{{Short description|Irish republican (1893–1920)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2022}} {{Use Irish English|date=February 2022}} {{Infobox military person | image = Dick McKee (cropped).jpg | native_name = Risteárd Mac Aoidh | native_name_lang = ga | birth_date = {{birth date|1893|04|04|df=y}} | death_date = {{death date and age|1920|11|21|1893|04|04|df=y}} | birth_place = Phibsborough, Dublin, Ireland | death_place = Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland | burial_place = Glasnevin Cemetery | nickname = 'Fergus' | birth_name = Richard McKee | branch = {{ubl|Irish Volunteers (1913-1919)|Irish Republican Army (1919-1920)}} | rank = Brigadier | unit = Second Battalion, Dublin Brigade | battles = {{ubl|Easter Rising|Irish War of Independence}} }}
'''Richard "Dick" McKee''' ({{Langx|ga|Risteárd Mac Aoidh}}; 4 April 1893 – 21 November 1920) was a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was also friend to some senior members in the republican movement, including Éamon de Valera, Austin Stack and Michael Collins. Along with Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune, he was killed by his captors in Dublin Castle on Sunday, 21 November 1920, a day known as Bloody Sunday that also saw the killing of a network of British intelligence agents by the "Squad" unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).<ref name="Sean O'Mahony">{{Cite book |last=O'Mahony |first=Sean |title=Death in the Castle: Three murders in Dublin Castle 1920 |publisher=1916–1921 Club}}</ref>
==Early life== McKee was born at Phibsborough Road in Dublin on 4 April 1893. He became an apprentice in the publishing business at Gill & Son, Upper O'Connell Street, and then a compositor.<ref name="repnews2000">{{Cite news |date=24 November 2000 |title=Dublin Folklore Project honours IRA Volunteers |url=https://republican-news.org/archive/2000/November23/24mcke.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023215438/http://republican-news.org/archive/2000/November23/24mcke.html |archive-date=23 October 2007 |access-date=22 July 2007 |work=An Phoblacht/Republican News}}</ref>
==Military career== McKee joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, serving in G Company, Second Battalion of the Dublin Brigade. He served in the 1916 Easter Rising in Jacob's Factory, under the command of Thomas MacDonagh.<ref name="repnews2001">{{Cite news |last=Mac Eoin |first=Art |date=22 November 2001 |title=Murder in the Castle |url=https://republican-news.org/archive/2001/November22/22hist.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051113055513/http://republican-news.org/archive/2001/November22/22hist.html |archive-date=13 November 2005 |access-date=22 July 2007 |work=An Phoblacht/Republican News}}</ref> McKee was later incarcerated by the British authorities in Knutsford Gaol and subsequently the Frongoch internment camp in Wales.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Coleman |first=Marie |date=10 October 2020 |title=Dick McKee: the Dublin Brigade leader who was shot on Bloody Sunday |url=https://www.rte.ie/history/2020/1010/1169793-dick-mckee-the-dublin-brigade-leader-who-died-on-bloody-sunday/ |access-date=9 February 2025 |website=RTÉ History |publisher=RTÉ}}</ref>
McKee was promoted within the IRA shortly after his release. He became Company Captain and then Commandant of the Second Battalion, eventually being placed as Brigadier, or the Officer Commanding of the Dublin Brigade.<ref name=":0" /> He was also active as an ex-officio member of IRA General Headquarters Staff – which included Collins, Richard Mulcahy and Russell. He was a prime innovator in the formation of the flying columns along with Mulcahy and Collins.{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}} He was Director of Training for this duration, though he was jailed again as a political prisoner in Dundalk Gaol, in 1918.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Rogers |first=Ailbhe |date=November 2017 |title=The welfare of Irish political prisoners in Dundalk Gaol in the aftermath of Thomas Ashe's death, Oct 1917 - Jul 1918 |url=https://universitiesireland.ie/site/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Ailbhe-Rogers-The-welfare-of-Irish-political-prisoners-in-Dundalk-Gaol-in-the-aftermath-of-Thomas-Ashes-death-Oct-1917-Jul-1918.pdf |access-date=10 February 2025 |website=Maynooth University |page=5 |quote=Dundalk Gaol, 1918. Back Row (L-R): Diarmuid Lynch, Ernest Blythe, Terence MacSwiney, Dick McKee, Michael Colivet}}</ref>
McKee participated in several IRA operations during the Irish War of Independence, including an arms raid on Collinstown Aerodrome (now Dublin Airport) in which his unit captured 75 rifles and approximately 15,000 rounds of ammunition and the Kings Inns raid in which his unit captured 25 rifles, two Lewis guns and several thousand rounds of ammunition.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Collins |first=Lorcan |title=Irelands War of Independence 1919-1921 |publisher=The O'Brien Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-84717-950-0 |location=Dublin |pages=111}}</ref> In the final chapter of his revolutionary activism, he was on full-time active service, moving covertly through a network of safe houses.
He was engaged to May Gibney, a volunteer during the Easter Rising and an active member of Cumann na mBan.<ref name="McCoole">{{cite news |last1=McCoole |first1=Sinead |date=22 February 2016 |title=Seven women who played a key part in 1916 and beyond, impacting on society |url=http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/seven-women-who-played-a-key-part-in-1916-and-beyond-impacting-on-society-383228.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160223104722/http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/seven-women-who-played-a-key-part-in-1916-and-beyond-impacting-on-society-383228.html |archive-date=23 February 2016 |access-date=23 February 2016 |work=Irish Examiner}}</ref> In January 1920, he resigned from Gills and worked for a time printing the ''An tÓglach'' newspaper. Eventually he returned to being a full-time Volunteer officer, operating under the nom-de-guerre of 'Fergus'.<ref name=":0" />
==The Squad== In July 1919 Collins asked McKee to select a small group of men to form the ''Squad''.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="cia">{{Citation |last1=Hartline |first1=Martin C. |title=Michael Collins and Bloody Sunday |date=4 August 2011 |work=Center for the Study of Intelligence |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=69–78 |orig-date=1969 |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol13no1/html/v13i1a06p_0001.htm |access-date=2016-01-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304082734/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol13no1/html/v13i1a06p_0001.htm |archive-date=2016-03-04 |url-status=dead |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |last2=Kaulbach |first2=M. M.}}</ref> McKee was intimately involved in the planning of Bloody Sunday 1920 which was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. More than 30 people were killed or fatally wounded which included twenty British intelligence agents at eight different locations in Dublin.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hopkinson |first=Michael |title=The Irish War of Independence |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |year=2004 |isbn=9780773528406 |location=Dublin |pages=89}}</ref>
==Arrest and death== thumb|A memorial to Dick McKee was officially unveiled in Finglas village, by Éamon de Valera, on 10 June 1951 McKee was betrayed to the British authorities by an Irish veteran of the British Army, James "Shankers" Ryan, and captured at Sean Fitzpatrick's before Bloody Sunday by the Royal Irish Constabulary. (In retaliation, on 5 February 1921, an IRA squad led by Bill Stapleton walked into Hynes' pub in Gloucester Place and shot Ryan dead.)<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Connell |first=Joseph E. A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uLNnAAAAMAAJ&q=+%22Gloucester+Place%22 |title=Where's where in Dublin: A Directory of Historic Locations, 1913-1923: the Great Lockout, the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Irish Civil War |publisher=Dublin City Council |year=2006 |isbn=9780946841813 |location=Dublin |pages=55}}</ref>
Brought to Dublin Castle he was tortured under interrogation with Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune from County Clare.<ref name="dublincastle">{{Cite web |title=Chapter 16 - 'The 'Troubles' and the End of British Rule |url=https://dublincastle.ie/history16.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430075800/http://www.dublincastle.ie/history16.html |archive-date=30 April 2008 |access-date=10 February 2025 |website=Dublin Castle}}</ref> The three would later be shot on 21 November 1920. The official account was that he and the other men with him were shot while trying to escape.<ref name="dublincastle"/> This account was widely disputed at the time, although some historians believe it was actually true. Michael Lynch, a IRA Brigade Commander stated that McKee suffered severe beatings prior to being shot to death: "I saw Dick McKee's body afterwards, and it was almost unrecognizable. He had evidently been tortured before being shot...They must have beaten Dick to a pulp. When they threatened him with death, according to reports, Dick's last words were, "Go on, and do your worst!"<ref>Collins, pg 166</ref> Medical examinations of the three bodies revealed broken bones and abrasions consistent with prolonged assaults and bullet wounds to the head and bodies.<ref> {{Cite book |last1=O'Halpin |first1=Eunan |title=The Dead of the Irish Revolution |last2=Ó Corráin |first2=Daithí |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2020 |isbn=9780300123821 |pages=233}}</ref>
A book titled ''Death in the Castle: Three murders in Dublin Castle 1920'', written by Sean O'Mahony, and published by 1916–1921 Club records both the life and deaths of the three Republicans.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}
==Burial== McKee and Clancy's tricolour-adorned coffins lay side by side at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, Dublin. Aged 27 and 32 years, respectively, they were laid to rest at the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.<ref name="repnews2000" />
McKee Barracks, formerly the Marlborough Barracks, in Dublin is named after Dick McKee.<ref name=":0" />
==Gallery== <gallery> Image:McKee Barracks, Dublin 7.jpg|McKee Barracks, Cabra, Dublin 7 Image:Grave of Clancy and McKee.JPG|The Grave of Clancy and McKee in the Republican Plot, Glasnevin Cemetery Dublin Image:Dublin Castle 1920 IRA Memorial.jpg|Commemorative plaque in memory of the Volunteers killed in Dublin Castle 1920 </gallery>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{IRA}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:McKee, Dick}} Category:1920 deaths Category:Burials at Glasnevin Cemetery Category:Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) members Category:People from County Dublin Category:Irish republicans killed during the Irish War of Independence Category:1893 births