Maj. Gen. Dermot Arthur MacManus

Maj-Gen Dermot MacManus, Diarmuid Mac Maghnuis (?-1990): educated at Trinity College Dublin; journalist and author; Capt, 10th (Irish) Division (1914-18); Gallipoli (1915); Director of Training, Dublin Guards, IRA and GOC Limerick, NA (1922); Provost Marshall, Southern Command, NA (1922-23); and Asst-Gov of Mountjoy Prison, NA (1923). Like many Home-Rulers Dermot MacManus joined the British Army in 1914. He fought at Gallipoli and rose to the rank of captain. After the war he studied at Trinity College, where he joined Sinn Féin. By 1922 he was Director of Training in the Dublin Guards and with his valuable combat experience he was promoted to commandant-general. When the Four Courts were attacked he opened fire with small arms from Pheonix Park as the shelling began. He took over the attack from the wounded Joe Leonard and stormed the breach to take the area. He disabled the IRA armoured car “The Mutineer” by shooting its types off with a Lewis machine-gun, forcing the crew to abandon the vehicle. MacManus was sent to Limerick, repudiated the local truce made with the IRA and secured the city for the National Army. He commanded the ships in Paddy Daly’s Kerry landings on 11th August 1922. He fought in Co Clare and after concerns about the mistreatment of IRA prisoners MacManus was made Provost Marshall of Southern Command, then Deputy-Governor of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, where the most important IRA prisoners were kept. He was a friend of William Yeats and James Joyce, with whom he corresponded during the civil war. He was literary editor of the ‘Irish Statesman’ and wrote ‘Middle Kingdom: The Faerie World of Ireland’ and ‘Between Two Worlds: True Irish Ghost Stories’.