Executed for Ireland - The Patrick Moran Story

[corisande]

This is a book about an Irishman called Patrick Moran

The facts are not disputed, a man called Patrick Moran was tried and hanged in March 1921, for the murder of Lt Ames on Bloody Sunday at 38 Mount St, Dublin.

The court martial called witnesses who could identify Moran as one of the murders of Ames. Moran had a "cast iron" alibi for the court that he was at Mass miles away and could not have been at Mount Street at 9am on the morning of 21 Nov. He had witnesses to prove it.

The Irish were bitter at the times for Moran's death and the way the court martial was conducted.

What very few people knew then, and it has only emerged in the last few years, is that Moran has an even better alibi. He was at the Gresham Hotel at 9am on 21 November 1920 leading the squad that murdered MacCormack and Wilde.

And there is an extra touch of pathos, the book gives the full text of letters from Collins in which he admits to Mulcachy, his Defence Minister after Independence that MacCormack was not an intelligence agent and had been added to the list of men to be killed that day by someone lower down the ladder.

So two men were "wrongly" killed - Moran hanged by the British for the crime he did not commit and MacCormack shot by Moran's squad for being an intelligence agent, which he was not.

The story is a Shakespearean tragedy. The author, for obvious reasons as she is related, concentrates on the unfairness of his trial, and it was unfair, and glosses over the fact that MacCormack should never have been on the list of those to be shot (basically she says he was just following orders)

There are a lot of moral issues here on "fairness" that should have been covered more deeply. At least Moran got a trial, be it deeply flawed. MacCormack got not trial he was just shot. Perhaps one day someone will write another book covering these issue. In the mean time my Moran has given us a lot of information about Patrick Moran, and his trial - and therefore about the murders at Mount Street. And the most useful role of the book is to bring more forcefully into the public domain Collins statement that not all men shot on Bloody Sunday we approved by him, and some had been arbitrarily added by rank and file IRA men in Dublin Brigade.

[BrendanLee]

The book was indeed an interesting account of the Gresham Hotel assignations but I think Collins was somewhat disingenuous in blaming the Dublin Brigade for the selection of MacCormack, McKee and Clancy were dead and not in a position to offer their version of events, the list was also check by Brugha and Thornton, Thornton was most certainly under the impression that MacCormack was in Ireland on behalf of the British to asses and counteract the I.R.A. plan to infect British Army horses with Glanders (an infectious disease which spreads rapidly and can cause death within days).

Other aspects of MacCormack's behaviour would have also raised the I.R.A.'s suspicions, he was staying in a hotel in Dublin when his mother was living in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), his wife and child were in Ireland although not with him, he checked into a hotel favoured by British Army officers calling himself Captain and the comment in the Sturgis diary that 'two secret service men were assassinated in the Gresham Hotel'.

Although the comments in the Collins letter may appear to prove MacCormack was completely innocent it is just as likely Collins was trying to shift the blame so he would not have to deal with the problem of having ordered the killing of the son of someone with the type of Irish connections MacCormack's mother had.

[corisande]

I would go with Collins on this. The correspondence with Mulcahy looks perfectly genuine and was "private" at the time. In other words it was written for Mulcahy not for publication. He would have written it differently if he had wanted a cover up or appeasement. I have studied MacCormack and Wilde in great detail and, in my opinion they were not Intelligence men, and Collins is correct, MacCormack's only "crime" was to to have been a British officer.

I would argue that the points you make suggesting that Collins was lying, which are taken from Meg Moran's book, are something that the Moran family would have wanted the world to believe. It is not very nice to believe that Patrick Moran shot a man in cold blood (MacCormack) who was not an Intelligence man. So the obvious thing to do is to try to denigrate Collins remarks to Mulcahy.

The IRA have always wanted it to be believed that they required "rigorous" requirements of proof before a British officer was added to the Bloody Sunday list. The innuendo of "he was staying in a hotel in Dublin when his mother was living in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), his wife and child were in Ireland although not with him, he checked into a hotel favoured by British Army officers calling himself Captain" is hardly "proof" as the IRA would like it to be thought.

Basically they had nothing on MacCormack that could be called "proof". The majority (but not all) of men murdered on Bloody Sunday had intelligence backgrounds that were obvious and the details were passed to Collins by the known moles in Dublin Castle. As far as I am aware nothing was passed on MacCormack

If MacCormack and Wilde were not intelligence, it is likely that the third man at the Gresham, who was out when Moran and his men called, was he intelligence man.

But either way, it is ironic that Moran who indeed had a flawed trial by the British, that is given in great depth by this book and to which the family quite rightly object But MacCormack on the other hand did not have any opportunity to put his defence on being executed when they knocked on his door in the Gresham Hotel.

Moran's alibi, which the family feel correctly, was not verified by the British at his trial, had to be a pack of lies anyway, as he was at the Gresham Hotel at exactly that time (remember that all killings took place at exactly 9am). To that extent it is irrelevant whether he was at Mass or on the tram miles away

It is ironic to me that Collins insight into names being added is not accepted. My guess is that Collins words will be accepted by most observers in this case