The wedding of Jack Ring and Elizabeth Carey (centre) took place in St Peter’s Drogheda on 8th September 1926.The photograph was taken later that day in Dublin after their Wedding Breakfast.To Elizabeth’s right is her brother-in-law Jerry Ring sporting his Club Championship medal on his watch chain. On Jack Ring’s left is his 16-year-old sister Mary. She was to be a witness in 1919 of the Black and Tan’s raid on the Ring home in Gorteeny when Jerry was arrested following the Knocklong Incident.

Every Garda knows, in the course of duty, that the establishment of identity is difficult to achieve without credible testimony. In the search for family identity, the journey takes many twists and turns in the knowledge that it is often too late to question some of the key witnesses. This is the story of the family of John Denis Ring, Garda No. 4381. SPECIAL FEATURE Resonating Rings By Jerry Ring

Tadgh Ring, the Fenian in a walking race from Cahirciveen to from Kiskeam, Co. Killarney. From the relatively small number of A committed Fenian, Tadgh resigned Ring families in Ireland, there from the Kenmare ‘Phoenixmen’ in emerged in 1824, Timothy (Tadgh) distrust of ‘An Baille Gallda O’Sullivan’ Ring, the Cork Fenian. Tadgh was an who later betrayed O’Donovan Rossa athletic man who was a teacher, a and local members. In March 1867, quantity surveyor, a keen huntsman, on the morning of the Fenian Rising, bowls player and an outstanding he closed the school in Cullen and set walker. He was born in Kiskeam, on out to join the ‘true-hearted peasants the Ring farm at the Bridge of of Cahirciveen’ in their march to Doon above Cullen, Co. Cork. His Killarney. descendants were to have both Crown John Denis & Ogheda, 1924 and RIC connections intermixed with The RIC Connections Nationalist and Garda links. In an ironic twist of loyalties, Denis Ring, Tadgh’s eldest son, embarked on Tadgh, was for a time the schoolmaster an RIC career and ended his police in Cullen School, which opened in service in 1907 as Head Constable for 1847 and stood at the crossroads at Galway West Riding (‘Riding’ is a Lislehane near Millstreet, Co. Cork. corruption of the Old Norse Thriding He was not a particularly good teacher or one third of a county). When Denis but made up for it by using the leather had run away from home at 19 years freely - “níl tada mar leathar”. In of age and joined the Royal Irish 1854, he met and proposed to Constabulary this was anathema to Catherine O’Sullivan from Kenmare. his Fenian father. The two were never He was, as the Gaelic phrase puts it, again to meet or to speak in their “claoin isteach” – she was left the farm lifetimes. Letters home to his mother and he married into it. She would not Catherine, were left lying about by her move to Cork and he commuted the and later she knew Tadgh had read 40 miles every week to Lislehane, them because he couldn’t resist without the benefit of a LUAS or a correcting his son’s spelling! DART. He walked each way until he found a teaching job in Kenmare. His In terms of today’s policing developments energy was to earn him the unofficial in the North the phrase ‘history repeats title of the ‘Champion of Ireland’ itself’ is particularly apt. When when he beat the English Champion Thomas Drummond, Under-Secretary Jack Ring, Gorteeny, 1924 SPECIAL FEATURE

for Ireland, consolidated the laws relating Valentia Island, to the Constabulary Force in 1836, his just before purpose was to make the police service Easter 1916 more acceptable to Catholics to join. Tadgh Ring’s second However, to Tadgh Ring, his son was son, Jeremiah, obtained joining the Irish Constabulary that a job as a Morse clerk had suppressed the Fenian Rising. In with the Commercial doing so the RIC acquired its ‘Royal’ Union cable station on designation from Queen Victoria in Valentia Island in 1875 1867 in recognition of service to the and worked his way up Crown. the system. Cable staff had excellent houses Jerry and Jack Ring - with running water Hurlers and RIC men and electricity when Although Denis Ring and his father such luxuries were rare never spoke again, they still had one in rural Ireland. thing in common. Denis also married into a farm. His wife Ann Connolly was Jeremiah’s sons, Tim from Gorteeny, Woodford, Co. Galway. and Eugene, were She also had a small drinking parlour Sinn Fein activists and where on football Sundays she would conspired to send news serve drink for the matchgoers. of the 1916 Rising to America under the Sport was an important part of the noses of the British family and two of her sons, Jerry Military Censors. For and his younger brother Jack, played this they needed the for Woodford Hurling Club when assistance of someone Denis and Ann Ring in 1913 they acquired Galway Senior outside the cable station. Their first personal message.This was brought to Hurling Club Championship medals. cousin Rosalie Rice (Ring) who was the attention of one of the supervisors also in Sinn Fein was to play an and the Ring brothers then knew the Jerry Ring then followed in his father important role. Military censors were checking all the Denis’s footsteps and joined the RIC telegraphists. Tim telegraphed the in March 1915. It was an interesting The Kenmare coded message arranged with his time to become a policeman because Rings and Rices in Valentia Co. Kerry, his first cousins Tadgh Ring’s wife Catherine outlived were about to become a part of him and on her death in 1911 their modern Irish history. Jerry himself daughter Eleanor inherited the family would also find his place in the history home at Kilmurray, Kenmare. This books in what was to become known was not uncommon for those times as as the ‘Knocklong Incident’. her three sisters had emigrated to Australia and America and her brothers Denis and Jeremiah had settled in Galway and Valentia.

Eleanor had all her father’s Fenian blood and was a strong Sinn Fein supporter. She married George Rice in 1892 and their eldest son was John Joe Rice. John Joe was an early Volunteer, later Commandant of the Kerry No.2 Brigade and a Sinn Fein abstentionist TD for many years. Their daughter Rosalie Rice was also in Sinn Fein was to send the ‘Rising’ telegram from Jack Ring (left) his sister Mary Ring and Kenmare Post Office. brother Jerry in Gorteeny in 1969, fifty years after the Black and Tan raid on their The Rising Telegram house. Mary married Jim King from Eugene Ring had tested the security of Straide in Co Mayo. Jim was a Garda the system. He had telegraphed an Sergeant in Athenry until his retirement operator in Newfoundland with a Jeremiah Eugene Ring in the late sixties. SPECIAL FEATURE

cousin Rosalie who worked in the Post Back in Gorteeny, Jack Ring joined the On the morning of 21st January, two RIC Office in Kenmare – “Mother was RIC on 15th November 1916. Although constables, McDonnell and O’Connell operated on successfully this morning”. he was the son of a Head Constable were shot dead escorting a consignment This was the confirmation for Sinn Fein and recommended by District Inspector of gelignite for the quarry at Soloheadbeg. in America that the Rising had started. Gilhooly he was dismissed two days later. When his family connection to Four of the IRA men involved in the It was headline news in New York before the Valentia Rings emerged it was killings, Sean Hogan, , Sean London and it later proved impossible enough to prevent his continuance as a Treacy and Seamus Robinson went on for the British to cover up the executions police officer. Surprisingly, his brother the run until May when they attended of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Not Jerry was not dismissed as he had by a dance in Ballagh.When the men split yet in the First World War, America that stage proved his loyalty to the up Hogan stayed with the Meaghers of focused its attentions on Ireland and Crown. However, it would transpire Annfield near Thurles. His timing was this was a factor in preventing the that the authorities had not done their unlucky and Jerry Ring was one of the execution of Eamonn De Valera. homework fully. arresting party. Although a revolver was found on him, Hogan’s identity Tim was interned in Frongoch, Eugene The Knocklong Incident was not established until later that was dismissed and Rosalie was arrested Jerry Ring, Royal Irish Constable from morning at Roskeen barracks and then and kept ‘at His Majesty’s pleasure’ in Gorteeny who was initially posted to he was taken to Thurles. Tralee Jail. Kilkenny had an uneventful service until January 1919 and the actions of Sean Treacy knew that under the In Frongoch, surprisingly for such an Sean Treacy and the South Tipperary Defence of the Realm Act - DORA, uncommon name, Tim was not the Brigade. Hogan would be taken to Cork for only Ring in the camp.There were five ‘interrogation’. He immediately put a Ring brothers from Ballybough who Towards the end of 1918, Treacy was plan in place to ‘spring’ him from the had been in the GPO and whose concerned at the ebb in the ranks of train. The rescue was to take place at grandfather Patrick Ring was in the the Volunteers and the Provisional Knocklong Station. IRA Intelligence Dublin Metropolitan Police. There Government policy of ‘wait and see… on Hogan’s movements was to be was also another Ring, M.J. Ring from time will tell’. At a Brigade meeting at transmitted by telegram and Hogan Castlebar, an important IRA officer Kilshenane in December 1918,Treacy was given the codename ‘greyhound’. and later an early Garda until his declared, “If this is the state of affairs, A sympathiser in the RIC provided return to the Free State Army and his we’ll have to kill someone, and make information on the exact timing of death in action in the Civil War. the bloody enemy organise us.” Hogan’s movements. This was passed

Trim Station Party c 1930 - Jack Ring centre with hand on hip. SPECIAL FEATURE

through IRA channels to be sent to After the event Jerry Ring did not Treacy, but the system broke down. return to his barracks but went home to Gorteeny. The Ring house was “After the event At Knocklong, by luck, Sean Treacy and surrounded at midnight by the Black Eamonn O’Brien boarded the right train and Tans and he was arrested. He Jerry Ring did not and took the escort party by surprise. revealed nothing to his interrogators Treacy and O’Brien opened the and resumed duty the next day. He compartment door and four RIC resigned from the RIC in September return to his barracks officers rose.The IRA men opened fire 1919 citing personal reasons. and Constable Enright fell back dead. but went home to Sergeant Wallace knocked Treacy’s The witness to his arrest is still alive in the gun away from him and Hogan person of his sister, Mary Ring, now 95 Gorteeny.The Ring attacked Constable Ring with his years of age. Mary is the widow of Garda manacled hands knocking him out. Jim King from Straide, also the home of house was surrounded The IRA back-up arrived and Constable Sergeant Mulroy, the first Scott Medal Ring was thrown out of the window recipient. Jim King was a Garda Sergeant at midnight by the while in the melee Sergeant Wallace in Athenry for the latter part of his career. shot Treacy in the throat. Constable Black and Tans and Reilly began firing on the retreating Meanwhile, Jack Ring, who had been IRA men and at the end of the 15- dismissed by the RIC in 1916, worked minute engagement, Constable Enright as a ganger for the Congested District he was arrested. He was dead and Sergeant Wallace was Board in the Portumna area. He joined seriously wounded, later to die. Breen the Volunteers in 1920 and served until revealed nothing to and Treacy were both shot. Apart from the establishment of the Irish Free State the tragedy of the RIC deaths, Paddy in 1922. his interrogators and Maher, although a Galbally Volunteer, was not involved in the action. He was The Garda Connection resumed duty the next wrongfully convicted of their murder and Both Jack and Jerry then joined the executed in June 1921 in Mountjoy fledgling Garda Síochána. Jerry stayed day. He resigned from Jail by order of a Military Tribunal. only six months before returning to Gorteeny to run the family farm and the the RIC in September This rescue has been covered in a number public house. His brother, John Denis of books and articles but the RIC source was Ring Reg. No. 4381, was to have a long 1919 citing personal never revealed because it was Constable Jerry Garda career of 36 years of exemplary Ring.The grandson of the Fenian rebel found service, retiring in April 1959. himself in a conflict of loyalties and was reasons.” operating on both sides. He had provided the Jack was initially stationed in Drogheda information on Hogan’s transfer through where he met his wife Elizabeth Carey his cousin Rosalie Rice who was then in in 1924. She was a Dublin girl working Macroom Post Office. She was a skilled as a shopkeeper’s assistant in the town. Morse Code operator and also deciphered Hurling Club. He then won his all the military telegrams for IRA Intelligence. Jack was a talented hurler, at 5´10˝, lean second medal in the Louth Hurling She passed her cousin’s information to and muscular already with one Club Championship with Drogheda Hurling IRA HQ. Championship medal with Woodford Club in 1925, a year after his marriage

Jerry Ring’s three County Club Medals from left to right Louth, Galway and Meath SPECIAL FEATURE

to Elizabeth Carey. Transferred to 4381 on the original roll-call of the Civic Ireland, Telecommunications and Trim and later Kells in Co Meath, Jack Guards. It is ironic that had Ireland not International Politics 1866 - 1922 - was to secure his third medal with the achieved her independence then Jack Donard de Cogan Erin’s Own Club in the Meath Ring as a Royal Irish Constable would Hurling Championship of 1930 at have been prevented by a GAA ban on • The Garda Museum - Dublin the age of 36. This haul of three Club playing his national sport. This is doubly Castle - Pauline Duffy 2003. Championship medals might well be ironic in that St George McCarthy, also unique but could not have happened an RIC man, was a founding member of had he not been a Garda. the Gaelic Athletic Association. 14 Minutes at Knocklong Spying has always been a risky business. In 1932, he was transferred to Dublin However, it is now the 21st century and The paid informer or the committed and retired from active sport just as his for the most part, Irish society has idealist willing to remain under cover, namesake, the great Christy Ring, was progressed to a more open and inclusive often in uniform, is something that about to break upon the national society. An Irish family has come puzzles and excites us. One man’s hurling scene. almost full circle from the Fenian Rising principled agent is another man’s spy, of 1867 through RIC connections and something of a paradox therefore. It Jack Ring was attached to Mountjoy the War of Independence to the has always been thus in the world of station and assigned the number governance of the greater part of intelligence. Covert operations form a D204, but served his final years in the Ireland with a democratic and unarmed backdrop of every conflict and the Irish Four Courts in the Garda office in police force. War of Independence (1919/21) was no Morgan Place. He schooled many a different. young guard on their first attendance in POSTSCRIPT: A truly ironic fact is court with wise tips on how to survive the that family evidence now shows that Michael Collins’s intelligence network cleverality of ambitious barristers. Jack the origins of the Rings in Ireland is has been well documented and the part lived with his family of four boys and not Gaelic and Irish, but of Protestant played by the police in his intelligence three girls just off the North Circular and Planter families brought in from system is equally well known. Names Road in Phibsborough against the England to the Newman estate of such as Nelligan, Broy, McNamara and background of the ruling grey of Danesfort in the parish of Kilshannig to a lesser extent McCarthy and Mannix Mountjoy’s prison walls. in Mallow, County Cork in the mid- are familiar enough, but there were 1600s. other RIC and DMP men whose From his family origins on the Bridge contribution to the National Cause in at Doon, one of the sporting Rings AUTHOR that time of divided loyalties was never ended up a 10-minute walk from PROFILE known, or worse still, misunderstood. Croke Park and the exploits of distant Jerry Ring, recently Ring cousins from Cloyne and retired from IDA One such man was Constable Jeremiah Ballinacurra. The Ring house was to Ireland, lives in Ring who relayed information on the be a stopping-off point for many years Dublin. He is an police escort of a Tipperary volunteer for hurling and football finals and award winning short activist Sean (J.J.) Hogan. Hogan was semi-finals for both Cork, Kerry and story writer with his being conveyed by train from Thurles Galway cousins. work featured on Sunday Miscellany to Cork prison under an escort of one and East Coast Radio. Like his Sergeant and three constables In 1972, a proud Jack Ring received the grandfather he switched allegiances, (Wallace, Enright, Reilly and Ring) Golden Jubilee medal as Garda number albeit in sporting terms, when he was when they were confronted by an IRA also 19 years of age. He moved from unit headed by Sean Treacy, Dan hurling to rugby where he achieved Breen and Seamus Robinson at a Leinster Junior Inter-provincial caps at previously little known rail station at representative level in the late 1960s. Knocklong, Co. .

Reference Material: The date was the 13th May 1919 and the raiders were wanted men since the • Police Casualties in Ireland 1919- previous January and the killing of two 1922 - Richard Abbott - Mercier constables, O’Connell and McDonnell Press 2000. at Soloheadbeg. Two of the eight raiders, Treacy and O’Brien, entered • Frongoch - Sean O’Mahony - FDR the carriage, warned the police not to Teoranta 1987. move and beckoned the prisoner to join them. However, the police • Sean Treacy - Desmond O’Brien - reacted. Hogan struck Constable Ring The Kerryman Limited 1945. with his manacled fist momentarily stunning him. A general melee then • History Ireland Summer 1993 - ensued, followed by a gun battle. Garda Jubilee Medal SPECIAL FEATURE

Constable Enright was shot dead and market, served to maintain the fiction almost died. He was wounded again in Sergeant Wallace was mortally wounded. by casting aspersions on the fighting the Rear Cross attack, and in October Dan Breen was shot through the arm spirit of Constable Ring and others in 1920 received five bullet wounds in and lung and Treacy received a serious the R.I.C. escort party. Breen, of what became known as the ‘Fernside’ throat wound. It was Ring’s police carbine course, couldn’t have known the full fight in Drumcondra. After Knocklong in the hands of Constable Reilly, which story of Constable Ring’s political Robinson, a Dubliner and a 1916 did most of the damage to the attackers. sympathies and his involvement in veteran operated with Michael Collins The gun had been retrieved by Reilly supplying intelligence at the time of in Dublin and took part in two after Ring had been knocked through the writing his memoirs, which is now unsuccessful assassination attempts on carriage window in the initial melee. Reilly here for the first time, revealed by his the Viceroy (Lord French). He was had jumped unnoticed from the train and nephew of the same name. wounded and badly burned in an gained a firing position on the platform attack on Hollyford barracks. Hogan from where he began his fire on the The Knocklong affair was to have long was luckier and managed to avoid attackers. term and serious consequences for serious injury. He was active in Dublin those centrally involved. Two men and Tipperary where he attacked the The rescue was a qualified success. were arrested and put on trial a year police barracks in Drangan. At the Hogan, who would almost certainly have later. Edward Foley, an unarmed close of the conflict he commanded the faced the hangman’s rope, was spirited lookout, and Patrick Maher, although flying column of the . away from the station by the eight strong a volunteer but perfectly innocent – he IRA unit who were now pretty much was sorting eggs in the station on the And what of Constable Ring? His the worse for wear. Some of them ran day – were convicted, sentenced to authorities had suspicion about him towards a local butcher’s shop where death and after 21 months imprisonment, almost from the beginning. He was the proprietor Davey O’Byrne, recently hanged a mere month before the arrested, but succeeded in allaying the returned from Argentina, smashed off truce. Both men’s remains were suspicions. He eased his way out of the Hogan’s handcuffs with one well aimed recently re-interred from their prison RIC service on his own terms and blow of his cleaver – the cleaver was on graves and returned home to their eventually joined the Garda Síochána. display in the National Museum until family burial grounds. Foley’s father However, he only stayed a short time recent times. was said to be so embittered and and resigned to work the family farm. traumatised by his son’s death that he In the immediate aftermath of the forbade anyone to ever speak about it The personal sacrifices made in the Knocklong affair Jeremiah Ring found in his presence. National Cause by individual RIC and himself on the cusp of a moral dilemma. DMP men during the 1919/21 period, It is unlikely that he was aware that a Two of the attacking party O’Brien apart from a few high level operatives, daring rescue attempt would be made and Scanlon made their way to the has never been fully acknowledged. on the train at the cost of several lives. US. As for the ‘Big Four’- Treacy, Caught between a rock and a hard He turned up the following day according Breen, Robinson and Hogan; Knocklong place, they stayed quiet, as much out to a local paper with nationalists leaning, and Soloheadbeg inured them for the of a vestige of loyalty to their erstwhile in a confused state. The subtext of the inevitable violence that would follow. barrack buddies as for any other papers report was that the police’s Treacy was wounded for the second time reason and never bothered afterwards prowess didn’t quite match up to that during an attack on a police barracks at to set the record straight.The action at of the attackers. Rear Cross before being shot dead in Knocklong took less than 15 minutes October 1920 in Dublin’s Talbot Street. from the arrival of the train at 8.13pm Subsequent accounts including Breen’s until its departure at 8.27pm, but its colourful book “My fight for Irish Breen received the first of many ramifications would last for decades. Freedom” written largely for the American wounds at Knocklong from which he - Editor

Knocklong Rail Station