Born in County Durham in 1895, John Joseph King served as secretary to Newcastle’s branch of the Irish Self-Determination League (ISDL) from early 1920, helped raise and then command ‘C’ Company of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the North East of England, was a sworn member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and was deported from Newcastle to Dublin’s Mountjoy prison in March 1923 at the behest of the Irish Free State government for his involvement in gun-running for the anti-Treaty IRA. In late December 1935, John King, then living in Washington, County Durham, applied to Dublin for a pension under the terms of the Military Service Pension Act of 1934.[1] His claim was rejected.
This post will examine John King’s pension claim and the circumstances of its rejection, comparing his unsuccessful claim with the successful claims made by two Volunteers from his own company, and revealing how personal animosity within the Tyneside IRA influenced the outcome of John King’s claim.
The application form supplied by the Pension Branch of Dublin’s Department of Defence asked applicants to record their active military service in the IRA (and other named republican organisations, e.g. Irish Citizen Army) in distinct time periods covering Easter Week 1916, the Anglo-Irish War, the period of the Truce from 11 July 1921, and the Civil War to September 1923.
John King initially claimed that, as captain of the IRA’s ‘C’ Company in Newcastle, he had actively recruited for the IRA in the city, had collected and transported munitions, had acted as an armed bodyguard during the clandestine visit to Tyneside in November 1920 of Rory O’Connor, the IRA’s Director of Engineering and responsible from August 1920 for the campaign in Britain,[2] had led a ‘reprisal’ raid on a bonded warehouse, and had been arrested on 10 March 1923 and imprisoned in Mountjoy. And he provided the names and addresses of several referees, well known amongst Tyneside’s advanced Irish nationalists, including Gilbert Barrington, the Tyneside IRA’s quartermaster, Thomas Flynn, quartermaster after Barrington’s arrest, Anthony Mullarkey, commander of ‘E’ Company in Bedlington and later battalion commandant, Terence O’Connor, Tyneside ISDL’s treasurer and IRB member, and Miss Cecily Brennan of Cumann na mBan. He also named Michael McEvoy, who in late 1920 had been sent by the IRA’s GHQ in Dublin to support the nascent Tyneside IRA.[3]
Some time in 1936 or 1937, King sent the Pensions Board a hand written letter from Terence O’Connor, one of his named referees, who had written: ‘Mr. King is a man of excellent character and ability, straightforward, honest and reliable. He is now and has always been agood practical Catholic’.[4] This letter, however, reads more as a job reference rather than specifically relating to King’s active IRA service, and in February 1938, King was asked by Dublin to supply ‘the fullest possible details’ of his time spent ‘in actual military work’,[5] and to add the names of two IRA officers, who would confirm his statement.
King replied that that would be difficult as many of the Tyneside IRA’s officers had either died or emigrated,[6] but in late March 1938, he sent a detailed list of his activities to Dublin, together with an incomplete nominal roll for the Tyneside IRA that he had compiled, noting that only the addresses of two officers were known to him, that of Thomas Flynn in South Shields and Edward McAndrew in Wallsend.[7]
Both then sent references to Dublin in support of John King.
Edward McAndrew, who had commanded the IRA’s ‘D’ Company in Wallsend, stated that King had been ‘responsible for carrying out all the Raids and Fires and other operations in Newcastle and District and was very active in collecting arms and explosives’, and added that it was through King that he ‘kept in touch with the Commandant [Richard Purcell] nearly every day’.[8]
Whilst Thomas Flynn, who had named John King as his reference in his pension application, wrote:[9]
‘During the entire period of activities which included reprisal raids on Government property destruction of communications, gas water and electric supplies and also farm stacks this Officer [John King], a keen motorist, figured prominently in each action. He was also active in the raising of funds, collection & transportation of arms & ammunitions to our Forces in Ireland.’
For an unknown reason, however, Flynn’s reference was not added to King’s file in Dublin but remained in his own file. This oversight significantly weakened King’s pension application, particulary when he was called to Dublin for interview in April 1938.[10] At this interview, the fact that he had only one reference was stressed, with King insisting that ‘you should have one’ from Thomas Flynn.
Following this interview, a detailed report was produced for the Pensions Board, which noted (1) that King had been a District Manager of the Irish National Assurance Company in Newcastle and had used his work’s motor cycle to carry despatches between the IRA’s companies in the North East of England; (2) that he had used his office in Clayton Street in Newcastle to store munitions; and (3) that he had planned and assisted in several arson attacks. And the report ended with the comment that King ‘seems to have been a usefulconnecting link in the area and to have done some good work but he also appears to have taken it for granted that most of his activities were already well known with the result that he failed to make a good case for himself’.
The report also noted that during his interview King had handed over a carbon copy of a document with additional details of his service that, he said, had been sent to the Office of the Referee a few days before.[11] The report, however, noted that the ‘original’ document ‘was not attached to his file at the time’, but gave no reason for this misfiling. The original document with the additional information was later added to King’s file, where it remains.
Following his interview, the Office of the Referee sought others, who might confirm or deny King’s claim, and asked Michael Cremen for help.[12] Cremen, a veteran of Easter 1916 and the anti-Treaty IRA’s Director of Purchases from April 1922,[13] had met King in London about May 1922. He suggested the following names – Anthony Mullarkey, Thomas Flynn, William MacMahon, Michael McEvoy, two Liverpool IRA officers, together with himself and Patrick Murphy, who was the anti-Treaty IRA’s commanding officer in Britain from June 1922 after the arrest of Rory O’Connor.[14]
Unaware of Cremen’s suggestions, John King, describing himself as the ‘senior surviving officer’ of the IRA on Tyneside, wrote to Michael Cremen in August 1938, attaching a more complete nominal roll for the Tyneside IRA, together with brief notes on its officers.[15] In this letter, King, who had met Cremen that April, when he was in Dublin for his interview in Griffith Barracks, referred to the references that had already been written for him by William MacMahon, Anthony Mullarkey, Thomas Flynn, Terence O’Connor, and Edward McAndrew, and that ‘the testimony which can be added by yourself and P Murray, should leave no doubt to the genuineness of my claim’. And King offered to assist the Pensions Board to verify any other claims emanating from Tyneside.
The references from MacMahon and Mullarkey are in John King’s file.
William MacMahon wrote that he remembered meeting King, when, as a senior IRA officer, he had visited Newcastle in late 1920 with Rory O’Connor to inspect the nascent IRA and administer the oath of allegiance. And MacMahon confirmed that King had been appointed captain, and that subsequently had been ‘busy in collecting arms and carrying out reprisals’.[16]
The reference from Anthony Mullarkey, then living in New York, confirmed that King had been ‘C’ Company’s captain, had taken the IRB’s oath of allegiance, and that not only had he been engaged in ‘recruiting and enrolling Volunteers, raising funds, collecting and storing explosive materials and arms and ammunition’, but had taken part in raids and ‘reprisal’ actions.[17] And crucially Mullarkey added dates that had been missing from King’s previous submissions, e.g. ‘Incendiary Reprisal Action on Farms etc. Feb 28th 1921’.
In September 1938, John King’s file was passed to verifying officers for comment, and thus entered Dublin’s own version of Dickens’ circumlocution office, with no progress noted in the file for almost a year.
In June 1939, Michael Cremen was interviewed:
‘Mr. Cremin [sic] thinks he met the applicant about May 1922. Applt. [applicant], he thinks, was the Vice-O.C. of North-Eastern Britain. He was then employed by an insurance company, and had a car, and did much organisation work. Applicant smuggled some arms across before his arrest.’
And a final note was added: ‘Hold for Newcastle area officer’.[18]
In September 1939, Gilbert Barrington, the Tyneside IRA’s first quartermaster and the Pension Board’s recognised ‘Newcastle area officer’, was interviewed.[19] He confirmed King’s rank and thought that King had ‘helped to organise companies in places around Newcastle’, but that his claim to have scouted the area for targets was ‘far-fetched’. Operationally, Barrington agreed that King had taken part in the burning of haystacks, but cast doubt on King’s other claims of active service. Barrington added that King’s Newcastle Company ‘was not a very good one in the area’, and that King was not ‘a very good soldier’.
Michael McEvoy was then called for interview in late September 1939 and a transcript of this interview is preserved in Dublin’s Military Archives.[20] McEvoy was asked to describe for the Advisory Committee ‘the conditions which prevailed’ in the Tyneside IRA between December 1920 and March 1921, when he was in the North East of England. The interview was wide ranging, but several of McEvoy’s comments referred directly to John King.[21]
Whilst the effectiveness of the IRA’s companies was being discussed, McEvoy said to the interviewer, ‘You mention one individual – King – and in my opinion he is gifted with a tongue, but do not ask him to do anything.’ Later in the interview, whilst discussing the number of pension claims from Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, the interviewer suggested that the ‘difficulty about Newcastle is there are only a few men deserving.’ To which McEvoy replied ‘Yes’. Then, when the interviewer mentioned using information on the Tyneside claimants supplied by King, McEvoy replied ‘You can take that with a grain of salt. There is no good foryou going to him – “that I was on such and such job” – and it might be 50 miles from where he resides. You would want to know the area.’ Finally, after acknowledging that King commanded ‘C’ Company, when he was asked if King ‘was not the best man in the company’, he replied ‘No. If I had my way with him I would give him a certificate for one year’s service and say “There, you are finished”. You will always find a class of man like that.’
Michael McEvoy clearly personally disliked John King and the views he expressed during his interview were distilled for the Office of the Referee into the blunt comment: ‘Witness thinks applicant was a talker, rather than a soldier’.[22]
In October 1939, after having been sent the names of some forty Tyneside claimants, Barrington and McEvoy signed a joint letter to the Office of the Referee at Griffith Barracks naming sixteen, who were ‘genuinely active’. John King was on this list.[23]
In November, a further letter from Barrington to Griffith Barracks gave details, including dates, of claimants’ active service, and John King was credited with taking part in ‘Operations’ on 27 March and 8 April 1921, and ‘Carrying’ munitions.[24] These operations were arson attacks on farms.
A year passed with no progress on King’s claim, then, in October 1940, Barrington’s opinion of King was again sort.[25] ‘Qualifies, but not enthusiastic’ was his answer, though it is not clear whether this refers to King’s lack of enthusiasm for active service, or to Barrington’s lack of enthusiasm for King’s pension claim. Also, Barrington used the phrase ‘“Ex officio”’, which possibly implies that King’s position as commander of ‘C’ Company was based on his popularity rather than to his soldierly qualities.[26]
Later in October 1940, Gilbert Barrington wrote to Thomas Flynn in South Shields describing progress with the Tyneside IRA’s pension claims and, suggesting unofficially, which claims had been approved and which rejected.[27] Flynn’s claim, plus those of Anthony Mullarkey, Edward McAndrew, and two others, were approved, together with those of a further six men, whose claims had been originally rejected. Six claimants, however, were marked as ‘Doubtful’, one of whom was John King, with Barrington explaining to Flynn that ‘I made the best case I could for them but I fear that some of them did not make the best case for themselves’.
Flynn gave a copy of Barrington’s letter to John King, and thus King learnt that his claim was all but rejected. King then forwarded the copy of Barrington’s letter to the Board of Referees with an angry covering letter of his own, which explained that Flynn had sent him Barrington’s letter because ‘He was amazed at my case appearing among the doubtful ones’.[28]
King then launched a (possibly ill-advised) personal attack on Gilbert Barrington:
‘I have no desire to appear prejudiced to G.B. though I am convinced that my close association with Mr R Purcell Tyneside Area Commdt [Commandant] during the whole course of events from 1919 to 1923 made him somewhat envious of me. I have always known him to be indiscreet however, and believe his own arrest at a time when every individual effort was essential to the cause, was the result of his own indiscretion. Just prior to his first appearance before the Board he wrote to me asking for the fullest particulars concerning the whole organisation and personnel on Tyneside, remarking that his own mind was somewhat hazy on the subject, knowing that he could never remember something he never knew I referred him to the particulars in my file at Griffiths Barracks. In conversation with him about that time I gained the impression that he was endeavouring to gain what information he could to further his own ends.’
King concluded his letter by stating that, though ‘naturally concerned’ for his own claim, he was ‘equally concerned with that of other genuine applicants’.
On 9 March 1941, having received formal notice of his claim having been rejected, John King wrote to the Board: ‘I cannot accept as a just decision in view of: (1) Those who could verify my statements not being available; (2) Awards having been announced in the case of others who served under my orders’.[29] And he asked for the final decision to be delayed to allow him to make further representations.
He followed this with a long letter to the Department of Defence on 16 March 1941 re-arguing his case, but adding little to what he had previously written, though he did add that he had had a private meeting in August 1937 in Dublin with Éamon de Valera at which he gave an account of the Tyneside IRA’s service, and, no doubt, raised his own pension claim. This letter was then forwarded to the Office of the Referee.[30]
Finally on 25 June 1942, King received a duplicated form from Dublin informing him that, in regards to his application for a pension under the terms of the Military Service Pensions Act of 1934, the Referee ‘has reported that you are not a person to whom the Act applies’.[31] And ‘NIL’ was stamped in purple ink across the front of his file.
From file numbers written on the nominal roll compiled by John King in 1938, four Volunteers from his IRA company applied for a military service pension and, to date, the files of two – Liam Ferris and James Vallely – have been released and are available for scrutiny.[32]
Born in Hexham, Northumberland, in 1900, Liam Anthony Ferris applied to Dublin for a military service pension in May 1935.[33] He claimed that he had joined the IRA in Newcastle in December 1920, had assisted in ‘the collection of Information, Arms, and Ammunition’, had stored munitions in his home and transported them to Liverpool, and had taken part in arson attacks on farms and at Gosforth aerodrome. Ferris also claimed that he had moved to Ireland in September 1922 and had then served with an Active Service Unit of the anti-Treaty IRA, until he was captured by Free State forces and imprisoned in January 1923.
Ferris’s service in Ireland during the Civil War was confirmed by his former commanding officer. However, though Ferris gave the names and addresses of three referees for his Tyneside service, one of whom was his former commanding officer, John King, none were asked for a reference and nor was Ferris called for interview to Dublin. Gilbert Barrington, however, was asked in October 1940 about Ferris’s service on Tyneside, and commented: ‘A Good man better than OC’ [ i.e. his commanding officer John King].[34] Liam Ferris subsequently was awarded a military service pension in April 1942.
Also in 1942, James Vallely, then living in Westport, County Mayo, was awarded a pension for his service in the Tyneside IRA between April and July 1921.[35] He had originally applied for a pension in 1936, claiming the rank of ‘First Lieutenant’ in ‘B’ Company and citing his commanding officer as one of his referees. This officer he named as John King. Vallely also claimed to have served in the anti-Treaty IRA in Westport during the Civil War.
None of Vallely’s referees provided a reference for him and in October 1940 Gilbert Barrington was asked for his observations. He said that he could not verify all the Tyneside operations claimed by Vallely, but that Vallely had been a ‘Regular carrier of stuff’, and had taken part in the arson attack on Gosforth aerodrome in April 1921.[36]
Vallely’s claim, however, was rejected, but he appealed in November 1940, stating that he had been in ‘C’ (Newcastle) rather than ‘B’ (Hebburn) Company, admitting that his rank on Tyneside had been ‘Corporal’ rather than ‘Lieutenant’, and providing a more detailed account of his active service.
In July 1941, after Barrington had once again been asked for his observations, James Vallely was called to Dublin for interview.[37] There he explained that he had moved to Tyneside in October 1918 from Mayo, had found work as a miner, had joined the IRA, and had returned home in 1923, but had not then served in the anti-Treaty IRA. Vallely also admitted that his original pension application of 1936 had been written by another and that he had been unaware of what had been written about him.
At the end of the interview, the following note was appended for the Advisory Committee:
‘This applicant proved a very difficult witness. He looks like a man who has been shell-shocked… no reliance can be placed upon his Form. The statement which he has furnished with his Appeal is similarly unreliable… Notwithstanding these objections he appears to have done some work in Newcastle, burning of the Aerodrome being the principal item. I doubt, however, if his service will prove to be qualifying.’
Nevertheless, despite this final comment, James Vallely’s military service pension was approved.
According to the ‘connected narrative’ of the Tyneside IRA compiled by Gilbert Barrington and Michael McEvoy and sent to the Pensions Board on 25 November 1939, some 480 men were serving in the Tyneside IRA in March 1921, when operations began.[38] Of the 44 men, who had submitted a pension claim, Barrington and McEvoy positively identified 31 claimants as having been active ‘in operations’ and ‘in getting supplies of munitions’.
All three of the claimants discussed in this post – Liam Ferris, James Vallely, and John King – were on that list, and, though all three claims had their weaknesses, as is apparent when examining their files, why alone was King’s claim rejected?
In 1925, Joseph Vize, a veteran of the Easter Rising, who had commanded the IRA in Scotland from January 1919 until July 1920,[39] wrote to the Military Pensions Board in Dublin in support of several claimants:[40]
‘Men of their type were very hard to find in those days… we had plenty of platform spouters, but when it came to going up to a Scottish Military Barracks and getting rifles, ammunition, etc., across the walls in the small hours of the morning you could count the workers on your fingers.’
And proving a claimant’s active service lay at the heart of the pension assessors’ work.
It was accepted by the assessors that John King had been a company commander in Newcastle, and had held that rank from the first raising of the IRA on Tyneside in late 1920.[41] As captain, it was his responsibility to ensure that all orders from the higher command were carried out by his company, and the importance of this function was highlighted by Michael Mackin, ‘A’ Company’s quartermaster in Jarrow, who explained in a letter to Dublin in 1935 in support of his claim that:[42]
‘I expect that the Committee is aware of the great difficulties which we worked under in this Area. Affairs had to be kept so secret that many of the men did not know who were their Divisional Staff, etc. Of course they were bound to know their Company OC.’
So, was being in command as much on active service as turning out for operations ‘in the small hours of the morning’? John King certainly thought so, hence his disbelief that pensions had been granted to men ‘who served under my orders’, whilst his claim had been rejected.[43]
And Edward McAndrew, the former commander of the IRA’s ‘D’ Company in Wallsend, also thought so, explaining in a letter to Gilbert Barrington in January 1942 in support of two pension claims from his company that ‘it was orders from myself in most cases that these men carried out their work & seeing that my application was granted surely in these cases they should be granted too’.[44]
Close examination of John King’s file, therefore, leads to the conclusion that, despite his role as a company commander, despite having taken part in operations, despite having carried munitions, despite having undertaken a key communications function within the Tyneside IRA, and despite his fellow officers’ endorsements, his claim was rejected by the Pensions Board because it appears that he was personally disliked by the two men, whose voices were heard in Dublin, and whose opinions featured in almost every Tyneside claimant’s file, Michael McEvoy and Gilbert Barrington.
And their influence was highlighted by another unsuccessful claimant, James Lavin, who had served as an officer in Wallsend’s ‘D’ Company, and whose claim was supported by his company commander, Edward McAndrew. When his claim was rejected, Lavin wrote to Dublin:[45]
‘We were more than surprised to here [sic] of your decision after waiting all these long years and then getting turned down and giving [a pension] to some of our men there is nothing like having a friend in court.’
Could the stress of living a dual life – insurance agent or school teacher or coal miner by day and soldier by night operating in the enemy’s homeland – have contributed to personal tensions within the Tyneside IRA? Did Volunteers operating in Britain face difficulties that were not recognised or appreciated in Dublin? Michael Mackin certainly thought so, and felt it necessary to explain to Dublin that: [46] ‘It has been a very difficult job to fill in this application as we worked under so many difficulties in this area during the “trouble”’.
And these ‘difficulties’ were emphasised in a speech given at a reception in South Shields in 1922 to welcome home released prisoners.[47] After a toast to ‘Our heroes of the IRA on Tyneside’, Father Brennan gave:
‘a glowing picture of the real sacrifice under gone by those boys. He compared them to our boys at home. Our boys in Ireland carried their lives in their hands certainly but in Ireland all men were their friends. These men in England stood the scorn and indignity placed upon them and took it willingly for the sake of Ireland. Even our own were their enemies.’
But could the dangers facing ‘our boys at home’ really be compared to those the IRA faced in Ireland?
So, in conclusion, during the Irish Revolution, the IRA’s Tyneside Brigade probably harboured as many personal tensions, petty feuds, and rivalries as any other human society or organisation before or since, and possibly more so given the stresses of living beyond the law in an enemy’s land. And close examination of the Tyneside IRA’s military service pension files clearly reveals that the process to decide who was or was not eligible for a pension, despite bureaucratic forms and guidelines and referees and assessors, was, when the decision was finally made, dependent on having ‘a friend in court’.
John Joseph King: A brief biography.
John King was born in County Durham in 1895. In the 1850s, his grandfather, who was from Kileavy in County Armagh, moved to work in Consett’s burgeoning iron works. In 1921, John King was living with his widowed father in Wallsend and working for the Irish National Insurance Company in Clayton Street, Newcastle.[48] He had obtained this work on the recommendation of Richard Purcell, the Tyneside IRA’s commanding officer, and King put the company’s motor cycle to good effect:[49]
‘This gave me the opportunity of traversing the whole area. I appointed members of the I.R.A. as agents, and by constant visits to these – carrying on legitimate Industrial Insurance business – I was able to convey orders from H.Q. to Company Officers and direct the transhipment of explosives, etc, very often conveying these myself.’
John King sided with the anti-Treaty IRA and was prominent in disrupting pro-Treaty demonstrations in the North East, including a demonstration in Wharton Park in Durham in August 1922 that ended in a free-for-all.[50]
On 11 March 1923, there were mass arrests across Britain of republicans at the behest of the Free State government. John King, identified by the British police as ‘a commandant of the local Irish Republican Army’,[51] was one of four men from the North East arrested and deported to Dublin. The legality of the deportations was challenged in British courts and, after appeal, the deportees were released that May.[52]
In support of his application to the Pensions Board in Dublin in December 1935, John King explained that he had lost his job with the Irish National Insurance Company after his arrest in 1923 and had subsequently been ‘without sources of support other than the charity of a friend’.[53] This was not completely true, as in January 1924, John King had accepted £675 plus costs from the Irish Deportees Compensation Tribunal in London.[54]
John King married a school teacher in 1928 and had several jobs over the years, including being appointed ARP officer for Newry and Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland in April 1939. He died in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1981.
Acknowledgement: Special thanks must go to Kevin Davies, whose exhaustive online research in Dublin’s Military Service Pensions Collection and the resulting paper inspired this post.
[1] Bureau of Military History, Dublin, Military Service Pensions Collection [hereafter MSPC], MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. King posted his application to the Irish Free’s State’s High Commission in London, whence it was forwarded to Dublin, where it was received on 31 December 1935.
[2] Gerard Noonan, The IRA in Britain, 1919-1923: ‘In the heart of enemy lines’ (Liverpool, 2014), pp. 40-1.
[3] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King.
[4] Ibid. Open reference for John King from Terence O’Connor, undated but probably 1936-37.
[5] Ibid. Letter to John King from the Office of the Referee, Dublin, 7 February 1938.
[6] Ibid. Letter from John King to the Office of the Referee, 12 February 1938.
[7] Ibid. Letter from John King to the Office of the Referee, 23 March 1938.
[8] Ibid. Letter from Edward McAndrew to the Office of the Referee, 28 March 1938.
[9] MSP34REF40727 Thomas Flynn. Letter from Thomas Flynn to the Office of the Referee, 24 March 1938.
[10] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. John King was interviewed in Dublin on 19 April 1938.
[11] Ibid. Letter from John King to the Office of the Referee, 9 April 1938.
[12] Ibid. Note to Michael Cremen, 3 May 1938, and Cremen’s undated reply, but probably June 1938.
[13] Michael Cremen, Senior Civil Servants Department of Defence and Advisory Committee Members Biographies. The Military Archives, Dublin: https://www.militaryarchives.ie/en/online-collections/military-service-pensions-collection-1916-1923/about-the-collection/verifying-applications
[14] Noonan, The IRA in Britain, pp. 238-9.
[15] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Letter from John King to Michael Cremen, 16 August 1938.
[16] Ibid. Letter from William MacMahon to John King, 27 July 1938.
[17] Ibid. Letter from Anthony Mullarkey to the Office of the Referee, 6 September 1938.
[18] Ibid. Michael Cremen’s ‘observations on service’ of John King, Form R.18, 17 June 1939.
[19] Ibid. Gilbert Barrington’s ‘observations on service’ of John King, Form R.18, 18 September 1939.
[20] MSPC 24SP7314, Michael McEvoy. McEvoy had deserted from the Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1916 and joined the Irish Volunteers. In December 1920, he was sent as an organiser by Rory O’Connor to the North East of England. He left Tyneside in March 1921 and returned to Dublin. He briefly returned to Tyneside between November 1921 and January 1922. He died in 1959.
[21] Michael McEvoy described events that occurred pre-Truce in Newcastle on Tyne, 26 September 1939, Military Archives, Ireland, MA/MSPC/RO/610 Newcastle on Tyne IRA (including Tyneside Division IRA).
[22] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Michael McEvoy’s ‘observations on service’ of John King, Form R.18, 27 September 1939.
[23] MA/MSPC/RO/610 Newcastle on Tyne IRA. Letter from Gilbert Barrington and Michael McEvoy to the Office of the Referee, 31 October 1939.
[24] Ibid. Letter from Gilbert Barrington to the Office of the Referee 25 November 1939.
[25] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Gilbert Barrington’s ‘observations on service’ of John King, Form R.18, 4 October 1940.
[26] MA/MSPC/RO/610 Newcastle on Tyne IRA. In his interview in September 1939, Michael McEvoy said that the company officers on Tyneside ‘were elected the same as we did in this country at that particular time – the popular vote’.
[27]MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Copy of a letter from Gilbert Barrington to Thomas Flynn, 14 October 1940.
[28] Ibid. Letter from John King to the Board of Referees, 1 December 1940.
[29] Ibid. Letter from John King to the Board of Referees, 9 March 1941.
[30] Ibid. Letter from John King to the Department of Defence, 16 March 1941.
[31] Ibid. Form from the Ministry of Defence to John King, 25 June 1942.
[32] Ibid. Nominal roll sent to Michael Cremen, 16 August 1938.
[33] MSP34REF42028, Liam Anthony Ferris. In 1939, he was married and living and working as an ambulance driver in Newcastle upon Tyne. The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; RG 101/2923A.
[34] Ibid. Gilbert Barrington’s ‘observations on service’ of Liam Ferris, Form R.18, 4 October 1940.
[35] MSP34REF35283, James Vallely.
[36] Ibid. Gilbert Barrington’s ‘observations on service’ of James Vallely, Form R.18, 4 October 1940.
[37] Ibid. Report of James Vallely’s interview, 4 July 1941.
[38] MA/MSPC/RO/610, Newcastle on Tyne IRA.
[39] Noonan, The IRA in Britain, p. 33.
[40] MSPC 24SP608, Edward Hanlon. Letter from Joseph Vize in support of Edward Hanlon’s pension claim, 17 December 1925.
[41] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. There is some doubt as to the strength of ‘C’ Company in Newcastle. King listed 28 names, including himself, on the company’s nominal roll of 16 August 1938. According to Gilbert Barrington, however, this company had a strength of ‘about 20 men’ and named just 15. Mary A. Barrington (compiler), The Irish Independence Movement on Tyneside 1919-1921 (Dún Laoghaire, 1999), pp. 13, 33.
[42] MSP34REF44399, Michael Mackin. Letter from Michael Mackin to the Military Service Pensions Committee, 8 January 1935.
[43] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Letter from John King to the Pensions Board, 9 March 1941.
[44] MSP34REF46899, James Lavin.
[45] Ibid. Letter from James Lavin to the Pensions Board, 6 January 1941.
[46] MSP34REF44399, Michael Mackin. Letter from Michael Mackin to the Pensions Board, 19 December 1935.
[47] The Irish Exile, 24 February 1922.
[48] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1921, John Joseph King.
[49] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Letter from John King to the Pensions Board, 9 April 1938.
[50] The National Archives, CAB/24/129, Home Office Directorate of Intelligence, Report on Revolutionary Organisations in the United Kingdom [RORO], 167, 10 August 1922.
[51] RORO 194, 22 February 1923.
[52] Noonan, The IRA in Britain, pp. 315-8.
[53] MSP34REF45159, John Joseph King. Letter from ‘Sean King’ to the Pensions Board, 16 December 1935.
[54] The Northern Whig and Belfast Post, 15 January 1924.
exiles in england 