• The bridge in Drumcondra where the attempted ambush took place
» Mícheál Mac Donncha and Mark Dawson
January 2021 marks the centenary of the ambush in Drumcondra, Dublin, which was a tragic and costly defeat for the IRA and led to the fatal wounding of one Volunteer, the capture and subsequent executions of four Volunteers, and a life sentence for another.
Drumcondra in 1921 was on the northern edge of the city and one of the main routes into the capital. British crown forces from Collinstown (now Dublin Airport), Gormanstown and other bases regularly passed along Drumcondra Road and the bridges over the River Tolka and the Royal Canal. The latter, Binn’s Bridge, was the site chosen for an ambush on 21 January by an IRA active service unit led by 19-year-old Frank Flood. He was an engineering student in UCD and a close friend and fellow student of Kevin Barry who had been executed in Mountjoy Jail the previous November.