100 years ago. The Maynooth Town Hall blown up
James Durney
Exactly 100 years ago the Maynooth Town Hall and Courthouse was blown up by local volunteers of the Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) The incident was claimed by newspapers of the day to be ‘one of the most sensational that has occurred yet’ in Co. Kildare. Locals described hearing a terrific explosion which shook every house in the town, blew ordinary glass all over the place, and shattered the plate glass in leading business houses.
As IRA attacks increased in early 1920 and the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C.) began haemorrhaging men due to retirement and resignations, vulnerable police barracks were vacated and closed. In the first week of March 1920 the R.I.C. evacuated the barracks in Maynooth transferring the men to the nearby town of Celbridge. The barracks was a two-storey building on the Moyglare Road with two cells in the basement and had been occupied by a police sergeant, his wife and family and some constables. When the barracks at Maynooth, Leixlip, Kilcock, Carbury, Rathangan and Robertstown were closed Celbridge was made a special constabulary area. The policemen from these districts were drafted into Celbridge, where a large heavily fortified barracks overlooked the Liffey.
When the Maynooth police barracks was vacated the sergeant and his family stayed on the premises. On the night of 3 April 1920, several I.R.A. volunteers arrived and courteously escorted the sergeant’s wife and family off the premises to a place of safety. They then returned, and having saturated the place with paraffin, set fire to the barracks. Motor cars with cheering young men were seen driving away from the blazing building, which burned to the ground. The sergeant’s wife was subsequently brought to a neighbours’ house where she stayed the night.
After the incident it was rumoured that the Town Hall and Courthouse in Market Square was to be occupied by the military or the newly arrived police reinforcements, the notorious Black and Tans. To deter this the two-story building was to be rendered useless by the I.R.A.
Stephen J. O’Reilly, an engineer with Dublin Brigade’s Transport Section, was sent by General Headquarters (G.H.Q.) to Maynooth to bring his expertise to bear. On the afternoon of 21 May 1920 O’Reilly travelled by train to Maynooth carrying 30 lbs of gelignite and made his way to the home of Domhnall Ua Buachalla, on Main Street. Ua Buachalla promised O’Reilly as many men as he needed to complete the task. Around ten o’clock that night O’Reilly, Pat Colgan and several other local volunteers forced their way into the Town Hall. O’Reilly later said in his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History: ‘I instructed a big hefty man to bore a hole in the centre main and to put some gelignite in it… The gelignite exploded but did little damage to the wall. We then got some paraffin and made short work of the building.’
As the volunteers dispersed flames soon appeared from the building. A large portion of stone was blown completely out of the building through a shop window over thirty yards away smashing it and striking the corner of an inner wall breaking a glass case and other articles. Two houses fifty yards from the Town Hall were also struck with flying fragments and much damage inflicted. The walls of the Town Hall were still smouldering the next day. Described as a ‘very fine building’ the Town Hall – built c.1819-24 as a courthouse – was used for the quarterly Co. Council meetings in connection with road sessions and contained a ballroom, concert rooms and supper room.
Maynooth Barracks was the property of Lord Frederick Fitzgerald, who was quick to put in a claim for damages of £630.9s 5d. The Town Hall premises was also the property of Lord Fred and in the Leinster Express of 22 May 1920 the value of the building was claimed at £2,258. Some weeks later a notice of intention to seek compensation for the burning of the Town Hall/Courthouse and the police barracks in Maynooth was claimed at a total value of £3,556.
The man responsible for the attack on the Town Hall Stephen O’Reilly returned to Ua Buachalla’s house where he was well-fed and given a bicycle to make his way back to Dublin. O’Reilly cycled to Dunboyne and then on to the Phoenix Park, where he stayed the night until the curfew was lifted at six o’clock in the morning. He then cycled into the city and made his report at G.H.Q. ‘that the job in Maynooth had been carried out satisfactorily’. O’Reilly’s only named accomplice on the night was Commandant Patrick Colgan, although he makes no mention of this in his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History. Pat Colgan was born on 6 February 1890, at Maynooth, and lived at 28 Leinster Cottages, Maynooth. An enthusiastic republican Colgan as secretary of the Maynooth Band refused to play at the visit of King George and Queen Mary to Maynooth College in 1911. With Domhnall Ua Buachalla he formed the Maynooth Company, Irish Volunteers, in 1914. He left Maynooth on Easter Monday 1916 evening with members of his company and travelled on foot by the Royal Canal towpath to Dublin. The group of fifteen volunteers arrived at the General Post Office (G.P.O.) early on Tuesday morning and fought in the Parliament Street area and the G.P.O. until the surrender. Arrested in Capel Street Colgan was deported and interned at Stafford Detention Barracks (Birmingham) and subsequently Frongoch Internment Camp, Wales. He was released on 23 December 1916.
In Frongoch Patrick Colgan was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (I.R.B.) by Michael Collins and on his return to Ireland was appointed organiser for Co. Kildare and Commandant 2nd Kildare Battalion. Comdt. Colgan was arrested in November 1920 and jailed in Ballykinlar Internment Camp, Co. Down, where he was appointed Camp Commandant. He escaped with Maurice Donegan (Cork), dressed in a British Army officer’s uniform, but was recaptured in Drogheda and returned to Ballykinlar where he was held until his release on 9 December 1921. Colgan joined the National Army in June 1922, serving at first in Michael Collins’ office and later at the Curragh as training and intelligence officer, until he retired with the rank of major in 1944. He moved to the Muckross Hotel, Killarney, Co. Kerry, in which he bought a half share and with his wife, Anne, managed it until they both died. Patrick Colgan died on 15 September 1960, in Killarney, aged sixty-nine and was buried at Grangewilliam Cemetery, Maynooth.
In their IRA pension applications Joe Ledwith, John Maguire, Domhnall Ua Buachalla, and Liam O’Regan, all living in Maynooth, and Patrick Mullaney, Leixlip, claimed to have taken part in the burning of the Town Hall/Courthouse. John Maguire said he was on ‘outpost duty’ that night. Patrick Mullaney, a national school-teacher in Lexlip, was later the commander of a ‘Flying Column’ active in the area during the Civil War.
My thanks to Henry Flynn, Maynooth, with help on this article.
This is a slightly amended version of an article by James Durney (Kildare Local Studies Department & Decade of Commemorations Committee) that appeared in The Liffey Champion edition of 16th May 2020.
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