Ernest Bernard Malley (; 26 May 1897 – 25 March 1957) was an Irish republican and writer. After a sheltered upbringing, as a young medical student in Dublin he witnessed and participated in the Easter Rising of 1916, an event that changed his outlook fundamentally. O'Malley soon joined the Irish Volunteers before leaving home in spring 1918 to become an IRA organiser and training officer during the Irish War of Independence against British rule in Ireland. In the later period of that conflict, he was appointed a divisional commander with the rank of general. Subsequently, O'Malley strongly opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and became assistant chief of staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War of 1922–1923.
After being severely wounded in a gun battle with Free State troops in November 1922, O'Malley was taken prisoner. He endured forty-one days on hunger strike in late 1923 and was the very last republican to be released from internment by the Free State authorities in July 1924. He then spent two years in Europe and North Africa to improve his health before returning to Ireland. Following an abortive attempt to resume his medical studies, O'Malley went to the United States to raise funds for a new nationalist newspaper and spent seven years wandering around the country and Mexico before beginning his writing and coming back to Ireland. In 1935 he married an American sculptor Helen Hooker. He became well known in the arts and had a deep interest in folklore.
He wrote two memoirs, On Another Man's Wound and The Singing Flame, and two histories, Raids and Rallies and Rising-Out: Seán Connolly of Longford, covering his early life, the war of independence and the civil war period. These published works, in addition to his role as a senior leader on the losing side in the civil war, mark him as a primary source in the study of early twentieth-century Irish history and society. O'Malley also interviewed 450 people who participated in the war of independence and the civil war. Much of the evidence he gathered from them represents the activities and opinions of the ordinary soldier. By the time of his death in 1957, he had become a "deeply respected military hero".
Although he was elected, against his wishes, to Dáil Éireann in 1923 while in prison, O'Malley eschewed politics. As an Irish republican, he saw himself primarily as a soldier who had "fought and killed the enemies of our nation".Richard English and Cormac O'Malley (ed.) (1991). Prisoners. The Civil War Letters of Ernie O'Malley (Swords, Poolbeg Press), pp. 25, 28Ernie O'Malley (1978). The Singing Flame (Dublin, Anvil Books), p. 296 The violent struggle in which O'Malley engaged, failed to achieve his key goal of all-island self-determination.
Early life O'Malley was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, on 26 May 1897.Richard English, 'O'Malley, Ernest Bernard ('Ernie')'. Dictionary of Irish Biography, October 2009. Retrieved 22 September 2022'Birth Record (Registration ID - 9965997)'. Superintendent Registrar District of Castlebar 1897'Census of Ireland, 1911'. National Archives. Retrieved 29 January 2022 His was a middle class Catholic family in which he was the second of eleven children born to local man Luke Malley and his wife Marion (née Kearney) from Castlereagh, County Roscommon.O'Malley, The Singing Flame, p. 287 The family's storytelling governess also lived with them in Ellison Street.Cormac O'Malley (2012). "Preface", in Ernie O'Malley (2013), On Another Man's Wound (Dublin, Mercier Press), p. 8Ernie O'Malley (2013). On Another Man's Wound, pp. 15–16 The house was opposite a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks. O'Malley noted the importance of the police and that officers would nod in courtesy when his father walked by. As a child, he often visited the barracks and was given a tour of it.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 18 He also remembered RIC men dressed in suits leaving the town to keep peace at Orange parades in the North.
Although O'Malley heard of prominent political names like Parnell and Redmond at the dinner table, his parents never spoke of Ireland to him and his siblings. It was as if "nationality did not exist to disturb or worry normal life" in Castlebar, which he called a "shoneen town", meaning "a little John Bull town". Still, he was able to learn a little bit of Irish.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 21–22 O'Malley's father was a solicitor's clerk with conservative Irish nationalist politics: he supported the Irish Parliamentary Party. Priests dined in the Malley house and the family had privileged seats at Mass.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 19–20 The family spent the summer at Clew Bay, where O'Malley developed a lifelong love of the sea.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 23–24 He recounts meeting an old woman who, prophetically, spoke of fighting and trouble in store for him.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 26
Dublin The Malleys moved to Dublin in 1906 when Ernie was still a boy. The 1911 census lists them living at 7 Iona Drive, Glasnevin, a northern suburb.'Census of Ireland 1911'. National Archives, undated. Retrieved 29 January 2022 His father obtained a post with the Congested Districts Board and later became a senior civil servant.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 27 O'Malley considered that he received a reasonably good education at the O'Connell Christian Brothers School in North Richmond St, where he "rubbed shoulders with all classes and conditions". His nickname there was "Red Mick".Padraic O'Farrell (1983). The Ernie O'Malley Story (Dublin, Mercier Press), p. 13 He was later to win a scholarship to study medicine at University College Dublin.English and O'Malley, Prisoners, p. 2 Joseph Devlin, the Belfast nationalist MP, visited O'Malley's school and made a very favourable impression on the boy.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 28
However, he was less impressed by the visit of King Edward VII to Dublin in July 1907, when he was aged ten, noting that he "didn't like the English" and spelt "king" with a small letter. O'Malley heard James Larkin and James Connolly speak during the great Dublin lock-out of 1913–1914. He witnessed heavy violence by the police and was in favour of the strikers' cause.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 30 He also observed the Irish Citizen Army drilling. He heard of the Howth gun-running incident that occurred in July 1914 and that three people had been killed in the aftermath.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 31
His older brother, Frank, and next younger brother, Albert, joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the British Army at the outbreak of World War I. O'Malley saw prime minister H. H. Asquith in Dublin, where he had come to urge Irishmen to do their bit for the war effort.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 32–33 He was initially indifferent to the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers,Paul Baumann, 'Ernie O'Malley, Irish Revolutionary'. Commonweal, 22 February 2024. Retrieved 15 June 2024 whom he had observed drilling in the mountains. At that time, O'Malley was planning to join the British Army, like his friends and brothers.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 33–34 In August 1915, he saw the body of veteran Irish republican Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa lying in state and witnessed the funeral procession at Glasnevin Cemetery.
Revolutionary career Easter Rising and Irish Volunteers O'Malley was in his first year of studying medicine at University College Dublin when the Easter Rising, which was soon to leave an "indelible mark" on him, convulsed the city in April 1916. He recalls that, on Easter Monday, he saw a new flag of green, white and orange on top of the General Post Office in Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street) and later read the Proclamation of the Republic at the base of Nelson's Pillar.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 38–40 Of the leaders of the new "Provisional Government of the Irish Republic", O'Malley had previously met Tom Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 40–41
O'Malley was almost persuaded by some anti-rising friends to join them in defending Trinity College against the rebels should they attempt to take it. O'Malley writes that he was offered the use of a rifle if he would return later and assist them. On his way home, he encountered an acquaintance who observed that O'Malley would be shooting fellow Irishmen, for whom he had no hatred, if he took that rifle.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 41–42 However, O'Malley recalls that his main feeling was one of mere annoyance at the inconvenience the fighting was causing.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 44 O'Malley kept a diary of what he saw during the rising, including looting.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 45–47
After some thought, he decided that his sympathies lay with the nationalists: only Irish people had the right to settle Irish questions.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 48–49 Therefore, he and a school friend attacked British troops with a rifle. "My father was given one, a German Mauser", he was told, "... by a soldier who brought it back from the front". This was O'Malley's first experience of using a weapon, a dangerous action that could have cost him his life. He and his friend made their escape before they were surrounded, but not before agreeing to meet up the following night.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 49–51 One commentator states that those responsible for O'Malley's pension claim in the 1930s "appear to have taken him at his word for the three days of peripatetic sniping activity" in the second part of Easter week.Marie Coleman (2018). '"There are thousands who will claim to have been 'out' during Easter Week: Recognising military service in the 1916 Easter Rising"'. Irish Studies Review, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 12–13. Retrieved 1 June 2024 The resentment O'Malley felt at the shooting by firing squad of three of the signatories to the proclamation turned to rage at the execution in early May of John MacBride, whom he knew from visits to the family home.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 53
Soon after the rising, O'Malley became deeply involved in Irish republican activism. In August 1916, he had been invited to join the Irish Volunteers, Dublin 4th Battalion, which operated south of the River Liffey. However, because that battalion was quite a distance away, some time after Christmas 1916 he became a member of the 1st Battalion, F Company, because its base north of the Liffey was much nearer the family home. Later he was assigned to signals.O'Malley's pension application under the Military Service Pensions Act 1934, reproduced in Cormac O'Malley and Anne Dolan (ed.) (2007). "No Surrender Here!" The Civil War Papers of Ernie O'Malley 1922–1924 (Dublin, Lilliput Press), p. viiiO'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 65O'Malley, The Singing Flame, p. 160 From only twelve men in 1916, that company grew steadily during 1917 and 1918 under the captaincy of first Frank McCabe then Liam Archer.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 64, 68–69
O'Malley was unable to come and go freely from the family home, to which he was not given a key.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 66 That reality and his medical studies made it difficult to be on parade, and had to refuse training to become a non-commissioned officer.O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, pp. 65–66 His three younger brothers helped keep his activities quiet, and older brother Frank, now a British army officer of whom he was very fond,O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound, p. 67 knew nothing about his brother's nationalist activities. Despite passing his first university examinination in the autumn of 1916, O'Malley was spending less and less time at his studies and eventually lost his medical scholarship.O'Farrell, pp. 16–17