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Linda Kearns McWhinney (1889-1951)
Linda Kearns McWhinney (1889-1951)
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Email: info@searcs-web.com Linda Kearns McWhinney (1889-1951) |
Linda Kearns McWhinney (1889-1951) |
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Linda McWhinney [neé Kearns] was born and educated in County Sligo. She became a nurse and joined joined Cumann na mBan before the 1916 Rising during which she set up a Red Cross hospital in
North Great George's Street, Dublin. McWhinney nursed Volunteers and British Army casualties
alike for which she was awarded the Red Cross Florence Nightingale Medal for Exceptional Services in 1951. In November, 1920 McWhinney was arrested in Sligo in possession of guns but several days later she escaped. In April, 1921 she was arrested for gun-running, Court-marshalled by Black and Tans in Belfast and sentenced to ten years penal servitude. McWhinney was imprisoned in Armagh Gaol before being transferred to Walton Gaol, Liverpool and Mountjoy Gaol, Dublin. McWhinney escaped from Mountjoy Gaol (with Eithne Ní Chumhaill, May Burke and Eileen Kohoe) by duplicating keys, scaling a 25 foot wall with a rope ladder, and driving off from the prison in Oliver St. John Gogarty's car. McWhinney took the republican side during the Civil War and partook in the fighting in Dublin. In 1922 she and Muriel MacSwiney, posed as a Red Cross delegation and rescued Annie P. Smithson from Mullingar Prison. Smithson edited Kearns' In Times of Peril: Leaves from a Prison Diary of Nurse Linda Kearns from Easter Week, 1916 to Mountjoy, 1921 (1922) from which this extract is taken.© I was driving my car on the night of November 20th, 1920, at about 11.30pm. The car contained, besides myself, three young men and a certain amount of 'stuff' - 10 rifles, 4 revolvers, and 500 rounds of ammunition, to be exact. It was a very dark night, and we were going steadily along the quiet country road. My hands were on the wheel, my eyes looking ahead, intent only on my driving, when suddenly, like a thunder-clap, came the order to halt. How clearly it all comes back to me - the surrounding darkness, which our lights made more black, the men sitting tensely beside me, and then the silence broken by the sharp, quick word -'Halt!' And again - 'Halt! Damn you, halt!' I stopped the car, and we were immediately surrounded by a crowd of the most savage and undisciplined men which it has ever being my misfortune to meet. They were all drunk, shouting and talking together, and no one seemed to be in command. They were a mixed lot, comprising military, police and Black and Tans. My three companions were at once pulled violently out of the car and searched, and the automatic pistol which the Commandant had in his possession was taken from him immediately. The three of them were very badly used, and it was impossible not to admire them for their coolness and self-control. All was confusion and darkness, save where the lights of the cars revealed now and again some of their drunken and savage faces. Various orders were given and countermanded. Some one shouted 'Shoot them!' and shots were fired around us. I heard one of my companions say: 'Don't shoot the girl!' but one of the police said: 'Oh, we can't leave her to tell the tale!' The boys with me gave their names and addresses, one of them adding that he was a soldier of the Republic, for which he got a blow across the face, and in spite of my own hazardous position I was constrained to admire him, he behaved with such courage and coolness. Indeed, all three of my comrades were splendid, and all their thoughts even then were for me. Meanwhile, the noise made by the Crown forces was deafening - it was like Bedlam let loose, and there was no discipline amongst them, for the Head Constable in charge of the police and Black and Tans seemed to have absolutely no control over his men, while the officer in charge of the khaki-clad lot appeared afraid to give them an order. This pandemonium went on for about half an hour, and then I was put back into my car and driven away in the company of three men, either police or Black and Tans, I do not know which, as the confusion and noise were very stupifying. The others were flung into the lorry, and we all met later in the barracks, No.2, in Sligo. I shall never forget the scene in the day-room of the barrack! The prisoners were just thrown in by force. Commandant_____________ was terribly badly beaten, and bled profusely from the head; indeed, all were more or less hurt. I saw Dr__________ at one side of the room, and a Black and Tan holding a revolver over his head, and insisting the doctor should endorse a check which he had in his possession so that the Black and Tan could cash it. I also saw Professor_____________ being beaten, and all his things being taken from his pockets. (He and Dr_________ had been arrested just before ourselves, and on the same road.) My own leather overcoat, gloves, wristlet watch, and signet ring were taken forcibly from me, and never returned. In the centre of the room was a table, on which was a strange mixture of rifles and ammunition, whiskey and porter! The men came in and out continually, and would knock off the head of a bottle of stout, and drink it without a glass, and they drank the whiskey neat from the bottle. As a result they were all more or less intoxicated, some of them so bad that they were more like fiends than human beings. After a while the Head Constable's daughter came and searched me, and I was then taken to a 'Lock-up' - a tiny room, with a hard bench and stone floor, and it was most bitterly cold on that November night. But even here I was not left long in peace. The tormentors brought one of my late companions past my door, and then fired several shots, to make me think that he was killed. Then they consulted outside my door in loud voices as to whether they would 'shoot the girl next, or do for one of the other fellows first.' This went on for some time for my benefit, to terrify me, as I knew. But it was trying on the nerves, especially as I knew well that they could shoot me with impunity if they took the notion to do so at anytime. Then I was questioned, threatened, and finally offered bribes. They came in groups of three or four to question me, and to see if they could identify me; and during all this time they called me all sorts of names - I was a 'murderer' and a 'driver of murderers!' One often hears and reads of nights of horror; well I can say truthfully that I have passed through one. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008 |
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