Yuku free message boards

Some one may care to post more details about Knocklong, and the circumstances leading up to it, but a brief summary of the events may be pertinent.

After the murders of two policemen at Soloheadbeg in January 1919 Sean Hogan, Dan Breen, Sean Treacy and Seamus Robinson went 'on the run'. However Hogan was captured by the RIC near Thurles and identified at Roskeen barracks. The names of three of the police party who arrested him were Sergeant Peter Wallace, Constable Jeremiah Ring and Constable John Reilly.

Sean Hogan knew that Hogan would have to be taken by train to Cork, and laid out a plan to liberate him at Knocklong Station. The information on his exact movements was passed to the Volunteers by an informant in the RIC.

At Knocklong, Treacy and Ned O'Brien enetered the car containing Hogan and his four police escorts (Sgt Wallace, Constable Ring, Constable Reilly and Constable Michael Enright) and opened fire, killing Constable Enright immediately. A hand to hand fight then erupted with Sergeant Wallace knocking the gun out of Treacy's hand, 15 more Volunteers joining in the fracas, Constable Ring being knocked unconscious by Hogan, and Reilly being beaten senseless with his own carbine. In the crowded carriage it was left to Sgt Wallace alone to grapple with Treacy and O'Brien and the other Volunteers. This he did, through his own sheer physical strength, and managed to get out his revolver and wound Treacy in the throat, before himself being shot twice and collapsing to the floor.
Constable Reilly meanwhile had managed to get Ring's carbine and made his way out of the car to the station platform, where he now opened fire on the Volunteers inside the carriage, wounding O'Brien and Scanlon. Breen and Robinson then engaged Reilly but came off the worst for it, Breen being shot through the lung; and Reilly bravely kept up his fire on the rest of the retreating attackers as they made their escape with Hogan.

- Sgt Peter Wallace 56438 was to die from his wounds on 14 May 1919, he was buried in Curraghroe, Roscommon.

- Constable Michael Enright 62005 was buried at Ballyneety.

- Constable John Thomas Reilly 67160 was from Tyrone, and had served in Ballymena prior to Limerick. He was awarded the Constabulary Medal "For exceptional courage, determination and devotion to duty in resisting an attack by a party of armed men" in July 1919. A year later, he was abducted and held for several days by the IRA to prevent him giving evidence at the trial of some of the Knocklong party in Armagh. He escaped, luckily for him.

- Constable Jeremiah Eugene Ring, 68551, returned direct to his family home after the attack. He was questioned by the police that evening but released without charge. In fact, it was Jerry Ring who had sent the information on the escort's movements to the IRA via his cousin who worked in Macroom GPO. Although the son of a Head Constable, he came from a very nationalist/republican family who were the subject of much police surveillance. I imagine that, perhaps naively, he did not expect the ferocity of the attack upon his comrades. Brave Irishmen, they fought against overwhelming odds to carry out their duty, and paid the price. Jerry Ring was badly affected by the incident and resigned from the RIC that September, he later joined the Garda Siochana but left that force soon after, retiring to his farm where he remained unmarried. He never spoke again of Knocklong, or his part in it.



(some of the information above was kindly supplied to me by one of Jerry Ring's relatives)