Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A 1919 Constabulary Medal (Ireland) awarded to Sergeant J. Curtin, Royal Irish Constabulary, for his gallantry during the defence of the Inch Police Post, Clare, on 20 July 1919: ‘We did our duty to the best of our ability, and without fear, we will continue to do so’. Eighteen months later, Curtin was mortally wounded in an I.R.A. ambush, led by Michael Breen, at Cratloe on 13 January 1921

Constabulary Medal (Ireland), 2nd type, ‘Reward of Merit Royal Irish Constabulary’ (Sergeant Jeremiah Curtin 60459. 1919) with integral top silver riband bar, minor edge bruising, good very fine £3,000-£4,000

Provenance: Medal illustrated in British Gallantry Awards, by P. E. Abbott and J. M. A. Tamplin

Jeremiah Curtin was a Catholic, born in co. Cork in July 1877, who worked as a farmer before he joined the Royal Irish Constabulary on 16 October 1901. He served as a Constable (normally referred to by local Irish people as a ‘Peeler’) with the Clare Police from 23 April 1902. He was transferred to co. Roscommon in 1907, and in 1913 married Margaret, a local Roscommon girl 12 years younger than him, despite having been moved back to co. Clare in 1908. He was promoted Sergeant on 1 October 1918. The majority of Curtin’s seventeen years police experience at that time had been built up during the Edwardian era, when there was comparatively little crime in the rural areas of Ireland, and the R.I.C. did most of its work unarmed, except in the major ports and logistics hubs or the great industrial city of Belfast (Dublin was the responsibility of an entirely separate force, the Dublin Municipal Police). The government economised by allowing Curtin and his fellow Peelers to fire a grand total of 21 practise rounds a year, using miniature .22 calibre ammunition.

At just under 10,000 men in 1913, the R.I.C. was large for a police force but small for an armed garrison. As close to 2,000 men were located at its central depot or tied up in Belfast, less than 8,000 R.I.C. men were scattered across rural Ireland in about 1,300 small detachments. These detachments lived in and worked out of police stations or posts. In large towns these buildings were often purpose-built and equipped with holding cells &c., but in the countryside many were small, simple row houses or country cottages rented by the government. In 1919 few were fortified, or had their windows and doors protected with steel shutters and loopholes. Fewer still were sited with defence in mind, but regardless of this they were all officially called Barracks, or Huts in the case of the smallest. In 1913, 87% of R.I.C. Barracks housed fewer than ten policemen, 41% held fewer than five.

The Attack on Inch R.I.C. hut
In early 1919, Sergeant Curtin commanded the Inch Police Hut, in co. Clare, where he and three constables lived and worked. At that time, six Peelers had been killed by republicans since the Sinn Fein Members of Parliament had made a unilateral declaration of Irish independence in January 1919 and an escalating pattern of violent attacks on the police and on Crown property began. By 13 January 1921, almost two years after that declaration, Curtin would become the 185th R.I.C. man to die as a result of republican attacks.

The Clare Champion gave the following account of the July 1919 attack at Inch:
‘Inch and Connolly Police Huts were attacked by men armed with guns and revolvers on last Sunday morning (20 July 1919). At Inch it is stated that the Sergeant and four constables were awakened at 3:30 a.m. by the explosion of a bomb which had been thrown through a front window. [To note, the reporter mixed up the total number of police and the total number of constables – later, more accurate reports confirm that a total of four R.I.C. were in the hut when it was attacked. Also, at this stage of the war the republicans were generally using homemade blast bombs, improvised from gelignite sticks and fuses stolen from farms and quarries, rather than military hand grenades.] Two more bombs were thrown in through a back window but they exploded between some boxes and did little damage. The police got their revolvers and fired on the party. The fire was returned and the fight continued for three quarters of an hour, after which the attacking party retired. None of the police was injured, but it is thought that one of the attackers must have been injured as a considerable quantity of blood was discovered on the ground where a number of empty cartridge cases were strewn.’ (Clare Champion, 26 July 1919 refers).

Tributes were paid in person to Sergeant Curtin by the local Ascendancy grandees, including Lord Inchiquin, in late September, after his award of the Constabulary Gallantry medal was announced, and these give further details:
‘The Chairman desired to join in the tribute to Sergeant Curtin. He thought it was a good thing to have the facts of the case made public. On the Sunday morning of the attack on Inch hut Sergeant Curtin was out on patrol, and were it not for the fact that he had not gone to sleep, the hut would have been captured and these four men would have been murdered. When the Sergeant heard the attack he got his men to get their arms ready to defend the hut with the greatest bravery. Three live bombs were thrown into the small compartment in which the police were. It was a miracle these men were not killed, because all the furniture was wrecked. He could not tell how the men could have remained in the small compartment, with splinters flying around them, without being hit. There was a fusillade of innumerable shots, both rifle and revolver shots from a large crowd of men from behind stone fences. The four police defended the hut with their rifles and a large number of men had to beat a hasty retreat, leaving some blood stains, he was glad to say, on the wall. Sergeant Curtin – “I beg to thank your worships for your kind remarks… We did our duty to the best of our ability, and without fear, we will continue to do so.”’ (Saturday Record and Clare Journal, 20 September 1919 refers).

For his gallant conduct during the defence of the Inch police post, Curtin received the Constabulary Medal, a First Class Favourable Record, a £10 gratuity and a recommendation (and possibly a handshake) from Lord Inchiquin. Despite a campaign of intimidation and ostracization aimed at himself and his family, designed to break R.I.C. morale, Curtin remained a Peeler, refusing to resign from the force. He was moved to Newmarket-on-Fergus, and then to Ennis. He was awarded a Third Class Favourable Record in June 1920.

The Cratloe Ambush
On 13 January 1921 two R.I.C. Sergeants were killed in an I.R.A. ambush at Cratloe, Moyle, co. Clare. Michael Breen, the top I.R.A. commander in East Clare, had decided to mount some ‘spectacular’ attacks to undercut attempts to restart serious peace negotiations:
‘However I was satisfied that something more than talk was needed to show we weren’t beaten and on January 20th I arranged for an ambush at Meelick (near Cratloe). The main road from Limerick to Ennis had been made completely impossible [for R.I.C. or army vehicles to travel on] by now and a secondary road had to be used and the ambush was prepared on this road. The problem was rather tricky…As we were only two miles from Limerick, we had to get into position before dawn and the slightest lack of caution during the day would bring many hundreds of troops after us.’ (The War in Clare by Michael Breen refers).

Breen chose a place where a sharp bend forced approaching vehicles to slow down. Twenty yards to the north-east of the road was a large vacant farmhouse owned by the McInerny family, and Breen stationed his main party of gunmen there. On the south-western side of the road was a farmstead belonging to Mrs. Begley, a native of Limerick. Mrs. Begley’s property consisted of a small stone farmhouse, a series of out-houses, and a hay barn where the second group of I.R.A. were positioned.
‘About 10 am the outposts signalled a lorry [an open Crossley tender with eight R.I.C. men in it] coming from Ennis. (Trees were used as vantage points by scouts and they passed signals to each other and by runner to me.) ‘Heads down’ was ordered at once and the whole party went under cover. As the lorry passed through the position something (a hurried peep by somebody or a rifle exposed) gave us away and some shots were fired by the police. I shouted an order to return the fire, but there was only time for a few men to get off a total of five or six shots [rifles plus some shotgun blasts]. The lorry shot forward around the bend and got away. We could see that a number of them were hit but the only tangible result for us was one revolver collected from an R.I.C. sergeant who was killed and fell off the lorry.’

The following facts emerged from the Court of Inquiry in lieu of inquest: Sergeant Curtin was in charge of the party and was sitting on the back-to-back bench in the rear of the Crossley pickup. ‘Sergeant Curtin jumped up and fell on me covering me with blood. The back of his head was shot away.’ (Evidence of Constable H.G. Clappen R.I.C. refers). The other Sergeant was hit as he was also on his feet trying to shoot, and his dead body fell out of the back of the Crossley. Curtin was still alive, just: ‘Brain matter was protruding from the wound’. The driver headed straight for the Military Hospital at New Barracks Limerick, but Curtin died shortly after being lifted out of the tender. He had been a member of the R.I.C. for nineteen years. He was 43, and left a widow and two children, aged 6 and 3.