Sir,—Apropos Robert Delany’s ‘The Free State Army’s first peacetime artillery practice’ (HI 33.5, Sept./Oct. 2025), a colourful account of the misadventures of what was dubbed the ‘Big Gun’ in the Civil War in Limerick has been left to us by local character P.J. (Cushy) Ryan. The conflict had raged for eleven days (11–22 July 1922), as Free State troops gradually began to take back IRA strongholds in local barracks and public buildings. However, one bastion that defied capture was the heavily defended Strand Barracks under the command of IRA captain Connie Mackey. Constant rifle fire had failed to dislodge the Republicans, which resulted in the fateful decision by Comdt Michael Brennan to send for the Big Gun.
According to Cushy, it was one of a pair left behind by the withdrawing British in Athlone Barracks after the Treaty was signed; it was 1912 vintage and had seen better days. Towed by a Free State military lorry, the Big Gun had to detour through O’Brien’s Bridge, Co. Clare, as the bridge at Annacotty had been blown up by the Republicans. Knots of curious civilians gathered to stare as the gun reached the suburbs of the city in Corbally, negotiating the narrow Park Bridge and on through Athlunkard Street. The gun was destined for Arthur’s Quay, with a serious assault on the Strand Barracks across the river planned.
The Limerick Chronicle stated that the bombardment started on the morning of 20 July. According to Ryan, crowds ‘flocked to every vantage point to view the scene of impending horror, except where the gun was located, which was blocked off by barbed wire’. Onlookers were not impressed by its dilapidated state. With a short range across the river of 150 yards, aim was taken along the barrel, with Colonel Fraher in charge of operations. At 10.30am all was in readiness. Colonel Fraher gave the signal, and such was the explosion that the gun jumped into the air and recoiled backwards, narrowly missing the gunners.
So faulty was the aim that the shell struck a telegraph pole 30ft to the left of the barracks gate, cutting it down. The shell ricocheted and then struck the window to the right of the gate, skidded along the road and was later found near the Treaty Stone. ‘It was said that the shell almost knocked Christ off the cross in the grounds of St Munchin’s church’, wrote local wit Louie Byrne. ‘Take that yoke away before the houses are knocked down on top of us’, shouted the residents of Arthur’s Quay, according to Cushy.
Conscious of the recoil that almost took the gunners in their sins, a deeper hole was dug and the gun placed firmly in position. Cushy wrote:
‘From the first shot it was realised that the gun was shooting thirty-five feet to the left which represented a lateral deviation of about fifteen degrees. To allow for this, the gun was aimed at the window near the red brick house on the right of the barracks. Once more into the breech was slammed a solid shell. Once more the gunners saluted and the Colonel returned the salute. The Colonel’s hand dropped the signal and the gun belched smoke and flame as it again jumped about two feet in the air. It then moved forward, swung around and a wheel became embedded in the hole dug for the trail of the gun.
‘Such was the recoil that the gun swung round and the barrel faced towards Sarsfield Bridge. Luckily the gunners had jumped clear. When the smoke settled it was seen that a major breach had been made near the entrance to the barracks. The reaction of the crowd was one of loud approval but some of the women in the tenements claimed that their windows had been broken by the blasting of the gun. They got little satisfaction from Colonel Fraher and according to Byrne they plonked themselves in front of the gun. “We did not take this from the Black and Tans and by God we won’t take it from you”, shouted the ringleader. They were placated when promised the windows would be replaced.’
However, the Chronicle reported that the breaches in the wall of the barracks showed that the Free State gunners were no mean marksmen. ‘The gate was blown away with a shell and there are two large holes in the masonry work, one of which is sufficient to admit a horse and car to pass through. The place is also pitted with bullet marks and there is also a large breach at the rear caused by bombs. The three houses close by also bear evidence of the scale of a battle which lasted since the evening of the 11th inst.’
The barracks was stormed by a small detachment of Free State troops when sufficient breach was made in the walls and they dislodged Irregulars from block after block until the garrison of 30 was forced to surrender. The other 30 escaped through an opening in the Red Cross Hospital next door.
Two weeks later the Big Gun was in action again, this time in Adare, where the Republicans were making one of their last stands. During the shelling of the town on 4 August, Mary Hartney was killed while attending the wounded in the Republican first aid centre. A Cumann na mBan activist, she was the only member of that organisation to be killed during the Troubles or Civil War, and is buried in the Republican plot in Mount St Lawrence. Her husband was Michael Hartney, a IRA activist and later mayor of the city, who during the War of Independence had his shop in Davis Street blown up twice by the Black and Tans.
This was the final chapter in the story of the Big Gun, which fell silent at the cessation of hostilities shortly afterwards. Cushy, the narrator, concluded: ‘As happened during the Williamite Siege of 1691, another rebel army was subdued by a Big Gun, the story of which will forever be the major part of what was popularly known as the Third Siege of Limerick’.—Yours etc.,
DENIS O’SHAUGHNESSY
Limerick