ONE of the earliest engagements of the 1916 Rising took place on Easter Monday in the Phoenix Park when members of the Republican Army staged a daring arms raid on the Magazine Fort.
The raid had been devised by a young IRB member, Partick O’Daly from Inchicore.
O’Daly was a carpenter and in February 1916 his company began working in the Magazine Fort. He knew this position provided republicans with a great opportunity and immediately reported it to Seán Mac Diarmada.
Over the next few weeks, O’Daly used his position to map the layout of the fort, learning vital information.
In April 1916, O’Daly was interviewed by Mac Diarmada, Tom Clarke and Thomas Mac Donagh about the potential for a raid on the fort.
O’Daly outlined what he had learned and presented an ingenious plan for a successful raid.
While working at the fort, O’Daly had noticed that every Sunday football teams assembled in front of the fort before playing in the 15 acres. He suggested that if the raiders disguised themselves as a football team, they could get very close to the fort without raising suspicion.
The IRB men were impressed. A football team was picked from the officers of Na Fianna Ã?ireann and O’Daly was to lead the raid.
His orders were simple: destroy the ammunition and blow up the fort.
O’Daly was instructed to discuss the plan with James Connolly. Connolly agreed with the plan. However, he that felt a team of Na Fianna members might lack the required muscle.
He informed O’Daly that he would provide him with
“a few hefty men to add weight to the team
?.
Eoin Mac Neill’s countermanding order issued on Easter Sunday 1916 meant the raid had to be temporarily postponed.
Early on Easter Monday, O’Daly was summoned to Liberty Hall to meet Connolly and Clarke. They told him the raid was to go ahead, but not to enter the fort before 12noon that day.
O’Daly spent the next number of hours assembling his team before walking towards the park along the quays.
Once in the park, the republicans put their plan into action, kicking a ball to each other as if they were a team warming up.
At the fort, O’Daly distracted the sentry by asking where the football grounds were. As he stopped to answer, the republicans overpowered him and rushed inside.
The guardroom was quickly captured and the British soldiers were disarmed.
The soldiers and the Playfair family, who lived at the fort, were taken prisoner.
Garry Holohan and Eamonn Martin went to overpower the sentry on the parapet. The sentry ran at them with his bayonet and Holohan shot him in the leg.
The ammunition and tool stores were soon in republican hands and the boxes of ammunition were smashed open and soaked in paraffin oil. Tin can bombs were placed in the room and the fuses were lit. O’Daly gave the order to evacuate the fort.
The captured rifles were loaded into a waiting hackney and the republicans began to make their way back to the city.
At Chapelizod Road, Garry Holohan noticed one of the Playfair boys running towards the Police Barracks at Islandbridge.
Holohan gave chase and ordered the boy to stop. As young Playfair began to bang on doors in an effort to raise the alarm, Holohan was forced to shoot him, and Playfair became one of the first fatalities of the Rising.
Two explosions then rang out across the city as the bombs in the fort went off.
The republican football team had won their match and scored the first success of the 1916 Rising for the Irish Republic.