Original photograph June 1922 National soldiers entering a building on Baggot Street on the eve of Civil War The buildings depicted form the corner of Baggot Street and Pembroke Street in Dublin....

Original photograph June 1922 National soldiers entering a building on Baggot Street on the eve of Civil War The buildings depicted form the corner of Baggot Street and Pembroke Street in Dublin. The doorway on the left in the photograph led into Bank offices at the time the picture was taken. In the 1960's and 1970's the building housed Mrs. Gaj's Restaurant now celebrated in a recently published history. The events leading to the house search captured in the image occurred on literally the eve of the outbreak of the Irish Civil War. On the 26th of June 1922, an anti-treaty raiding party led by Leo Henderson commandeered 15 cars imported in defiance of the Belfast Boycott from Ferguson's garage in Lr. Baggot Street. The plan was to bring an anti-treaty IRA section to the north using the vehicles. Leo Henderson was arrested by Government troops led by Frank Thornton and in retaliation an anti-treaty unit arrested General Richard Mulcahy's Deputy Chief-of-Staff, General J.J. ''Ginger'' O'Connell in nearby Leeson Street. He was subsequently held by Anti-treaty forces in the Four Courts pending Leo Henderson's release. On the afternoon of the 26th of June discussion of the garage raid and anti-treaty plans to go north took place. Griffith and Mulcahy later claimed the decision to attack the Four Courts was close to being taken that afternoon but deferred until the following morning. Mulcahy, who succeeded Michael Collins as Chief of Staff of the National Army claimed that many such photographs depicting organized, uniformed military activity were taken as much to create the impression of Government troops control of the impending situation as to depict superior equipment and organisational ability. This image was recently published in Field Day Review 2006 (p. 144) and captioned: ''Free State troops searching a building, apparently a hotel. NLI, Hogan''. Provenance: General Richard Mulcahy, then gifted to the present vendor

View more View less