O'Malley, Ernie, 1897-1957

Ernie O'Malley (1897-1957) was an Irish Republican Army officer during the Irish War of Independence of 1919-1921 and a senior commander of the anti-treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War, 1922-1923. O'Malley wrote four books, On Another Man's Wound, The Singing Flame, Raids and Rallies, Sean Connolly of Longford in addition to numerous poems, short stories, articles and reviews. A renaissance man, O'Malley was interested in art, archaeology, folklore, photography, literature and history, but also in the lives of those he fought with during the Irish Independence movement. In the 1950s he interviewed over 450 survivors of those he had fought along with, and these interviews were the basis for the episodes covered in his Raids and Rallies and Sean Connolly .

O'Malley was studying medicine at University College Dublin in 1916 when the Easter Rising took place. Although not a nationalist at the time, O'Malley having been invited by some friends to help defend Trinity College, Dublin in case the Irish Volunteers attempted to take it over, he decided his sympathies were with the rebels and thus began his military career. When he went on the run in 1917, he was asked by Michael Collins to organize IRA brigade units throughout rural Ireland and later as a Commandant General, at age 24, he commanded the IRA's Second Southern Division in Munster with 7,000 men. O'Malley was captured twice during his military career, the first time by the British in Kilkenny in December 1920 after which he was interrogated and badly beaten. With the threat of execution imminent he, and two other IRA men, escaped from Kilmainham Jail on February 14, 1921. At this arrest he had identified himself as 'Bernard Stewart' and when he escaped, his true identity was still unknown. O'Malley was captured a second time in the civil war on November 4, 1922 after a shoot-out with Free State troops in a house in Dublin. Critically wounded, he managed to survive prison for almost two years and 41 days on hunger strike before finally being released in July of 1924. Although still not well, he decided to seek a warmer climate hoping to recover both physically and spiritually and traveled in Europe spending time hiking in the Pyrenes, museum hopping and self-studying art and architecture while constantly writing. After returning to medical studies in Dublin for 1926-28, he was asked to go with Frank Aiken to the United States by Eamon de Valera to raise funds for the establishment of a new independent newspaper, The Irish Press . His notes and impressions of these journeys, 1928-1935, are included in the collection in Notebook Series and elsewhere in the Correspondence Series. O'Malley settled in Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico for 1929-1932 and while there met many artists and writers and occasionally lectured on modern Irish history and literature while writing his memoirs. He also traveled extensively in Mexico in 1931 for nine months following his interests in folklore, archaeology, modern Mexican art and teaching, - all the while writing.

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