Charles McAlister

Charles Leo McAlister
File:Charles McAlister (1922).png Commandant Charles McAlister in 1922
Personal details
Born	(1897-08-19)19 August 1897 Newcastle, County Down, Ireland
Died	26 July 1970(1970-07-26) (aged 72) Dublin, Ireland
Resting place	Deans Grange Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Spouse(s)	Johanna Walsh (b. 1898; m. 1922; d. 1996)
Children	Evelyn (b. 1923; d. 2016) Kathleen (b. 1925 John (b. 1929; d. 2015) Mary (b. 1931)
Parents	John McAllister(b. 1860; d. 1943) Ellen Breen (b. 1865; d. 1914)
Military service
Allegiance	Ireland Fianna Éireann Irish Volunteers Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish Republican Army National Army Irish Army
Years of service	1913–58
Rank	Colonel
Battles/wars	Easter Rising Irish War of Independence Irish Civil War The Emergency (Ireland)

Charles Leo McAlister (1897 - 1970) was a colonel in the Irish Army who participated in the Easter Rising, the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War.

Early life

Charles (Charlie) McAlister (sometimes spelled McAllister) was born in 1897 at South Promenade, Newcastle, County Down, Ireland, as the sixth child of nine to John McAllister and Ellen Breen. The house of his birth, the only residence on the seaside of the promenade, is now a pub, known as Harbour House. His mother's family lived in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh. His father came from Clonachullion (Clanawhillan) township in the parish of Kilcoo, County Down. John McAllister inherited the family farm in Clonachullion as well as a farm owned by his uncle Dr. Patrick MacAlister, Bishop of Down and Connor. John sold both farms to build the house on the South Promenade in Newcastle as a residence and a place of business. The cost of building the house was so great and revenue from his supply business so poor that John went to the United States on 2 occasions, for several years at a time, to work in Butte, Montana in order to support his family and his business. On the second occasion, John took his eldest son Daniel McAllister, with him while the rest of the family stayed in Ireland.

Easter Rising

In 1913, McAlister joined Fianna Éireann, the Irish nationalist youth organisation. Two years later he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the oath being administered by Denis McCullough. He joined the Irish Volunteers, Belfast Battalion, D Company, under the command of Sean Cusack. McAlister was apprenticed to a draper in Drogheda, County Louth. He was also part of the Louth Brigade of the Irish Volunteers (Drogheda Company) under the command of Larry Walshe. On Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916, McAlister was mobilized with other members of the Belfast Battalion of the Volunteers. They travelled to Coalisland, County Tyrone where the northern units were to gather under the command of McCullough. The plan was to meet up with volunteers from Connaught under Liam Mellows. Soon after they got there, a dispatch rider arrived from Dundalk with the countermanding orders of Eoin MacNeill (to stand-down). A row ensued with Nora Connolly, daughter of James Connolly, who demanded that they follow the original orders of Patrick Pearse to join the Easter Rebellion. McCullough demobilized the men. McAlister and several others went to Drogheda and then cycled to Dublin. When they arrived on Thursday 27 April 1916, the rebellion was almost over and they were advised to remain hidden.

After the Easter Rising, McAlister returned to Belfast where he got a job as a clerk with the Great Northern Railway. The Irish Volunteers were re-organized as the Irish Republican Army. McAlister became a section leader of the Belfast Brigade. He became a republican organizer for the southern part of Ulster, especially around County Cavan. He was fired by the railway for these activities. During this period, he became friendly with Joe McKelvey, who rose to command the Belfast Brigade. In 1920, McAlister was transferred to the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Dublin.

War of Independence

McAlister was attached to the Organization Department of GHQ, commanded first by Diarmuid O'Hegarty and later by Eoin O'Duffy. He was chosen with a group of other officers, selected from around the country, to receive advanced military training. This course was run clandestinely by Ginger O'Connell in the premises of the Topographical Society on Gardiner Street in Dublin. O'Connell lectured on tactics. John Plunkett, younger brother of Joseph Plunkett, taught engineering, demolitions, and construction of mines and hand-grenades. George Plunkett, another brother, was one of the students. Occasional classes were given by Michael Collins, Diarmuid O'Hegarty and Eamon (Bob) Price. McAlister was sent back to the southern counties of Ulster. During an attack upon a train carrying troops, he was injured and hospitalized for 3 weeks.}

Truce: July–December 1921

A truce had been declared just as McAlister was released from hospital. He was transferred to the Liaison Department under the command of Emmet Dalton and stationed in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin. His injuries were still evident but the improved accommodations assisted his recovery. He was described as Dalton's main assistant, with the rank of captain. McAlister accompanied Dalton or O'Duffy to negotiate with senior officials of Dublin Castle. His principal task was to maintain the peace on the ground during this tense period, particularly in Dublin. Military barracks and police stations had his telephone number in the Gresham Hotel and would call to have him vouch for various people they had stopped. On one occasion a group of heavily armed republicans were taken to Donnybrook police station where they played cards with their goalers until McAlister ordered their release. On another occasion, McAlister and Dalton negotiated with the British authorities when a rogue republican element hijacked a British Crossley tender. McAlister wrote to the British authorities asking if he could interview drivers of cars and lorries that were stopped by the authorities. Mark Sturgis included in his diary a derogatory opinion that O'Duffy and McAlister looked like shop assistants because McAlister absent-mindedly tore up a packet of paper matches that Sturgis had left on the table. Alfred Cope, a senior British official stationed in Dublin Castle was a frequent visitor to McAlister's office in the Gresham Hotel. Towards the end of the truce period, Cope was driving with McAlister when an anti-treaty group forcibly commandeered the car. Cope allegedly shot the driver in the shoulder and the car was recovered. They received protection from the police special branch at Oriel House, Westland Row thereafter. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, McAlister was among the Irish Republican Army party to whom the British army handed over Beggars Bush Barracks.

Irish Civil War

Like many northern nationalists with an Irish Republican Brotherhood background, McAlister sided with Michael Collins and the Irish Free State. He transferred to the newly formed National Army. On the other hand, his friend Joe McKelvey rejected the treaty and joined the anti-treaty forces that occupied the Four Courts in a symbolic move designed to echo the occupation of the General Post Office in the Easter Rising. Leadership of the 3rd Northern Division, successor of the Belfast Brigade, passed from McKelvey to Seamus Woods.

McAlister's first job in the National Army was as military secretary to O'Duffy who was Chief-of-staff. Sectarian violence intensified in the North. O'Duffy undertook a coercive Northern Offensive during the first 6 months of 1922. As the killings and instability increased, the Free State government eventually stopped the offensive in favour of a diplomatic approach. By then the civil war was underway. O'Duffy resigned as chief and was given control of the South-Western Command. Promoted to the rank of commandant (major), McAlister was assigned to the Eastern Command under Emmet Dalton, with whom he had served as a Truce liaison officer. Among his good friends of this period was Charlie Dalton, Emmet's brother. As soon as the Four Courts was recaptured, the Wexford Column, consisting of 230 men, 16 officers, 2 armoured cars and 4 Lewis guns, left Dublin on 8 July 1922 to take control of the south-east of the country. McAlister cut short his honeymoon to join the column. He sent reports to Richard Mulcahy from Enniscorthy and Wexford town. He set up headquarters in the Talbot Hotel.

File:Capt McAlister outside Talbot Hotel Wexford 1922.jpg

Commandant McAlister (standing, front right) with members of the "Wexford Column", Irish National Army outside the Talbot Hotel Wexford, July 1922

McAlister was assigned to administrative positions in several internment camps. He served first in Newbridge, County Kildare, then in Hare Park, (Curragh Camp) and finally in Gormanston Camp. Witness statements record him as being friendly and affable with detainees. Among the detainees in Hare Park was Tom Hales, whose brother Sean was a member of Dáil Éireann. When Sean Hales was assassinated, the Free State Government ordered the execution of four representative leaders of the anti-treaty side. Among the four chosen was Joe McKelvey, McAlister's former comrade. McKelvey who had been in correspondence with McAlister's wife since his arrest in the Four Courts asked McAlister to visit, but the meeting did not take place before McKelvey's execution. In Gormanston, McAlister released Oscar Traynor quietly, preventing controversy from disrupting Traynor's plans to eschew violence for politics.

Interwar Period

McAlister returned to GHQ when the prison camps were closed in 1924. The army began the process of demobilizing 70% of its strength. McAlister was chosen among those who would remain to develop a professional armed force. Demobilization and other grievances precipitated an affair known as the Irish Army Mutiny. Information was received that 40 armed conspirators, led by Liam Tobin and McAlister's friend Charlie Dalton, were meeting in Devlin's Hotel on Parnell Street, a haunt that was used during the Irish War of Independence. Richard Mulcahy assembled a group of loyal officers, among them McAlister, to surround and arrest the mutineers. This was achieved without bloodshed but Dalton and Tobin escaped. The arrest halted the mutiny and the affair fizzled out. The response established the subservience of the military to the government, a sentiment that McAlister supported.

The Government of Northern Ireland interned 700 republicans under the Special Powers Act 1922. Many were held on the prison ship HMS Argenta in Belfast Lough. Among the detainees was Seamus Woods. Woods, who had been in command of the Belfast Brigade, was an officer of the Irish National Army. Woods was charged with the murder of William J. Twaddell, a Unionist politician. Under an agreement between the governments in Belfast and Dublin, Ginger O'Connell and McAlister, were sent north to testify at the trial. Woods was acquitted and returned to the Free State.

In 1923, Art Ó Briain was charged with sedition to be tried in the Old Bailey. He had been the London agent for the independence movement and because of its underground nature, bank accounts were either kept in his name or in pseudonyms known only to him. When he sided with the anti-treaty side, DeValera asked him to divert the money to fund anti-government activities. McAlister was one of four witnesses ordered by W.T. Cosgrave to give evidence at the trial. O'Briain's notes identified McAlister as the army officer who escorted persons deported from Ireland to Britain. Although witnesses were not identified for security reasons, it appears that McAlister gave evidence of 'various acts of hostility by the IRA' after the treaty. McAlister used the opportunity to attend the Wimbledon tennis championship when Irishman Cecil Campbell reached the quarterfinal. Campbell turned down an opportunity to play for Britain in favour of the first Ireland Davis Cup team in 1923.

McAlister was transferred to the Southern Command, as commanding officer of Collins Barracks, Cork. One of his tasks was to identify the grave site of Thomas Kent who had been executed in 1916. In 2015, Kent's body was exhumed and he was given a state funeral.

McAlister supported sports in the Army. While traditionalists believed Army sports should be restricted those organized by the Gaelic Athletic Association, McAlister enthusiastically supported all sports.

File:Major "Mac" helps ref reconsider "dicision".jpg

1920s cartoon of Commandant (Major) Charles McAlister 'enthusiastic' support for sports in Irish Army, even those not supported by the Gaelic Athletic Association, with a reference to his Ulster accent.

He played tennis and golf. He was an occasional sports correspondent of in An tÓglach (the magazine of the Irish Defence Forces), writing about all forms of sport in the Army and in Ireland. In the 1940s, men under his command in Athlone dominated basketball in Ireland. Custume Barracks won the Army Basketball championship every year from 1941 to 1951 and six members were selected to the Irish Olympic team of 1948.

The Emergency

The Emergency refers to the period of the Second World War when Ireland maintained neutrality. In 1939, McAlister was transferred to the Western Command as second in command to Colonel Felix McCorley. McAlister was commanding officer of Custume Barracks, Athlone and responsible for development and training of the Local Defence Force at Finner Camp. McAlister initially lived with his family in Dun Mac House within Custume Barracks but the family was moved to the town of Athlone is case the barracks became a target for aerial bombing.

Late career

McAlister was transferred to GHQ in Dublin in 1951. He never owned a car and took public transport to work. Once while he was waiting at a bus stop, a government minister's car halted and beckoned him. The Minister for Defence, Oscar Traynor, his prisoner thirty years previously and now his superior, gave McAlister a lift to work. He retired in 1958. Like many officers who had served in the National Army, McAlister was not asked to give a statement to the Bureau of Military History.

Family

McAlister met Johanna Walsh at classes in Irish language and culture held by Conradh na Gaeilge in Dublin. Johanna had come to Dublin in 1913 from Mitchelstown to work as an assistant to Lady Aberdeen at the Irish Industries Association. Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and a vigorous supporter of Irish self-sufficiency, is said to have asked at a dinner if there were any home rulers present and to have received the reply “only yerself and the waithers”. Johanna stayed with her uncle Dan above a pub that he owned on Wexford Street in Dublin. McAlister would arrange for anonymous messages to be left at the pub to say he was alright while hiding during the War of Independence. They married on 28 June 1922 in Kilbehenny, County Limerick. Their honeymoon in Parknasilla, a legendary hotel in the Great Southern and Western Railway chain, was interrupted by the outbreak of the Irish Civil War. They bought a house on Donore Avenue in Dublin and lived there until McAlister's transfer to Cork. They had 4 children. The family returned to Dublin from Athlone in 1951, living on Redesdale Road, Mount Merrion. McAlister died in 1970 after a fall that fractured his hip. Johanna died in 1996 at the age of 98.

References

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