Liam Deasy

Who was Liam Deasy?

Liam Deasy was an Irish Republican Army officer in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War of the 1920s.

Deasy was born in Bandon in County Cork in 1898.

In the War of Independence 1919-21, he was an IRA officer in the 3rd Cork Brigade (West Cork). He served under Tom Barry in one of the unit's best known action, the Crossbarry Ambush in March 1921. His younger brother, Pat, died in action at the Kilmichael Ambush in November 1920, an engagement which Liam Deasy himself was not present at.

He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty which ended the war. In the months that followed, he along with others like Éamon de Valera and Liam Lynch tried to persuade Michael Collins to re-negotiate aspects of the Treaty, especially to remove an oath to the King from the constitution of the new Irish Free State. When fighting broke out in Dublin, in June 1922, between pro and anti-Treaty forces, Deasy sided with the anti-treaty IRA in the ensuing Irish Civil War, however, he was reluctant to fight his former comrades and voiced the opinion that the fighting should have ended with the Free State seizure of the Four Courts.

In late July, he commanded 1500 anti-Treaty fighters who held a line around Kilmallock south of Limerick city against about 2000 Free State troops under Eoin O'Duffy. Deasy's men were the most experienced IRA fighters of the 1919-21 war and they held their position until 8 August, when they were outflanked by seaborne landings on the southern coast of Ireland. Deasy's men then dispersed. He went on the run in the southeast of the country.