-Work in Progress July 2020
Between 1919 and 1921, almost 1,400 people died in the struggle for the recognition of an independent and free Ireland. Cork and its county saw the bloodiest of the fighting, in total 528 people lost their lives directly due to the conflict.
Beyond the recognised memorials to the volunteers and major landmarks of significance there are many more sites where men, women, children, members of the British forces and Irish Volunteers lost their lives and are not acknowledged or marked in any way.
My photographic focus on these overlooked and unmarked sites gives a timely, unnerving presence and look to reassert these lost lives into the history and its interpretation of this troubled time.
A way of projecting the past into the present.
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Site-506 Mount Vernon
Site-457 Model Farm Road
Site-108 Collins Barracks
Site-179 St Peter and Pauls Church
Site-181 Lakelands
Site-358 Pauls Avenue
Site-504 Mayfield
Site-048 North Gate Bridge
Site-184 Dillons Cross
Site-397 Andersons Quay
Site-038 Leitrim Street
Site-522 The Lough
Site-099 Boreenmanna Road
Site-128 Broad Street
Site-046 Elizabeth Fort
Site-134-136 Princess Street
Site-216 Patrick Street
Site-233 Patricks Quay
Site-191 General Post Office/Pembroke Street
Site-192 General Post Office/Pembroke Street
Site-126 White Street
Site-423-425 Blackpool
Site-180 Grand Parade
Site-019 Glanmire
Site-117 North Gate Bridge
Site-308 Conkleys Lane
Site-384 Prison Gate
Site-127-Broad Lane
Site-316 Caroline Street
Site-393 Douglas Street
Site-507 Lavitts Quay
Site-166 Carrolls Bog
Site-487 Blarney
Site-490 Cattle Lane
Site-012 Patrick Street
Site-319 North Main Street
Site-203 Western Road
Site-048 North Gate Bridge
Site-499 Ballincollig
Site-247-Dennehys Cross
Site-178 Water St
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Site-506 Mount Vernon
Volunteer Charles J. Daly. A member of the Cork No. 1 Brigade and later battalion adjutant, Daly (31) was shot on 28 June 1921 by Lieutenant Hammond of the Dorset Regiment, allegedly as he was trying to escape after offering to provide information on the whereabouts of IRA battalion weapons. His body was found in a field near Mount Vernon in the Cork suburb of Douglas. According to the medical examiner’s autopsy of Daly’s body. It reported that Daly suffered six bullet wounds, five bayonet wounds, a broken left eye socket, a crushed skull, fractured ribs and fingers, and a broken arm, tibia, and fibula. He concluded that Daly was beaten to death He had previously been employed at the Gas Office on the South Mall and at the time of his death as an engineer at a local gas works. He was unmarried. He had also been a member of the Cork Rural District Council. Daly in 1911 a member of a household headed by his older brother John that included two younger brothers and two younger sisters. He was interred in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork city. -
Site-457 Model Farm Road
Civilian Christopher William. An ex-soldier, O’Sullivan (22) was kidnapped on the 26th May 1921 from his house by ‘two strong, tall, young men. Dragged down River Lane, put into a motor car, and driven off.’ He was shot dead in a field adjoining the Model Farm Road near Dennehy’s Cross. The doctor at the inquest reported finding bullet wounds in the left ear and the forehead. A note found on the body stated, ‘Dear [wife], I am going to my God.’ Listed as one of the numerous ex-soldiers and Victoria Barracks employees whom the IRA considered as spies and executed. He had worked as a motor mechanic in Victoria Barracks but had lost that job some six weeks earlier. He was one of the sons of Daniel and Kate O’Sullivan of Blarney St. -
Site-108 Collins Barracks
Civilian Edward Meade. Meade (44) was accidentally shot and wounded inside Victoria Barracks when on the 23rd Oct 1920, as he was passing a lorry full of armed soldiers, one soldier’s rifle went off and a bullet struck him in the head. The cause of death was said to have been an accidental gunshot wound causing injury to the brain and the spine. He died in the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Montenotte, a fact suggesting that after having been fatally wounded, he survived a little longer than reported in the local press. An ex-soldier who had participated in the Italian campaign during the Great War, Meade was employed in the barracks as a clerk. He lived near Clarkes Bridge in the city centre. -
Site-179 St Peter and Pauls Church
Civilian Michael J. Murphy. Cork was the scene of wild excitement on Wednesday night, 8 December 1920, when there was much gunfire in different parts of the city by military lorries. Shortly after 9 p.m. shots were heard near SS. Peter and Paul Church, where a Triduum of Masses had just opened for members of the Young Men’s Society. When he was shot in the chest, Michael Murphy (21), a clerk that had worked at the GPO in Cork in the telegraph department since the age of 14, was standing just outside of the church. He had been attending the mass. Though rushed by ambulance to the North Infirmary, he was dead on arrival. Murphy had worked at the GPO in Cork in the telegraph department since the age of 14. ‘He had no connection with any political association.’ There was a wild stampede in the congested precincts of the church, and the terrified congregation rushed back into the church or took such shelter as immediately offered.’ While Murphy lay ‘writhing in agony’, Fr Timothy Cullinane, C.C., ‘anointed him on the steps of the church’. Michael Murphy and his older brother John were the stepsons of Ellen and John Foran, who had two sons of their own. -
Site-181 Lakelands
Civilian George Horgan. A working-class Protestant, Horgan (20) was abducted from his residence at Ballintemple by the city IRA on 9 December 1920. The IRA executed him the same day for espionage on a farm at Lakelands in Blackrock. In Horgan’s case connections with the police seem likely. His father had served in the RIC, Horgan himself had been a member of the Royal Army Service Corps. His brother Denis died near the of the First World War, having served with the Royal Field Artillery. Horgan is listed as among the twenty-six alleged spies executed by the city IRA in 1920 and 1921. On the 9th December, at 5 o’clock in the morning, several armed men knocked at his house, and George Horgan was called for. He came down the stairs and in reply to their questions said that he was George Horgan and asked them what they wanted. They told him to dress and he did so. The household by this time was roused, Anna, his mother got into a great state of distress. Before going, he appealed to his mother not to worry, that he would be all right, and bade her good-bye. His body was never recovered. Widower and mother Anna Horgan of Ballintemple had 8 children, 3 of which resided with her at the time, including George The Recorder of Cork awarded compensation of £900 to Anna. -
Site-358 Pauls Avenue
Civilian Jeremiah Mullane. An ex-soldier, James Mullane (22) on the 20th March 1921 was ‘proceeding home shortly after curfew hour, when he was overtaken by a curfew patrol. He was, of course, challenged but did not respond and was fired on and fell on Pauls Avenue. The patrol conveyed him to the Mercy Hospital, where on arrival it was found that life was extinct, and that death was due to a gunshot wound in the chest.’ -
Site-504 Mayfield
Private Frederick Crowther . Three members of the South Staffordshire Regiment’s 2nd Battalion—Privates Crowther (25), Spooner, and Evans—were returning to Victoria Barracks from a public house at Dillon’s Cross on Monday night, 27 June 1921, when IRA gunmen attacked them on the Mayfield Road, killing Crowther and wounding Spooner. According to Evans evidence at Crowther’s inquiry: ‘We went into a public house for a drink. I heard some men in this public house, which is on the corner of Dillon’s Cross, refer to the three of us as “Staffordshire bastards” or words to that effect. We then left this house and found a crowd of men on the corner. We were unarmed and afraid to pass through them, because of their hostile manner. We therefore went up the Mayfield Road and past the church. Civilians followed us. Crowther went over the hedge to urinate, leaving Spooner and myself in the road. Crowther was talking to a civilian whom I could not identify, and Spooner and I sat down to wait for Crowther. About nine civilians came out of the hedge and shouted, “Put ’em up” and immediately opened fire on us. One of the civilians shouted. “There’s another over the hedge, and some of them went through the hedge towards Crowther. I did not hear any more shooting, and after the civilians had run away, I searched for Crowther but could not find any trace of him. I helped Spooner back to barracks.’ Spooner testified in reference to Crowther that he and Evans had ‘heard shots some distance away five or six minutes after I had been wounded’. Crowther’s dead body was soon found by other soldiers. There were bullet wounds in his side, chest, and head. Crowther was interred in Holy Trinity Churchyard at Heathtown, Wolverhampton in the West Midlands. -
Site-048 North Gate Bridge
Civilian James Burke or Bourke An ex-soldier, Burke (42) was ‘done to death’ in the early hours of 18 July 1920 at North Gate Bridge by members of a military patrol from the South Staffordshire Regiment. Burke and his friends had been fighting with two off-duty soldiers who had earlier called them ‘Irish pigs’. Police were breaking up the fight when the jumpy military patrol arrived on the scene; one of these soldiers then fired the shot that fatally wounded Burke. His injuries included a lacerated liver, a torn lung, and another gaping wound six or eight inches deep, possibly from a bayonet or other sharp instrument. On the wall of a house close by which Burke lay before he was removed, some person wrote with his blood: ‘R.I.P. Killed by military of the Staffordshire Regt.’ In the funeral procession that followed Burke’s body to the burial ground in Curraghkippane on 20 July 1920, nearly 5,000 ex-servicemen were said to have marched. The killing of James Burke led to ‘one of the largest outbreaks of violence during the Anglo-Irish War in Cork city’. Hundreds of enraged former servicemen attacked and brawled with off-duty British soldiers throughout the city. The disturbances continued for two days and were finally broken up when British forces fired into a crowd, killing two and wounding twenty. Burke was unmarried and had worked as a labourer at the Eclipse Chemical Works on Blarney Street in Cork. He had served with the Second Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the war. -
Site-184 Dillons Cross
RIC Constable Spencer Rougier Chapman. On the night of the 11th Dec 1920, a six-man Volunteer squad made their way to a low wall at Dillon’s Cross, led by Captain Sean O’Donoghue. Two trucks loaded with Auxiliaries from K Coy, approx. 24 men left Victoria Barracks on their way to report to Union Quay RIC Barracks. As the Auxiliaries approached the cross, Volunteer Michael Kenny stepped out on the road to slow the convoy. At that moment 2 grenades were thrown at the trucks, injuring 11 and fatally wounding Chapman (28), who died the next day. Later that evening several houses were burnt at Dillon’s Cross The burning and sacking of Cork followed immediately after this ambush Chapman had served in the Great War with the London regiment of the Royal Fusiliers. He was married to Yvonne M Cardon the daughter of a French officer. They had one child and lived in Essex. -
Site-397 Andersons Quay
Civilian Stephen O’Callaghan. O’Callaghan (28) was shot and fatally wounded on Anderson’s Quay on Friday night, 29 April 1921, and died from shock and haemorrhage later at the South Infirmary. One of the numerous ex-soldiers executed as a spy by the IRA. He did not appear to have had a known association with the police or the military. Just before his death he had played a street card game and was in the company of a prostitute when he was shot. She screamed for help. One of the witnesses at a subsequent military inquiry described her as both drunk and a member of ‘the unfortunate class’. During the Great War, O’Callaghan had served at least 4 year’s active service with the Royal Munster Fusiliers, in Western Europe and perhaps at Gallipoli. He was a recipient of the British Army Service Medal and the Victory Medal. He was an unemployed dock labourer drawing a military disability at the time of his death. O’Callaghan was one of the four co-resident children of the Cork city shopkeeper and vintner Ellen O’Callaghan. -
Site-038 Leitrim Street
Civilian Daniel Fitzgerald Fitzgerald (28) of Walsh’s Avenue was killed by a military motor lorry in Leitrim Street on the evening of 15 June 1920 as he was crossing the street. Some Cork citizens objected strongly to the presence of armed soldiers inside and outside the North Infirmary, where the coroner’s inquest was held. -
Site-522 The Lough
Private Henry Alfred Morris, Corporal Harold Daker, Sapper Albert G Camm and Sapper Albert Edward Powell. The four young soldiers, Morris (21), Daker (28), Camm (20) and Powell (20) were kidnapped near Gaol Cross on Sunday night, 10 July 1921, and executed on the north side of The Lough and their bodies dumped at Ellis Quarry on its south side. All four were found blindfolded and shot dead. They were unarmed. It has been suggested that the killing of these men was a personal reprisal by the IRA for the murder of Volunteer Denis Spriggs on 8 July-just two days earlier. At 8 p.m. they were captured by a patrol of seven IRA Volunteers who had been searching an area from Donovan’s Bridge along the Western Road to find a suspected civilian informer. The only surviving account of the executions by an IRA participant is the official report sent to IRA GHQ, which gave no indication as to the grounds on which the execution was carried out. It simply reads: “We held up four soldiers and searched them but found no arms. We took them to a field in our area where they were executed before 9 p.m.”’ -
Site-099 Boreenmanna Road
Civilian Joseph Cotter Cotter’s body was discovered on 15 October 1920 in a disused quarry in the eastern suburbs of Cork city between the Ballinlough and Boreenmanna Roads; he had been missing for two days. He had several wounds on his face, head, and neck. After the onset of curfew on 13 October, a soldier had fired a shot at residents, and Cotter may have run to the vicinity of the quarry to avoid curfew patrols. On balance the evidence points to death by misadventure. -
Site-128 Broad Street
Fianna Éireann Scout Patrick Hanley. A labourer, the teenager Hanley (17) was gunned down shortly before midnight on the night of 17-18 November 1920 in his home in Cork city in reprisal for the killing of Sergeant O’Donoghue. Mrs Stephen Coleman, who lived below Hanley at 2 Broad Street, described the man who broke open her front door, charged up the stairs, and burst into her and her husband’s bedroom as ‘a man wearing a uniform, a cap, and goggles’. This same gunman then went further upstairs and killed Patrick Hanley with a bullet just above the heart. The gunman fired even though Hanley declared, ‘Don’t shoot. I am an orphan and my mother’s chief support’. The remains of Volunteer Eugene O’Connell (whom had been shot a little while earlier on Broad Lane) and Fianna scout Patrick Hanley were laid out in the mortuary of Mercy Hospital in Cork, ‘large crowds gathered, and many hundreds made a pilgrimage to the scene to breathe a prayer for the repose of their souls’. Hanley was buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery. -
Site-046 Elizabeth Fort
Civilian Mary Anne Ward. Ward (61) died of an apparent heart attack under conditions of the highest stress while being removed from Elizabeth Fort on the night of the 11th July 1920. Volunteers forced an entry into that part of the barracks building where the Wards were sleeping and ordered them to leave within five minutes. As they made their way out, Mrs Ward collapsed into unconsciousness. The Volunteers then helped to carry the prostrate Mrs Ward across the street to Mrs Coughlan’s Pub, and according to her husband Arthur Ward, they had rendered every kind of assistance and ‘treated us with courtesy’. William Lehane, the medical doctor at the inquest, suggested ‘cardiac failure, the result of fright,’ as the most probable cause of her death. Coroner William Murphy told the members of the jury that they should ‘find a verdict of death from heart failure, accelerated by excitement’. The jury essentially agreed. Married for twenty-seven years, Mary and her husband Arthur (57) were the parents of nine living children. -
Site-134-136 Princess Street
Volunteer Patrick O’Donoghue Volunteer Patrick Trahey Volunteer James Mehigan The explosion of a bomb inflicted heavy casualties in Cork city: ‘A mysterious bomb explosion took place at nine o’clock on the 23rd November 1920, in Prince’s Street, Cork. About sixteen persons sustained injuries. Two deaths had taken place at the time of writing, and others are expected.’ Three Volunteers were killed in this explosion—Patrick O’Donoghue, James Mehigan, and Patrick Trahey. Those who were wounded by the explosion were taken to the North or the South Infirmary. When the remains of the three dead Volunteers were removed from the Mercy Hospital and one other facility to St Finbarr’s Church South on 25 November, there was an impressive public display of solidarity and sympathy: ‘The coffins, which were wrapped in tri-colour flags, were borne on the shoulders of Volunteers and were followed by several companies along from Washington Street, to the South Parish Church, and at the junction of Langford Row the sad procession was met by the funeral of Trahey, the third victim of the tragic occurrence. The joint funeral then proceeded to the South Parish Church. The three Volunteers were buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery on 26 November. -
Site-216 Patrick Street
Civilian Florence ‘Florry’ Burnane or Bernane. Burnane (72) was struck by an RIC Crossley tender on Patrick’s Street in Cork city on 25 January 1921 and died of his injuries the next day in the North Infirmary Burnane and his wife Julia lived with their 3 daughters and two very young co-resident granddaughters at Peacocke Lane. Burnane was a coal porter and labourer. -
Site-233 Patricks Quay
Civilian Patrick O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan (17) was chased and shot by two men armed with revolvers on Patrick’s Quay in Cork city on 6 February 1921. An eye witness statement by O’Sullivans brother on the night, Christopher claimed: At about 6 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, 6 February, he and his deceased brother ‘were standing on the bank of the river at St Patrick’s Quay. A man, apparently drunk, came out of a public house across the road, shouting that he didn’t care a ____ about the Black and Tans. He had scarcely uttered the words when two armed men, dressed in civilian clothes, came down the quay. They both had revolvers in their hands, and when he saw them coming, the drunken man ran towards the Harley Street corner. The two men behind started to run in pursuit of him, and the few other people, including the brothers O’Sullivan, who were on the quay at the time, also commenced to run away from the two armed men. These then fired shots from their revolvers—in all about six shots being discharged. One of the bullets struck Patrick O’Sullivan and he fell. He died of his wounds some hours later in the North Infirmary. A second young civilian named Patrick O’Shea of Watercourse Road was critically wounded in this incident. -
Site-191 General Post Office/Pembroke Street
Volunteer Patrick Tarrant. On the night of 21 December 1920, a daring attempt was made by three men to rob the General Post Office in Cork city. During the attack, an Auxiliary policeman, shot dead Volunteer Patrick Tarrant (19), while one of the policemen were injured. In addition, a civilian named Timothy Donovan (31), who was in the process of delivering parcels to the GPO died the next day of mortal wounds to abdomen at the Mercy Hospital Patrick Tarrant was one of the five children of Nicholas Samuel and Bridget Tarrant of Spring View Terrace. They had four sons and a daughter living with them. Nicholas Tarrant was then employed as a commercial agent for butter and machinery. An ex-soldier, Donovan was a labourer, He had served in the Royal Munster Fusiliers for three and a half years. His brother noted at the inquest that Timothy Donovan was married, in the employment of a fowl dealer, and ‘had no connection with any political organisation. He had lived in Pauls Avenue. -
Site-192 General Post Office/Pembroke Street
Civilian Timothy Donovan. On the night of 21 December 1920, a daring attempt was made by three men to rob the General Post Office in Cork city. During the attack, an Auxiliary policeman, shot dead Volunteer Patrick Tarrant (19), while one of the policemen were injured. In addition, a civilian named Timothy Donovan (31), who was in the process of delivering parcels to the GPO died the next day of mortal wounds to abdomen at the Mercy Hospital Patrick Tarrant was one of the five children of Nicholas Samuel and Bridget Tarrant of Spring View Terrace. They had four sons and a daughter living with them. Nicholas Tarrant was then employed as a commercial agent for butter and machinery. An ex-soldier, Donovan was a labourer, He had served in the Royal Munster Fusiliers for three and a half years. His brother noted at the inquest that Timothy Donovan was married, in the employment of a fowl dealer, and ‘had no connection with any political organisation. He had lived in Pauls Avenue. -
Site-126 White Street
RIC Sergeant James O’Donoghue. Sergeant O’Donoghue (46) was shot dead on the 17th November 1920 in White Street, a narrow and ill-lighted thoroughfare between St George’s Quay and Douglas Street. He was said in one report to have been shot during an IRA raid on Lunham’s bacon factory. A newspaper report stated that three men armed with revolvers had waylaid him after concealing themselves in a doorway along the dark street. They fired at close range and shot him through the head According to Volunteer Leo Buckley, the staff officer for intelligence in the Cork No. 1 Brigade. They initially intended to kill someone else who failed to appear, and on their own initiative they decided to shoot O’Donoghue, to the later fury of their superiors. Attached to the Tuckey Street RIC station at that time, he was in line for a promotion to head constable within a week or so. His remains were removed by motorcar on 19 November for interment in the family burial ground near Cahirciveen. O’Donoghue left a wife and four children. Having served twenty-two years with the RIC. -
Site-423-425 Blackpool
RIC Constable Peter Coughlan, RIC Constable John Ryle and RIC Constable Patrick Hayes. The ‘Blackpool ambush’ was a notable but grisly IRA success. At about 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, 14 May 1921, a patrol of seven police (two sergeants and five constables) from the Shandon RIC station was attacked on O’Connell Street near William O’Brien Street by members of the Cork No. 1 Brigade, two of whom threw a bomb into the midst of the patrol. The explosion that followed was ‘loud enough to be heard almost all over the city’. The blast mortally wounded three constables and injured several others less seriously. According to evidence given at a military inquiry, Constable Peter Coughlan (45) ‘sustained a large lacerated wound in front of the left leg which fractured both bones and injured main blood vessels. He died [at the scene] from shock following his injuries. . . . Constable Ryle (46) had both legs fractured, and it was found necessary to amputate the left leg from the thigh. He . . . died from shock and haemorrhage [at the North Infirmary] following his wounds. Constables Hayes (49) and Rothwell were also badly wounded, ‘with severe lacerations’; Hayes later died from shock (both legs amputated) and haemorrhage at Cork Military Hospital In a set of official military reprisals on 24 May, British troops destroyed two public houses and two private residences in the Blackpool district Coughlan was a married man and left behind a widow and six young children, His remains were interred in Killarney Ryle had seen as much as twenty-five years’ service in the RIC. Before becoming a policeman, he had been a farmer in County Kerry. He was single and 46 years old. -
Site-180 Grand Parade
Civilian Harriet King Meara. Meara (74) was run down and killed by the driver of an Auxiliary Division Crossley tender on 8 December 1920 on the Grand Parade. She had a single scalp wound on the back of her head. The driver claimed that it had been impossible to avoid hitting her because she had moved back into the line of his vehicle as he sought to take evasive action. The verdict of a military court of inquiry was that Meara’s death was accidental, and that ‘no blame was attachable to anyone. Unmarried, Harriet Meara lived with her spinster cousins Amelia and Susanna Meara in a house in Bishopstown. -
Site-019 Glanmire
RIC Constable Timothy Scully. At about 10 p.m. on 11 March 1920, IRA gunmen suddenly opened fire on a police patrol at Glanmire as three constables were returning to their barracks. Constable Scully (64) was shot through the heart and lungs at close range with an automatic pistol by one of the three Volunteers involved in the incident Volunteer James Cashman of Riverstown, one of the volunteers later disclosed that the killing was not intended. Instead, the Riverstown Volunteer Company had a larger goal in mind: When the R.I.C. got the order “Hands up”, one of them—a Constable Scully—resisted and was shot dead. This put an end to our attempted seizure. The Glanmire R.I.C. barracks was evacuated shortly after this incident and was promptly burned down Constable Scully had thirty-eight years of service with the RIC. He had been a farmer earlier in his life. Later buried in Skibbereen on 14 March 1920. His wife was later awarded compensation of £1,600. -
Site-117 North Gate Bridge
Civilian William Mulcahy Mulcahy (39) was mortally wounded on the 6th December 1920 in front of O’Mahony’s furniture stores near North Gate Bridge on Bachelors Quay in Cork city when he failed to obey three orders to halt issued by a curfew patrol. He died on his way to Cork Military Hospital. The military, who had arrested as many as seventy-four people during the night, claimed that Mulcahy had tried to run away. A military court of inquiry found that he had died from gunshot wounds to the chest, and that ‘no blame attached to any member of the patrol. No relative of the deceased attended the court. Mulcahy was an employee of Messrs McBride of Merchants Quay, an engineering firm. He was blacksmith by trade. The eldest of the four co-resident sons of Cork city plumber and widower Thomas Mulcahy of Evergreen Street. -
Site-308 Conkleys Lane
Private Thomas Wise or Wyse. The execution of the five Dripsey-ambush prisoners earlier in the day on 28 February 1921 led to vicious retaliation by the IRA: ‘That evening, approx. 50 IRA gunmen attacked off-duty British soldiers throughout the city. They killed six unarmed soldiers and wounded ten more. An off-duty soldier, Private Wise (30) was talking to a young woman when two men approached him and shot him at close range. One report says Wise was a native of Cork and was back on holiday. The report also stated that he was shot in the middle of Patrick St and died in Conkley’s Lane, near the ruins of Cash’s Dept. Wyse died later in the Mercy Hospital in Cork. Following this incident, soldiers in the garrison attacked the Volunteer prisoners held in cages in the barracks square. The provost-corporal in charge ordered them back. The threatening crowd withdrew, and having gathered up all the loose stones they could find around the square assailed the cages, for an hour. A sign was hung above the entrance read, ‘This is a cage for rebels and murderers.’ -
Site-384 Prison Gate
Major Gerard Thomas Joseph Barry. On the 8th April 1921, Major Barry (38) was shot accidentally at Cork Military Detention Barracks in the city. He was the commandant of the barracks, and was entering the wicket-gate part of the main gate when a sentry shot him. His last words were, ‘Staff Sergeant, send for a priest.’ An armourer sergeant testified at a later military inquiry that ‘the safety catch on the rifle was defective, the spring being weak’. The No. 2 sentry who had accidentally fired the fatal shot testified that ‘when the Major opened the gate, he covered it with his rifle according to orders. Just as he came to the aim, he noticed the safety catch in the wrong position. He tried to put it right, but it jumped forward. He had picked up the wrong rifle when going on sentry duty. Barry was struck by ‘a bullet that passed through the abdomen from behind’. He died of his wounds within hours. A member of the South Wales Borderers Regiment, Barry was the son of retired Lieutenant Colonel John Barry of Inver, Queenstown, formerly of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Major Barry was buried in the Cobh Old Church Cemetery. -
Site-127-Broad Lane
Volunteer Eugene O’Connell. An ex-soldier and a labourer, O’Connell (28) was gunned down in his home in Cork city in reprisal for the killing of RIC Sergeant James O’Donoghue on the night of 17-18 November 1920. O’Connell’s death took place either shortly before or after midnight on the 17th. According to a relative of O’Connell, the killer who broke open the door at 17 Broad Lane was ‘a man in uniform and wearing goggles. He had a revolver in the right hand and a flash-lamp in the other. He rushed straight up the stairs.’ He shot O’Connell dead in his bedroom ‘in the presence of his wife’. She was in bed with her baby and the man raised the revolver at her, and she shouted for mercy for her baby’s sake.’ The gunman then charged up another flight of stairs and shot Fianna Éireann scout Charles O’Brien (16), with ‘a bullet passing through his mouth and jaw’. The tragedy at 17 Broad Lane reportedly occurred ‘a few minutes’ after the shooting dead of Patrick Hanley of Fianna Éireann and the injuring of civilian Stephen Coleman at 2 Broad Street. Volunteer O’Connell was buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery in Cork. The removal of O’Connell’s remains from Mercy Hospital to SS. Peter and Paul’s Church attracted many mourners. His coffin ‘was shouldered alternately by his brothers, brothers-in-law, and some near relatives. His father, his relatives, and a large crowd followed the cortege. -
Site-316 Caroline Street
Civilian Daniel Casey. While in the house where he was a boarder, Casey (30) was mortally wounded in the chest by a stray bullet fired by the soldiers pursuing five IRA men who had run away from a military search party in front of the Cork General Post Office. The woman whose boarding house it was told a military inquiry: ‘She heard shots and saw a soldier on the roof of a store opposite the back of her house. She heard the crash of glass downstairs, and shots, and heard Mr Casey say, “I’m shot”. She went down and saw him stagger into the 1st floor front room of 13 Caroline St. Numerous police, and military rushed in and asked her if there was another man in the house. A soldier and policeman laid out Mr Casey and did all they could for him.’ He died of his wounds later the same day in the North Infirmary. Casey was unmarried. He worked as a dock labourer. -
Site-393 Douglas Street
Volunteer Tadhg or Timothy Sullivan or O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan (29) was shot dead in Douglas Street, on the 19th April 1921, while running away from British military and police intelligence officers patrolling in civilian dress and ‘searching for certain wanted men’. He was the captain of C Company of Second Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade. and had participated in the republican hunger-strike in Belfast in 1920. His close friend and comrade Michael Murphy, O/C of the Second Battalion, provided a graphic account of O’Sullivan’s last moments in his witness statement: ‘One of my best company captains named Tadhg Sullivan was held up in Douglas St by two British intelligence officers in mufti. He made a dash to escape and got into a house—No. 80 Douglas St. He ran upstairs and got out on the roof through a landing window, closely followed by the two British officers. Sullivan got on to the roof of the adjoining house, No.82 when the officers appeared at the landing window and shot him dead. He was unarmed.’ A native of Kerry, O’Sullivan had been the head of the Fianna Éireann in Cork city for some time. He had been employed at Ford’s Motor Works in Cork city. He was survived by at least four brothers and five sisters, all of whom attended the funeral along with his parents in the Republican plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery -
Site-507 Lavitts Quay
Civilian William Horgan. At the military inquiry held in Victoria Barracks, Horgan’s father said that his son William (21) had been arrested in their home at about 2:15 a.m. in a raid on the night of 28 June 1921 and had been carried off by troops. His father testified that his son ‘had belonged to no political organisation’. The military officer, 2nd Lieutenant Adelin Eugene P.F.M.G. van Outryve d’Ydewalle of the 2nd Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment who testified stated that while the arresting party was stopped with a second prisoner near the Opera House on Lavitt’s Quay, Horgan had ‘suddenly grabbed his revolver; a short struggle ensued, and witness, straightening the revolver, fired at Horgan. At the same time the other prisoner ran like a hare down the street, having broken away from his guard, and escaped.’ When examined, Horgan was found to be dead. The military officer d’Ydewalle, at that time was in the process of acquiring an unsavoury reputation for his harsh treatment of prisoners whom he suspected of being Volunteers. He was later in command when Volunteer Denis Spriggs was killed in Cork Horgan was one of the six children of the Cork city general labourer Richard Horgan and his wife Annie of the Old Youghal Road. Horgan (21) was employed as a fireman on the Great Southern and Western Railway and was buried in Ballylucra Cemetery, Glanmire. -
Site-166 Carrolls Bog
Civilian James Blemens and Civilian Frederick Blemens. James Blemens (55) was abducted from his home, on the Blackrock Road in Cork city by armed men on the 29th November 1920. His son Frederick (30) had been ‘reported missing earlier in the day’. They were both executed as spies on 2 December after having been tried and convicted by members of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA. The Volunteers had information about them from letters captured by raids on postmen for mails.’ According to Volunteer leader Michael Murphy in his interview with Ernie O’Malley, he and other IRA men had listened to meetings in the Blemens household from the backyard. The IRA believed that Blemens and his son Frederick were among the most active members of a pro-British body often styled the ‘Anti-Sinn Féin Society’ According to the witness statement of Volunteer Murphy: ‘We buried the bodies in Carroll’s bogs; every spy who was shot in Cork was buried so that nothing was known about them. They just disappeared.’ Carroll’s Bog or Tramore Marsh is now the Kinsale Road Civic Amenity Site. British liability was accepted for both members of the family and £3,000 in compensation was awarded James Blemens was a horticultural instructor with the Cork County Agricultural and Technical Committee. Both he and his son were Anglican. -
Site-487 Blarney
Private Henry Woods. Woods of the Royal Fusiliers accidentally shot himself and died instantly while alighting off a guarded train at Blarney railway station and died of his wounds to his heart on the 9th June 1921. He was one of two soldiers travelling on the engine part of the train scheduled to reach Cork city at 9:20 a.m. The use of soldiers in this way was designed to prevent robbery of the mails and other kinds of IRA attacks. -
Site-490 Cattle Lane
Civilian John Lucey. His comrades stated that Lucey (31) was shot dead in the chest by a British curfew patrol of the Staffordshire Regiment while they were standing on a street corner and while he was playing with a mouse. Another young man was wounded, apparently by the same curfew patrol. Other accounts indicate that the shooting by the patrol took place in Cattle lane (now Glen Ryan Rd.) at about 10:15 p.m. Lucey was badly wounded in the chest and back and was rushed to the North Infirmary, but he was dead upon admission. Lucey lived as a boarder with his relatives, the Cork Corporation employee Andrew O’Connell, his wife Bridget, and their daughter Mary, on North Main Street in Cork. He worked as an engine fitter. -
Site-012 Patrick Street
Volunteer Bryan Crowley. Crowley (27) was accidentally killed by a British military lorry in Patrick Street, Cork. ‘At an inquest on Crowley, it was established that he was hit by a military lorry conveying Fermoy prisoners to jail. The jury found that the death was accidental, but that the lorry was being driven at excessive speed in a motorcar driven by Private Thomas Williams.’. Volunteer John Fanning, captain of the Fermoy Company, who was on the lorry later related the circumstances under which Crowley had died: ‘We were removed to Cork Gaol under military escort. On our way through Cork city the lorry in which we were travelling was in collision with a cyclist who was killed on the spot. As a result, of this accident, the convoy was halted and a large crowd collected’. This was the first of many such fatal accidents between military vehicles and civilians in the city during the 1919-21 conflict. Volunteer Bryan Crowley was one of the ten children from Dunkettle, of James (76) and Kate (52) Crowley. Bryan was their youngest child. -
Site-319 North Main Street
Civilian Denis O’Brien. O’Brien (70), living on Blarney St was fatally wounded in the North Main Street vicinity by a soldier named Private Fry of the Hampshire Regiment on 2 March 1921 during curfew hours. The military claimed that O’Brien had been challenged and loudly ordered to halt four times before he was shot for failure to obey the order. His body was removed to the military barracks. He was a coachman by trade and lived on Blarney street. -
Site-203 Western Road
Civilian Gerald Oswald Pring. The circumstances in which Pring died were disputed. ‘Allegations of wholesale firing at the crown forces in Cork on that Saturday evening of the 15th Jan 1921 were made by one of the witnesses at the inquiry concerning his death. But at the same inquiry Pring’s brother testified that Pring and his sister had been on the Western Road when 2 lorries passed. When the lorries were about 100 yards away, a shot was fired and his brother was struck and collapsed on the pavement. He died in a few minutes. The chief military witness, however, insisted that ‘he could not find that any shot had been fired by any of his men’. The witness’s men returned the fire ‘whenever they saw flashes’. But this witness also acknowledged: ‘Men on lorries . . . sit with their fingers on the triggers, which is the only safe thing at present.’ On balance, it looks as if there was an official cover-up, and the killing seems to have been the responsibility of the RIC. Pring was one of the four adult children of the widow Ellen Pring of Bishopstown. His sister Mary Ellen was compensated the sum of £5,000 for her brother Gerald. She was unmarried and jobless. She placed the blame for her brother’s death on the IRA. Pring was a customs and excise officer. He was killed within a few yards of the spot where he was educated at Presentation Brothers’ College -
Site-048 North Gate Bridge
Volunteer William Mulcahy and Volunteer Denis Christopher Morrissey. Mulcahy (22) and Morrisey (17) were killed when the bombs that they were assembling caused an explosion that killed them in the loft of No. 1 Watercourse road in the Blackpool District of Cork on the morning of fri 26th Nov 1920 Three days previously there was another bomb explosion—at the same address which was the premises of Daniel O’Leary, a coffin maker Morrissey was dead on arrival at the North Infirmary, while Mulcahy died within a half hour of admission. A third man—Daniel Kelleher of Killeens, another apprentice in the workshop—was wounded. He had gone out to buy cigarettes, and the bomb exploded just as he was returning to the loft where the others were working. Mulcahy was a member of E Company of the First Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade. He was buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork, as was Morrissey. He was the eldest of the three sons (in 1911) of the Blarney mill hand John Morrissey and his wife Ellen. -
Site-499 Ballincollig
Private George Henry Caen A member of the Manchester Regiment. He was officially reported as missing from Ballincollig Military Barracks on the 24th June 1921, According to IRA eyewitness reports he was abducted, executed, and disappeared by IRA on the same day. The authorities initially believed that he was a deserter, but it is ‘now accepted’ that he was taken in hand by the IRA and executed. His body has never been found -
Site-247-Dennehys Cross
Civilian James Charles Beal. An Englishman and a Protestant who had come to Cork city about eleven years earlier, Beal (53) was abducted by armed men and brought by car to a field opposite Wilton Church, where he was executed. He ‘was last seen leaving his place of business at 7 p.m.’ on Monday night, 14 February 1921. His remains ‘bore several wounds, one in the head and others in different parts of the body’. The report of Beal’s disappearance ‘caused a tremendous sensation in the city. His wife was greatly distressed, more particularly because her father, James Blemens, and her brother Fredrick, a clerk, were kidnapped two months ago. Nothing has been heard of them since, and they are believed to have been tried, executed and disappeared According to IRA witness statements, he was ‘tied around the neck with a looped piece of ordinary twine was a piece of cardboard about one foot square on which were printed in ink, in capital letters roughly formed, the words: “Convicted spy. This is the penalty for all those who associate with the Auxiliaries, Black and Tans, and R.I.C.—I.R.A.” “P.S.—Beware.”’ -
Site-178 Water St
Civilian John (Joseph) Fleming. On the 7th December, Fleming (36) who was an ex-navy seaman was shot in the abdomen and fatally wounded by a soldier firing, probably accidentally, from one of two or three passing police lorries as he was walking on Water Street with two brothers and an English ex-soldier friend. As they were crossing the road, 3 lorries containing uniformed men, with rifles pointing out over the side of the cars, passed at a rapid pace’. John Fleming was the last man to cross the street, and as he did so, one of the rifles was discharged. Assistance was rendered by other passers-by and the neighbours, who endeavoured to staunch the flow of blood. An ambulance was quickly on the scene, and in it the wounded man was removed to the North Infirmary. He died while on the operation table. Fleming had ‘served twenty-one years in the navy and was demobilised’ in 1919.
This photographic project is a creative response to a long term study and investigation by the University College Cork’s, Dept of History into the sites and places where people lost their lives during the Irish War of Independence:
www.irishrevolution.ie
This project has also been made possible by the kind assistance and support from Cork Public Museum
www.corkcitycouncil/corkpublicmuseum.ie
And generously grant aided by the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, in conjunction with the Crawford Art Gallery:
This project is to be realised as a publication and exhibition at the Crawford Art Gallery in May 2021 For Those That Tell No Tales