Peadar Clancy (; 9 November 1888 – 22 November 1920) was an Irish republican who served with the Irish Volunteers in the Four Courts garrison during the 1916 Easter Rising and was second-in-command of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence. Along with Dick McKee and Conor Clune, he was shot dead by his guards while under detention in Dublin Castle on the eve of Sunday, 21 November 1920, a day known as Bloody Sunday that also saw the killing of a network of British intelligence agents by the Squad unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Early life Clancy was one of seven sons and six daughters born to James and Mary Clancy (née Keane), of Carrowreagh East, Cranny, County Clare in 1888.Markhams of Derryguiha website, Peadar Clancy, accessed 11 January 2008. The Clancy home had been the meeting place for local Fenians since the 1860s. Though the Fenians had been instrumental in reawakening Irish culture through the Gaelic League, drama and the Gaelic Athletic Association, this form of "advanced nationalism" was not popular at this time. From a young age Clancy was a keen Gaelic Leaguer and was engrossed by national activities.Sean O'Mahony, Death in the Castle: Three murders in Dublin Castle 1920. 1916/1921 Club Educated at the local national school, which was close to his family home, at sixteen he became apprenticed in the drapery business of Dan Moloney, in Kildysart. On completing his apprenticeship he went to Newcastle West, County Limerick, where he worked as an assistant in the drapery business of Michael O'Shaughnessy on Bridge Street.1911 census (wherein his birthplace is wrongly stated as "Co. Limerick"). From there, he moved to Youghal, County Cork, where he lived at 6 North Main Street, from which address he wrote to his infant nephew in Chicago on 17 October 1912.Letter in possession of family members. In 1913 he went to work for Harkin's General Drapery, at 70A New Street in Dublin.50th Anniversary Commemorative Booklet, published in conjunction with the unveiling of a memorial by Club na Sionna, Gaelic League Branch and the people of Quin, with an introduction by Kevin J. Brown.
Easter Rising On coming to Dublin, Clancy joined the Irish Volunteers upon their inception, becoming a Volunteer in "CO" company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade. During the 1916 Easter Rising he served in the Four Courts garrison, alongside Dick McKee. Clancy was to distinguish himself in combat, when, with a group of Volunteers, he repelled an infantry attack at Church Street Bridge and forced an enemy retreat towards the Phoenix Park on Easter Monday. Shortly afterwards, Clancy personally burnt out a sniper from a house, and during the course of the Rising single-handedly captured Lord Dunsany and Colonel Lindsay. Lord Dunsany, though wounded by Clancy, said of the Republicans after his release: "Although in different uniforms, we are all Irishmen and you are all gentlemen." For the "courage, leadership and intelligence" shown during this period, he was promoted to Lieutenant by Captain Frank Fahy. After the Rising he was court-martialed and sentenced to death for his part in the rebellion; but his sentence was commuted to penal servitude for 10 years. He remained in English jails until June 1917, and upon his return to Dublin he helped to re-organise the Volunteers.
Republican Outfitters After his release, Clancy started a drapery business of his own, called The Republican Outfitters, which was located at 94 Talbot Street.Clare County Library website, I.R.A. Volunteers in County Clare, 1916-1925, taken from The Banner, Thomas Dillon (ed.), Claremen and Women’s Patriotic, Benevolent and Social Association of New York, New York, (1963). According to Dan Breen, it was one of the best-known meeting places in Dublin for the IRA, and was so closely watched that it was never advisable to remain there for long. By 1917, it was advertising as The Republican Outfitters: Clancy, Brennan and Walsh.Irish Opinion, 15 December 1917. Clancy's initial partners in the business were Maurice Brennan, Thomas Walsh (who, like Clancy, had been in the Four Courts garrison at Easter 1916, had been sentenced to death, but was later reprieved) and other comrades."Death of Easter Week Veteran: Mr. T. Walsh, Lyrenacarriga, Tallow: Dies in Dublin", Dungarvan Observer, 30 September 1939. By 1920, the initial partnership had been dissolved, Brennan and Walsh had gone out on their own at 5 Upper O'Connell Street (which was also used as a base by the Volunteers, with Walsh acting as intelligence officer of the 1st Battalion) and Tom Hunter had become part proprietor of the Talbot Street business with Clancy.Nottingham Evening Post, 15 October 1920.
Sinn Féin After his release from prison he was selected as the Sinn Féin candidate in the East Clare by-election, but his candidature was not ratified by IRA General Headquarters (GHQ) and Éamon de Valera was chosen at a second convention in Ennis. Clancy, in a letter to his brother M. J, who lived in Chicago, wrote about the divide in Irish society over the war and the split in the Volunteers, which he believed had resulted from the position adopted by John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party:
Clancy took part in de Valera's election campaign, and addressed a number of meetings throughout his native county in the summer of 1917. After the election, on 24 July 1917, Clancy again wrote to his brother on the outcome and the position the Republicans would adopt:
In 1918 Clancy was sent to County Tyrone to support the Sinn Fein candidate in the 1918 East Tyrone by-election. While in Cookstown, County Tyrone Clancy was attacked and stoned by persons opposed to the Sinn Fein candidate Seán Milroy.
War of Independence During the Irish War of Independence, Clancy became immersed in the underground movement and carried out a number of daring feats, which ensured his rise to become the second-in-command of the Dublin Brigade, IRA, with the rank of Vice-Brigadier. He was also attached to GHQ where he held the rank of Director of Munitions.O'Halpin, Eunan & Ó Corráin, Daithí (2020), The Dead of the Irish Revolution. Yale University Press, pgs 232-233. His immediate superior was his Easter Week colleague Dick McKee.
Clancy, along with chief of staff of the Volunteers Richard Mulcahy, was instrumental in the escape of leading Republican prisoners from Mountjoy Jail on 29 March 1919. Among those to escape were Piaras Beaslaí, J. J. Walsh, Paddy Fleming and Thomas Malone. Clancy and Mulcahy were both in charge of those who were to help the escape plan from outside the prison, while Michael Collins and his intelligence squad were to look after the plans of escape within the prison. In all nineteen prisoners escaped.An article in The Kildare Nationalist puts the figure at twenty. The escape was considered a major coup by Republicans and was a boost to morale.T. Ryle Dwyer, The Squad, Mercier Press, Cork, 2005, .
The Squad, also known as the Twelve Apostles, was a counter-intelligence unit established in September 1919. This unit was to function as an urban flying column, which was to specialise in the killing of British intelligence agents and those police who were attentive in combatting the IRA. At its inaugural meeting the IRA leadership was represented by Peadar Clancy, along with Dick McKee, Michael Collins and Mick McDonnell.Joe Ambrose, Dan Breen and the IRA, Mercier Press, Cork, 2006, .
Clancy was also involved in the Republican breakout from Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England on 25 October 1919. Michael Collins had taken a particular interest in the escape, and actually visited Austin Stack in the prison to finalise the arrangements. In all six prisoners were to escape, among them Piaras Beaslaí who had again been arrested.
During the last three months of 1919, no less than twelve different ambushes were planned on the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord French. In most cases the target failed to show, or was either too late or too early to suit his would-be assassins' designs. On one occasion Peadar Clancy and Dan Breen waited for two hours outside the door of the practice of Dr. James Ashe, a specialist on Merrion Square whom French occasionally visited.Dan Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom, [Talbot Press, 1924], 1989, .
On 19 December 1919, the Squad assembled at Kelly's, known locally as the Halfway House, on the Navan Road in Cabra. They planned to ambush Lord French, as he made his way from Ashtown railway station to the Phoenix Park. The Lord Lieutenant escaped the ambush, but one of the Volunteers, Martin Savage, was killed.
The next morning, the Irish Independent published an article which described the attackers as "assassins" and included other such terms as "criminal folly", "outrage"' and "murder". Taking these terms as an insult to their dead comrade, the Volunteers decided to attack the paper. On the Sunday, at 9pm, between twenty and thirty Volunteers under Clancy entered the offices of the Independent. They informed the editor of their intentions and began to dismantle and smash the machinery. Despite this action, with the assistance of the other Dublin papers, the Independent was able to appear the next day, and the owners were awarded £16,000 in compensation. According to Breen, neither the Independent nor any other Dublin paper referred to the IRA as murderers or assassins again.
On 5 February 1920, members of the Squad, under Clancy, led a raid on the navy and army canteen board garage. In the raid the Dublin Brigade got away with two Ford motor vans and a motorcycle, along with tools and motor parts. The vans would later be used by the Squad in a number of operations.
On 12 February, Clancy again led a team of the Squad, this time in the attempted rescue of Robert Barton, who was to stand trial before a military tribunal. They planned to intercept the truck transporting the prisoner to Mountjoy Jail. The rescue went according to plan, but when they went to the back of the truck, Barton was not there. Barton had been taken to Marlborough Barracks (now McKee Barracks) instead, and he was sentenced the following week to three years and transferred to a prison in England. In response to a major breakout of violence in Derry, Clancy and McKee were sent there to organize and support the local IRA (see: The Troubles in Ulster (1920–1922).
Clancy, again in charge, commanded the daylight raid for weapons on the Kings Inns in Dublin, on 21 June 1920. His unit managed to capture a number of British soldiers and a large quantity of weapons and ammunition. Also with Clancy that day was a young Volunteer named Kevin Barry who, at 18, was to become the first Volunteer to be executed since the Easter Rising. The haul included 25 rifles, 2 Lewis light machine guns, as well as the ammunition. The 25 British soldiers were then released as the Volunteers withdrew from the area.Seán Cronin, Kevin Barry, National Publications Committee, Cork, 1965, RP 1971
On 11 October 1920, Seán Treacy and Dan Breen narrowly escaped capture while staying in a safe house in Fernside, a middle class area of Dublin. Professor Carlon, the owner of the house, was later to die as a result of the attack on the house, along with five British soldiers. Clancy and McKee became actively involved in the protection of both Breen and Tracy.Joe Ambrose, Seán Tracy and the Tan War, Mercier Press, Cork, 2007, .