The Post Office

 The staff of the South Mayo Brigade made plans to attack the supply convoy to Derrypark RIC barracks. The route from Ballinrobe to Derrypark was surveyed and a stretch of road with its centre point at Tourmakeady Post Office was chosen for the attack. The plan involved occupying the post office and as soon as the lorries arrived, cutting the telephone lines. The IRA Volunteers had lines of return to their houses mapped for each of them. The IRA men in Tourmakeady were to be alerted to the intended time of departure of the convoy by a volunteer in Ballinrobe. It was normal for the Police, on the morning of their run to Derrypark, to place an order for rations in a wholesale shop, Birmingham & Co., in Ballinrobe. It took at least two hours to fill the order, and it was arranged that as soon as the order came in, an employee of the firm would get word to a scout who would bring the message to those waiting in Tourmakeady.

The role of the Srah Unit of Cumann na mBan in organising accommodation and food and also in delivering messages is an important factor in the ambush, though rarely mentioned. Indeed it can be said that the role of Cumann na mBan, and the role of women generally, in the War of Independence, is a shamefully neglected topic.

Operations were begun on the night of Saturday 30 April 1921, with the assembly of men, arms and equipment at Cahir. The O.C. was Brigadier Tom Maguire with Commandant Michael O'Brien second in command. Paddy May of Kilkeeran, Captain of the Ballinrobe Company, was third in command. As night fell the assembly moved on to Cushlough. Here the party split in two with one group under the command of Tom Burke boating across the lake, while the rest of the company went on foot. Boats were waiting at Pete Burke's of Cushlough, and eleven men from the Cloonliffen  area were rowed over from there. These men were Tom Burke (in command of the boat party), Tom Healy and Tom Cahalan both from Cahir, Pat Kennedy, brothers Edward and John Jennings, John Sullivan from Rahard, Michael Mellett, Cloonenagh, Edward Cameron, Corthun and the brothers Jack and Jim Duffy of Clogher. It took about three hours for the boating party to cross the lake. The boatmen found it difficult to get their bearings in the dark, and a light, which should have been shown to guide them, was missing. Their progress was further hampered by the fact that the boatmen feared there might be Black and Tans about. They landed safely near the Derryvore Bridge, on the Partry-Srah road.

They landed safely near the Derryvore Bridge, on the Partry-Srah road.The main body of the column of men that went on foot crossed the river Robe at Cushlough and went through Creagh, cross-country towards Keel Bridge. This was considered the most dangerous section of the march, and the road each side of the bridge was well scouted. After crossing the bridge they left the main road at the turnoff for Aughnish. This cross-country section of the route was over very rough terrain and was not made any easier by the darkness of the night.

They eventually rejoined the Partry-Srah road near the Derryvore Bridge and met the party of men who had crossed by boat. Scouts from Srah informed the Column that the road to Srah was clear, and they marched by road to Srah. Here they were sent to houses higher up the mountain overlooking Srah, on the eastern flank of the Partry mountains, and went to bed. There were now in the region of 60 men in the Sran area. These numbers were made up of about 18 men from the Flying Column while the others came from the Ballinrobe  and Cross Battalion’s. 

 By all accounts Sunday May 1st was a beautiful morning. All members of the IRA column lay low for fear of their presence becoming known to the police and military. It was not unusual for the column to be sleeping out as, in Maguires own words “ ever since Kilfall we were on our keeping, a flying column of around thirty men out in the open country sleeping where we could and when we could. The local units in each village were in an important back-up position, not seemingly doing much, but contributing a lot in the way of supplies, intelligence, safe houses and of course impeding the enemy at every hand's turn”.

On Monday guns and ammunition were inspected and each man's cartridges were fitted to his gun. An anecdote is told by Pat Kennedy of a man on the mountainside drying cartridges in the sun on a sheet of corrugated iron. Shotgun cartridges were the usual form of ammunition, and these were refilled with buckshot, which meant that some would not fit into the guns. The majority of the men were armed with shotguns, which were only useful at short range. Second in Command Michael O’Brien wrote, in his last official report to IRA GHQ, that “we have absolutely no stuff…..In the area there are some splendid roads for mining, but we have no mines. There are 3 police barracks in the area which might be attacked with every hope of success but we have no explosives. We have no bombs. We have little shotgun ammunition”.

The officers decided to go into ambush on the next morning, Tuesday 3rd  May. It is not known what information, if any, governed the making of this decision. The intelligence gathered for the attack did not explicitly state the day of the delivery. Nor is it clear whether this intelligence was exact on the number of vehicles to expect as against the number that turned up. Whether based on guesswork or accurate intelligence, the decision was made to proceed with the ambush. Maguire said later that it was while they were in position that they received word  that the supply convoy would be along that day, Tuesday 3rd May.

 At one or two a.m. the men fell in on the Srah-Tourmakeady road near the bridge south of the Srah Post Office. They marched to Tourmakeady and reached the Fair Green before daybreak. Each man had a small ration of food as well as his equipment and this they decided to eat before going into position.