Irish (?) contract No4 rifles

[Frederick303]

well judging by the counter, folks are still interested in this, so here are some we-writes of some old posts I put up on Gunboards back in the August 2013 time frame. The following is the amalgamation of the data collected to 4 April 2015 on the Irish Army and their use of the Enfield rifle.



The Irish SMLE story, part 1, 1919 to 1925
By Frederick R Salberta



The Free State army was organized on 16 January 1922, after the signing of the peace treaty. “Independence” was formally declared on 3 May 1922. By independence Ireland, other than Ulster became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, with no representation in the UK parliament. At the same time they recognized the King as sovereign. The UK retained control over several treaty ports and the 6 counties of that made up Ulster or Northern Ireland.

As there were significant portions of the IRA that did not agree to the treaty, specifically the division of Ireland, being in the empire, the treaty ports and their fervent desire for a strictly republican form of government, it seemed war was imminent between two factions of the IRA. The pro treaty people went on to become the Free State army, while the opposition remained the IRA. Because the UK wanted no part of the conflict but wanted the IRA put down, they agreed to supply arms to the newly formed Irish free state army.

The first 100 SMLE MK III rifles were sent to Ireland provisional troops in early February of 1922. Shipments halted briefly in March due to IRA seizure of English supplied arms, to be resumed after April 16th. There was also the suspicion (subsequently verified) that Michael Collins was supplying IRA units in Northern Ireland with U.K. supplied arms to use against the RUC and Ulster “Specials”. The UK took a dim view of this. It was after this break that the supplied rifles have new unique serial numbers applied and the old serial numbers lined out. This work was all done, in so far as examination of rifles markings allow, at Enfield Lock. This is verified by the appearance of a additional examiners mark not seen on rifles that doe not go through the facility.

The rifles supplied form from stocks on hand and as such LSA, BSA, SSA, Enfield and even the occasional pre 1918 Lithgow and Ishapore rifle show up with the Enfield examiners marks and the new serial numbers applied (more on the new numbers later in the article). A lot of SSA rifles and an occasional NRF rifle make their appearance as well.

Between January 16 and June of 1922 England provided the Irish Free State with 11,900 rifles, 4200 revolvers and 79 machine guns.

By June of 1922 the opposing IRA forces had only 6,780 rifles and a small number of machineguns, the remaining arms being made up of shotguns (between 3,000 and 6,000). Of the rifles, only a subset were Enfield Rifles, a few Model 71 Mausers and many 98 Mausers being among the arms used by the IRA (as well as Mauser model 95 rifles, Gras and lebel rifles and pretty much anything that the IRA could smuggle in). A sizeable quantity of GEW 1898 rifles were imported into Waterford in March of 1922. It is likely that there were at 1500 to 2000 Gew 98 rifles based on that incident and arms brought in by returning soldiers from WWI. The source of ant-treaty IRA SMLE rifles were three fold, some were smuggled in between 1918 and 1922, about 3,000 were taken off of retreating British troops (which were told not to provoke any incident) or taken off of newly created free state forces that did not resist in Cork county. The last source was those rifles captured in fighting from either the RIC or the other British forces during the war of independence. The exact numbers of Enfields in the above figures of 6,780 is unknown, but it is likely on the order of 3,500~to just under 4,000 rifles. Of that no more than 385 were RIC pattern. In nay case the IRA forces were badly outnumbered and outgunned.

Interestingly in the period before the conflict broke out between the two sides, the Free State troops did an interesting weapons swap with the IRA. Because other than the first few hundred guns supplied to the Free State forces all Enfields supplied had a unique serial number applied. As such Michal Collins could not supply these arms to IRA forces operating in Ulster without the UK knowing. In fact though he was ready to combat his fellow countrymen in the south to see the treaty stick, at the same time he had not abandoned the idea of bring Ulster back into the Irish free state and was actively supporting the IRA in the north. So to get sterile arms to supply to those forces, the Irish Free State army swapped their British supplied arms with the IRA at the Dublin court house before June of 1922. The best guess is this occurred in May and that he number of arms exchanged was between 400 and 500 rifles. During this period between April of 1922 to June 28 1922 there was a lot of pre-positioning and small scale theft of arms by the two opposing forces. A careful reading of the IRA activities in Ulster in the 1922 to 1925 time period tends to indicate that any RIC carbines that Michael Collins had were set up north.

Civil war broke out between the two sides on 28 June 1922 and with it an end to any further arms swaps. From the Start the Free Stte forces had the upper hand and to ensure this matter continued the UK continued to supply arms directly to the Free stat forces . Up to September of 1922 England provided The Irish Free State (pro treaty IRA) with 27,400 rifles, 6,606 revolvers and 249 machine guns.

By August of 1922 20,060 of the rifles were distributed to troops, the remainders were in stores. By the end of the 1922, most all stocks of rifles had been issued out. The Free State started asking for more rifles and supplies from the UK. At the same time the Irish Free State army, made up of young recruits for the most part, showed they could not keep much of the stock of arms they had in working order. As such the UK seems to have decided that the remaining arms to be supplied would be older less capable arms.

In between the fall of 1922 and the end of 1923 some quantity of arms were turned over to the Free State so it could fight the IRA in the civil war. Numbers of rifles delivered unknown but a review of the pictures of Free state troops, published figures of rifles stocks and serial number studies indicate that about 10,000 SMLE MK I*** rifles were delivered at this time, along with a small stock of SMLE MK III rifles (or the SMLE rifles had been supplied after September of 1922 and before the spring of 1923). All had new serial numbers applied. The deliveries did include 9-18 pounders and limited stocks of shells, as well as numbers of Morris armoured cars. It is most likely that Enfield rifles were in these shipments in or around mid 1923, June of 1923 being the best guess, based on the various parliamentary commentaries that have come to light. It would seem after this event that no further rifles were supplied by Great Britain, as it was seen that the Irish Free State was going to be able to subdue the Anti-treaty faction. By the end of 1923 this was largely the state of affairs in Ireland, even as the civil war became a bit more ugly with bombings, and reprisals between the Free State forces and the IRA getting ever uglier.

When the IRA went underground in 1924, they told their man to dump or stash their arms, as to be caught with arms by that time was a death sentence for the mere possession of un permitted arms. Free State army captured many of the arms used by the IRA by 1925, by digging them up or searching building, tip-offs on the location, as well as torture to procure the location. Most recovered arms were in poor condition. After the end of the Irish Civil war large quantities of captured arms were dumped in the Irish Sea. Documented arms were captured pistols and revolvers of non-standard pattern (not .455 cal). Though not documented, the lack of any sales records indicate Mauser rifles and other odd ball arms were destroyed at this time (other than a small numbers retained for various purposes). It would seem that the Irish Free State sought to only retain those arms that were SMLE pattern, though there were small stocks of CLLE and possibly Ross rifles retained.

Of the 27,500 renumbered SMLE rifles supplied to the Irish army, approximately 500 were supplied to the IRA in exchange for unmarked rifles by in July 1922. Of these 500 rifles ~200 to 300 were destroyed in the siege of the Dublin court house and subsequent fighting in Dublin between the two sides.

In 1925 the Irish Free State Army had 42,500 rifles on hand, of which only 8,000 were considered first line (serviceable). This number does not include all of the rifles turned in or captured by the army in the civil war, many of which were not Lee Enfield pattern rifles. It’s likely all of the non-standard arms were dumped at sea, as it is documented was done with the pistols but that evidence is not sure. Also supposedly used were limited numbers of Ross Mk III rifles, (as it is known that at least 21 were captured by the IRA between 1919 and 1921) though no pictures exist or any surplus sales record. A small number of CLLE rifles show up in stores in WWII, though where and how they came into the possession of the Free State remains unknown.

Given the known facts we can estimate the Irish Free states stock of arms in 1925, as follows:

SMLE MK III/III* with new added serial numbers ~26,700 to 27,200
SMLE MK III with existing serial numbers ~5,400 to 5,900
SMLE MK I***, second line condition: ~9,800 to 9,950
Ross rifles, RIC carbines, Mausers, retained ~100 rifles (??)
Total stocks ~42,500

Serial numbers: So now you are wondering, what about the newly applied serial numbers. What were they? Well here is the code, published first on Gun boards in August of 2013:

The new SMLE MK III serial numbers started with N1 , went to the N999, then to O1000 to O1999, then P2000 to P2999 and so on until you get to M25000. Now when they got to M25999, instead of using a new letter they just continued the series up to around M27500. The serial number sampled to date range from N17 to M27489, so there may be some numbers above that have not been found yet. That is the key to identifying an Irish SMLE MKIII or III* that was OFFICALLY supplied to the Irish free state by the British in 1921 to 1923 time frame. Not the FF stamp, which comes later. Some quantities of rifles, between 100 and most likely under 1000 were also supplied with the original serial numbers intact between February of 1921 and March of 1921.

Now the code for the SMLE MK I***: There are 3 serial ranges, ER, CR and G. ER rifles are in original SMLE MK I*** shape (many ex navy rifles) CR rifles have had the MK I*** forend inletted for the MK III rear handguard, have a MK III rear sight on the existing MK I rear sight base and have a MK III or MK I modified to MK II shape rear handguard. G refers to rifles that were wire wrapped for grenade launching use. Here the official records do not exist for how many were sent out but it would seem based on the current research that ~10,000 or just short of that were sent over around June of 1923. That is by no means exact, but the best guess working with the data that does exist.

The serial number ranges found to date in a sample size of 210 rifles is as follows:
ER rifles, ER 1 to 9600
CR rifles CR 1 to 4060
G rifles G1 to G2185 (supposedly seen up to G 3000, no actual samples documented)

Now an observant chap will note this adds up to more than 10,000 rifles. From taking the serial numbers and running them through a bit of statistical analysis, it would seem the serial numbers were run concurrent, rather than in separate sequence. That is the serial numbers started with 1 and run through 9600, with the CR and ER rifles being mixed in. It would seem the first 400 of the G rifles had only the G serial number applied, there was no lined out ER number as one finds post G538. So if this analysis is correct (and ultimately the larger the sample size gets the easier it will be to prove or disprove this hypothesis) the serial numbers run as follows:

1-9600 ER and CR prefixes, no over lapping numbers (less one or two mistakes, none seen to date). The numbers seem to run in blocks, such as there are very few low number CR rifles under CR 478, where as there are a lot of ER numbers in this range. The opposite pattern seems to exist between CR500 to about serial number 4060, after which no CR serial numbers show up. Between CR/ER 4060 and ER 9600 no CR number show up at all. There are a mix of ER numbers in the ER 39 through ER 4060 block. The G numbers run from G1 (which was actually a NRF MK III* rifle) to G377 with the possibility of this number running as high as G537. Where the rifles stopped being marked as G only and became reworked ER re-stamped as G rifles seems to occur between G 377 and G538. Between G538 and G2185 the rifles seem to have been reworked later as the ER numbers are canceled out and a new G number applied. Simply stated the data base of G marked rifles is only 33 in number, too few to allow a better estimation.

What is known about the non-re-numbered SMLE MKIII rifles is very vague. Presumably a small number were commercial models, as it is known in 1914 at the start of the war there were limited numbers of commercial models bought up by the volunteer movement (fellows that did the Easter uprising and then became the IRA). Around 3,000 to 3,500 of the rifles were likely arms take off of the British soldiers by the IRA when they pulled out of Ireland in the spring of 1922. Between 100 and 1000 of the first rifles provided to the Irish Free State had no new serial numbers applied. The remaining numbers were likely arms that were taken, captured or smuggled in during the fighting between 1919 and the end of 1923 when the IRA essentially folded.

The above is based on published sources and examination of rifles in the data base I have been building. As of today it includes over 1500 Irish linked arms, with 1461 of them being Enfields of one pattern or another. Of that figure, 161 are SMLE MK III, 210 are SMLE MK I*** and 102 are RIC carbines. Other than the theory about the SMLE MKI*** rifles serial number ranges and assignment everything above can be traced back to a written source and for the most part not conjecture but based on the best reading of the evidence to date.