During the Dublin Easter Rising in April 1916, intense street fighting drove battlefield improvisation and the creation of the world’s first armoured cars, built from requisitioned Guinness brewery lorries fitted with smoke boxes at Inchicore Works, proving the effectiveness of such vehicles in both urban and rural conflict.
By the outbreak of the Irish Civil War on June 28 1922, the use of armoured cars left behind by British forces was proving a clear tactical advantage to the National Army (pro-Treaty Forces).
In October 1922, seeking an advantage in battle, Anti Treaty IRA forces in County Mayo built their own improvised armoured car using a hotel boiler mounted on a touring car chassis fitted with a Crossley Tender engine. The “Queen of the West” then led over three hundred men in the successful capture of Clifden, County Galway.
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FREE STATE ARMOURED CARS
The National Army Armoured Car Corps was established in September 1922 as an effective mobile unit equipped with British-supplied armoured cars and commanded by Capt. Joe Hyland. Upon entering service, many of the vehicles were given nicknames by their crews, including The Big Fellow, Sliabh na mBan, The Ballinalee and The Baby.
The Corps operated several types of armoured car, including Lancia and Peerless vehicles, but the most notable were the thirteen 1920 Pattern Rolls-Royce armoured cars supplied to the Irish Free State in 1921 following the Anglo-Irish Treaty at a cost of £2,000 each.
Built around 1920 on a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost chassis, the armoured cars were powered by a 7,434 cc six-cylinder engine and capable of speeds approaching 100 kph. Armed with a 7.62 mm Vickers machine gun mounted in a revolving turret and protected by 8.5 mm rolled steel armour, they proved powerful, relatively quiet and well suited to Civil War operations, despite a tendency for the engines to overheat unless the armoured radiator doors were left open.
The most famous Rolls-Royce armoured car, Sliabh na mBan, was present at the Béal na mBláth ambush where Michael Collins was killed in 1922. Still operational today, it is preserved at the Curragh Military Museum, County Kildare.
ANTI-TREATY ARMOURED CARS
Anti-Treaty forces also operated a small number of improvised armoured cars. Although far removed from the purpose-built armoured cars used by the Irish Free State Army’s Armoured Car Corps, they nonetheless proved effective in operations.
Seeking battlefield superiority, the Anti-Treaty forces drew inspiration from British officer Colonel Bertram Portal who, during the Easter Rising of 1916, witnessed the brutal street fighting in Dublin city centre and the vulnerability of British troops transported in open trucks, particularly to sniper fire and bomb attacks from volunteers using guerrilla tactics.
With necessity proving the mother of invention, Colonel Portal, quickly took stock of what was available in the Guinness Brewery garages at St James’s Gate, Dublin and forcibly requisitioned several Daimler delivery trucks without offering payment. Using the Guinness lorries, locomotive smokeboxes from Inchicore Works and steel-plated driver compartments, Portal created what are regarded as the world’s first Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs). Designed to carry up to 20 soldiers under protection, the concept proved effective during the Rising.
THE QUEEN OF THE WEST
National Army forces captured Westport, County Mayo by surprise on July 24 1922, when the SS Minerva landed approximately four hundred troops at Westport Quay under the command of Colonel Commandant Christopher O’Malley and Brigadier Joe Ring. The force included The Big Fella Rolls-Royce armoured car and an 18-pounder gun, with the town secured by evening. During operations at Westport and Castlebar and the capture of Clifden on 14–15 August, The Big Fella was used in frontal assaults on occupied buildings, allowing troops to bring its mounted Vickers machine gun into action under full armoured protection against Republican positions.
The Republican forces of the 4th Western Division possessed no armoured cars, but by early autumn 1922, as the IRA planned to recapture Clifden, they recognised that an armoured vehicle would be essential for the assault.
As the area north of Newport remained securely in Republican hands, it was decided to construct an armoured car at Mulranny, overlooking Clew Bay, 28 km north-west of Westport. The driving force behind the project was mechanical engineer Thomas Moran, known as “Number Nine”, an Intelligence Officer in the Republican Army who operated a licensed premises (pub) and a well-equipped workshop beside Daly’s Hotel (now Cowley’s).
Drawing inspiration from Colonel Portal’s improvised armoured cars of 1916, Moran proposed mounting a boiler onto the chassis of a long-wheelbase touring car. The manageress of the Great Southern Hotel at Mulranny, Miss Brosnan, a Kerry woman and Republican supporter, agreed to the removal of the hotel’s hot water boiler.
A large open-backed touring car was then acquired and brought into Moran’s workshop, where it was stripped of its rear seats and folding hood. Moran then drove the vehicle to the hotel grounds, where the boiler was mounted onto the chassis.
Back in the workshop the boiler was reinforced with additional metal plates filled with concrete, while loopholes were cut to allow weapons to be fired from inside. Metal plating was also fitted to protect the engine and a narrow viewing slit installed for the driver. At the rear, a door was added and covered with spare tyres to provide additional ballistic protection.
During testing, the car’s original engine proved too weak to pull the weight of the boiler and five armed troops, so Moran replaced it with a more powerful 4.5-litre, 25 hp engine from a Crossley Tender. After further successful trials, the vehicle was nicknamed Fág an Bealach (Leave the Way), before later being renamed The Queen of the West.
BATTLE FOR CLIFDEN
On October 29 1922 an Anti-Treaty IRA column of more than three hundred men under General Michael Kilroy assembled in Newport. The force comprised of four Ford cars, three lorries, thirty-nine cyclists and The Queen of the West armoured car driven by Thomas “Number Nine” Moran. After an eight-hour battle, the Free State Army garrisons at Clifden and the nearby Marconi Station surrendered, with approximately eighty Free State soldiers taken prisoner.
QUEEN IN ACTION
How did The Queen of the West perform in battle? According to Westport Historical Society member Vincent Keane’s well-researched article The Queen of the West, accounts from participants differ. One IRA volunteer praised the armoured car, recalling how it was driven directly to the front entrance of the former RIC barracks in Clifden, allowing Republican engineers to place mines that helped force the surrender of the position. Another Republican fighter claimed the vehicle proved of little use after Free State troops shot out its tyres, leaving it immobilised.
WHERE IS THE QUEEN?
What became of The Queen of the West? According to Vincent Keane’s article, the vehicle was unable to complete the return journey from Clifden to Mulranny and subsequently fell into the hands of the National Army following its successful attack on Republican positions in Clifden. It was later brought to Westport and paraded as a trophy of war, with Free State forces sarcastically renaming it The Girl I Left Behind Me.
The Queen of the West remains one of the best-known improvised armoured vehicles built by Anti-Treaty IRA forces during the Civil War. However, conflicting accounts exist regarding its ultimate fate. One report states that it was abandoned in a bog in north Mayo, where it lay partially submerged until 1934, when an unsuccessful attempt was reportedly made to recover it for preservation in a motor museum. Another account claims the vehicle was retained at the Military Barracks in Mullingar for several years after 1922 and its current whereabouts are unknown.
NUMBER NINE
Thomas Moran, known as “Number Nine” and builder-driver of The Queen of the West, was arrested and interned. Returning to Mulranny in 1924, he found his home, pub and workshop badly damaged following Free State raids after the fall of Newport in November 1922.
Moran later sought compensation of £1,156 through the Free State courts, claiming the loss of one three-ton truck, three motor cars, one motorcycle, bicycles and barrels of porter and whiskey. Free State witnesses admitted some porter had been taken for refreshments, but maintained there had only been one motor car at the workshop. His claim and appeal were rejected because he had taken up arms against the government.
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Check out our previous videos on armoured cars in Ireland:
Sources of Information, Photo, Video & Music Credits:
All music and sound effects used in Ireland Made – Stories of Irish Transport are royalty free and are fully licensed through Epidemic Sound. Ireland Made – Stories of Irish Transport therefore holds the legal right to use this audio material within its productions under the terms of the Epidemic Sound licensing agreement.
Jackie Clarke Collection
National Library of Ireland
Our Irish Heritage website
The Salty Historian
University College Cork – Irish Civil War Fatalities Project the Irish Revolution – Civil War Fatalities in Mayo by Dr. Joost Augusteijn
Vintary
Westport Historical Society – The Queen of the West by Vincent Keane
