Sir, – I would not wish to take sides in the Clare/Cork debate (Barbara Scully, ("Inviting the British back to the GPO", News Review, May 17th, and Brendan Ó Cathaoir, May 22nd) about who treated my grandfather, Brig Gen CHT Lucas, the best but I do wish to balance the debate a little with historical evidence from my grandfather's secret diary of events, official report and letters to my grandmother.
According to these, he was taken across the Shannon by boat to “Bunratty House where Mr Corbett lives” on July 4th, 1920. He stayed there one night and then was moved on to Mr Brennan’s house in Clonmoney. He was frequently moved around to avoid British patrols. He certainly played a lot of bridge and drank a lot of whiskey into the wee small hours. He also played tennis and croquet, helped “save the hay” and notoriously went on poaching trips on the Shannon.
However it was not just in Clare that he was treated as a gentleman. He wrote to my grandmother on June 30th, whilst in Cork, reporting that he was “really seeing Ireland properly just now, the people are very kind, lots of good plain food . . . I am in no danger at all, and you will be quite tickled with my experiences when I get out.”
I should add that my poor grandmother had gone into premature labour after finding out about her husband’s capture from a newspaper headline. His family had kept the news from her as they wanted to protect her. Happily she and her baby recovered from the trauma helped by the reassuring letters from her captive husband, which Liam Lynch and later Michael Brennan kindly arranged to be sent to her.
My family have certainly been “tickled” by my grandfather’s stories and are grateful for the kindness that men such as George Powers and Ernest Corbett showed him. My grandfather was a man of honour who didn’t flinch from saying what he thought – he knew that he risked being court-martialled for saying that he had been treated as “a gentleman by gentlemen” and was held by “delightful people” but spoke out anyway. This he said in spite of almost being killed in the Oola ambush just after he “escaped”. This was not what anti-Home Rule elements in the British government wanted to hear. They wanted to paint the IRA as evil to get “England on their side” to go in and destroy them. Words such as “gentlemen” and “delightful” helped put a dampener on the flame they hoped to kindle. – Yours, etc,
RUTH WHEELER,
Hervey Road,
London.