in the rates. The County Council called on the IRA for assistance with rate collection, but they raided rate collectors and tendered to the Council money which had already been collected. They also demanded £1,000 as poundage or commission but this was refused on the basis that they had not collected the money. The IRA were led by Robert George Bradshaw, a man who had arrived in Sligo from Dublin in 1915, having just been released from Mountjoy prison with a caution, where he had been remanded for fraud. Clancy on his own responsibility offered them £500; they refused and ordered him to have £1,000 ready 'or take the consequences'. Clancy handed over the money. The demand was branded 'entirely irregular' by Richard Mulcahy, IRA Chief of Staff, and after an investigation, Sligo IRA was ordered to repay the money but apparently never did. Farry comments that 'Clancy's initial refusal of the IRA's demand for payment for collecting the rates was not forgiven by that body. This may also explain why he, the sitting TD for North Sligo, was not selected for the 1921 election'. He was married with four children. On 3 May 1932, when he was 42, his body was found in the River Shannon at Limerick. He had gone to Mass in Tipperary on Sunday 1 May but had not returned. The verdict at the inquest on 4 May was that he had drowned accidentally. He was interred at his wife's family burial place at Ardmoyle, County Tipperary. References Sources Dod's Parliamentary Companion, London, 1920 Michael Farry, The Irish Revolution, 1912-23: Sligo, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2012 The Irish Times, 16 February, 8 April & 7 June 1919; 23 June 1920; 5 & 6 May 1932 Brian M. Walker (ed.), Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978 1890s births 1932 deaths Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Sligo constituencies (1801–1922) UK MPs 1918–1922 Members of the 1st Dáil Politicians from County Sligo Early Sinn Féin TDs