On a minute to midnight on June 27th, 1922 the British handed over four 18-pounder field guns to the National Army from Marlborough Barracks (now McKee Barracks).
Two of the guns were placed either side of the bridges that flanked the Four Courts on the opposite side of the river Liffey. At 3.40am on the morning of June 28th Tom Ennis, the National Army commander, issued the Four Courts garrison with a warning to leave within twenty minutes. The order went unheeded and the guns began to shell the Four Courts, thus beginning the Civil War.
One of the guns that started the Civil War has gone on public display for the first time. The 18-pounder was the standard issue field gun for the British Army in the first World War. Thousands were made, but few have the telltale signs that they were used by the National Army later known as the Irish Army.
The gun was sold as part of a shipload of artillery and machine guns to the International Armament Corporation (InterArmCo) of Alexandria, Virginia in the USA. It was subsequently bought by an owner of a recently opened diner theatre and restaurant overlooking the banks of the Occoquan river a few miles from Alexandria. He displayed it outside his restaurant for the next 40 years.
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A chance sighting of the gun by a curator from National Museum of the US Army, Ken Smith-Christmas, began the return of the 18-pounder field gun 9168 to Ireland decades after it had departed. Mr Smith-Christmas spotted the FF in Gaelic script which remains the symbol of the Irish army. It stands for Fianna Fáil (soldiers of destiny). The party was named after the slogan not the other way around.
A series of chance encounters at a conference in Canada where he saw a presentation by Lar Joye, who was then a curator at the National Museum of Ireland, led him to realise the significance of the ivy-covered field gun which was sitting outside a now disused diner.
It was shipped back to Ireland in August 2016 and took six years to restore in the armaments workshop in the Curragh.
“The biggest challenge was the corrosion. The moisture had really taken its toll on it. it was very corroded. We had big problems trying to separate some of the components,” said Sgt Rob Delaney of the Ordnance Corps in the Curragh who supervised the restoration.
“At the same time there were parts still functioning. The gun has been deactivated but in theory, everything in it works.”
Mr Joye said the gun that has gone on display in the National Museum of Ireland would normally have an artillery history sheet. “We don’t have it for that gun but it might turn up,” he said.
The National Army’s 18-pounders proved to be decisive not only in Dublin where they shelled not only the Four Courts but the rebel headquarters on the east side of O’Connell Street. They were also used in Limerick and Waterford.
“The four guns and the 13 armoured cars that the Free State army [had] gave them mobility against the anti-Treaty side. They had rifles and they didn’t have guns. That is how the Free State was very quickly able to win the Civil War.”
