured a services rifle form a soldiers home in leave in 1917.I was one of the fellows that was handcuffed with the hands behind the back in Belfast jail in 1918.
After coming out of Wormwood scrubs prison in 1920 I met an Irish man who was in the English Civil service in London. He informed me that he was in a position to tap official correspondance passing between Dublin Castle and London when I came to Dublin I informed Peadar Clancy RIP he immediately took the matter up and the man came over for an interview with the late General Michael Collins RIP . I believe the information was very useful.
I purchased small quantities of ammunition from British soldiers all through from 1916 though 1932
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Maggie Quinn (Margaret Gallery)
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in her words

I was a member of the Cumann na Mban Ennis branch First Battalion mid Clare brigade.
Inch and Kilmaley, Joseph Barrett Capt and Rev Fr Roche
Subject to orders from the OC And colunteers I taught first aid in Inch and Kilmaley. Organisation of branch. Raised funds for election helped generally during East Clare Election campaign.

I was subsequently appointed matron of the sanatorium in Ballyalla helped volunteers every way possible even though a number of my patients were very hostile and had extreme difficulty in getting volunteers in and out without being seem or spied on by same sheltered officers. After several attacks on the enemy always helped them to get away safely. I was a member of the Ennis branch for the entire period. Dispatch work, Intelligence generally assisting volunteers catered and helped to card Div OC and Adjt who stayed ... as a hove
.
.
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I concealed stores on the occasion of disarming of a party of British military at Ennis on the 23-06-1920. I nursed and concealed men of the ASU from this period to the truce of July 11 1921. While I was matron of the Clare Sanatorium I treated gave food to and concealed a number of men of the ASU

In a letter in 1956 she says she gave the men on the run her bed in the sanatorium and stayed up all night on watch . Every member of her family fought and suffered. One of her brothers Michael Quinn was a member of Clare Co council was in prison Limerick, Cork and Belfast and did the big hunger strike in Wormwood scrubs and the three other brothers all fought and had to leave their homes and go on the run.