Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 19 November 2020

Remembering 1920: The Murder of Patrick Hanley

This week coincides with the centenary of teenager Patrick Hanley, who was shot by crown forces on 17 November 1920. George Hurley was a comrade of Patrick within Fianna Éireann or the youth division of Cork IRA Brigade No.1. He recalls the lead-up and incident in his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History (WS1630).

In 1919, the Fianna Éireann headquarters was moved to a private house on Cork’s Pope’s Quay, and, in 1920, to a house on North Main Street. This latter place served as headquarters up to the Truce of July 1921. The training programme of the Fianna consisted of drilling, signalling instruction and lectures in first-aid and in the use of the revolver and rifle. A rifle was used for instruction purposes. Frequent parades took place and on occasions the boys marched out into the country where field training was carried on. A distinctive uniform was worn consisting of a blue short pants, a green shirt with a saffron scarf, and a green broad-brimmed hat.

 The use of revolvers was discouraged by the senior organisation of the IRA in the city. A direction was given to the Fianna by headquarters in Cork that the Fianna Éireann was not to carry out any attacks on enemy forces by shooting, unless with the prior permission of the IRA.

The youth division pasted up posters concerning meetings, concerts and public parades. They helped in taking up collections of money for national purposes prisoners’ aid. funds, Sinn Féin election funds and such like. Enemy posters proclamations were torn down.

As time went on and the struggle became more intense in 1920, so also did Fianna Éireann activities increase. They carried out scouting duty and dispatches for the IRA and helped in the removal from suspected places of IRA ammunition and guns. They carried out daylight raids on shops and vans containing provisions and various other goods being dispatched to military barracks in Cork. On several occasions, they held up individual soldiers or Black and Tans and took their equipment.

The murder of Paddy Hanley was by way of a reprisal by the British for the shooting of an RIC sergeant named O’Donoghue by G Company of the IRA earlier on the same night of 17 November 1920 in the course of an IRA raid on Lunham’s bacon factory.

Patrick lived with his widowed mother at No. 2 Broad Street. He was the sole support of her and his sister. At about 11.45 p.m. on the night of 17 November 1920, the residents of No. 2 Broad Street were awakened by the noise of the front door being broken open; a man rushed up the stairs and entered the bedroom of Mr and Mrs Coleman who also resided in the house. The man was wearing a policeman’s uniform, cap and goggles. He came to the bedside with a revolver in one hand and a flash lamp in the other.

When asked by Mrs Coleman what brought him there, he merely exclaimed “Hello”, flashed his lamp on the bed, raised his revolver and fired point-blank into the bed. The bullet wounded Mr Coleman in the arm. The assailant then turned and walked out of the room leaving Mrs Coleman screaming.

Paddy Hanley opened the door of his room when he heard the man rushing up the stairs. The man in police uniform had just come from Mrs Coleman’s room. Whilst standing at the door of his bedroom door, Patrick was fired at. It missed him. The man fired a second time and the bullet struck Patrick above the heart, killing him instantly. He was in his night attire at the time.An ex-British army soldier who lived in Broad Lane was also shot dead.

Leo Buckley, Intelligence Officer with Cork Brigade No.1, was a witness of the shooting (WS1714, Bureau of Military History). At the time, he was sleeping in a top back room of an apartment house in Sheares Street. He recalls that some hours prior to Patrick’s death, an RIC Sergeant had been shot by Tommy Healy and Willie Joe O’Brien of G Company. Tommy and Willie were hiding on Sheares Street. Leo denotes in his witness statement that he felt that Patrick had been shot in mistake for Tommy Healy, while the shooting of O’Brien’s brother-in-law the ex-British army soldier was also a mistake.

In another reprisal raid the same night by the RIC in the Grattan Street, another Fianna boy O’Brien was shot in the mouth. He subsequently recovered from the wound. Volunteer Eugene O’Connell was also killed on the same evening as a reprisal for his part in the murder of the RIC Sergeant. An IRA man suspected of giving information as to who shot the RIC Sergeant was later apprehended and executed by the IRA.

Patrick Hanley’s remains were laid out in his Fianna Éireann uniform in the mortuary of the Mercy Hospital and later removed to the church of SS Peter & Paul. He was buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery, the tricolour-draped coffin being shouldered all the way to the cemetery by the dead boy’s comrades.

At the Republican Plot there are two memorials to his memory – an individual cross and a marble stone to Fianna Éireann. In addition, on 17 November 1957, a plaque was unveiled by Lord Mayor Jago in memory of Patrick Hanley on Patrick Hanley Buildings on Grattan Street. Eugene O’Callaghan’s headstone can also be viewed in the Republican Plot.

Kieran’s latest book Witness to Murder, The Inquest of Tomás MacCurtain is now available to purchase online (co-authored with John O’Mahony 2020, Irish Examiner/www.examiner.ie).

Captions:

1075a. Portrait of Patrick Hanley 1920 (source: Cork City Library).

1075b. Gravestone of Patrick Hanley in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery, present day (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

1075c. Remembrance plaque to Patrick Hanley on Grattan Street, Cork, erected in 1957 (picture: Kieran McCarthy).

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 12 November 2020

Remembering 1920: Arise Lord Mayor O’Callaghan

On 4 November 1920, a large public crowd attended at City Hall’s Council Chamber. They were present to witness the special meeting of the Council of Cork Corporation, which was being held with the purpose of electing a successor to Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney. Councillor Donal Óg O’Callaghan, who acted in his capacity of Deputy Lord Mayor since the arrest of Terence, was unanimously elected to the vacancy.

On the night of Donal’s election, with 34 members of the 56 councilors present due to the ongoing war of Independence, Alderman Professor Stockley was moved to the chair. Fr Dominic occupied a seat alongside the Mayoral chair. On the motion of Cllr Micheál O’Cuill seconded by Alderman Edmond Coughlan, both of whom spoke in Irish, Donal was unanimously elected to the position of Lord Mayor. Some months previously on 10 March 1920 Sinn Féin‘s Donal Óg O’Callaghan emerged as a victor in the first bye-election after the January 1920 local elections for Cork Corporation. Donal was a fluent Irish speaker and was the youngest representative to have ever held the high and important office. He also occupied the Chairmanship of the Cork County Council.

Donal, who was received with applause, then signed his declaration of office and was invested with the Mayoral chain. First speaking in Irish and afterwards in English the new Lord Mayor spoke about his predecessors and the ongoing war with the British Government, and the Republican position of not backing down in their aspirations for Independence; “Our position was that one after another two Republicans who held thechair had been murdered by the British government. That same murder gang, who called themselves a Government, while the remains of Terence MacSwiney still lay over the ground, and while it was still possible for that gang to heap insult on the remains did so, and even then the same gang spread forth its tentacle to seize the next man. However, my position was, and we are are setting it forth this night as clearly and distinctly and glaringly as it could  be possibly set forth, that we absolutely refuse to be tyrannised…our demand in the country has been made, and we are not going to flinch no matter what the result or cost might be”.

Following the Lord Mayor’s speech Alderman Tadgh Barry raised the execution of 18-year-old Kevin Barry from Dublin on 1 November 1920, who became the first Republican to be executed since 1916. Kevin Barry was an IRA section Commander who partook in various raids around Dublin city. On 20 September 1920, he participated in a raid where a street gun battle ensued, and three British soldiers were killed. Hiding under a tree Kevin was discovered and brought to Mountjoy Prison, where he refused to reveal the identity of his comrades. New legislation in 1920 had given military authorities greater powers to quell increasing IRA activity. Barry had privately admitted killing one soldier in an ambush and was tried as a soldier under the legislation. He was hanged for his crime. There was vast public outrage at the execution of a young man.

Alderman Tadgh Barry proposed a resolution: “That we the Corporation of Cork place on record our condemnation of the latest abominable crime, perpetrated by the British Government in Ireland in the murder, by hanging of young Kevin Barry, and offer our respectful sympathy to his patriot mother in her sorrow, and congratulations on her support of his refusal to purchase his life by betraying his comrades to his torturer?”. Tadgh’s motion was forwarded to the next meeting of the Council.

However, the deaths of young IRA volunteers continued. On 10 November 1920, 22-year-old Christy Lucey was killed at Túirín Dubh, Ballingeary, He took an active part in his local IRA company and on one evening he slept in the rough on a hillside. As descended the hillside the following morning, Christy was cornered by a group of Auxiliaries of C Company from Macroom and shot dead as he attempted to escape. The Auxiliary who shot him was himself soon executed by the IRA. When the Black and Tan individual returned to Macroom that evening, he entered the Market Bar and began to celebrate but was fatally shot.

Formerly a resident of Pembroke Street in Cork City, Christy was a former member of B Company of the First Battalion (Cork No. 1 Brigade) in Cork city. He was given an imposing funeral in the city and was buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery. Such an event attracted much public interest including intimidating attention from British military forces in Cork city. As the funeral cortege commenced, an armoured car, in convoy with two lorries full of armed soldiers, arrived near the church. The officer in charge served a notice on Rev. J F Murphy, which denoted that only one hundred people would be allowed to take part in the cortege. As the cortege left the South Chapel and emerged into George’s Quay, an armoured car took up a position in the procession immediately before the carriages of the mourners. The coffin was draped in the republican colours and was carried on the shoulders of 4 Volunteers. On route to the cemetery, the paths along the route were filled with spectators.

A day after Christopher Lucey’s murder on 11 November 1920, Lord Mayor O’Callaghan and Father O’Leary, CC, of the South Chapel, received messages from Arthur Griffith, declaring that the Cork Hunger strike was to be ceased at Cork Gaol. To Griffith the prisoners had “sufficiently proved their devotion and fidelity, and that they should now, as they were prepared to die for Ireland, prepare again to live for her”. A small quantity of nourishment has been taken by the hunger strikers and it was hoped that they would recover.

A new book on Lord Mayor Donal Óg O’Callaghan’s life and times by UCC’s Dr Aodh Quinlivan and entitled Forgotten Lord Mayor, Donal Óg O’Callaghan, 1920-1924, will be published by Cork City Council this month.

Captions:

1074a. Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Donal Óg O’Callaghan 1920 (picture: Cork City Museum).

1074b. Christopher Lucey as a Cork Fianna member in 1916 (picture: Cork City Library).

10 November 2020, “The motion was met with some resistance. Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy told the meeting he couldn’t support it. I just couldn’t support four male statues on Pana,” he said. I just think that the female context is completely forgotten from that time, the Cumann na mBan and all these other elements. There are busts of Mac Curtain, MacSwiney and Collins around the city, and there are places and streets named after them, he added”. Plan for statues of revolutionary figures in Cork vetoed for not including any women, https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40079303.html

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 5 November 2020

Remembering 1920: Terence MacSwiney’s Funeral

The SS Rathmore ploughed her way across the Irish Sea bringing back to Ireland the coffin containing the Lord Mayor’s body. During Thursday night, 28 October 1920, the mortal remains of Terence MacSwiney returned to Ireland surrounded not by friends, but by British soldiers.

The remains of the Lord Mayor of Cork arrived off Deep Water Quay, Cobh, at 1.45pm on Friday 29 October. The SS Rathmore was met inside the harbour by the Admiralty tug Hellespont. The moment the vessel was sighted, the population of Cobh gathered along the Beach, and when the SS Rathmore reached its berth hundreds of people awaited it. But nobody would take charge of the remains. The people were only complying with the wishes ofthe relatives.

So, the SS Rathmore remained beside the quay – the space full of armed men. These included Black and Tans, London Metropolitan Police, and a strong force of RIC Auxiliaries. They stood grimly on the deck. Soon after deck hands unloosed the ropes around the coffin, which was covered with sail cloth and the coffin and wreaths were transferred to Mary Tavy, an Admiralty tug. The tug, flying a black flag, moved up the river for Cork. Whilst leaving the quays of Cobh, the Bishop asked the crowd to kneel to pray whilst the bells of the Cathedral tolled.

At 4.15pm, the tug arrived at the Custom House Quay. Again, every advantage spot was taken and the crowd densely packed. Again no one chose to receive the body. It was over two hours later that the special train from Dublin conveying the relatives of the deceased Lord Mayor arrived at the Glanmire Terminus, and were driven to City Hall, the wreaths, which accompanied them, being conveyed in the Corporation ambulances. Soon after the auxiliary police removed the body from the tug and placed it on the quay.

At 9.30pm the body was carried into the City Hall on the shoulders of Volunteers, being preceded by clergymen, who recited prayers. Volunteers also preceded the coffin and they carried wreaths. The remains of the Lord Mayor lay in state in City Hall the following day, Saturday 30 October and the ensuing Sunday morning. Notwithstanding the extreme inclement rain a continuous stream of mourners flowed towards the City Hall, where the remains lay in state in a coffin with a glass lid on a catafalque in the large chamber of Cork’s City Hall. A guard of honour of six IRA men was placed standing solemnly to attention around the coffin. These were relieved at two-hour intervals during daylight, but during the night, with curfew in force, they had to remain overnight in the City Hall.

Touching scenes were to be seen as the transfer of the remains from the City Hall to the North Cathedral preparatory to the funeral on 31 October 1920. As early as 8am large crowds packed around the vicinity of City Hall. So large was the crowd that the volunteers had to draw a cordon, which extended from Parnell Bridge to Clontarf Bridge and only those with admission papers were permitted to enter. Major General Strickland had issued a proclamation prohibiting any demonstration or any procession in formation at MacSwiney’s funeral. But the proclamation was ignored.

The coffin was taken from City Hall and was enveloped in the Republican flag. It was shouldered, and on each side marched the Volunteer Guard of Honour. Immediately behind marched the MacSwiney brothers, Peter and Seán, with members of Dáil Éireann such as Arthur Griffith and the Republican Government, senior officers from General Headquarters, IRA, and his colleagues on the Cork Corporation. Heading the Volunteer columns was A-Company, 2nd Battalion – MacSwiney’s own – from University College, Cork.

At the North Cathedral, an enormous assemblage had gathered. The coffin was covered with the Republican Flag once more and Terence’s uniform hat. At midday mass Requiem Mass began led by Bishop Daniel Cohalan and Archbishop of Cashel John Harty and a large number of clergy. Owing to military restrictions, the number of mourners, public bodies had to be strictly curtailed, and Volunteers numbering over 200 tried to keep order in the vicinity of the Cathedral.

After the High Mass, the coffin was shouldered to St Finbarr’s Cemetery by relays of Volunteers, which was followed by relatives, members of Dáil Éireann, corporation bodies, Sinn Féin organisations, University professors wearing Academic robes, Trade and Labour bodies, and other bodies. Each side of the cortege walked Volunteers, each bearing a wreath. Other volunteers were tasked to keep the public on footpaths and to maintain minimum crowds. Other armoured cars and lorries loaded with Black and Tans joined at intervals, flanking the marching IRA men an along the funeral route.

As the Gaol Cross was reached, the salute “eyes left” was given to MacSwiney’s heroic fellow-strikers still in the death throes of hunger in the hospital of Cork’s grim prison a nod to the deaths of Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murphy.

At St Finbarr’s Cemetery, Terence’s grave was adjoining that of the late Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain and not more than a few yards from the burial spot of Joseph Murphy, the recently deceased hunger striker from Cork Gaol. The final absolution was given by Bishop Cohalan and a short address delivered by Arthur Griffith TD.

The wreaths were then laid on the newly-made grave, and so numerous were these floral tributes that they covered the whole of the Republican Plot. A Volunteer bugler sounded the Last Post and as a final and fitting tribute to the memory to Terence, seven volunteers then fired three rounds from revolvers over the grave. British armour and lorries were still below at the Old Ballincollig Crossroads within sight and sound, but they made no attempt to interfere. The thousands of people who had collected in the vicinity of the graveyard were then permitted to pass in the view the grave and passed out immediately using another gate. People continued to visit the grave until darkness had fallen.

Captions:

1073a. Coffin of Terence MacSwiney being taken from the North Cathedral, 31 October 1920 (source: Cork Public Museum).

1073b. Section from one side of Terence MacSwiney’s memorial card 1920 (source: Cork City Library).

31 October 2020, “Cllr McCarthy said that he was calling for more building inspectors to be brought in to assess buildings in the city, and said that a root- and-branch analysis of the buildings on South Main Street and North Main Street was needed to prevent further incidents”, City’s dereliction crisis: Call for action after surge of damaged building, incidents,https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/Citys-dereliction-crisis-Call-for-action-after-surge-of-damaged-building-incidents-f755e620-dc02-4ece-b751-340aac38ace4-ds

30 October 2020, “Independent councillor and historian Kieran McCarthy said it was the end of an era for the club and that “great credit is due to those that kept it alive and at the heart of community life for so many decades”. The end of an era’: Fr O’Leary Memorial Boys Club in Shandon closes its doors for the last time, https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/The-end-of-an-era-Fr-OLeary-Memorial-Boys-Club-in-Shandon-closes-its-doors-for-the-last-time-a97b6eef-bded-4f0d-a9ad-01cac143a568-ds

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 29 October 2020

Remembering 1920: Terence MacSwiney’s Return to Cork

Once St George’s Cathedral at Southwark, London opened its doors on Thursday 28 October, tens of thousands flocked in to see Terence MacSwiney’s body. Many were Irish or of Irish extraction. Mass was fixed for 11am, which was a ticketed affair. Police had to link arms to prevent those with no tickets from pushing their way in. Six men wearing long coats presented tickets to the policemen and once inside took their coats off to reveal that the green unformed members of the IRA. They replaced their colleagues as the honour guard by the coffin. Muriel was too sick to attend or to travel back to Ireland. Two of Terence’s sisters Margaret and Kit (both nuns) did not make it from America or Tokyo respectively.

After the Requiem, the procession of the coffin on the horse-drawn hearse, which was almost a mile long – began for Euston Station. Terence’s two brothers and two sisters reached Euston Station at 4.30pm. On arrival at the station, the siblings were informed the train was due to leave at 4.45pm. They had arranged to travel by the 6.20pm train. After they had accompanied Terry’s body to a good’s carriage van they hurried down the platform to their carriage. Without notice, the train changed to be a special train to leave at 6pm. The train was also crowded with police in every carriage.

A train guard came to family friend Art O’Brien and said the police Inspector wished to speak to him. The inspector was looking for Muriel and noted that he had a communication for her but could not make it until they had passed Crewe.

Soon after Crewe the Inspector visited the MacSwiney delegation again and gave a letter from Chief Secretary for Ireland Thomas Hamar-Greenwood, addressed to Muriel. Opening it they found a copy of a letter addressed to the Press to the effect that, owing to a possibility of trouble, the Government had ordered that the remains should go straight to Cork. They were utterly taken aback and began to lecture them on their duty to the dead and the sacredness of the dead. The family noted that the Lady Mayoress was in London and they could take no decision without consulting her, and that the coffin should remain in Holyhead while someone went back to lay the facts before her. The request was turned down and the transport of the body continued to the English coast bound for Cork.

The train reached Holyhead, about midnight. The family had arranged that all should go at once to the van where Terry’s body lay. The train stopped at the town station, and it was there the SS Kenmare, was immediately waiting to depart. Family friend Art O’Brien produced the contract of the railway to take Terence’s body via Kingstown, to Cork, and he ordered them to carry it out. The stationmaster said he would go to the telephone, but the police inspector had a talk with him and said it was a Government order, that he should not carry out the contract.

Subsequently the family joined hands around the coffin but the door near the coffin was opened and railwaymen came in and took away the wreaths, while police and Black and Tans and ordinary military lined the platform. The family did not try to prevent them taking the wreaths. The railwaymen came towards the coffin and, almost in unison, they all said: “Don’t dare touch that coffin, we forbid you to touch it”. On that, they all left the van and said to the police: “We are forbidden to touch the coffin”. On that, the police rushed forward, pushed the family to one side and away from the coffin and surrounded it. The coffin was lifted out of the van and onto the steamer, the HMS Rathmore leaving the family on the quayside looking on.

The MacSwiney family were forced to get the train for Holyhead and get a separate steamer there. The journey to Dún Laoghaire was quiet. On Friday 29 October they assisted at High Mass for Terence in Dublin without the coffin present. After the Mass, the family delegation went in funeral procession behind the empty hearse that Terence’s body should have lain in to Kingsbridge. They left for by train for Cork at 2pm.

Meanwhile back in Cork, within four hours of Terence’s death, large written notices were erected outside the Offices of the Cork Examiner and Cork City Hall, which caused a thrill of sorrow throughout the city. By mid-morning the streets of Cork were filled with people who wore Republican rosettes with black crepe. The Municipal and Harbour Board flags flew at half-mast, and most of the city’s establishments had their premises partly shuttered. Most of the ships in the harbour had their flags at half-mast. All public functions were cancelled, and theatres and other such amusement spaces closed.

A special meeting of Cork Corporation was convened where councillors expressed their condolences and raw emotion at losing the City’s Lord Mayor. The Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Donal Óg O’Callaghan issued the following statement, decrying that despite Terence’s death, the merit of Republicanism will still linger and pass on:

“In the short interval since his imprisonment, while I have been temporarily taking his place, I have received notices of official origin threatening me with a similar end. The only message that I on behalf of the Republicans of Cork give today over the corpse of the late Lord Mayor is that Cork has definitely not yielded its allegiance to the Republic, that the people of Cork will continue that allegiance unswervingly and that those of us who man the Municipal Council will attempt as far as us lies to follow the noble and glorious lead of the two martyred Republican Magistrates. The Republican hold on the Municipal Chair of Cork ceases only when the last Republican in Cork has followed Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney into the Grave. Death will not terrorise us”.

Captions:

1072a. Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney, Spring–Summer 1920 (source: Cork City Library).

1072b. Invite to funeral of Terence MacSwiney at Southwark Cathedral, London 28 October 1920 (Cork Public Museum).