Parnell Place - August 22 1923

 

It was just after 6 o'clock on an Autumn evening in the city when 65 year old Jane McCarthy left the Parnell Hotel on Parnell Place. She was a resident of the hotel but on that evening she would not return. 

Parnell Place, from Parnell Bridge. 

As Jane McCarthy exited the hotel and crossed the road a Free State lorry came at speed from the direction of Parnell Bridge. The driver saw the lady crossing Parnell Place and sounded his horn but, it proved too late. The army lorry ploughed into the unfortunate lady and she died later that night at the South Infirmary Hospital. 

Free State lorry on Patrick Street 1922.

74 North Main Street

 

Tylers Boot Shop on North Main Street played an important role in the Republican movement in Cork City. The unassuming shoe shop was a drop off point for dispatches while guns and ammo were also hidden there.

No.74 North Main Street, in recent years home to the Roman House, now vacant.

Tylers had shops all over Ireland. In Cork city alone there were stores located on Wintrop Street, Patrick Street and North Main Street. The Patrick Street store was torched duirng the Burning of Cork in December 1920. 

One of many Tyler stores in Ireland. This one in Waterford. 

The Tyler shoe shop at 74 North Main Street was situated in a place once home to James Mountain, known as Cork's first Fenian.  Today a plaque marks the spot.

During the War of Independence the manager of Tylers on North Main Street was Liam Murphy. He was adjutant, 1st Battalion, Cork No.1 Brigade IRA. 

Kathleen Murray worked in the North Main Street store as a shop assistant. She was a member of the Craobh Poblachta na hEireann branch of Cumann na mBan. 

Tylers North Main Street, seen here in picture from 1960s/70s.

Kathleen Murray came from a staunch Republican family on Blarney Street, northside of Cork city. Her brother Pa was a member of the Cork IRA Active Service Unit and her sisters Eily and Maighread were also Cumann na mBan members. 

Kathleen's pension application detailing some of her activities during the fight for freedom. 

North Main Street and its surrounding area was a hot bed of Republican activity. Across the street from the Tyler Boot Shop was a Sinn Fein office at no. 53. It was destroyed in an arson attack by a loyalist mob in late 1920. Further up the street, towards South Main Street near the back of St Augustine Church was the newsagent shop of the Wallace sisters. Like Tylers Shop, it also served as a place for dropping and picking up dispatches etc. 

In the heart of this area was St Francis Church, also known as Broad Lane Church. Tylers shop was located at the back entrance to the church and the sympathetic Franciscans would often help in the hiding of wanted men.

St Francis Church before it was redesigned and rebuilt in 1953.

Michael Collins attended mass there on March 12th 1922 when he was in the city trying to sell the treaty to the Cork public. 

Collins outside St Francis church with Diarmuid Fawsitt, Comdt Cooney, P. O'Keefe TD, Fr Leo, Fr Edmund, Comdt McKeown.

54 Blarney Street

 

Timothy Joseph Barry of 54 Blarney Street was better known as Tadhg. He was a Republican, a Socialist, a GAA stalwart, a journalist and trade unionist. 

The home of Tadhg Barry at 54 Blarney Street.

A plaque recently unveiled at no.54

Tadhg Barry went to school locally at Blarney Street National School and from there he went to the North Mon. When he finished his schooling he worked as an attendant at Our Ladys Asylum. 

Blarney Street N.S today. 

Tadhg had a gra for writing and he became a journalist with The Cork Accent newspaper and The Cork Free Press. He wrote GAA articles under the name 'An Ciotog' and a column with The Southern Star called 'Neath Shandons Steeple.'

Tadhg wrote one of the first books on Hurling called 'Hurling and how to play it'. It was published in 1916 in a small batch just for the students of North Mon. Tadhg also enjoyed jotting down lyrical verses and in 1917 he wrote a collection called 'Songs and other rhymes of a gaol bird.'

Tadhg was also deeply involved in the GAA and he was a driving force in the development of Camogie in Cork. He was the first trainer of a Cork Camogie team and was a highly regarded referee in the game. 

Tadhg Barry at Croke Park.

He had a great passion for hurling and he was involved in setting up Sundays Well Hurling Club and Fainne an Lae Camogie Club on Blarney Street. 

Blarney Street today. 

Apart from sport and culture, Tadhg Barry became involved in politics and was known across the city as a great organiser. In 1906 he was a founding member of Cork Sinn Fein. He was there for the setting up of a local branch of Na Fianna Eireann, and in 1913 he was present at Cork City Hall for the founding of the Cork branch of the Irish Volunteers.

ITGWU (SIPTU) banner.

Aside from nationalist politics, Tadhg was involved in trade unionism. He was a leading member of the ITGWU in Cork and was a memebr of its No.1 Branch known as the James Connolly Memorial Branch. 

Barry, front row far left, with other high profile members of Corks revolutionary movement. 

In 1916 Tadhg was arrested for making a'seditious' speech at a Manchester Martyrs commemoration. In 1918 he was arrested again, this time his crime was being a  'conspirator' and he was sent to Usk Gaol in England where he battled the deadly Spanish Flu which was sweeping through the prison wings. 

When he was relased he flung himself back into the world of revolutionary politics. Tadgh led a farm labourers strike in 1919 and in 1920 he was elected to Cork City Council on a Sinn Fein ITGWU ticket. 

     Mugshot following his arrest in 1921. 

Tadgh was arrested by raiding crown forces at Cork City Hall during a meeting there in early Spring of 1921.  He was sent to Ballykinlar Prison Camp in Co. Down.  He used his time there to teach Irish to other internees and hold classes on socialism. He even flew a red flag on his hut!

Ballykinlar Camp.

On the 15th of November 1921 Tadgh was standing near a wire fence waving goodbye to some of his fellow internees who were granted their freedom. A sentry called Private A. Barrett took aim at Tadgh and shot him dead. 

The funeral of Tadgh Barry drew thousands of mourners to the streets of Cork. They lined the route from the train station on the Lower Glanmire Road to the North Cathedral. 

The remains of Tadgh carried from the train station.

The funeral procession being led by the Cork Volunteer Pipe Band over St Patricks Bridge. 

Michael Collins left the Treaty negotiations in London to attend the funeral. 

 After funeral mass in the North Cathedral on Sunday November 20th, the funeral procession went to St Finbarrs Cemetery where 33 year old Tadgh Barry was laid to rest in the Republican Plot. 

Grave of Tadhg Barry St Finbarrs Cemetery

A British report on Tadhg Barry described him as 'A mischievous socialist, a bolshevist Sinn Feiner and an utter disloyalist.'

 To put it simply - a true rebel!

Victoria Cross - RIC Barracks

 

The Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks at Victoria Cross formed part of the Cork City South District Policing. It sat at a prime position at Victoria Cross which served as the main entry point into the city from the west.

Then and now: Victoria Cross in the 1920s and what it looks like today. 

The site of the RIC barracks is the yellow building on the left. 

A lot of incidents occured right under the nose of the Victoria Cross RIC. An arms dump was discovered in a quarry close by and the brothers Owen and Robert Jackson lived near the barracks. They were both active members of the IRA Cork No.1 Brigade who served time in Ballykinlar Prisoner Camp. 

Dennehys Cross and the witness statement of Sean Healy. 

In 1920 members of H Company 2nd Battalion Cork No. 1 Brigade ambushed two British military lorries at Dennehys Cross which is just a stones throw up the road from the Victoria Cross RIC Barracks! 

St Finbarrs Cemetery, grave of H Company member James Prendergast

One of the lorries was broken down and was being towed by another when the IRA pounced as the vehicles slowed down approaching Dennehys Cross. The IRA Volunteers jumped on the leading lorry and let the British Soldiers run off into the nearby fields. They then set fire to the two lorries and made off before the constables in the barracks down the road noticed what was going on!

           Witness statement of Edward Horgan.

In March 1921 the Victoria Cross RIC Barracks was put out of business by the Cork IRA when seven Volunteers from G Company petrol bombed it. The "peelers" never returned to Victoria Cross after that. 

4 Merchants Quay

 

Merchants Quay today is just one long red brick shopping centre but over 100 years ago the quayside was adorned with a varied selection of businesses, shops, pubs, and at No. 4 Merchants Quay - the HQ for the Cork branch of The Irish Citizen Army.

What Merchants Quay looked like in the 19th and early 20th Century

Labour leader Jim Larkin often stated that the roots of the Irish Citizen Army stemmed from Cork City. It was during the 1908/09 coal porters and dockers strike that the labour movement militarised when a workers defence force was established to protect the strikers from the batons of the peelers. 

Uniform of the Irish Citizen Army

The business men affected by the strike established the Employers Federation and set about locking out the striking workers. This lock out which lasted from 1909 to 1908 was the first lock out, (before the more infamous one in 1913 Dublin) and some call it "D'real Lockout!"

Newspaper of the Citizen Army, edited by Cathal O'Shannon who lodged upstairs at the Wallace Sisters Shop, Cork City.

The Irish Citizen Army first fully organised a Cork branch in 1914. From its roots in 1909 as a simple workers defence group armed with just sticks, it was now a force to be reckoned with as seen in the advertisment in the Irish Worker newspaper: 

REBELCORK!

YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU!!

JOIN THE IRISH CITIZEN ARMY, CAPTAIN MACKEY SECTION.

4 MERCHANTS QUAY CORK.

LIVE & DIE IN IRELAND.

LEARN TO SHOOT STRAIGHT, THE CAPTAIN MACKEY RIFLE RANGE IS NOW OPEN AT ABOVE ADDRESS WHERE MEN ARE TRAINED FOR IRELAND AND IRELAND ONLY!

The Cork branch of the Irish Citizen Army was named after the Fenian Captain Mackey who led a daring raid on a British military martello tower in Cork harbour in 1867, and later died in an explosion on the River Thames London.

Drilling and rifle practise took place at No.4 Merchants Quay on Tuesdays and Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. 

Merchants Quay today.

Thomas "Corkie" Walsh was one famous Cork member of the Irish Citizen Army. He was a stonemanson by trade and brother in law of Thomas MacCurtain, the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork murdered by the RIC in 1920. 

"Corkie" Walsh.

During Easter Week 1916 Walsh was part of the Dublin City Hall garrison. Following the Easter Rising, "Corkie" was sent to Frongoch with the other arrested rebels but while he was there his health declined. 

The grave of Walsh in St Finbarrs Cemetery.

Walsh was released in 1917 but in poor health. He died from pneumonia in March 1918 at the age of just 36. 

The Wallace sisters , Shelia and Nora, were well known Republicans and Labour activists on Leeside. They were also memebers of the Irish Citizen Army. They ran a small newsagents shop at St. Augustine Street where the likes of James Connolly and Countess Markievicz would pay a visit to anytime they were in Cork.  They sold labour and republican pamplets and newspapers. They also organised parades and rallies such as May Day workers day. 

The Wallace sisters organised the womens and youth section of the Cork Irish Citizen Army until 1921 when they, and other Cork Citizen Army members joined the IRA's fight against imperial rule. 

The Wallce Sisters shop.

In 1922 the Cork labour movement moved into the old soldiers home at Kings Terrace on the Lower Glanmire Road. It became the first soldiers home in Ireland when it opened in 1877 but, following the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1921 it went up for sale and it was snapped up by the expanding Labour movement who needed a bigger premises.

The old Connolly Hall, (the large red brick building)

The large red brick building on the Lower Glanmire Road was named Connolly Hall and remained the HQ for the Cork Labour movement for over 50 years.

In May 1923 Jim Larkin, freshly released from New York's Sing Sing Prison, made a welcoming return to Cork with an event held in his honur at Connolly Hall. When he arrived at the train station (Kent Station) he was met by a number of bands and many supporters who walked him the short distance to Connolly Hall. Because the crowd was so large, not everyone could fit inside the buidling so, Big Jim Larkin did what he did best - he gave a rousing speech from a top floor window to those gathered on the Lower Glanmire road.