FOURTEEN INTERNEES ESCAPE FROM CURRAGH CAMP

LEINSTER LEADER 6 December 1958

14  Internees Escape From Curragh Camp

Shortly before four o’clock on Tuesday over 60 internees, at the Curragh Internment Camp attempted to  stage a mass break-out; 16  of  them  succeeded  in  escaping.   Home-made smoke bombs were used by the escapees to help in the attempt and guards retaliated by using tear-gas.   Some shots were fired and it is understood that at least two of the internees were wounded.

            A widespread search by military and Gardai  followed  the break-out and  within  3  hours  one  of  the  men  had  been  recaptured. In the early hours of  Wednesday  morning  a second man was caught.  The search was intensified throughout Wednesday and early on Thursday but as we go to press the remaining fourteen escapees are still missing.

            First indication of the attempt came with the exploding of a smoke bomb under one of the sentry boxes.  At the time the internees were in the recreation compound and were ostensibly picking teams to play football.

            When the smoke appeared, however, they began to shout  and  made a concentrated rush towards the barbed wire  surrounding  the compound.  A group of about six seized and held the officer in charge of the guard; further smoke bombs were set off and soon the camp was enveloped in dense smoke.

Shots fired

Shots were fired and the troops use tear gas — a Government Information Bureau statement, issued latter, stated that two internees received leg injuries as a result of bursting time bombs.

            However, other well-established reports say that an emergency operation was carried on an internee in the General Military Hospital a couple of hours after the  breakout and  that three other internees had been brought into hospital.

Immediately after the break-out, a number of local people reported seeing men racing from the Camp across the Curragh   plain and heading   into   the   stud-farms bordering   the   plains   between Brownstown and Maddenstown.

Troops were rushed to  that area, all  road  were patrolled and road blocks set up at junctions, etc.  Radio-cars, armoured cars, jeeps, trucks and motor-cycles were used by the troops who were soon joined by Gardai officers and plain clothes men from  nearby towns and from the city.

The Curragh plains near the Camp were subjected to an intensive search and as part of the attempt to flush out any escapees who  might  be hiding there many clumps of gurse were set on fire.

First of  the  internees  to  be  re-captured is understood to be Mr. Liam Fagan  of  Dundalk;  he  was  found  hiding  on  the  plains. Later a second escapee reported to be Mr. P. McGirl. Leitrim, was caught and brought back to Camp.

            Clothing  Badly  Torn

     Both are  understood  to  have  been suffering from  cuts  and  other minor injuries  sustained  in  the  break-out and  the  clothing of  one of them was very badly torn.

            The area  stretching  from  the  Brownstown Maddenstown  area back towards  Suncroft  was  subjected  to  a particularly intense search and for a long  time  the authorities  seemed  to believe they had the escapees pinned in that area which was tightly condoned off.

            However, despite detailed search of houses,  farm  buildings  stables  and derelict buildings and all fields, hedges, etc,  no escapees were found.

            On Wednesday, the area around the Japanese gardens near Kildare was also  fully searched  without  result.

As dusk fell the search was suspended temporarily  for  regrouping of  forces and throughout  the night the search was  extended  to  outlying  areas particular  attention  being  paid  to  bridges and main road  junctions.

Two battalions from  Dublin  were drafted  into the area to help with the search but the failure to catch more of the escapees  strengthened the belief that  they had outside  aid and may have been helped to make a clean getaway once they got clear of the Camp.

             This was the third escape of internees this year. In May three men got out through  a  window  at  the General Military  Hospital where  they  were  patients. Two  of  them, Vincent Condon  of  Killylea,  Co.  Armagh, and Terence  S.  O’Toole, of Portarlington, were recaptured two days later near Kilkullen, Co. Kildare.  The third man, John. A. Kelly of Dublin, was free for ten days before he was recaptured in a house at Gormastown, Co. Meath.

            The next escape occurred in September, when  Rory Brady,  the Sein Fein  T.D.,  for  Longford Westmeath, and David O’Connell,  of Cork, escaped after cutting through a fence.  Police and soldiers organised a widespread search, set up road-blocks and watched ports and airports, but the two-men have not yet been recaptured.

Re-typed by Hannah Mustapha