Kenmare incident

[1] In the file, it was alleged that three National Army soldiers went to the home of Dr. Randal MacCarthy in Kenmare, County Kerry.

They pulled his two young daughters into the garden, used their Sam Browne belts to beat one of them and doused their hair with dirty motor oil or cart grease.

Civic guards investigated the case and found the three officers who perpetrated the assault were from Kerry Command, based at Ballymullen Barracks, Tralee.

In discussion, Davitt said if they did not act then the Guards might prosecute, Dr MacCarthy's daughters might sue, and if it was made public that the officers were not disciplined, it could be a catastrophe for the army.

O'Sullivan could not square the investigation's details with his personal view of O'Daly and raised the possibility of the Guards' bias, given recent tension between the departments of Justice and Defence.

Davitt proposed a Military Court of Inquiry provided the result was acted upon if it supported the Guards' findings.

O'Sullivan agreed that a General Court-Martial was now required and proceeded, with Davitt, to select carefully seven officers for the task who were believed to be unbiased either way.

Mulcahy mirrored the initial stated opinion of O'Sullivan by referring to O'Daly's army and national record.

The Garda Síochána and two Dublin Guard officers (one who knew O'Higgins personally) stated that O'Daly was instrumental in the brutal murders of Republican prisoners.

[4] In the Dáil Éireann one year later, the Labour Party leader Tom Johnson quoted different details from the newspaper Éire, which stated that Mulcahy had been directed to arrest "some" of the "four" officers and that a court-martial met, but as witnesses had been dispersed quickly around, the country the case had collapsed.