THE Army was out in full dress to honour Hugh Maguire last Friday. He must have been just about the last surviving founder-member of both the Volunteers and the Free State Army.
He was present at the funeral of O'Donovan Rossa and, after the foundation of the State, was Eamon de Valera's jailer. He lived through exciting times; but the story which perhaps sums him up best was not so much exciting as just plain decent.
In February 1922, his unit, the Crosserlough Battalion of the IRA, was mobilised following the attack by the IRA on a train containing B Specials in Clones. Some Specials were killed and so was a local IRA man, Matt Fitzpatrick.
Tensions were high throughout the Border areas. Hugh's battalion was about to leave Ballyjamesduff for Clones when two "Orangemen" cycled into the town. They were searched, and one of them was found to have a gun. He was arrested and placed in the Military Barracks at Cavan, while the battalion marched off to Fitzpatrick's funeral.
That night Hugh and his friends thought of their prisoner, who was still in the Military Barracks. He was, supposedly, a friend of a police officer in Belfast who was notorious for his treatment of Catholics, and some IRA men from the city who had turned up for the funeral were billeted in the same barracks.
Great War Veteran
Hugh feared something might happen to his prisoner who, in addition to being a Protestant, was a veteran of the Great War - and bumping off ex-servicemen had turned into something of a national sport at the time. Hugh and a couple of colleagues returned to the barracks.
"It was long dark by the time we got there," he wrote later. "The prisoner was reluctant to come with us, thinking he was being taken out to be shot. Before we left town he was in a bad way. We procured brandy in a licensed premises in Upper Main Street, which he drank. It had the desired effect. We went through Ballyjamesduff at a late hour and stopped the car within 50 yards of his home, in which there was a light. He got out of, the car, shook hands, turned and ran towards the house, shouting and repeating `Mammy, I'm home'."
Who was that Protestant whom Hugh Maguire rescued and set free? Do his descendants live in Cavan to this day? Do they know of the night he was taken captive by the IRA and held in a barracks where he was in danger from Belfast IRA men? Do they know how he was taken by other IRA men, led by Hugh Maguire, from his prison cell, plied with brandy, and released outside his mother's front door so that he could shout: "Mammy, I'm home"?
Throughout Ireland that year other men fell into hands less civilised and decent than Hugh Maguire's, and they did not return to their mothers that night, or any other. Hugh ensured that a young man stayed alive that night: was it some form of reward that another 75 years of life lay ahead for the rescuer?
Young Lieutenant
When the Free State Army was formed, Hugh was commissioned into it, and as a young lieutenant a couple of years later he was in charge of Eamon de Valera in Arbour Hill prison and, typically, befriended him, even teaching him to play chess. It says something about Dev's character, and Hugh's, that the prisoner would summon his jailer with a bell each morning.
Most people in Hugh's position no doubt would have found somewhere to put the bell where it would ring with difficulty. Hugh, if he was tempted to lodge the bell in such a place, restrained himself.
Which as just as well, for 18 years later Hugh, having left the Army, was back in the colours, and in charge of the 2nd Motor squadron which he had raised and trained, and being inspected by his former prisoner.
It was a cordial affair; more cordial than it might have been if de Valera had been able to murmur: "Maguire - about that business with the bell.
Genial he might have been efficient he most certainly was also.
Self-Sustaining Unit
The 2nd Motor Squadron - as it then was - became an entire self-sustaining unit, with field-kitchens, medical units, tankers, motor-cyclists, lorries and armoured cars. Hugh turned it into such a professional outfit that it provided the presidential outrider escort, an honour it holds to this day.
Hugh Maguire left the Army in 1946, and retired from the Reserve in 1951. But the mutual regard between the two never diminished as the years rolled by. The guard of honour which was present at St Columba's Church in Iona Road last Friday was able to give the Army's last respects to this great old soldier and gentleman. Men from the 2nd Cavalry Squadron, as it now is, bore his Tricolour-draped coffin from the church and to the hearse; and an 18-strong firing party gave him his last salute in Sutton cemetery.
Hugh's was a remarkable life. He was born in 1896, the year Lady Gregory met Yeats and before Synge had ever visited the Aran islands and Joyce was still a youngster at Clongowes. Gladstone, whose last Home Rule Bill had been defeated in 1894, had two more years to live; Victoria had another five years of life in her, and her empire stretched across the world. There had been no Gaelic or cultural revival. Ireland was a poor, depressed and depressing country, from which the young, the bright, the energetic fled.
Vibrant Country
The Ireland from which Hugh finally departed last week is a young, self-confident and vibrant country, at ease with itself sure of its culture and its place in the world. Not all of the dreams of Hugh's generation have come to pass, but what has been achieved is worthy of pride.
Hugh Maguire served his country and his people well. It was good to see that the Army which he loved so dearly gave him the honours he so richly deserved; and somewhere in Cavan there is a family which owes him more than they can ever know. His deed of that day in 1922 was the deed of a true Republican and deserves to be remembered. May he rest in peace.