Battle of Ballinalee

Battle of Ballinalee
Part of the Irish War of Independence
Date4 November 1920
Location
Ballinalee, County Longford
Result IRA victory
Belligerents
Irish Republican Army  United Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Seán Mac Eoin ?
Strength
~4[1] ~100[1]
Casualties and losses
None Unknown (perhaps 20)[2]

The Battle of Ballinalee took place during the Irish War of Independence on 4 November 1920. Members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), led by Seán Mac Eoin,[3] drove a mixed group of Crown forces consisting of Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division personnel from the village of Ballinalee in County Longford.[4]

Crown forces hoped to burn the town as a reprisal for the deaths of several RIC personnel in the preceding days.[5] This included the killing of an RIC inspector, Philip St Johnstone Howlett Kelleher, the previous week and an RIC Constable, Peter Cooney, the previous day.[1] Cooney had been suspected of being a spy and his execution was reputedly ordered by Michael Collins. At the time of his killing, Cooney was allegedly carrying coded dispatches with the names of Longford IRA men.[6]

The Crown forces (numbering 100 men in 11 trucks) were defeated by about 25 IRA members, of which 4 were involved in the main battle.[1] Mac Eoin had placed several groups at the roads leading into the village, including one at a house, Rose Cottage, on the approach to the village centre.[1] This group, referred to in some sources as the "Rose Cottage Four", engaged the much larger RIC force using rifle fire and grenades, and forced their retreat.[1]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Ó Súilleabháin, Seán (2 November 2020). "The Burning of Granard by the Tans and Lancers and legendary defence of Ballinalee by the IRA". longfordleader.ie. Longford Leader. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
  2. ^ Coogan, Tim Pat (2002). Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-312-29511-0. Retrieved 1 June 2010. As many as twenty deaths and several times that number of injured [..] but the exact casualties were never given
  3. ^ "History of Ballinalee". longford.ie. Longford County Council. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010.
  4. ^ White, Robert William; Moloney, Ed (2006). Ruairí Ó Brádaigh: the life and politics of an Irish revolutionary. Indiana University Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-253-34708-4.
  5. ^ Lawlor, Pearse (2011). "The Battle of Ballinalee". The Outrages 1920–1922: The IRA and the Ulster Special Constabulary in the Border Campaign. Mercier Press Ltd. ISBN 9781856359665.
  6. ^ O'Halpin, Eunan; Ó Corráin, Daithí (2020). The Dead of the Irish Revolution. Yale University Press. p. 211. ISBN 9780300123821.