Alexander 'baby' grAy

Alexander Gray was born in October 1858 in County Tyrone. His father, the Reverend Alexander Gray, was a Presbyterian minister. In 1880, he enrolled at the Royal Irish Constabulary cadet school in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. In March 1882, at the age of twenty-three, Gray graduated from the RIC cadet school. Having gone through a cadetship, the young Alexander would have been in line to qualify for the rank of sub-inspector once a suitable position came about. In January 1883, he was to receive his first official posting, when he was sent to Dingle, County Kerry, and was giving the position of 3rd sub-inspector for the area. It would take him only four years to rise to the rank of District Inspector.

As an inspector in the Dingle area, Gray would have been heavily involved in the Land Wars of the 1880's and was extremely unsympathetic to the plight of the local tenant farmers, who were evicted from the estate of Lord Ventry, believing that there was no scarcity of money amongst them. In one report, written in January 1886, he wrote:

"There has been more drunkenness amongst the farmers of the county during the past six months than there was for a period of two years immediately preceding...there were fifteen drunk men in the lock up here last night, thirteen of whom were farmers from the west of Dingle."

He goes on to write that: 

"...the principal office-bearers of the [National] League here are bankrupt publicans and needy shopkeepers; it is their interest of course that the landlord should get no rent, and they have used their power effectively for their own advantage."

The Dingle area had been hugely affected by agitation from the Land Wars in the years leading up to Gray's posting there, so much so that a special military detachment was sent there to quell the hostilities, so it is hardly surprising that he was antagonistic towards the Land League.

In June 1889, Gray was transferred to Killarney by the RIC, and it was here that he was involved in an incident that ended up in a book which will be well known, and not in a fond manner, to many Leaving Certificate students in Ireland of a certain age. In the autobiography 'Peig', Gray was forever be immortalised by Peig Sayers as she described the chaotic scenes of a riot, which highlights the strained relationship between the local police and the people of Killarney. In one of the most dramatic passages of her book, Sayers introduces us to Alexander 'Baby' Gray when she wrote:

"The District Inspector did not delay in getting ready. He came across the little bridge on a black horse which had a white star on its forehead. As soon as he got to the bridge, he blew a horn, but when he did, a huge roar erupted from the crowd. I looked towards the bridge and saw this young brave man, dressed in uniform, riding on a black horse. There was bravery and a fierce anger in his eyes, which did not augur well for the crowd above on the street. He had a long lance in his hand and you would think from the sight of him and the music of the little bells and the noise of his horse's hooves that it was the devil himself. As he passed me going towards the crowd, it was clear that he had only one purpose in mind. He blew the horn again and this time there was a massive scattering of people. Within five minutes there was not a single person to be seen on the street, except three men who had been collared by the police. The rider went up and down the street a couple of times, and it would have been a brave man who would not have been afraid of him. When peace had been restored, I asked Seamus; "Who was the man on the horse?". "That's 'Baby' Gray, the D.I.", he replied.

Presumably, Gray had gotten the nickname 'Baby' due to his boyish looks, but by all accounts that's where the similarities ended. Sayers would go on to say that she often saw him afterwards, and would think of the riot that day when she heard years later about his demise after the Battle of Ashbourne.

After his posting in Killarney, Gray would hold a number of positions around Ireland, including in counties Donegal, Antrim, Dublin, Kildare and Roscommon, before eventually being moved to Meath, where he became the County Inspector in June, 1912. Now twenty years older, it seems as though the character that arrived in Meath was very different, and more mellowed, than the one that left Kerry. The political situation that Gray found himself in was now much different to his early days in the RIC. The country was now almost entirely free from agrarian agitation and there was an air of expectation among Nationalist who were preparing for the introduction of a third Home Rule Bill. This is reflected in Gray's monthly reports of the time which show little in the way of rent troubles or evictions. He was also of the opinion that Nationalist groups such as the United Irish League posed little threat to law and order.

The air of passivity would start to change in early 1914 with the forming of the Irish Volunteers, with Gray reporting that twelve branches of the group had been formed in the county by May 1914. By the time World War I had broken out in August of that year, there were now sixty-one branches of Volunteers in County Meath, and some 5,600 men had joined them. Even after the split in the Volunteer movement, when Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond urged the Volunteers to join with the British Army to fight the threat of the Kaiser, Gray noticed that the republican movement was becoming stronger, and by November of that year, recruiting for the British Army in Meath had all but ceased.

From that point on, until  the eventual outbreak of the 1916 Rising, Gray saw a gradual increase in republican activities in the area, but even he would have been taken by surprise by what was to come during Easter Week, 1916. After the outbreak of the rebellion, and with reports filtering in from North County Dublin about the actions of the 5th 'Fingal' Battalion of Irish Volunteers in taking various RIC barracks in the area, Gray assembled a force of RIC at Slane Castle, where they set up a make shift incident room and waited for reports of attacks in Meath. While they prepared themselves for what was to come, the RIC managed to commandeer a fleet of cars from the local landlords, including a number of civilian drivers. This 'Quick Reactionary Force' would be able to mobilise and defend any attack in the county at a moments notice.

On Friday, April 28th, that call was to come, when Alexander Gray received a report that Thomas Ashe and his men had attacked the RIC barracks at the Rath Crossroads near Ashbourne Village. He ordered District Inspector Harry Smyth to stay with the last car of the convoy, while he would take the lead car as they sped off towards the Rath barracks. While they far outnumbered the Irish Volunteers at what would become the 'Battle of Ashbourne', the RIC would make the fatal error of halting the convoy in a position that would allow the Volunteers to flank around to their rear and ambush the RIC, inflicting heavy casualties in the five hour long battle. Gray himself was hit early on during the fight and was rendered incapacitated. Alexander 'Baby' Gray died less than two weeks laters as a result of the wounds he received.

- For a more detailed account of Alexander 'Baby' Grey's life in the Royal Irish Constabulary, you can read the excellent 'Alexander 'Baby' Gray (1858-1916) and the battle at Ashbourne, 28 April 1916' by Terence Dooley.