The Infiltrators
A Cumann na mBan, abbreviated above as CnamB, Christmas Card Sent to Rosalie
Rosalie Rice
The Spy in the Post office:
Rosalie Rice
Click on the audio above to hear our interview with George Rice, talking about his Aunt Rosalie
Rosalie Rice was a member of Cumann na mBan which was the Irish republican women's paramilitary. Her familly were still huge supporters if the IRB. She was also a member of Sinn Fèin. She worked in the post office since the age of sixteen. At the age of eighteen Rosalie was put in charge of sending a telegram to the nationalist leaders of Sinn Fèin in America, letting them know that the 1916 rising had began. On the 24th of April 1916 the telegram was sent through Valencia cable station and received in New York. It read "Mother succesfully operated on today". Mother was a metaphor for Ireland.
The telegram was received by John Devoy, a founder of the IRB in New York. The rising was headline of the New York newspapers before it was headline of the London newspapers. This meant that it was impossible for Britain to cover up the executions of the leaders of the rising. It was this telegram that saved Eamonn de Valera from being executed and saved the lives of many republicans sentenced to death by Military Tribunals, as because America had not yet joined World War one they instead turned their attention to Ireland.
The Americans, began to grow very suspicous of the telegram after it was sent incase it was a fake telegram. After looking into the matter, Rosalie was interviewed by the jury along with her two cousins Timothy and Eugene Ring who fowarded the telegram from the Western Union cable station in Valencia to New York under Tim's initials- TR. Timothy and Eugene were also members of the I.R.B. Without proper trial, Rosalie was imprisoned in the Tralee barracks for six months. Tim was sent to Frongach Camp in Wales along with many other participants in the rising and Eugene was dismissed from his position in the Western Union.
The telegram was easily traced back to Tim, as there was only one cable station in Ireland at that time- the Western Union in Valencia. A telegram could only be sent out of Ireland from a cable station so it was obvious it had come from Valencia. There was only one man with the initials T.R. working there, and that was Timothy Ring. The telegram was then simply traced back to Rosalie from the records that recorded the person who fowarded the message.
John Devoy
Once the civil war began in 1921, Rosalie was immediately imprisoned as a precaution. This was to eliminte any possibility that America would be notified about the war again.
She later married and had two children, a girl and a boy.
Rosalie died around the year 1960.
On the right is Rosalie' Autograph book. Like many prisoners at the time, Rosalie had an autograph book in her possession. This is a brilliant resource, detailing her associations and views during the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War
