Jack (John) Kelly and the Tonduff Ambush 1922

Our family are pretty lucky to have a family bible dated 1891 which contains many requiem mass cards which help us re-learn our family history.

Here’s an example, my great grandmother Mary Kelly’s requiem mass card.

Mary was my Grandad Jack’s mother. My Dad John and I were looking through the bible again recently, when we saw something we hadn’t noticed before. A little black folder containing a letter from 1933 with a black border, usually denoting a death, and a requiem mass card from 1922.

I’m pretty lucky to have some mates who are very good Irish diaspora historians, and so we showed the card to them. It does indeed seem to be the genuine requiem mass card for these four Republicans, part of the Anti-Treaty IRA who wanted to fight on to free all of Ireland once the English were driven out of the South.

We had long known Grandad Jack was involved in a particular ambush at Tonduff/Tunduff, where three Free Staters (National Troops) were killed. Grandad Jack was arrested and held in Portlaoise jail and then moved to the Tintown internment camp (according to Michael J. Rafter in ‘The Quiet County: Towards a History of the Laois Brigade I.R.A. and Revolutionary Activity in the County 1913-1923’ 2016, p.108). For those who, like me, don’t know their Irish Catholic culture, requiem mass cards (or memory cards) were made to distribute after the funeral. Grandad Jack was in jail at the time of the funeral, but others may have been to the requiem mass, and received a card at some point thereafter which they gave to Grandad Jack, who kept it, but that doesn’t explain how it got into the family bible, which was not in his keeping. His sister Lizzie Kelly wasn’t in jail, and came to New Zealand in 1923. She may have had the requiem mass card, and she lived in the house where the family bible was kept, but we just don’t know how it came to be in its pages. Jack was released from jail in 1923, and left Ireland. We’re not sure of his movements until he boarded the Athenic (third class passenger) and came to New Zealand from Liverpool in 1926.

The photos above are the back and front of a photo I’ve often wondered over. I had thought it was one of the more light hearted photos I had seen of Grandad as a young man. Jack is on the left, and the information on the back says ‘The present teacher, a Cork chap, S.Siney and A. Donegan’ are also pictured. An Irish Historian, Michael Rafter has had a look and let us know they are Stephen Siney and Aloysius Donegan who were also part of the IRA in Portarlington.

My Dad John then found another interesting article in Grandad Jack’s papers about the death of Lorcan Brady, a fierce Republican until he died in 1973. Someone had passed Lorcan (often called Lar, also Laurence)’s obituary to Jack who had again kept it.

It’s worth a read for the beautiful and romantic Fenian prose it contains:

Newspaper article found in Jack Kelly’s papers by John Kelly

Tribute to late Lorcan Brady

The big man is dead. One of the last of the chieftains of the O’Moore territory has gone to his reward. The descendants of the Seven Septs have laid the mortal remains of Lar Brady in their last resting place within view of Dunamace. Great their grief; great their memories.

From the day he went in the horse and trap with his father to his first football match in Ballyroan, to the day of his death, Lar was a devoted follower of the native games and through the years an ardent enthusiast in the promotion of the cause of Irish Independence, the development of the native culture and the Irish language.

How he loved the Clonad team, how he exhorted them, led them, praised them, defended them and promoted them. How proud we were of him as his commanding figure and well delivered addresses held the wrapt attention of delegates at convention or congress. He proved to be a man of presight too.

Remember the congress in the fifties when he appealed to congress to move Croke Park to the Phoenix Park and to provide the headquarters with its own air-strip etc? A man of courage, Lar fired the last shot in the controversial Ban issue in Belfast’s convention, true to his ideals to the last, integrity before popularity was always his motto.

Lar’s politics needed to be understood to be appreciated, he was a Fenian in the tradition of Clarke, a separatist like Tone, a visionary like Pearse. He gave his services fearlessly, unselfishly and unreservedly to the cause of a united independent Ireland. He with many old comrades where will now renew acquaintance all enjoy freedom which lasts.

The ideals of Davitt were perpetuated in Lar’s love of the land, a love so well enunciated by his neighbour James Fintan Lalor before him. His Christianity was reflected in his neighbourliness, in his devotion to duty and above all in his integrity.

How fitting that our hero should go to his eternal reward at Easter time, a time of rising, freedom and glory.

We shall miss him and remember him every time we enter O’Moore Park, an arena which will remain a monument to his love of the games of the Gael, as he loved to call them. I cannot help thinking of the happy re-union of our talented Laois Co. Board officials, Lar, Bob, Paddy, Sean, Johnny and Jack.

Our sympathy is extended to Lar’s sister, relatives, old comrades, G.A.A. [Gaelic Athletic Association] friends, neighbours and to all who were privileged to know him. Solus na bhfaitheas dá anam dílis [May the Light of Heaven Shine On His Faithful Soul].

-CARA

Lar Brady is pretty well known, and some of his experiences are published online https://bmh.militaryarchives.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1427.pdf

He too was involved in the Tonduff Ambush. Lar had been part of the 1916 uprising, while Jack was in the British army. When Jack eventually left the army and Home rule was not forthcoming, perhaps he was one of the many young men who felt he needed to take a side, or maybe he was forced to do so. After all, Jack was a Lewis Gun instructor, and in County Laoise, Lar tells us the IRA had several Lewis Guns. Jack was also a trained sniper.

Jack seems to have sent some photos to his brother Michael Joseph Kelly in New Zealand before he himself arrived in 1926, and one of them has been kept in an album with photos of his other siblings in Ireland. In it, Jack is wearing the uniform of the Republican army associated with the IRA and IRB (we don’t know if he was ever officially part of either organisation).

To be clear, I find this photo pretty troubling and wish it wasn’t my Grandad Jack, but it looks like him to us. So imagine our surprise when we had another look for Tunduff Ambush information online and found a memorial which has this photo, but says it’s someone else! https://www.tonduffambush.ie/the-ambush-overall/on-the-other-side-of-the-wall I would be very happy if it’s Michael Sheehy, but alas I don’t think it is.

Here’s a photo of Jack from that same family album with a photo of his sister. Maybe we’ll never know for certain, but given the context in which the photo with the pistol is sitting, in an album of Jack and his siblings, it’s unlikely it’s Michael Sheehy. [Update to this post, the Tonduff Memorial site agrees and will be updating their text accordingly.]

But that’s the difficulty with my Grandad Jack. He never spoke about what happened to him while fighting with the British at the Somme (we know he was wounded from his military record which my Uncle Michael researched) and he never talked about what happened when he went home. He was, apparently, a man of pretty few words.

What we do know for certain is that his Dad, also called John, died while Grandad Jack was still in prison and Jack wasn’t able to go to his funeral. Perhaps just punishment, he had been involved in the death of three Free Staters. But still, to me, a sadness, and one I imagine he carried all his life.

Thank you to Sean Brosnahan and Ewan Morris for their help with this – all errors however are my own. Feel free to contact me if you have further information or corrections! mjeankelly@gmail.com