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IRA Shot a British Spy in Central Park 100 Years Ago

Patrick Joseph O'Connor, commonly known as "Cruxy", had performed a dual role in the Irish War of Independence, first working as a British spy to keep tabs on the prominent republican movement.

Irish Central 17 APR 2022.

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One hundred years ago this week, three IRA gunmen shot and gravely wounded a British spy in Central Park after tracking him across the Atlantic.

Patrick Joseph O'Connor, commonly known as "Cruxy", had performed a dual role in the Irish War of Independence, first working as a British spy to keep tabs on the prominent republican movement in the working-class Cork City neighborhood where he grew up.

He later joined a local unit of the IRA in late 1920 and ironically assassinated an alleged British Government spy in his first recorded action as an Irish soldier.

In February 1921, O'Connor manned a machine gun in an ambush of a British convoy but claimed that the gun jammed when the convoy was right in front of him.

The IRA managed to inflict heavy casualties during the attack, but the ambush was ultimately a failure, leading some rebels to suspect O'Connor of being a coward or a traitor.

O'Connor was arrested shortly after returning to Cork and faced execution for carrying a firearm.

He told the police that he was working as a spy for the British Army and, after three days of interrogation, revealed the names of three "known murderers" hiding in a safe house in the rural area of Ballycannon.

Police officers acted on O'Connor's information raided the farm of Con O'Keefe, which housed six young rebels, including Danny Murphy, 24; Jeremiah Mullane Jr., 22; Dan Crowley, 22, Tom Dennehy, 21; and Mick O’Sullivan, 19, and O'Connor's neighbor Willie Deasy.

Police said the rebels started a gun battle, but eyewitnesses claimed the men were caught sleeping, ordered to run, and then shot in the back to make it appear that they were trying to escape, according to the New York Times.

All six men were killed, with most of the entry wounds found in the rear of their bodies.

IRA leaders later learned from sympathetic Royal Irish Constabulary officers that Cruxy O'Connor was responsible for the leaked information that led to the deaths of the six men.

The IRA initially planned to poison O'Connor with strychnine while he was under protection at the heavily fortified Victoria Barracks in Cork.

O'Connor's mother Hannah used to deliver food to her son in a basket, so the IRA devised a plot to impersonate her and deliver poisoned food. They found a similar basket and employed local republican Ethel Condon to dress in old shoes and a shawl just as Hannah O'Connor would have been.

Condon managed to deliver the fatal meal, but the real Hannah O'Connor reached the barracks just in time to alert soldiers of the plot.