Fighting for the Cause

Kerry's Republican Fighters

Tim Horgan

• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781781175613
• eBook ISBN: 9781781175620
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

The untold stories of some of the men and women of Co. Kerry who gave their all in Ireland's fight for independence.In Fighting for the Cause well-known Kerry historian Dr Tim Horgan tells the stories of some of the Kingdom's extraordinary men and women who fought for an Irish Republic. They include the Fenian Jerry O'Sullivan, who blew up a wall of Clerkenwell prison in 1867 in an attempt to free two prisoners; Bridget Gleeson and Nora Brosnan, who were both incarcerated for their Republican activities; John Cronin, whose attacks on the British forces in 1920 were so audacious that he was considered a maverick by his own brigade commanders; Pat Allman, who was hidden above the Gap of Dunloe to recover from bullet wounds sustained in a fight with Free State forces; Paddy Landers, who spent nine months in Limerick Gaol, from where he would attempt to broker peace during the Civil War; and David Fleming, whose sustained hunger strikes in the 1940s would destroy his health and lead to long-term psychological trauma.

Endnotes

Jerry O’Sullivan

1 The Cork Examiner, 23 October 1893. A similar sentiment was expressed at a political meeting in Killarney by anti-Parnellite John Deasy, MP, in 1888.

2 The Nenagh News, 2 December 1922.

3 John Joseph Corridan, aka Corydon, was born in the Ballyheigue area of North Kerry around 1841. He emigrated to America about 1855 and worked as a clerk before joining the 63rd New York Regiment of the Union Army in the Civil War, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant. His regiment fought at Antietam, Gettysburg and was at the Appomattox Court House for General Robert E. Lee’s surrender. Corridan joined the Fenian organisation in Virginia in 1862. He returned to Ireland as an active Fenian agent in 1865 when his regiment demobilised. By September 1866 he was a paid state informer supplying high-level information and became a pivotal witness for the crown in most of the Fenian trials.

4 Jerry O’Sullivan recorded the events at Clerkenwell and his subsequent escape in a signed statement, which was later published in The Irish Press, 13 December 1938.

5 Statement of O’Sullivan in The Irish Press, 13 December 1938.

6 It may have been that the administration of mercury for medicinal purposes by a hospital doctor contributed to his condition, producing psychiatric symptoms.

7 ‘Michael Barrett, The Unknown Fenian’, Fr Joe McVeigh in the Fermanagh Herald, 1 December 1990.

8 The Irish Press, 6 November 1972.

9 Irish Independent, 29 November 1922.

10 The Irish Press, 6 November 1992.

11 Statement of O’Sullivan in The Irish Press, 13 December 1938.

Dan O’Mahony

1 O’Malley, Ernie, The Men Will Talk to Me: Kerry Interviews (Mercier Press, Cork, 2012), interview with Andy Cooney, pp. 168–9.

2 Ibid.

3 Castleisland historian T. M. Donovan writing in the Kerry News, 4 November 1927.

4 Obituary of Dan O’Mahony, Kerry Champion, 27 October 1934.

5 Amongst its many provisions, The Protection of Persons and Property Act of 1881, commonly known as one of many Coercion Acts, allowed for detention on the grounds of ‘reasonable suspicion’, essentially implementing internment. Among the 953 people incarcerated under the act was Charles Stewart Parnell.

6 Obituary in the Kerry News, 24 October 1934.

7 Obituary in the Kerry Reporter, 17 October 1934.

8 Seán Ó Riada (John Reidy) (1882–1967), Republican and Irish-language enthusiast, was the first Sinn Féin elected representative in Kerry. He emigrated to New York in 1914 and was active in Irish Republican organisations there until his death in 1967. He was buried with Republican honours in Kilbannivane Cemetery, Castleisland.

9 Kerry News, 13 May 1908.

10 Ibid., 15 May 1908.

11 Edward Melville Philips Wynne was born in 1858 in Shoeburyness, Essex, and was educated in Eton and Oxford. Following a short period as an officer in the British Army, he became a district inspector in the RIC and later served as personal secretary to the chief inspector of the RIC. In 1903 he was appointed a resident magistrate in Offaly and filled that role from 1905 in Kerry. During his period in Kerry he lived in Clonmore, Tralee. An attempt to kidnap him on his way to Causeway court on 11 May 1920 caused him to shoot dead Volunteer Michael Nolan. Wynne publicly expressed his regret at the death and resigned the next week, going to live in London. His furniture was burned on the platform of Tralee railway station while in transit to his new home. Wynne presided over many of the court cases in the county before the imposition of martial law.

12 The Freeman’s Journal, 10 April 1918.

13 Piaras Béaslaí (Percy Beazley 1881–1965) was born in Liverpool in 1881. His father’s family had been evicted from their home near Fossa, Killarne...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• Jerry O’Sullivan
• Dan O’Mahony
• Marguerite Fleming
• Frank Morgan
• Tadhg Brosnan
• Peter Brady
• Neil O’Leary
• Jim Sugrue
• Denis O’Driscoll
• John ‘Gilpin’ Griffin
• Fr Joe Breen
• Nora Brosnan
• Con O’Leary
• Nance Scully
• Pat O’Connor
• Paddy Landers
• Bridget Gleeson
• Pat Allman
• Tom Daly
• John Cronin
• ‘Small’ Neilus McCarthy
• David Fleming
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• About the Author
• About the Publisher