Richard
Humphreys was born 23 April 1896 in Limerick city to Dr David Humphreys and
Mary Ellen. He spent his childhood at Quinsborough House, north of Limerick
city, just over the border into County Clare. He attended Crescent
College, Limerick during 1905-1908. Richard’s father died in 1903 and this
contributed to the family’s decision to move to Dublin in early 1909. Richard
attended Belvedere College for the remainder of the school year 1909, and then
attended Padraig Pearse’s St. Enda’s school until 1912. He was then sent to
Clongowes Wood College. He ran away from Clongowes and hiked back to St. Enda’s
in Rathfarnham, as he viewed the former as an institution for Anglo-Irish
classes and attendance was against the nationalistic outlook that he may have
gained at the latter. His mother, however, would not back down and Richard
returned to Clongowes and attended the school 1912-1914.
By
age sixteen, Richard had his own rifle and received shooting instruction. He
joined the Irish Volunteers while still a student and assisted his uncle, The
O’Rahilly, 26 July, 1914, transporting guns and ammunition from Howth by car.
Although a possible university career lay ahead, Richard was too involved in
the political and military turmoil of his times to follow that route.
Although
Richard was a member of B Company, 3rd Battalion Irish Volunteers,
he joined the garrison at the GPO on Easter Monday, perhaps to be alongside his
uncle, The O’Rahilly, and his teacher, Padraig Pearse. On his arrival at the
post office he recalled a strange sight:
Swaying gently in the evening breeze from the
flagstaff is the tricolour Republican flag.
Richard
recorded his experiences of the Easter rising and it was published in The Belvederian of 1917. Although he
wrote that Tuesday was reasonable uneventful,
Wednesday morning finds things beginning to get
lively. Bullets are pattering on the walls and windows of the Imperial, Reis's,
the D.B.C., Hopkins, etc., all of which are held by us.
On
the insistence of his mother, Pearse sent Richard home the Tuesday night, but
he returned on the Wednesday. He described the beginning of the shelling from
heavy artillery as ‘a gigantic boom [that] shakes the edifice to its
foundations’. The bombardment continued into Thursday and then Richard noted
the presence of two howitzers artillery pieces mounted near Findlater's Church,
North Frederick Street. Throughout Thursday, fire caused by incendiary bombs
spread throughout the streets surrounding the GPO and then in the post office
complex itself. Richard remembered:
Even in the midst of this inferno we are sniped at by
the enemy, and occasional bullets come in through the windows. Clouds of dirty
grey smoke prevent us from replying.
Friday,
‘THE FIFTH DAY OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC,’ as Richard wrote, was a chaotic day,
with the Irish Volunteers trying desperately to keep the fires at bay. The roof
of the GPO was collapsing in:
In one part the fire has eaten right through the roof,
and slates and mortar are commencing to fall on the floor.
By
late in the day Friday, the GPO was ‘nothing but an empty shell’ and the hopes
of the garrison to hold out were diminishing.
Following
the surrender, the garrison was marched, having laid down their arms, to the
Rotunda. Richard recalled that they received nothing to eat or drink throughout
the Saturday night, but he could vividly remember what they received the next
morning:
On Sunday morning we receive a cup of black, sugarless
liquid humorously designated as tea, and three granite biscuits each. The ‘tea’
is drunk out of meat-encrusted bully-beef tins.
Richard
spent a week in Kilmainham Gaol and was then marched, with many others, to
Richmond Barracks 5 May. The same day, they were sent down the Liffey quays and
loaded on to a cattle boat bound for Holyhead. Despite the rain and the rocking
boat, the men had spirit:
Someone suggests the Rosary, and a Volunteer recites
the Mysteries in a voice which rings high above the shriek of the wind and the
beat of lashing waters. The responses come in a sonorous murmur from all parts
of the vessel. Afterwards ‘A Soldier's Song’ and ‘God Save Ireland’ are sung,
and the men take heart and courage at the sound of the undaunted voices.
These
Irish Volunteers, Richard in their midst, were sent to Wakefield Detention
Prison. Despite the monotony of life at Wakefield, the men found ways of
amusing themselves, even in solitary confinement. As Richard recalled, by
the end of the third week great relaxations were
allowed us. We were permitted to talk during exercise, and allowed out twice
daily. Books and novels were given us.
During
his time at Wakefield, Richard wrote out his memories of the rebellion of
Easter week at the GPO on lavatory paper. On account of his young age, he was
soon released. As he called:
In fact we were just commencing to enjoy the life so
kindly provided by the Government when the first batch of prisoners was ordered
off to Frongoch. With that came the order of my release, and so I said farewell
to Wakefield Prison.
When
he returned to Dublin, Richard enrolled as a law student at the King’s Inn.
He
remained part of the 3rd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, Irish Volunteers
after his release from Wakefield. He was arrested during a raid
of his house, 3 April, 1920. Richard was imprisoned at Mountjoy 4 April, 1920,
and went on hunger strike with other prisoners for 10 days. He was soon
released but rearrested. He successfully defended himself in the case that
followed, but his tacit recognition of the court’s jurisdiction led to his
expulsion from the IRA.
Richard
was called to the bar November, 1920, but never practised as he grew to dislike
the profession. Although he did not accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he did not
play a part in the Civil War that the said document caused. He was, as his son
has written, ‘appalled at the way events
progressed after the War of Independence’.
Richard’s
family provided a safe house for those on the run from the Irish Free State
forces. Ernie O’Malley, Assistant Chief-of-Staff in the anti-Treaty Civil War
IRA, used the Humphreys home as his Headquarter September, 1922. When Free
State troops apprehended O’Malley there, 4 November, 1922, the whole Humphrey
family was arrested.
Richard married Eithne
O’Mara 24 September, 1929, and living in Clondalkin, they had five sons and two
daughters. Richard maintained a strong interest in cycling and motoring from an
early age. He was driving cars by the age of sixteen and went on many cycling
trips as a young man. During the early 1920s, he started writing
motoring journalism. He wrote for The
Irish Cyclist and Motor Cyclist under the name ‘Ricardo’. He established a motor
services business in 1922 and ran it successfully until late in his life.
Richard Humphreys died 20 September, 1968.
