After telling him all this, Mick Murphy and I decided to "bump into him" on the train, then apologise, pull out a couple of cigarettes, and ask him for a match. To our complete amazement the man answered us in the most pronounced Cockney accent imaginable. Later, we found out that he was from London but, sad to say, he was of Irish extraction. Now and then, incidents of this type came to light so, for example, that day in May 1921 when Tommy Read of College Road, Cork, was held up by the Black and Tans right on O'Connell Street in Dublin. Tommy, whose father had been a Head Constable in the R.I.C.. was a very useful intelligent member of our I.R.A. forces in Cork; to his shocked amazement he recognised one of the Tans as Jim O'Leary of the Lough Road, Cork. Although Jim asked him not to mention that he had [79] met him in such company and under such circumstances. Tommy, as was his duty, reported the incident to me the moment he returned to Cork. O'Leary had left home and Cork some few months earlier presumably to take up work in England; it was a bitter pill for all of us to swallow when he realised that he had, obviously, given in to the promise of good pay and became a traitor to his country and the friends of his boyhood. Continuing our journey to London, Mick and I arrived there the following morning after our departure from Cork. In London one of the first news we learned was that Tom Hales had, finally, been released from Parkhurst Prison and had found shelter with Mick's sister, Mrs. Egan, at 16 Kinsbury Road, Dalton the hospitable home where we, too, found shelter. Tom Hales was very worried about a story he had heard concerning his brother Sean and that he might vote for the Treaty. Neither Mick nor I could confirm or deny the rumour, and seven days later, the three of us set off together for Dublin which we reached safely. While Mick and I proceeded to Cork, Tom Hales stayed on in Dublin. When I met him next, in Cork, Tom told me that he had spoken to Michael Collins who confirmed that Tom's brother Sean had decided to accept the Treaty. Before that, and during our stay in London, Tom and I went to visit Fr. Eddie O’Sullivan, the priest who had played so significant a part in the escape plans, earlier, in Pentonville Prison. Also there at Eden Grove on Holloway Road was Father Carey, the P.P. another courageous, patriotic priest. In the company of Mrs. Egan, Tom Hales then called on the Irish prisoners in Brixton prison, who were allowed visitors. One of them, a particularly good friend of Tom's, was Billy Walsh from Bandon. Returning to London, after the completion of our mission, I found many of our best friends divided on the merits and demerits of the Treaty; my despair only to be compounded when, upon my arrival in Cork, I read, in the daily newspapers, the disgusting personal attacks and derogatory remarks made by the delegates who took part in the Treaty debates. The acceptance of the Treaty was finally passed by seven votes but I doubt if anyone could have read anything more distasteful or more self-destroying than many of the vicious statements made by TD's against certain of their colleagues. The personal accusations, the ruthless vilifications, were simply a disgrace and inexcusable and this despicable conduct of some of our representatives [80] must have caused the majority of our population deep bewilderment and shame. What all responsible people had feared most, had actually come to pass: Our country for which we had fought and sacrificed so much, was hopelessly divided! Our I.R.A. members, as also many of the civilians, had hoped fervently that much of the heated, bitter discussions were really just a smoke-screen to fool the British, or that the heat created by the debates, would die down rapidly and that unification would and could still be achieved. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and, later in February 1922, still more harm was done when Arthur Griffiths banned the forthcoming I.R.A. Convention. Many of us, including myself, regarded this as a most dictatorial and completely uncalled for action which, in addition, also prevented the I.R.A. throughout the country to voice their opinions. All over the country, the Griffiths-Collins Government then began to seek recruits for the newly-created Free State Army, which many young men joined, even up North in the Six Counties. This was an open declaration of how the Provisional Government intended to conduct their future politics and policy, but many of us did not realise the significance of it at that time. We were convinced that nothing new could or would replace the experienced fighters of the I.R.A. The so-called "banned" I.R.A. Convention still took place in Dublin late in February. Lively discussions ensued and Sean Hegarty was, truly, in a fighting mood. When General Tom
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