MICHEAL MARTIN IS RIGHT, UP TO A POINT ABOUT THE MURDER OF PRISONERS ON 8 DECEMBER 1922 – by Donal Kennedy

But in describing them as young prisoners he helps in the distortion of Rory O,Connor’s role by Neil Jordan in the movie Michael Collins,

By the time of the murder of O’Connor, Mellows, Barrett and McKelvey, senior figures in the republican movement , the Provisional Government appointed by the British had murdered low-ranking Volunteers in their teens and early twenties.

Liam Mellows was 32 years old, a member of Dail Eireann, and very capable field commander commander in the West of Ireland during Easter Week 1916. He was an early member of Fianna Eireann, and of the IRB, and involved in campaigning for the Republic, before and during De Valea’s campaigning there. Though ten years younger than de Valera, is republicanism predated that of the Chief, and his social  attitude was close to that of James Connolly.

Dick Barrett was  just over a week shy of his 33rd birthday, had been a Head Teacher. A member of the IRA, the IRB and Sinn Fein.

You may check on his activities in WIKIPEDIA, He had been a senior Brigade Officer in West Cork before the TRUCE and remained a senior officer during the “Civil War.”

Rory O’Connor was Director of Engineering in the IRA. As an Engineer he had helped build 1,500 miles of railroad in Canada. He was a University Graduate, and had been educated by the Jesuits at Clongowes Wood. He was a very highly cultured man, enjoying classical music. In jail he played Chess.

In Neil Jordan’s movie he is depicted as a callow youth, being trained in field craft by Michael Collins. Mellows and Rory O’Connor  (“Anti -Treatyites”) had m et with Dick Mulcahy and other “Treatyite” officers when their forces were all engaged in joint military action in the North.

One of the “anti-Treatyites” suggested they might  evacuate the Four Courts, but Mulcahy laughed and said as long as the “anti-Treatyites” held the Four Courts, the war in the north would be attributed to the “anti-Treatyites”.

The murder of O’Connor and his comrades was a great coup for Mulcahy, who attributed Machiavellian tactics to de Valera.