They had four children of their own along with her two sons from her first marriage. She and Florrie O’Donoghue became romantically involved and were eventually married. In her successful application for a military pension, she stated: “There was scarcely a working day in the whole period on which some item of information, big or little, was not passed on to the IRA”. It turned out to be a disaster as six civilians were killed and two IRA volunteers when men from Cork 3 Brigade opened fire at Upton Station.
She also passed on information about troop movements which led to the Upton ambush on February 15th, 1921 in which the IRA attacked a train carrying British soldiers. Her intelligence was used to target the homes of British officers based in Ireland. In her statement for a military pension, O’Donoghue said she was responsible for passing on information which led to the execution of three British spies and six civilians. In return she provided vital information to the IRA about the actions of the Sixth Division of the British army which was fighting the war in Cork. In return, Florrie O’Donoghue, the IRA intelligence officer, led a mission to Cardiff to kidnap her sons, Reggie and Gerard, after her late husband’s family refused to hand them over. The British did not suspect a war widow would be a spy, but Marchment, as she was then, passed vital information on to the Cork brigades of the IRA. She remained on in Ireland after her husband Coleridge Marchment was killed in October 1917 during the Battle of Ypres and got a job as a secretary in Victoria Barracks in Cork. She was living in Wales and moved back to Ireland to look after her dying father. One of the most efficient and ruthless women involved in intelligence during the War of Independence was Josephine O’Connor the widow of a British soldier killed in the first World War. The IRA units involved managed to escape without any casualties. While standing in this position the men were fired on and bayoneted by the British."
"They were lined against a wall outside the house. There were numerous pension claims by the dependents of the men who were killed, including William Galvin, the father of James Galvin, who was with the 4th battalion (1st Cork Brigade, Southern Division).Ī letter in his pension file from Col Pat Murphy of the Irish Army stated that Galvin was executed after surrendering along with the others. Twelve IRA men were killed in the ambush and two others were later executed. When the board instead awarded him Rank B in 1940, Barry was indignant, stating that it made him feel “ashamed” and humiliated.Ĭork also saw the biggest reverse of the War of Independence for the IRA, when Crown forces surprised an active service unit which had assembled at a house in Clonmult on February 20th, 1921. He applied for a pension at Rank A, the highest award available for service during the revolutionary period. He claimed that as a deputy divisional officer commanding, he was effectively in charge of all the IRA active service units in the counties of Cork, Kerry, Waterford and west Limerick. The names of the IRA volunteers from the Altagh company (4th battalion, 3 Cork Brigade, Southern Division) who dug the graves are listed as Pat Buckley, Dan O'Leary, Michael Crowley, Jeremiah Coughlan, Jeremiah Murphy and Pat Keane.īarry fought a long and ultimately successful battle against the Military Service Pensions Board for a pension which reflected his service. They were not buried properly until December 3rd, when they were buried in Castletown Kinneigh in the middle of the night. The bodies of the men were dug up a day later, and they were secretly carried to another location. They were brought to a disused house two days later. Charlie Hurley, the officer commanding the 3rd Cork Brigade (West Cork) of the IRA, ordered permanent coffins to be made by a local carpenter. The bodies of the three were buried in a bog that night, as locals feared the auxiliaries would carry out reprisals. The last two, who died at the scene, were allegedly killed following a "false surrender" by some of the auxiliaries, as alleged by Barry years later.ĭeasy died at 10pm that night at the home of a woman in Gortrae. Three IRA men, Pat Deasy, Michael McCarthy and Jim Sullivan, were also killed.
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