Shane McElhatton

On Thursday 6 March 1924, the Irish Free State was plunged into yet another crisis when a group of Army officers, angry at being demobilised after the Civil War, threatened mutiny if their demands were not met. They sent a letter to the President of the Free State, William Cosgrave, demanding that the Army's ruling body, the Army Council, be dismissed and the process of demobilisation halted.

The Free State government thought its offer of terms to the Army mutineers had saved the day - until their own soldiers kicked in the doors of Devlin's pub. The raid Even as the terms to the mutineers were being drawn up, word was filtering in to the Army high command that officers involved in the mutiny were meeting over several nights in Devlin’s Public House on Parnell Street, a former IRA hideout from the War of Independence.

The soldiers crouched on the roof of Devlin's Public House could hardly believe their ears. Below them, in a valley between two rooftops, they had cornered 11 men, trench-coated and armed. One of the trapped men looked over the parapet and in a parade-ground voice, one clearly used to being obeyed, yelled one word - "Surrender!" Taken aback for a moment, the soldiers then remembered why they had climbed up on the roof in the first place. They moved forward.