Kieran’s Our City, Our Town article,

Cork Independent, 30 September 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 230)

Hauntings, Open Wounds and Whispers

 “In Berlin, it was precisely the question of what ghosts should be invoked, what pasts should be remembered and forgotten, and through what forms, that led to heated public debates over what and where these places of memory should be. People made memorials, created historical exhibitions, dug up the past and went on tours to represent, confront, and ignore a violent national past and to define and forge possible national futures. They made places as open wounds in the city to remind them of their haunting and to feel uncomfortable” (Karen Till, 2005, The New Berlin, p. 11)

Karen Till’s work on the thought and effort that went into rebuilding Berlin in the aftermath of World War II and the debate over what should be remembered and forgotten tends to draw huge parallels to the Irish Civil War. The civil war is a crisis of Ireland’s turbulent past. The 4,000 deaths between the two opposing sides (including Patrick Murphy at Leemount) and the aftermath make for horrific reading in the present. W.T. Cosgrave in October 1922 enacted a Public Safety Bill, which allowed for the execution of anyone who was captured bearing arms against the state or aiding armed attacks on state forces. William  Cosgrave’s position was that a guerrilla war could drag on indefinitely, making the achievement of law and order and establishing the Free State impossible, if harsh action was not taken. His reputation suffered after he ordered the execution without trial of republican prisoners during the civil war. In all 77 republicans were executed by the Free State between November 1922 and the end of the war in May 1923. These actions left Irish society divided and embittered. Those actions seem to linger if you just scratch the surface to reveal the deeper roots of Ireland’s principal parties. Hence the civil war tends to be continuously spoken about in whispers, fears, concerns and perhaps in uncomfortable truths.

To Karen Till, Berlin is a place haunted with landscapes that simultaneously embody intentional forgetting and painful remembering. That because of Berlin’s traumatic past, the past never settles or neatly arranges itself in horizontal layers – that the past is always contested by those who want to remember it and those who want to forget. Indeed, memorials like those that exist in Berlin to recall the holocaust for instance may be interpreted in a number of ways. However, each memorial seems to attempt to contain the past and to build memory so to speak. This latter statement also becomes very apparent in DeValera’s government of the 1940s when he commissioned the construction of War of Independence memorials across the country.

There has also been much work completed by historians and geographers on the memories associated with roadside memorials. Standing next to the Patrick Murphy memorial, one quickly gets the impression that this is a memorial one is meant to pass and not stop. It may have been different when it was built originally. On reflection, the memorial seems to have multiple meanings, differing between those who built it, those that maintain it today (the Timothy Kennefick Memorial Group) and those like myself who try to stop and interpret what it is trying to remember. Indeed the truth of why Patrick Murphy was selected to be remembered is intriguing and seems to remain hidden – one reason is probably because of his youth that on one level the monument is a marker of his life or perhaps it is a marker of his sacrifice or maybe it is a marker of heroism or it remembers the exact opposite – it is a marker of flaws in Irish society – that the monument was put there as a reminder of a painful past and meant to be always some kind of open wound in the continuous  making of Irish history- or  the monument is to remind the viewer that a whole nation was divided and fought for by opposing sides.

The memorial is also not a conventional grieving space or site of mourning associated with grief practices. There is a lack of offerings – there are no statues, flowers or photographs. The only strong symbols used on the memorial are that of carved sword and cross. The overall site reclaims public space for the celebration of Patrick Murphy, the individual but one gets the impressions he represents a lot more people through the conventional image of the sword, which connects this monument to other monuments.

However, for the all the raw power of this monument, it seems to avoid any new debates on civil war monuments. The Patrick Murphy Civil War memorial seems to not reflect on aspects such human rights, democracy, equality, the renouncing of violence, guilt and /or responsibility. Or maybe it does but these traits are ones that one regularly does not hear about when such monuments are being discussed. As Ireland approaches the nineteenth anniversary of the start of the Irish Civil war in 2012, perhaps monuments such as these will create new possibilities for thinking about and how one can represent national belonging in the future. The other item that came to my mind standing at this site is the need for modern memorials in the Irish countryside and recent generations to leave a positive mark.                                                                                                                                  

To be continued….

Captions:

559a. Inscription on Patrick Murphy Memorial, Leemount (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

 559b. Members of the Cork no.1 Brigade Flying column (from left) Mick O’Sullivan, Patrick O’Sullivan & Sean Murray, summer 1921 (picture Fr. Patrick Twohig)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 23 September 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 229)

The Protection of Ireland

“Sir-I would suggest to have the rosary said in every Irish home for the blessing of peace. If we cannot get it any other way, let us hope to obtain it by prayer; not much use in blaming any side, as there is nothing like unity, let us hope God will protect Ireland, [from] An Irish Mother (Cork Examiner, Tuesday morning, 12 September 1922, p.6)”.

Sitting unassuming on a busy road at Leemount lies the Patrick Murphy Civil War memorial. It stands adjacent a junction of roads, one that takes the traveller into the heart of Inniscarra and the other to Blarney. Completed by Seamus Murphy, Cork’s famous sculptor, the meaning of this memorial seems to be silently disappearing. The greyness of the monument seems to point to another dark age of Ireland’s history the Irish Civil War (June 1922-May 1923). Ireland’s present political landscape is still haunted by the war.

Arising out the Anglo Irish treaty of December 1921, the outbreak of the Civil War forced pro- and anti-treaty supporters to choose sides. Supporters of the treaty came to be known as “pro-treaty” or “Free State Army”, legally the “National Army”, and were often called “Staters” by their opponents. The latter called themselves “Republicans” and were also known as “anti-treaty” forces, or “Irregulars”, a term preferred by the Free State side. Perhaps the most harrowing history to read is the argument that the Civil War caused 4,000 deaths between the two opposing sides.  It is generally claimed in Irish history that the Civil War may have claimed more lives than the War of Independence against Britain that preceded it, and left Irish society divided and embittered for decades afterwards.

August and September 1922 saw widespread attacks on Free State forces in the territories they had occupied in the July–August offensive, inflicting heavy casualties on them. Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins was killed in an ambush by anti-treaty Republicans at Béal na mBláth, near his home in County Cork, on 22 August 1922. Collins’ death increased the bitterness of the Free State leadership towards the Republicans and probably contributed to the subsequent descent of the conflict into a cycle of atrocities and reprisals. Arthur Griffith, the Free State president had also died of a brain hemorrhage ten days before, leaving the Free State government in the hands of W. T. Cosgrave and the Free State army under the command of General Richard Mulcahy.

Arising out of the tensions of the day, on Tuesday Morning, 12 September 1922, (p.6), the Cork Examiner noted of the following incident at Leemount.

“The shooting occurred at Leemount, just at the cross roads and practically at the door of the café, which stands just where the permanent way of the Cork and Muskerry railway turns off the road, on the way up to Healy’s Bridge. About ten o’clock on Saturday morning a group of armed Irregulars were waiting here with what object is not clear. The fact that on the previous day, the Muskerry tram was held up and the mails raided suggests that another raid was their object, but this is purely a matter of conjecture.

A National soldier in uniform, accompanied by a friend in civilian clothes [Patrick Murphy], who was also apparently a member of the National Army, came along on bicycles from the direction of Carrigrohane. They do appear to have been on duty, but merely enjoying a short spin into the country at the time, whom they had passed the bridge crossing the Lee, which has been almost destroyed, and were nearing the cross roads at Leemount, when they were challenged by the Irregulars who called on them to halt. The reply of the two cyclists to this order was to draw revolvers and open fire on the “hold-up” party.

The Irregulars then opened fire and wounded the uniformed soldier, but not before two of their own party had been hit. What happened next is not quite clear, but the Irregulars disarmed the two cyclists, to whom however, they did not attempt to do further harm. Medical assistance was procured and the wounds of the three injured men were temporally dressed. One of the Irregulars, was seriously wounded in the region of the hip. The soldier had a flesh wound which was not serious, while the third man had been shot through the forearm. What became of the soldier and his friend is entirely unknown. They were both apparently taken off by the Irregulars, and their whereabouts are still and absolute mystery.”

More next week…

Captions:

558a. Patrick Murphy Civil War Memorial, Leemount, September 2010 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

558b. River Lee upstream before Leemount Bridge, Autumn 2010

Kieran’s article, Our City, Our Town,

Cork Independent, 16 September 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 228)

For the Sake of Balance

The Irish Bureau of Military History was established in January 1947. Its original objective was “to assemble and co-ordinate material to form the basis for the compilation of the history of the movement for Independence from the formation of the Irish Volunteers on 25th November 1913, to the 11th July 1921”(www.military.ie). Below is one of the eye witness accounts preserved for Cornelius O’Keeffe who was the owner of the property at Ballycannon. where the six young volunteers were shot on Wednesday morning 22 March 1921. My thanks to Tony McCarthy, Blarney, for pointing it out to me.

Cornelius O’Keeffe recounted in a sworn affidavit after the shootings the following:

“I remember the night of Tuesday the 22^nd March, 1921. About 11.30pm on that night there was a knock at my door after we all had gone to bed.  I asked ‘who is there’ and a voice replied ‘There are a couple of us going to sleep down in the stables; give us a call at 7 in the morning’. I said ‘alright’ and went to sleep. About 4am next morning (Wednesday, 23^rd March , 1921), there was a terrible thundering knock at my door. I leaped out of bed and looked out the window. I tied to light a lamp on the table but failed to do so.

One of the police then roared up at me to open the door if I didn’t want to get a bullet. Just as I rushed downstairs to open the door it was burst open by the police and they said to me ‘why the bloody hell didn’t you open the door?’ I explained what the delay was due to the lamp not lighting. They then asked me if I had any man in the house. I said there was no man there only myself…They ordered me back to bed and searched the beds and the other rooms in the house. They then went outside and I heard them search the out-houses.

I went into bed then and in about ten minutes time the police carne in and took me out into the yard. They then charged me with harbouring rebels which I denied. They then took me about 100 yards away from the out-house and gave me in charge to a Sergeant and Constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary. One of the Black and Tans came up to where I was standing with the other policemen and told them that they could find no arms in the house. The police then asked me to tell them where the arms were and I said I did not know. As I was speaking to me I heard one of the boys roaring as if he was being tortured. I then saw one of the boys being pushed across the field. It was still somewhat dark and he was too far away to distinguish who it was. The Black and Tan then returned and said ‘he is showing where the arms are’. They then carried the same boy over to the ditch and brought him back to the stables again.

A few minutes after, I heard a shot. Then at intervals there were two or three shots and then a volley of shots. I asked the policeman what the shooting was about and he relied that they were only blank cartridges. … A report then came up from the other body of police that some of the lads had escaped and to watch out for them. The police with me then prepared to shoot at anyone who would attempt to escape. There were then some terrible volleys fired where the boys were. . I then knelt down and said my prayers as I thought my turn would be next.

I was taken to where the boys were. There were two lines of Black and Tans in front of the stables so that I could not see who was there. As I was being taken down the field where the shooting was I saw two of the boys stretched out on the grass. I was then taken over the road and down to Kennedy’s public-house at the Cross. There were five police with me – three old R.I.C and two Black and Tans. After some conversation, in which they accused me of keeping arms on my premises, which I denied, I was brought back to Flaherty’s gate and I then saw five bodies being removed from my farm. They were all covered up in blankets. These bodies were placed in a lorry. They then brought out the sixth of the boys who was then alive and as they were throwing him into the lorry he said ‘oh, my leg’. There was a bandage around his forehead. They put me into the third lorry. They drove me in by Healy’s Bridge and the Lee Road as far as Gale’s Quarry. When they got there the first lorry in which the bodies were went on and I did not see it again. I was taken up to the Military Barracks, where I was kept in the Retention Barracks until the 17^th April 1921 and then  released without any charge being brought against me.“

To be continued…

Captions:

557a. Volunteers training in the Cork Cornmarket, c.1916, later to be built over by Cork City Hall (pictures: Cork City Museum Collection)

557b. Volunteer form for Patrick Higgins to join the Irish Volunteers