Centenary of dramatic escape of Tipperary hero Dolly Burke from Cork Gaol

Remembering Johanna “Dolly” Burke O/C Moyglass Company Cumann na mBan, 7th Battalion, 3rd Tipperary Brigade on the centenary of her escape from Cork female prison.

Dolly was born in December 1901, the third child of William Burke and Ellen Murphy farmers in Glengoole, Co. Tipperary. By 1911 the Burkes had settled in Foulkstown close to Ellen’s parents.

Dolly’s older brother Michael was an active volunteer and worked closely with Tommy O’Donovan to organise the companies around the 7th Battalion area. Michael was appointed Battalion Vice-O/C in 1918 and recruited his bright and talented younger sister.

Although only 17, Dolly was tasked with organising the communication systems for the wider area around Drangan, Clonmel and Drangan. An excellent organiser, she established a network to carry messages and arms between the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 7th Battalions and Kilkenny 7th Battalion.

Her work saw her directly involved in many momentous actions of the Tan War in the area – most notably the Drangan Barracks attack and the Newtown Cross ambush. Despite her diminutive size and her quiet but sunny disposition, she was a formidable organizer and tireless in her efforts at locating reliable couriers and co-ordinating a system of dispatch centres that worked efficiently all through the War. On formation of the Battalions and Brigades, Dolly already had the systems in place to facilitate cross Battalion and cross-Brigade communications which was to prove vital when the War kicked off.
In 1920 Dolly, with Miss Gleeson, founded the Moyglass branch of Cumann na mBan and was elected Secretary. The dynamic pair of women immediately set about founding other Branches in the 7th Battalion. In fact, Dolly was simply formalising the existing women’s network she had already set up and which was already providing intelligence, delivering dispatches and storing and moving weapons for the Republican movement.

In August 1920, her brother Michael was arrested and taken to Cork prison. He and ten others joined the hunger strike with Terence McSwiney. The War for Independence was moving into uncharted territories. The IRA’s use of the prisons as a second front in this increasingly bitter war was going to be tested to its limits of endurance and martyrdom.

All the while Dolly herself did the most dangerous work. She carried dispatches four times a week the 14 miles between Drangan and Rosegreen to the Brigade HQ. Her journey was fraught with dangers as the area was subject to heavy military surveillance. As the war escalated, so too did the raids and searches of known Republican houses like Dolly’s. Despite the pressure her activities were not limited to her Battalion, she also carried arms and explosives for the Brigade staff located in Rosegreen.

Dolly’s house was frequently raided, she was often harassed and bullied by the police and military. One night in October 1920, masked men broke into her house and dragged her outside. They questioned her roughly and demanded to know the location of many prominent IRA men. When Dolly refused to answer they threatened to shoot her. From then on, Dolly was on the run.

By mid-October, in Cork and Brixton, the hunger strikers were weak and racked by torturous paroxysms of pain as their bodies were shutting down. Michael Fitzgerald died on October 17 followed on October 25 by Joe Murphy and Terence McSwiney. There was a deep feeling of dread for the other strikers. It appeared that the British Authorities were not bowing to the massive upsurge of sympathy across the world for the hunger strikers.

Dolly’s greatest solace was Michael’s close friend 7th Battalion Commandant Thomas O’Donovan. A romance had blossomed between Dolly and the dashing O’Donovan. They became engaged and Dolly, despite her present worries, looked forward to their future. On October 31, 1920, 24 year old Tommy Donovan was shot down in the street in Killenaule. Dolly, not yet 20, was heartbroken. Despite her devastating loss, the on-going fear for her brother’s life, and the stress of life on the run, Dolly continued with her work. The war was intensifying at an alarming rate - her skills were desperately needed.

On November 12 in Cork Gaol the strike ended and the strikers began to take food again. Dolly and her family were overjoyed as Michael began his recovery.

On the evening of January 20, 1921, about 5 men of the 2nd Battalion A.S.U. arrived in Ballinure to attack the Barracks as part of a co-ordinated attack on RIC Barracks across mid and South Tipperary areas. Dolly was part of this attack, meeting up with the ASU and detailing the location of the police in the area.

However, trouble was coming for Dolly. She was arrested on the January 28 in Ballinure and conveyed to Cashel RIC Barracks. While there, Anastasia Nevin called to see her but the police refused - the only prisoner in Cashel that Anastasia was not allowed in to see. Dolly was charged with refusing to give information to the authorities at a Summary Court in Tipperary and was sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment in Cork.

Dolly languished in gaol for 4 months but her friends on the outside were not content to let her stay in prison. On May 27, Peg Lawlor and Brian Martin with another member of Cork Cumann na mBan went into the prison and requested to see Dolly. They were admitted to a waiting room while the female warder went to consult with the prison superintendent. Dolly had already received her maximum number of visits for the day. Two warders returned to tell the trio that no further visits were allowed.
On hearing this news, Brian and Peg pulled guns on the warders and while Brian bundled the shocked women into a small room, Peg relieved them of their keys and set about dismantling the telephones. While Peg stood guard, the other two went into the back to get Dolly. They quickly found her and escorted her out of the prison.

The escape caused a sensation. Dolly was the first female prisoner to escape from prison during the period of Revolution.

As soon as possible, Dolly was back in the thick of things in Tipperary and remained on the run until the Truce in July when she was finally able to return to her own home.

In November 1921, the Burke family was again in the headlines. Dolly’s brother Michael was one of 47 Republican prisoners who escaped via tunnel from Kilkenny Gaol. The Burke brother and sister are unique in the annals of the Revolutionary period, both having concurrently served prison time and having escaped from prison.

As the country spiralled tragically to Civil War, Dolly was busy at her usual activities of delivering dispatches and keeping the communication running. When Civil War broke out, Dolly sheltered Republican soldiers and continued in her usual full-time work of moving ammunition and delivering dispatches. At her home she had an arms dump which, despite frequent raids by Free State troops, was never discovered. She transported arms to Dublin on occasion and doggedly continued until the dump arms order was issued by Frank Aiken on May 14, 1923.

Life in the new Free State held little opportunity for Dolly and, like many Republicans, she moved to the US and built a life for herself. She returned in 1934 and settled back home again. In the male-dominated politics of the Free State, Dolly was elected secretary of the Cloneen Fianna Fáil Cumann in February 1935.

In 1940 she applied to the Pension Board for a Military pension but faced a momentous task to get her work recognised. The pension board counted her service from the founding of Moyglass Cumann na mBan branch in 1920 and awarded her the lowest possible rank. She appealed both her rank and length of service and received unstinting support from her Third Tipperary Brigade comrades who vouched for the importance of her work.

Bill Quirke wrote “The fact that this girl was given rank ‘E’ is, to my mind, a definite injustice. She might, in fact, be regarded in the same category as Leslie Price and Linda Kearns and others, all of whom, I understand, have been given rank.”

Eventually Dolly’s appeal was upheld on her service entitlement although her rank was not changed. Her achievements continued to go unheeded and unrecognised.

In 1950 a letter appeared in the Irish Press taking issue with a previous week’s article that stated that the first and only women to ever escape from an Irish prison were Misses Linda Kearns, Eithne Coyle, May Burke and Aileen Keogh who escaped from Mountjoy in October 1922. The letter writer pointed out that Miss Dolly Burke had escaped some months before that from Cork Gaol. The letter writer had it on good authority - she was, in fact, Peg Lawlor now Mrs. Margaret O’Connell who had aided Dolly’s escape.

In 1944 Dolly married Tom Smyth and enjoyed 24 years of happy marriage. Dolly was called to her eternal reward in 1968. Ar dheis Dé go raibh sí.