Daniel Cahill

My mother’s uncle, and my great uncle. He was born around 1870, and immigrated to America from Shrone, Kerry, probably around 1888. He joined the New York City Police Department then known as the Metropolitan Police Force around 1890, before the turn of the 19th Century. Since Tammany Hall Irish politics controlled City Hall, and before Civil Service Rules had been established, he would have been given his police job because he was a recent Irish immigrant, that he was around six foot five, and that he looked every bit the part. He was a Patrolman when high helmets were worn (grey in winter and blue in summer) and when the police force in 1896, first began to standardize firearms training and issuing members .32 Caliber Colts as regulation revolvers. When asked about his police experience he was reticent to talk about it (See Note 1). During Uncle Dan Cahill’s time, it was a difficult era for the force before and during the period when Theodore Roosevelt took over as Police Commissioner in 1895. Roosevelt completely revamped the department by doing away with political patronage appointments, and implementing other measures for change. After leaving the department, Dan went back to Kerry, but could not take the weather, so he returned to New York. A bachelor, he lived well into his nineties, dying in Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx in the early 1960’s.

Daniel Cahill

My mother’s next older bother, my uncle, joined the Irish Republican Army (E Company, 5th Battalion, Kerry No. 2 Brigade), during Ireland’s War of Independence with the rank of “Volunteer’, and served in actions against the British in Kerry and West Cork. Dan’s name can be found in the IRA Kerry No 2 Brigade roster (See Note 2). After independence was won, he, along with his brother John, became members of the Irish Free State Army (Irish National Army) and after the Irish Civil War, became policemen in the Irish Free State’s newly formed national police force, The An Garda Siochana (meaning in English, “The Guardians of the Peace”), in 1922, which replaced the disbanded British Royal Irish Constabulary. Dan worked as a Garda Constable (Patrolman) in Bray, in County Wicklow, before being promoted to Detective Sergeant where he worked at Garda Headquarters (Bureau of Weights and Measures) in Phoenix Park, Dublin. A bachelor, he retired from the Garda in 1954, with 32 years of service.

John Joseph Brennan

My brother John (Jack), your great uncle, served in the United States Navy, enlisting on January 8, 1946, at the age of 17, as a Seaman (Serial No. 2261100). After basic training at the Naval Training Center at Bainbridge, Maryland, he was sent to attend the Navy Firefighter School at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. Promoted to Seaman First Class, he went to sea aboard the newly commissioned heavy cruiser, the USS Toledo (CA-133), as a ship’s firefighter, serving on a number of the Toledo’s deployments. His awards, among others, include the American Area Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. After serving almost two years in the Navy, he was Honorably Discharged on November 12, 1947. He was a Veteran of World War II. In 1951, Jack joined the Washington, District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department and was issued Patrolman’s Shield No. 346, and served two years in the Metropolitan Police Department’s 5th District, while waiting to be called by New York City. In 1953, he was sworn in as a Patrolman in the New York City Police Department and was issued Shield No. 811. His assignments included the 19th Precinct in Manhattan, the 46th Precinct in the Bronx, and Patrol Division Commands in Manhattan and Queens, before retiring from the 105th Precinct in Queens. John was awarded a Commendation Medal for bravery for action while making an arrest for an armed robbery. He retired after 24 years of service.

Dennis Patrick Brennan

Your grandfather. He joined the United States Marine Corps at the age of 18, enlisting in August, and sworn in on October 1, 1953, as a Private (Serial No. 1422435) and served for three active and five reserve years of duty before being Honorably Discharged on September 30, 1961. During his three years of active duty he was promoted to Private First Class and Corporal (E-3), while stationed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, at Parris Island, South Carolina. At the recruit training base, he was assigned to the Weapons Training Battalion and served as a Bayonet Instructor, Field Instructor, and Company Clerk. He was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, and the Cold War Service Recognition Certificate, and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Secretary of Defense for service during the Korean War era. He is a Korean War Veteran.

He joined the New York City Police Department on November 26, 1957, and issued Patrolman’s Shield No. 1038. On May 24, 1962, he was transferred to the Detective Bureau and on December 24, 1963, promoted to the rank of Detective Third Grade, and issued Detective’s Shield No. 819. His patrol assignments included the 23rd Precinct (Spanish Harlem) in Manhattan, and the elite Tactical Patrol Force that had city-wide jurisdiction. His detective commands included the Manhattan South Youth Squad (part of Central Office Bureau and Squads), the 88th Precinct Detective Squad in Brooklyn, and for over ten years, with the District Attorney’s Office Squad, New York County (Manhattan), where he worked primarily on organized crime. In one of his cases, he led an investigative team whose work resulted in the indictments of the number one crime boss in America. During his police career, he was awarded seven medals for outstanding street and investigative police work; a Commendation Medal for bravery, a Meritorious Police Duty Medal, and five Excellent Police Duty Medals. As a result of the awarding of the Commendation Medal, he was inducted into the Police Department’s Honor Legion on October 9, 1967. Active in rank and file issues, he was elected Vice President of his 3,800 plus membership union, the Detectives’ Endowment Association in July, 1972, and became its President in September, 1978, and elected to a new three-year term in July, 1980, serving until 1983. He retired as a Detective on July 7, 1983, from the Chief of Detective’s Office, after almost twenty-six years of service. For a period, in 1986 and 1987, he served as a New York State Magistrate (Justice) for the Town of Hillsdale, in Columbia County, New York.

Dennis Patrick Brennan, Jr.

My oldest son, and your uncle, Dennis, Jr., joined the New York Department of Correction in August of 1982, as a Correction Officer and worked at the Correction Department’s Prison on Rikers Island in Queens, before leaving to join the New York City Police Department in January of 1983. Upon being sworn in, he was issued Patrolman’s Shield No. 1038 (proudly wearing the same shield his father wore). In July of 1990, he was promoted to the rank of Detective Third Grade, and issued Detective’s Shield No. 1595. The number of commands Dennis served in covered almost every borough in the city and all types of assignments from street patrol to precinct detective squad work and narcotics enforcement which included such commands as the Neighborhood Stabilization Unit (No. 4), in Manhattan, the 73rd Precinct in Brooklyn, the elite city-wide Tactical Patrol Force, the 20th Precinct in Manhattan, the Manhattan North Narcotics District, the 19th Precinct Detective Squad in Manhattan, and the 108th Precinct Detective Squad in Queens. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on our nation, he was assigned to and worked under hazardous duty conditions for many months at the World Trade Center site and the World Trade Center clean-up site in Staten Island. During his very active career, he was awarded eleven medals from the Police Department for outstanding street and investigative police work; a Commendation Medal for bravery, five Meritorious Police Duty Medals, five Excellent Police Duty Medals, and the World Trade Center Medal. He retired from the 108th Precinct Detective Squad as a Detective in December 2004, after twenty-three years of law enforcement service.

Note 1

All if not most of my brothers and one sister remember Great Uncle Danny and his stories. While not getting into personal specifics about his police career, he did mention events he was part of such as when the Metropolitan Police Force standardized both firearms training and revolvers in 1896 for the first time in its history. When my brother John (Jack) was about to be appointed to the New York City Police Department, he asked Uncle Danny, if he could have his shield number, and Uncle Danny said no. We all thought that a little strange, but we sensed he ran into some trouble while on the police force, and retired earlier than he would have liked. At some point, an attempt will be made to search, if possible, the archives of the police department to find his official record. He also mentioned the fact that he worked as a Reservoir Trooper guarding the New York City reservoirs in Upstate New York. He loved to hunt in New York’s Catskill Mountains, and when he died he left me a beautiful double barreled shotgun in .410 Gauge, and a shotgun case to go along with it.

Note 2

The Black and Tans, a term used to describe the Reserve or Auxiliary branch of the British Royal Irish Constabulary was created and used aggressively to help suppress Irish Republican Army activity. They were not professional police officers as those to be found in the Royal Irish Constabulary (who for the most part were made up of local Irish nationals), but were instead ex-British Army enlisted men, and other members of England’s lower class or criminal male population who could not find meaningful work anywhere else in Great Britain. They were notorious for their brutal methods and violence against the general population of Ireland, Irish Republican Army members or not. In the Anglo-Irish War, England deployed or utilized three major components to fight the Irish Republican Army; the regular and professional British Army, the in- country Royal Irish Constabulary (the national police), and the Constabulary’s Reserves or Auxiliaries (the Black and Tans), which was in effect, a Para-military force, and given wide latitude in which to operate. They derived their name from the uniforms they wore; made up of tan trousers and black tunics. Your great grandmother, Margaret Brennan (Cahill) remembered an evening when she was attending a dance at a local dance hall in Shrone, Rathmore, in County Kerry when two suspected IRA members were taken out of the dance hall by the Black and Tans and summarily shot to death. As for the official record of my uncle’s activities, two of my Uncle John Denis Cahill’s sons, our first cousins, Joseph and John respectively were in possession of their father’s IRA medal which was shown to me on a trip to Ireland some years back. Joseph also gave me copies of articles containing the records of E Company, 5th Battalion, Kerry No. 2 Brigade.

Note 3

The youth organization “Na Fianna Eireann” was founded on nationalistic, educational and cultural Irish identity principles and had as it leaders such people as Padriac Pearce. During the outbreak of war on Easter Week 1916, and all during the Anglo-Irish war, the young boys who made up the organization helped and fought alongside the Irish Republican Army. After Ireland and Great Britain signed a treaty ending hostilities between the two countries, Ireland with certain conditions was given its independence or Free State status in 1922. The new Irish Government immediately formed its own national army, to be known as the Free State Army. Under the leadership of Michael Collins, who had fought successfully against the British (and who signed the treaty), he was given command of the new Irish Army. What immediately followed was the Irish Civil War made up of those forces who favored the treaty (most of the population) with England, and its military arm, the Free State Army, and the forces that were against the treaty (and the partition of the North of Ireland), the remnants of the Irish Republican Army (now outlawed), and some units of Na Fianna Eireann. The war which lasted from 1922 to 1923, was as bitter if not more so than the fight for independence against the British. In the end, the Irish Free State Army and the new Irish Government prevailed.

The information regarding my father’s service in the Irish Republican Army and the Irish Free State Army began with my Uncle Paddy (My father’s brother), mentioning to me on a trip to Ireland some years back that before my father immigrated to America he had been in the Irish Army. That was the first anyone of us in the family had learned that he served in the Irish Army, and this was after he had died. In 2007, through research, the Military Archives Section of the Irish Defense Forces was contacted and they were provided upon request, information on my Father’s date and place of birth, his certificate of marriage and my birth certificate proving my status as his son. I received copies of both his enlistment papers and his discharge papers along with a cover letter from the Archives Commandant providing insightful comments regarding his service. As for my Father’s time in the New York State Guard, I recall, and my brother Neil, does too, visiting him when he was in field uniform and in tents during training exercises at the New York National Guard’s base at Camp Smith, New York. Unfortunately, the New York Guard’s Archives Section has not been categorized to the point where information on a member’s past service can be easily retrieved. A number of attempts to find his actual dates of service and the unit he was assigned to have been met without success.

On both Notes 2 and 3, see the movies “Michael Collins”, starring Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn and Julia Roberts (1997), and “The Wind that shakes the Barley”, starring Cillian Murphy (2006). For a first hand and fascinating account of the fighting in Kerry both during the War for Independence and the Civil War, and in particular in the Shrone and Rathmore area of Kerry, read “When Youth Was Mine, A Memoir of Kerry, 1902-1925”, by Jeremiah Murphy (Mentor Press, Dublin, 1998), a contemporary of your great grandparents time in Ireland, and a fellow comrade in arms of your great Uncles John and

Dan, who served in the same IRA “E” Company in the Kerry No. 2 Brigade. A good read is also to be found in the novel “The End of the Hunt”, by Thomas Flanagan (Dutton Press, New York, 1994).

Note 4

During the period of the Berlin Airlift, the beginning of the Cold War in earnest, Harry Truman was President and as a result of the Soviet Union’s expansion; having gobbled up any number of Eastern European countries, the latest being Czechoslovakia, it was feared and justifiably so, that war with Russia was about to begin. The President and his advisors considered the use of atomic weapons to stem the Russian tide if war should come, since Russia in 1948 had twenty Soviet Army divisions around Germany, to our two regiments and comparable British and French forces The French favored appeasement (no surprise here), and felt that the people of Berlin were not worth the risk of war. The Soviets wanted the three Western countries out of Berlin which was within the Russian Occupation Zone of greater Germany, and ultimately, wanted all of Germany under Soviet control and domination. After years of escalating non-cooperation by Russia with the other occupying powers, the Russians made their move, and effectively closed the highway and train corridors preventing goods, in particular food, medicine, and coal for heating to enter the Berlin sectors occupied by the United States, Britain, and France. The Berlin Airlift was the beginning of preventing West Berlin and West Germany (now all of Germany) from becoming another totalitarian state under Soviet Communism.

For an excellent overview of the Berlin Airlift and the crisis at the time, see “The Candy Bombers -The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour”, by Andrei Cherny (The Penguin Group (Putnam), New York, 2008).