‘The Three Volunteers’ – Carty, Crowley and Loughran

Sean Bresnahan of the Thomas Ashe Society in Omagh reflects on the lives of Paddy Carty, Dermot Crowley and Sean Loughran – The Three Volunteers – who died on active service for the Republic outside Omagh 50 years ago this week.

On a warm summer’s afternoon, Monday 25th June 1973, three IRA Volunteers approaching the town of Omagh on a bombing mission were killed on Active Service with the 1st Battalion, East Tyrone Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann. While on their way to mount an attack on the town’s RUC barracks, the bomb they were transporting exploded prematurely on the final run-in to their target, not far from Healy Park on the Gortin Road.

Paddy Carty, Sean Loughran and Dermot Crowley were killed instantly – Ireland had lost three more gallant sons to the war against British rule then raging in the north of the country. Fuair siad bhás ar son saoirse na hÉireann. They died in the people’s struggle for a sovereign and free Ireland, where British occupation was no more. We remember them with pride.

Paddy Carty and Sean Loughran came from Dungannon town in Tyrone and joined the Republican Movement upon the reorganisation of the IRA in the county, following the tumultuous events of 1969 on the streets of Derry and Belfast. Paddy had been born into a republican family in Bundoran but moved with his parents from their Donegal home as an 11 year-old boy. A man of strong mind and independent conviction, it was inconceivable that the British attack on the nationalist people of the Six Counties would go unanswered by Paddy Carty.

Paddy was to become a highly-renowned Volunteer and organiser with Óglaigh na hÉireann, his escape from the Curragh Internment Camp and participation in many telling attacks on the security forces the stuff of legend. He died as he lived, a fearless young man with a heart of gold prepared to stand up to injustice and oppression and to put the needs of others before his own.

Sean ‘Crow’ Loughran is recalled by those who knew and loved him as a man of great wit and humour, a rascal of a man who could lighten almost any situation with his craic. Invariably described as a daring Volunteer who played a full role in the struggle, he joined the IRA as a 17 year-old in 1953, going on to participate in the Border Campaign until his arrest and internment in Crumlin Road Gaol.

Upon his release and the eventual failure of the campaign he moved to England, where he met and married his wife Pauline. They had two children together, Fergal and Kathleen, but when the various injustices imposed on the nationalist people in the North resulted once more in open rebellion, in the heady summer of 1969, he could not stand by and returned to Active Service with the IRA, participating to the fullest extent in the war against Britain until his untimely death outside Omagh in the June of 1973.

Dermot Crowley, an 18 year-old Volunteer with the Cork Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann, was the perfect example of how Ireland remains one country and one entity in the minds of her people – regardless Britain’s attempts to cement its partitionist ‘settlement’. Recognising that the struggle taking place in the occupied north in no way differed from that fought on the streets of Cork City fifty years beforehand, Dermot and his close friend Tony Ahern joined the front-line of the war in Ireland and were seconded to units in the Six Counties.

Inseparable in life, they returned to Cork a mere six weeks apart as Martyrs of the cause, dying in separate incidents as they pursued the struggle for a sovereign, free Ireland and the establishment of a democratic republic. The many people in Tyrone who kept Dermot in their homes during his stay in the county still speak of him with a deep and reverent pride, remembering him fondly as ‘the Cork lad’.

A song in their memory goes:

“O gather ’round comrades, a sad tale I’ll tell
Of three Volunteers who went out one day.
To free dear old Ireland was their only aim;
To rid our proud Nation of British domain”

In life and in death ‘the Three Volunteers’ – Carty, Crowley and Loughran – remain a source of inspiration for people all over Ireland. The cause for which they died is only the stronger thanks to their tremendous personal sacrifice. Bearing in mind that sacrifice, it is incumbent on us all to recommit to the struggle, to that same fight for the Irish Republic for which they selflessly gave of their lives.

The road ahead may be long and arduous but the legacy of these courageous men will be with us to light and show the way. We go forward with dignity and with great hope that one day their ambitions will be fully realised. We commit once more to the struggle for a full British withdrawal from Ireland, to realising the sovereign 32-County Irish Republic. Their fight is our fight and that fight is not yet over.

Urgent Appeal