It may be asked why Martin Savage’s body was allowed to leave Dublin without receiving from the capital the last mark of respect which his sacrifice deserved. The answer is simple. The Government of the Republic, Dail Eireann, did not wish to associate itself directly with our actions. Without going into details which might involve the names of many prominent men, some living, some dead, I wish to emphasise here and now that neither then nor at any later stage did Dail Eireann accept responsibility for the war against the British. Why, I do not know, nor do I wish to enter into any controversy on the attitude of the Dail. I can only say what was later publicly admitted both in the second Republican Dail and in the Free State Dail (General Mulcahy, December, 1923), that the I.R.A. was left to carry on the war on its own initiative, on its own resources, without either approval or disapproval from the Government of the Republic. It is well that this fact should be known to future generations. [Illustration: GENERAL LIAM LYNCH.] It was amusing to read the newspaper versions of the Ashtown attack for days afterwards. At the inquest on Martin Savage it was stated that the “assailants fled and were pursued.” I almost roared laughing when I read this and pictured the British soldiers’ precipitate flight for the cover of the Phoenix Park wall. It was very strange indeed that we managed to reach Dublin on our bicycles if we were pursued by men provided not only with rifles and machine guns but with motor cars. Another imaginative writer described a tree by the roadside which had been specially clipped to form a look-out point for one of our men. Just imagine the military genius of anyone who would send a man up on a tree to see a train that he could see from the road, or to become a sure target for enemy rifles! At the inquest too the Crown Counsel refused to disclose the name of the lady who was in the car with Lord French. Lord French, by the way, travelled in mufti that day—so it was stated at the inquest. Perhaps that is why we did not recognise him in the first car. I also learned from the inquest story that Detective Sergeant Hally, who was wounded by our fire, was a countryman of my own, hailing from Carrick-on-Suir. After a few days in the house of Mrs. Toomey at Phibsboro’, I was taken across to the south side of the city to No. 13 Grantham Street—the house of Mrs. Malone. Three months previously I had paid my first visit to this house. It happened in this way: