5 Parliament Street

At No.5 Parliament Street the Duggan sisters Peg and Annie ran a flower shop which also served as an arms dump and rendezvous point for the Cork IRA.

The former flower shop of the Duggan sisters.

The Duggans were from Blackpool and were a family entrenched in the Republican movement on Leeside. 

49 Thomas Davis Street - former home of the Duggans.

The Duggan sisters Sara, Peg, Annie, Brighid and their brother all took active roles in the fight for freedom. In 1913 the Duggan sisters joined Cumann na mBan. Sara served as President of Cumann na mBan Cork district council, Peg was Captain of the Cumann na mBan Ceannt branch and Annie established Clann na nGael girl guides. 

Peg Duggan

The flower shop on Parliament street was an active place where messages were dropped and picked up and arms were stored. The Duggan home also served the cause but, fell victim to numerous raids. The flower shop near Parliament Bridge also suffered from a visit by the crown forces. 

The Duggan flower shop, near Parliament Bridge, just a stones throw away from the Holy Trinity Church.

In 1919 the authorities raided the flower shop and the Duggan sisters were issued with an order to close their business, even though nothing incriminating was found on their premises.

From Peg's Military Witness Statement.

Even though the flower shop remained closed for a period, Peg Duggan still had the keys and she handed them over to the 2nd Battalion of the Cork No.1 Brigade who continued to use the then vacant premises as an arms dump and secret hideout. 

Sara Duggan.

After a while the flower shop reopened and the Duggan sisters defied the authorities by continuing to provide the IRA with an arms dump at their premises. 

The former flower shop/IRA arms dump on the left of Parliament Bridge.

One evening in 1920 Padraig O'Caoimh of the Cork No. 1 Brigade paid a visit to the flower shop to pick up a hand grenade. Peg was in the shop at the time. When O'Caoimh left the shop a group of auxiliaries dressed in their civvies approached him. O'Caoimh was taken to the Union Quay RIC barracks where he was charged with having a grenade. He was sent to Parkhurst Prison to serve a 15 year sentence but he was released within a year when the truce was announced in the summer of 1921. 

O'Caoimh would go to become secretary of the GAA and today Cork's GAA stadium bears his name - Pairc ui Caoimh. 

Padraig O'Caoimh

When Lord Mayor Thomas MacCurtain was murdrered by the RIC on the night of March 20th 1920, the Duggan sisters who lived nearby were the first on the scene. 

In March 1922 the patriarch of the Duggan family, Patrick, died and Michael Collins was one of the pallbearers. Not long after the family split along treaty lines. 

From the Cork City Directory.

Annie and Peg chose the Pro-treaty side while the rest of the family went Anti-treaty. Peg would stay politically active for years after the end of the Civil War, becoming a follower of Eoin O'Duffy's blue shirts, even painting her front door blue at Thomas Davis Street! She died in 1964 and was buried in the Duggan family plot in St Finbarrs Cemetery. 

To read more about the Duggan sisters and other great rebel women of Cork look no further than this great publication from the Shandon Area History Group.