The shooting of an IRA volunteer in county Kerry in May 1920 resulted in a dramatic speech the following week at Tralee petty sessions.

  As E.M.P. Wynne Resident Magistrate made his way to the village of Causeway in county Kerry on 11 May 1920 he was ambushed by an IRA party led by a man called Mike Nolan. Hoping to apprehend Wynne and take him hostage in an effort to prevent him presiding at the petty sessions, Wynne fired at his would be attackers shooting Nolan dead in the process. The IRA retreated, taking their fallen comrade with them and who was hastily buried nearby. Speaking at the Petty Session in Tralee the following week Wynne noticed his disappointment that the attack had been carried out on him. Asking the press to take note of what he was going to say, Wynne commented that ‘I very much regret to hear of the deaths that have occurred in connection with the attack that was made on me when going to Causeway Petty Sessions last Tuesday’. Wynne it seems was perturbed by the fact that he would be attacked in such a manner noting that ‘I could have been attacked and easily shot any time within the last few years...I trusted the Kerry people and always found them kindly and courteous’. Offering his sincere regret to the families of the bereaved, Wynne was surrounded by armed RIC officers fearing another attempt on his life. He left the country a few days later never to return.  

Download Source: Evening Herald, 18 May 1920, page 1

  EveningHerald