Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 4 April 2024

Launch of the Ballycannon Boys Memorial Park

This article is another follow up of articles I have written in recent years on the Ballycannon Boys memorial. In recent weeks the Ballycannon Boys Memorial Park, created by local community group of Clogheen/ Kerry Pike Community Association, has been unveiled. The park complements the nearby memorial (1945) and honours the memory of six young IRA men that were killed by Black and Tans on 23 March 1921.

The six men killed were Daniel Crowley of Blarney Street (aged 22), William Deasy of Mount Desert, Blarney Road (aged 20 years), Thomas Dennehy of Blarney Street (aged 21 years), Daniel Murphy of Orrey Hill (aged 24 years), Jeremiah O’Mullane of Blarney Street (aged 23), and Michael O’Sullivan of Blarney Street (aged 20 years).

The new and detailed information panels in the park highlight that early in the morning of the 23 March, a number of lorries left police barracks in Cork loaded with Black and Tans, British born recruits to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) who wore khaki uniforms & the black belts and caps of the RIC. The Black and Tans were feared for their ruthlessness and lack of discipline. The lorries drove out to Kerry Pike where the Tans dismounted and made their way silently over the road, crossing the fields, approaching and surrounding the O’Keeffe farmyard. They banged on the front door demanding admittance, and having woken the terrified household began searching the house, then spread out to search the outbuildings, catching the six young men asleep and unarmed in the tack room next to the stables.

What happened next is contested, but it appears that some of the six young men were dragged outside and mistreated as the police demanded to know where they had hidden their arms. There was an attempted break-out as they tried to escape through the surrounding fields. But a cordon had been posted and one by one the young men were picked off in a hail of high velocity rifle fire and revolver bullets. Some of the bodies were horribly mutilated, some showed marks of having been shot at close range.

When the firing ceased, six bodies were wrapped in blankets and carried down to the road, through the field, where they were loaded in the lorries and brought back to the military barracks. According to evidence given later by Cornelius O’Keeffe, who was taken prisoner and brought along, one of the victims was still alive when put into the lorry.

The Ballycannon tragedy must also be viewed in the broader context of what was happening elsewhere. During the eight months leading up until the Truce of July 1921, there was a spiralling of the death toll in the conflict, with 1,000 people including the RIC police, British military, IRA volunteers and civilians, being killed in the months between January and July 1921 alone. This represents about 70% of the total casualties for the entire three-year conflict. In addition, 4,500 IRA personnel (or suspected sympathisers) were interned in this time.In the middle of this violence, the Dáil formally declared war on Britain in March 1921. Between 1 November 1920 and 7 June 1921 twenty four men were executed by the British.

On 19 March 1921, four days before the Kerrypike incident Tom Barry’s 100-strong West Cork IRA unit fought a large-scale action against 1,200 British troops – the Crossbarry Ambush. Barry’s men narrowly avoided being trapped by converging British columns and inflicted between ten and thirty killed on the British side. About 100 Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers escaped an attempt by over 1,300 British forces to encircle them. During the hour-long battle three to six IRA volunteers were killed.

Michael Murphy who was a Commandant in the 2nd Battalion Cork No. 1 Brigade in his witness statement for the Bureau of Military History (WS1547) noted that in the case of the Ballycannon six that information was given to the military by a former comrade of the boys, a man named Patrick “Cruxy” O’Connor; “All our intelligence service vas alerted for information leading to the person who ‘tipped off’ the British as to the location of the Volunteer dugout. Finally, the informer was discovered to be a man named Connors who was actually a comrade of the murdered Volunteers at one time and who, possibly for monetary reward, decided to sell his friends”.

Michael writes that Patrick O’Connor went into hiding in the military barracks, Cork. Day and night, a watch was kept for him by Volunteers, but he never left the barracks. Eventually, we got word that he had gone to New York and, immediately, contact was made ‘with Cork men there to locate him. He was duly found and his address sent on to the Cork Brigade.

Michael notes of the New York assassination attempt; “Two Cork Volunteers Danny Healy and Martin Donovan from my battalion were sent out to New York. They watched for Connors, noted the times of his coming and going from his residence and, one afternoon when Connors opened the door of the house in which he lived, he was confronted by Healy and Donovan carrying revolvers”. Patrick managed to recover from his wounds. He moved to Canada, married an Irish immigrant and had a daughter. He died in 1952, at age 60.

Caption:

1246a. John Mulcahy, historian, speaking at the launch of the Ballycannon Boys Memorial Park, 23 March 2024 (picture: Kieran McCarthy).