3rd Tipperary Brigade
In December 1918 and January 1919, in a tin hut on a dairy farm in Greenane, Tipperary, members of the brigade planned what was to be the first act of the Irish War of Independence, the Soloheadbeg Ambush.
These tensions were set against the backdrop of increased membership of nationalist volunteer organizations across the country and meetings and open drilling of volunteer companies coupled with the jailing of a large number of political prisoners, raids on houses of political activists by the RIC and incidents such as the death of hunger striker Thomas Ashe.
[2] 1918 saw the political stakes raised with the Military Service Bill coming into effect making conscription in Ireland legal and the proclamation issued banning nationalist organizations such as Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan.The response to these measures was a significant upswing in anti British sentiment, emphasized by the overwhelming victory by Sinn Féin in the 1918 General Election and the anti-conscription rallies.
[4] Seán Treacy was the driving force behind a lot of this activity and he regularly visited the local companies often accompanied by Dan Breen.
Séumas Robinson, a veteran of the 1916 Easter Rising, arrived in Tipperary in 1917 at the request of Eamon Uí Dubhir who he had met while they were both imprisoned.
[6] Eamon Uí Dubhir and Maurice Crowe along with Treacy, Breen and Robinson were prominent in leading the activity of the Volunteers in South Tipperary in 1917 and 1918.
[7] Séumas Robinson was elected O/C (in absentia as he was imprisoned at the time and did not rejoin the Brigade until late December), Seán Treacy vice O/C, Dan Breen Quarter Master and Maurice Crowe Adjuntant.
[9] The ambush led by Seamus Robinson, Sean Treacy, Daniel Breen and Seán Hogan at Soloheadbeg is generally acknowledged as the opening engagement of the war.
Treacy was keen to commence hostilities and believed a military confrontation with the RIC and the British authorities was the only way to establish the Republic that Ireland had proclaimed in 1916 and voted for in 1918.
In December 1918, they received information that there were plans to move a consignment of gelignite from the Tipperary Town military barracks to the Soloheadbeg quarry.
They were joined by five other Volunteers: Tadhg Crowe, Patrick McCormack, Paddy O'Dwyer, Michael Ryan (Donohill) and Seán O'Meara (Tipperary) – the latter two being cycle scouts.
[13] On each day from 16 to 21 January, the men selected for the ambush took up their positions from early in the morning to late afternoon and then retired and spent the night at the 'Tin Hut'.
After the convoy reached the position where the main ambush party was hiding, they called on the RIC officers to surrender as masked men appeared in front of them with their guns drawn.
[16] Tadhg Crowe and Patrick O'Dwyer took the guns and ammunition from the dead constables, while Robinson, McCormack and Ryan guarded the two council workers before releasing them once the gelignite was far enough away.
Treacy and Robinson traveled to Dublin to consult Michael Collins who offered to arrange for them and Breen and Hogan to escape to America.
Treacy was eventually killed in an exchange of fire with a British secret service agent in Talbot Street, while Breen alternated between Tipperary and Dublin as the conflict continued.
Some members sided with the Provisional Government, (later the Irish Free State), while others remained neutral during the ensuing Civil War.
The majority, including Brigade Officers Séumas Robinson, Dan Breen, Seán Hogan and Dinny Lacey, took the Republican side.
The Sean Treacy Memorial swimming pool in Tipperary Town displays information about and a number of artefacts of the brigade.
