JANUARY 28th, 1920 : AM Sullivan was the son of a nationalist MP of the same name and was a senior Irish barrister, a Sergeant-at-law, who defended Roger Casement at his trial for treason. A supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he was strongly opposed to Sinn Féin during the War of Independence. On a visit to Tralee for a compensation court case early in 1920, he went to the home of a solicitor, ER Slattery, for dinner; a group of armed men arrived to kill him, as he described at the trial of 11 local men shortly afterwards. He left Ireland the following year and lived in England until his death in 1959.
SERGEANT SULLIVAN - After dinner Mrs Slattery was seated at one side of the fire. I was seated at the other side of the fire, with my back to the window. Mr Slattery was seated between us facing the fire. A knock came to the door and Mr Slattery left the room saying ‘‘Monty.’’ The next thing I heard was a call from Mr Slattery, I thought to Mrs Slattery. Mrs Slattery, hearing the call, rose and went to the diningroom door and passed into the hall.
I remained at the fire until I heard simultaneously an exclamation from Mr Slattery and a shot. I ran to Mr Slattery’s assistance into the hall. When I passed into the hall it was then in a state of confusion. There was a body of a man at the door. Further in the hall there were two men, one a little nearer the hall door than the other. The man who was further into the hall turned to me as I came out and said: ‘‘You are the man’’ either ‘‘I want’’ or ‘‘won’t,’’ and I think something to the effect that ‘‘They had got me now.’’
When the man spoke he raised an automatic pistol to my face, and fired it within a few inches of my right eye. I tried to seize him. I tried to catch his right hand with my left, and as I did so he forced up the pistol and fired it through my fingers and over my left ear.
I tried to seize him with my right hand, and I forced him back against something in the hall in the nature of a small table – it was something that appeared to be a small table. There was something behind his back, because he was going backwards on it. I tried to get a hold of his throat, but the whole thing was very confused. Some things I observed closely, and some things I did not observe at all. When I had him leaning back against this table a second man, that was nearest to him, and was shouting ‘‘Ha! Ha!’’ appeared to have a pistol in his hand, and when he said ‘‘Ha! ha!’’ he appeared to be endeavouring to fire it unsuccessfully.
From the group at the door there came a number of shots, but I cannot say how many. Mrs Slattery either fell or threw herself down, moaning, in the back of the hall. I let go the man that I had and threw myself down beside her. I thought that she was wounded.
The man whom I thus released stretched out his hand and fired at my body at a range of about two feet. He missed me. He fired behind me, and struck the ground of the hall at the door side. Mr Slattery was making remarks; he was shouting something in answer to shouts from the crowd. What the men were saying I had no idea. I am not certain at what stage he uttered two words that I remembered only yesterday.
They were spoken of or to a member of the crowd, whom he designated by the words ‘‘fuzzy head.’’ I cannot be certain at what period that happened, but Mr Slattery appeared to come near his wife, who was lying moaning, and he made a rush at the whole gang in the hall. Before I could get on my feet again he had either beaten or kicked them out of the hall, and he was shutting the door when I was getting on my feet.
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