Dan Breen Daniel " Dan " Breen ( ; 11 August 1894 – 27 December 1969 ) was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War . In later years , he was a Fianna Fáil politician . Background . Dan Breen was born in Grange , Donohill parish , County Tipperary . His father died when Dan was six , leaving them very poor . Looking back on his upbringing in a family of tenant farmers , Breen recalled in a 1967 interview , " I remember an Englishman asking me in England , oh , about thirty years ago , is it true that we kept the pig in the kitchen . ' No , we ' d have him in the bedroom , ' I said . ' If we didn ' t , ' I said , ' we couldn ' t pay the rent to bastards like you . ' " He was educated locally before becoming a plaster er , and later a linesman on the Great Southern Railway . Revolutionary . Breen was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1912 and the Irish Volunteers in 1914 . On 21 January 1919 , the day the First Dáil met in Dublin , Breen took part in an ambush at Soloheadbeg . The ambush party of eight men , led by Seán Treacy , attacked a group of Royal Irish Constabulary men who were escorting explosives to a quarry . The two policemen , James McDonnell and Patrick O ’ Connell were fatally shot during the ensuing gunfight . The ambush is considered to be the first incident of the Irish War of Independence . He later recalled : " " . . . we took the action deliberately , having thought over the matter and talked it over between us . Treacy had stated to me that the only way of starting a war was to kill someone , and we wanted to start a war , so we intended to kill some of the police whom we looked upon as the foremost and most important branch of the enemy forces . . . The only regret that we had following the ambush was that there were only two policemen in it , instead of the six we had expected . . . " " During the Irish War of Independence , Breen had a £10 , 000 price on his head , however , he quickly established himself as a leader within the Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) . Numerous stories are known about his heroism , one of which details the rescuing of his comrade Seán Hogan at gunpoint from a heavily guarded train at Knocklong station in County Limerick . Another incident occurred in Dublin when he shot his way out through a British military cordon in the northern suburb of Drumcondra ( Fernside ) in which he and volunteer Seán Treacy escaped only for Treacy to be killed soon after . Breen was shot at least four times , twice of which were in the lung ( the first being in the Knocklong rescue ) . He was present at the ambush in Ashtown on the Meath / Dublin border where Martin Savage was killed while trying to assassinate the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , Viscount French . In the June 1922 elections Breen was nominated as a candidate by both the pro - and anti - Treaty sides , but was not elected . Irish Civil War . Breen was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1923 general election as a Republican , anti - Treaty Teachta Dála ( TD ) for the Tipperary constituency . Following the Anglo - Irish Treaty , Breen joined the Anti - Treaty IRA in the unsuccessful civil war against his former comrades in arms . He was arrested by the National Army of the Irish Free State and interned at Limerick Prison . He spent two months here before going on a Hunger strike for 6 days followed by going on thirst strike for six days . Dan Breen was then released . Politics . Breen published an account of his guerrilla days , " My Fight for Irish Freedom " in 1924 . He represented the Tipperary constituency from the fourth Dáil in 1923 as a " Republican " , along with Éamon de Valera and Frank Aiken . He became the first anti - Treaty TD to actually take his seat in 1927 . He was defeated in the June 1927 general election and decided to travel to the United States where he opened a prohibition speakeasy . He returned to Ireland and regained his seat as a member of Fianna Fáil in the Dáil at the 1932 general election . During World War II he was known to hold largely pro - Axis views although he was not as some have suggested anti - semitic . In 1948 an Irish - American visited Breen and was shocked to see two pictures of Adolf Hitler on the wall of Breen ' s study . Breen explained to him : " He fought for freedom but not for democracy " . He represented his Tipperary constituency without a break until his retirement at the 1965 election . Death . He died in Dublin in 1969 and was buried in Donohill , near the place of his birth . His funeral was the largest seen in West Tipperary since his close friend and comrade - in - arms , Seán Treacy was buried at Kilfeacle in October 1920 . An estimated attendance of 10 , 000 mourners assembled in the tiny hamlet , giving ample testimony to the esteem in which he was held . Breen was the subject of a 2007 biography , " Dan Breen and the IRA " by Joe Ambrose .