BOOK: ‘Ambush at Central Park’ is harrowing account of how the IRA came to NYC to get vengeance on a traitor

Of all the weapons the IRA had on its side, the greatest was loyalty.

You stayed true to the cause. You didn’t desert the fight, and you didn’t betray your comrades, not for money, not even under torture.

Because informing was the one sin the IRA would never forgive — or forget.

Mark Bulik’s “Ambush at Central Park” tells why. It’s the story of how one Irishman gave away his comrades’ hiding place, letting the British forces track them down and shoot them. And how, in 1922, Irish avengers followed that snitch all the way to America.

The book’s subtitle, “When the IRA Came to New York,” is a bit misleading, though. Yes, the Irish gunmen went there in search of their target — the only sanctioned IRA attack to ever occur in the United States.

But 1922 wasn’t the first time the organization came to New York.

They had already been there for years, giving speeches and raising money. They recruited sympathizers on the docks and in police stations. They even had friendly priests running guns out of Our Lady of the Scapular of Mount Carmel on E. 28th St.

“A longtime pastor of the church said that at one point,” Bulik writes, “so many weapons were stored in the sacristy of the church that they threatened to break through the floor.”

That American support was crucial. Irish rebels had been busy since the initial failed uprising of 1916. And as the decade drew to a close, the Irish Republican Army was fighting British soldiers in the streets, assassinating English spies — and, occasionally, dealing out rough justice to turncoats.

Paddy O’Connor was one of the IRA’s soldiers. A farmer’s son from Cork, he was a country boy “from a quiet, respectable family,” Bulik writes. “At least that’s what people usually said whenever the O’Connors landed in court after one of their many brawls, feuds, or run-ins with neighbors.”

The older he grew, the more quarrelsome O’Connor became. One of his best-known grudges was with Cork’s streetwalkers.

“He had a persecution mania against prostitutes,” said an IRA man who lived in the neighborhood. Once, when one of the women dared say “Good morning” to him, O’Connor hit her in the face. Her girlfriends were waiting for him that evening. When he cycled past, they grabbed him and gave him a good beating.

By 1920, though, O’Connor decided to stop wasting his time harassing prostitutes and join the rebels instead. His first big job came in early ‘21, helping to ambush a British patrol. O’Connor was even given charge of one of the IRA’s prized acquisitions, a World War I machine gun.

But just as the targets came into sight, something went wrong. O’Connor reportedly fired off a burst prematurely, alerting the patrol. Then, worse, the machine gun stopped working. The IRA kept up the attack and ended up killing at least six of the enemy before the shootout ended. But they felt they had missed a good chance.

Some blamed O’Connor. A few of them even roughed him up a bit.

After O’Connor returned to Cork in disgrace, he was picked up by the police on his way home from church. They frisked him and found a gun — a capital crime. Now facing a death sentence, O’Connor started talking. He talked for days.

By the end of it, he gave them the names of other IRA men and the address of a farm the group used as a safe house.

There were six IRA men bedded down in the stable when British forces arrived. Make a run for it, they said. We’ll give you a sporting chance.

Then, as they ran, the British shot them in the back.

“Had the six men been interrogated, one or more might have broken, and revealed more,” Bulik writes. “But revenge trumped reason, as it often does in civil wars, and so the six surrendered their young lives to a vengeful constabulary that wanted to send a message, written in blood.”

The massacre of unarmed men outraged many — even among the police. One officer told the IRA of the traitor in their midst. The revelation shook O’Connor’s old comrades to the core.

O’Connor “wasn’t some civilian passing along pub gossip — he was one of their own,” Bulik notes. “He hadn’t just betrayed a cause or some comrades in arms he’d only just met. He’d given up men he had known since childhood and turned his back on the community that nurtured him. It was all very personal — in a way that only a revolution and a civil war can be.”

The IRA had a new target now.

Except getting to him wasn’t going to be easy. The British never charged O’Connor, but they kept him locked up in protective custody. His mother dutifully delivered a daily home-cooked lunch. (A plot to have a female member dress up as an old lady and slip him a poisoned meal fell apart when Mrs. O’Connor arrived, too.)

After that, the British spirited O’Connor off to England.

The IRA tracked him to London, but by then, O’Connor moved on to Liverpool. From there, he sailed to America. Settling in Manhattan — where much of his family had already moved — O’Connor landed a bookkeeping job at department store B. Altman’s. He moved into an apartment on the Upper West Side.

But the IRA’s hit squad — Pa Murray, Danny Healy, and Martin Donovan — hadn’t given up yet. They followed him to New York and tracked him to Altman’s. O’Connor spotted them and stopped coming to work. But then they staked out his building on Columbus Ave. They put it under constant surveillance, the three men taking different posts.

On April 13, 1922, O’Connor stepped outside for a smoke and spotted Murray, walking down W. 84th St., headed right for him. O’Connor turned tail and ran for Central Park. That’s when Healy stepped out from behind a tree.

“I’ve got you now,” Healy said calmly and shot him in the chest.

Except O’Connor didn’t go down. Instead, he broke into a run. Healy raced after him, firing. One bullet struck a building. Two more struck the target. Still, O’Connor kept running. He zig-zagged, trying to dodge Healy — and ran straight into Donovan. Donovan fired, too, but his gun jammed. Finally, badly wounded, O’Connor collapsed on the steps of the Semple School for Girls on Central Park West.

Healy caught up with him and shot him twice more.

The three hitmen sped off in an accomplice’s car. Later, American sympathizers secured fake passports for them. They stowed away on separate ships and left for Europe and were never charged.

It was over.

Except it wasn’t — quite. O’Connor may have taken four bullets, but he hadn’t died. Still, the IRA wearily closed the books. Perhaps the men O’Connor had sent to their deaths hadn’t been fully avenged, but a message had been sent.

And a lesson had definitely been learned.

“O’Connor … absolutely refused to give the detectives any information about who had shot him, and why,” Bulik writes. “He told them how it happened but whenever he was asked to name his attackers, he would resolutely shake his head. The informer wouldn’t inform.”