PRINCIPAL of Bunscoil Phobal Feirste, Séamus Ó Tuama, is carrying on the memory of his late father Diarmuid by hosting a history talk on the events of his grandfather's epic escape by helicopter from Mountjoy Prison 50 years ago this week.
The talk will take place this Sunday at Casement Social Club at 4pm.
Fifty years on from the daring break-out Séamus said the talk would be even more fitting because of the anniversary and also his discovery of witness statements taken at the time which he recently recovered from his grandfather's loft.
Sentenced under the Offences Against the State Act to five years imprisonment for IRA membership, Séamus' grandfather Seamus Twomey was then the Chief of Staff of the Provisional IRA. Also imprisoned in Mountjoy at the time were senior republicans Joe O'Hagan and Kevin Mallon.
Using a fake American accent to hire a helicopter, a specialist IRA team commandeered it and ordered the pilot to fly to Mountjoy's prison yard where the three men were able to clamber on board and make their escape. The pilot and others were released afterwards unharmed but the event was a morale boost for the IRA and a serious blow to Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave's Fine Gael coalition government.
ESCAPE: A still from an RTÉ report at the time with the helicopter in the background
Séamus said since his father Diarmuid's death in January he has been picking up on some of his projects, forming the basis of a book and leading to the find of the witness statements.
Séamus said: “After my father died I picked up a few of his wee projects and he was very into the family history and ancestry. He traced our relatives as far back as Cork. I was digging up some stuff about my ancestors working with Tom Hartley, Jimmy McDermott and Dr Feargal McCluskey, the head of History at St Mary’s.
“Tom was able to unearth archive documents from the Irish Military Archives about my great-grandfather and I was adding all that in. Things began to take shape for the basis of a book and my father had also almost finished his book on the history of Belfast before he died.
"He was looking to get it proofed before he passed but now I’ve been going back over the family history as well so what I’m going to try to do is the family history with the history of Belfast finishing on my dad’s legacy with the school (Bunscoil Phobal Feirste) and with the Irish language movement.
“Researching for that I was hoking about my grandfather’s house in the roofspace looking for old articles and I came across documents which will all dog-eared and yellowed. They were booklets which contained all the testimonies from the Dublin Courts such as the helicopter pilot’s witness statement from the Mountjoy Helicopter Escape."
45yrs ago today Seamus Twomey, JB O’Hagan & Kevin Mallon escaped in a Helicopter from Mountjoy Gaol
— Joe Dwyer (@JoeEDwyer) October 31, 2018
“One shamefaced screw apologised to the governor and said he thought it was the new Minister for Defence arriving. I told him it was our Minister of Defence leaving.”- unnamed POW pic.twitter.com/8zmQSCSLQH
Séamus continued saying the testimonies shone a new light on the famous escape and said he would be adding in some oral family history about the escape during this Sunday's talk.
“There was testament from the screws who saw the helicopter coming in, the commotion and they were tied up by the prisoners and also a testimony from the taxi driver whose cab was hijacked for the escape and a testimony from a painter and decorator. The painter and decorator was talking about an attempted hijacking after they tried to use that as a getaway when the taxi didn’t turn up on time.
“On top of that I have the family’s oral history. My granny always visited my granda twice a week in Mountjoy and the day of the escape was one of her visiting days. She went down to visit him but he couldn’t tell her about the escape and when the screw came to my granda about the visit he refused to go out and see her and made up a story they’d had a big row.
“The screw went back and relayed it and she was wracking her head as they hadn’t had a row and she left and went back to Belfast but by the time she was back it was all over the news and the penny dropped."
“It inspired similar attempts all over the world, in Chile during the Pinochet regime, in Brazil and in Canada. There were headlines about it all over the world in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune and it really embarrassed Cosgrave’s government in Ireland. Cosgrave had brought in these laws for the IRA and my granda was given five years but only did a few weeks!"
ESCAPE: The front page of the Andersonstown News, 5 April 1975 showing Seamus Twomey giving the Easter oration whilst on the run from his daring helicopter escape
Séamus said the talk in Casement would be a great way to remember the escapades of his grandfather and also remember his father who had spoken previously on the escape in an RTÉ documentary.
“My father also did an interview on it with RTÉ about 15 or so years ago, so I’ll be using snippets from that. It’ll be nice to hear his voice ringing around Casement again. Casement is a good spot as my Da was there every Saturday and my granda also used to have a few pints in there as well.
“My granda died in 1989 when I was about 13/14 and I remember meeting him when he was on the run in Donegal and we had a few good summers with him. The last time I saw him was in Dublin before the All-Ireland hurling semi-final in 1989 and I’ll be relaying all those stories as well.”
Séamus will give the talk along with Dr Feargal McCluskey.
