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Auction: 23003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 301

“A very meritorious feat”: The excessively rare 1920 Constabulary Medal (Ireland) and Second Award Rosette awarded to Constable W. Willis, Royal Irish Constabulary, firstly for his gallantry during the defence of the Gortatlea Police Hut, Kerry, on 25 March 1920, and secondly for his gallantry during the ‘well-conducted and very gallant defence’ of the Brosna Barracks, Kerry, on 19 June 1920; he had previously received a Second Class Favourable Record ‘for Courageous Conduct’ at Listowel, Kerry, on 9 October 1917

Constabulary Medal (Ireland), 2nd type, ‘Reward of Merit Royal Irish Constabulary’ (Constable William Willis 67191. 1920) with Second Award Rosette, with integral top ribbon bar minor edge bruising, good very fine and extremely rare

Constabulary Medal awarded 27 July 1920.

Constabulary Medal Second Award Rosette awarded 19 November 1920.

The original Recommendation states:

‘The Brosna Barracks were attacked at 2:15 a.m. on 19 June 1920 with heavy rifle fire. The most dangerous attack came from the roof of a house on the right hand side, which could only be countered by rifle fire from one narrow window in the Barracks on which the raiders concentrated their fire at 8 yards’ range. At this point Constables Duffy and Martin rendered conspicuous service and the former was wounded. This successful defence, supervised by Sergeant Lydon, was remarkable for the coolness and the precision in shooting and bombing displayed by all. Two hours after cessation of fire Constables McCarthy and Gibbons cycled 13 miles over an obstructed road to Castle island with news of the occurrence and evaded an attempt to cut them off.’

William Willis was born in Tipperary on 6 July 1887, and appears in the 1901 census as living at House No 7, Garrykennedy, North Tipperary. After working as a grocer’s assistant, he joined the Royal Irish Constabulary on 18 March 1913. He became a Peeler at a time when most new recruits were Catholics, there was little serious crime in the rural areas of Ireland, and the Royal Irish Constabulary did most of its work unarmed, except in the major ports and logistics hubs and the great industrial city of Belfast (Dublin was the responsibility of a separate force, the unarmed Dublin Municipal Police).

Willis served as a Constable with Kerry Police from 7 October 1913. At that time, Munster was the region with the strongest tradition of republican activism outside of Dublin. Irish Republicans had long recognised that ‘The R.I.C. were the eyes of the British army’. From his earliest days on duty, Willis would have experienced a rising tide of antipathy towards the Peelers.

Courageous Conduct at Listowel, 9 October 1917

The political situation in southern Ireland deteriorated significantly after the Easter Rising in 1916, and on 9 October 1917 Willis was involved in a major confrontation between the R.I.C. and the republican Irish Volunteers at Listowel, Co. Kerry. The police were attempting to arrest an army deserter who began shouting ‘Up Sinn Fein, Up the Kaiser’, and the Volunteers intervened to free him.

‘A baton charge by the R.I.C. was replied to by the Volunteers using sticks and stones, the police being forced to withdraw some distance down the street. Further reinforcements of R.I.C. armed with rifles came on the scene. They opened fire over the heads of the Volunteers but this did not prevent the Volunteers attacking. The R.I.C. then opened fire into the Volunteers.’ (I.R.A. Witness Statement 1,013 refers.)

Willis received a Second Class Favourable Record ‘for Courageous Conduct’ at Listowel. (Constabulary Gazette 22 December 1917)

The Attack on Gortatlea Police Hut and its Absent Sergeant, 25 March 1920

In April 1918, the police post at Gortatlea railway station, near Tralee, became the first R.I.C. barracks to be attacked by republicans since the Easter Rising. The attack failed, and two local Irish Volunteers were killed by the four-man R.I.C. garrison, despite the fact that the building was completely unfortified or protected in any way. The man who had commanded that attack, Tom McEllistrim, soon after attempted to assassinate two of the R.I.C. men involved, an attempt which also failed and forced McEllistrim to go ‘on the run’. By March 1920, Gortatlea R.I.C. post had been transformed, as described by McEllistrim: ‘There were a Sergeant and six R.I.C. Constables. The Barrack was a one-storey double building and was well-fortified with steel shutters, sandbags and some barbed wire.’

McEllistrim decided to attack it again: ‘We knew that rifle fire would have little effect owing to the manner in which the Barrrack was fortified all round. Our plan was to attack the Barracks from the roof.’ (I.R.A. Witness statement 882 refers).

One end of the single-storey barracks was overlooked by the gable end of the two-storey Stationmaster’s house just six feet away. At 1:30 a.m. on 25 March, McEllistrim deployed his attacking party of 25 men, at least 9 of whom were armed with rifles, in three groups. Two groups of half a dozen men with shotguns were placed at the front and rear of the barracks to prevent any sorties by the garrison. The remainder evacuated the stationmaster and his family and placed stocks of rifles, ammunition, bombs, petrol and explosives in the attic. Once the preparations were complete, McEllistrim’s men broke through the roof at the gable end nearest the police barracks.

‘When the noise of breaking slate started, the Barrack garrison started shooting and fired some Verey lights which lit up the district like day. Not until we had got through the slate roof fully and had about twelve men with guns pointing over the gable wall did I give the order to fire… Our fire from the roof took the garrison by surprise as they had no protection from that quarter. The shooting lasted for about twenty minutes or so and then we flung bombs and petrol on to the roof. The back portion of the Barracks was on fire and after a short time an R.I.C. man came to the door and said they would surrender…the garrison walked out with their hands up; four of them… had bullet wounds in the legs, received evidently from our fire through the roof. We collected the arms in the Barracks… six rifles, two shotguns, five revolvers and a [small] quantity of ammunition.’

Contemporary newspaper reports (see for example the Cork Weekly Examiner of 3 April 1920) corroborate McEllistrim’s account, except in two important aspects. The first concerns the defenders. The newspaper reported that the garrison was six men, all Constables, and correctly names three of them. However, as McEllistrim stated and standard R.I.C. practise required, there should also have been a Sergeant in charge at Gortatlea. Six Constabulary Medals were issued for the defence of Gortatlea, none of them to a Sergeant. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Sergeant was absent that night, and that consequently no-one could be held fully responsible and accountable for the decision to surrender. That an essentially leaderless garrison held out as long as it did was probably a key element in the decision to award six Constabulary Medals.

The second anomaly concerns the fate of the arms and ammunition stored at the barracks. The Examiner reported ‘It is stated that only one rifle was secured from the hut when the ammunition exploded and the besieging party had to beat a hasty retreat. Explosion after explosion followed, and in the morning it was found that all the ammunition had been exploded, and burnt rifles were found amidst the debris.’ There is no doubt that almost all the ammunition was destroyed, but it would appear that the authorities were deceived about how many weapons were captured by the rebels.

‘Come on the Rainbow Chasers’: The Defence of Brosna R.I.C. Barracks, 19 June 1920.

After the destruction of Gortatlea police post, Willis was transferred to the larger, better situated barracks at Brosna, a more remote but still important town which dominated a region of bogs and hills. The British were determined to hold onto the area, and deployed considerable resources to make Brosna barracks defensible.
According to the commander of the I.R.A.’s Brosna Company, ‘Brosna Barracks was well fortified. Windows were protected by steel shutters and the approaches were protected by barbed wire. It was a two-storey slated building, detached. On one side it was divided from an adjoining house by a passage about 8 feet wide, the gable of the adjoining house running at an angle to the barracks. On the other side of the barracks was the graveyard and Catholic Church. The garrison numbered about 30 armed with rifles, grenades and machine guns. They were also equipped with Verey pistols and there was also a wireless set.’ (I.R.A. Witness statement 1,139 refers).

The 19 June attack was mounted by the combined East Kerry and West Limerick Flying Columns, under the overall command of Humphrey Murphy. Gunmen surrounded the barracks, but the main attack was mounted from the roof of the house across the passage, replicating the ‘attack from the roof’ tactics that had succeeded at Gortatlea.

However, at Brosna the roof of the barracks was much higher, and the distance from the adjacent building greater than had been the case at Gortatlea. Things started badly for the I.R.A., as the gunmen were spotted as they moved into position just after 2:00 a.m. The garrison opened fire immediately. It was actually made up of a Sergeant, thirteen Constables (most of whom, like Willis, were long serving Peelers of the R.I.C., but who included at least three Black and Tans who had served in the army during the First World War), and a Royal Navy Telegraphist who operated the radio set. Three bombs thrown onto the roof of the barracks did not break it open, and all attempts to set the building alight failed. The defenders realised that they had the upper hand, and sustained their morale by playing a melodeon and taunting their attackers by shouting ‘Come on the Rainbow Chasers’.

Telegraphist Robinson attempted to organise by radio an attack on the rebels by men from the nearby Abbeyfeale R.I.C. Barracks. As dawn broke, the attackers gave up and withdrew.

Major-General Tudor, the Police Adviser (effectively the commander of the R.I.C.), strongly endorsed the recommendation for Constabulary Medals for ‘all the defenders… this was a well-conducted and very gallant defence… and in view of the extreme strain on the Police in Kerry, a very meritorious feat.’

Willis remained in Kerry for the remainder of the Anglo-Irish War. After the Peace Treaty was ratified, he was transferred to Dublin on 1 April 1922 to join the guard force of Dublin Castle, the centre of the British administration in Ireland. He served there until the R.I.C. was disbanded on 22 August 1922.

Note: British Gallantry Awards, by P. E. Abbott and J. M. A. Tamplin, record that just seven men received more than one award of the Constabulary Medal, and this was confirmed in P. E. Abbott’s updated article in the OMRS Journal (Miscellany 14 2001). These multiple awards were announced either as additional Medals, or as Bars, but no record has been found of any Bars for the Constabulary Medal having been designed, approved, ordered or manufactured by the pre-1922 Irish government (no doubt government officials had other priorities, in the midst of an existential challenge to their administration).

The incongruity of wearing multiple examples of the same medal had been forcefully argued by the Duke of Wellington during the Napoleonic wars. During the First World War, rosettes mounted on a ribbon sewn onto working dress (to indicate an awarded bar) had been officially sanctioned. British Gallantry Awards states that the award of a rosette to be worn on the ribbon of the first full-size medal and on a working dress ribbon bar would have been a practical, pragmatic solution for the police authorities to adopt. Abbott cites another known example of a second award indicated by a silver rosette, seen on the ribbon of Constable Holmes’s first medal, as publicised in the OMRS Journal of Spring 1994.The official recommendation for awards for the defence of Brosna Barracks includes a ‘grant of a bar to the under-mentioned who has already been awarded the Constabulary Medal for conspicuous courage in the defence of Scartaglin Hut: Duffy, Francis.’ There is no such corresponding paragraph for William Willis. This could have been an administrative error which only came to light when lists of approved awards were compiled for entry in the Constabulary General Register or for sending to the engravers, or alternatively it might reflect the fact that, as Abbott states, ‘in 1920/21 a recommendation took anything between one and seven months to pass through the system’. The Scartaglin attack occurred on 31 March, the garrison of six Peelers conducted a successful defence and an I.R.A. gunman was wounded. The recommendation was easy to draft, swiftly approved and Francis Duffy’s medal was announced on 13 July. The Gortatlea attack had occurred a week earlier, on 25 March, but the situation was more complicated, as the Peelers had surrendered and the barracks was totally destroyed. There were challenging questions that needed to be addressed (the absent Sergeant and whether R.I.C. arms and ammunition had fallen into rebel hands), and so it is not surprising that the recommendation took longer to pass through the system. The Gortatlea medals were announced on 27 July. The Brosna attack took place on 19 June, and, as it was considered by the R.I.C. hierarchy to be an exemplary defence of a key post, the draft recommendation would likely have been almost complete by the time the Scartaglin medals were announced, while the Gortatlea awards were still being considered. For the benefit of those alert for anomalies, the Brosna awards were not announced until November, due mostly to a lengthy bureaucratic struggle to determine whether personnel attached to the R.I.C. from the British military (in this case, a Naval signaller seconded to the R.I.C.) were eligible for the Constabulary Medal. (Finally, the sailor received the Medal in 1921).

Taken together with the entries on his record in the Constabulary General Register, the Constabulary Notifications 45531 and 46071 are conclusive proof that Willis was awarded the Constabulary Medal (Ireland) twice.



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