Lee Road - May 20 1919

In the Spring of 1919 a brazen escape occurred from the asylum on the Lee Road. The escapee was Sean Moylan, North Cork IRA leader and future Fianna Fail Government minister.

Sean Moylan

Moylan was arrested after delivering a seditious speech in the village of Cullen, just outside Millstreet and for this 'crime' he was sent to Cork City Gaol to serve 12 months hard labour.

In Cork City Gaol Moylan went on hunger strike which affected his health and the prison doctor recommended that the IRA leader should be moved to the prison hospital. As warders were busy prepaing his bed in the hospital a fellow prisoner called Martin Beckett from Kilgarvan approached Moylan who was sitting near the fire. The two men got quietly chatting and a plan for Moylan's escape was cooked up between them.

Moylan (on the left) standing on a roadblock in North Cork. 

Beckett turned to the warders and warned them to hide the pokers and tongs as Moylan was a madman. He exclaimed that Moylan was as mad as Jack the ripper and the startled warders called in the doctor and governor to determine if Beckett's claims were true. Of course they were false but, this was all part of the plan for Moylans escape

"The mad house by the Lee"

Moylan played the madman well. He snarled at the warders and it was decided to move him to the Cork lunatic asylum on the Lee Road, a place which was less guarded than Cork City Gaol! The day after Moylan was moved to "the mad house by the Lee"  Thomas McCurtain paid a visit to "insane" inmate Moylan to initiate an escape.

Main gates to asylum

McCurtain informed Moylan that volunteers were ready to assist in his escape and on the evening of May 20th the escape played out. Volunteers from the Cork No.1 Brigade positioned themselves around the vicinity of the aslyum, out along the road and at the main gates. That evening Moylan calmly strolled out of the aslyum and across the yard. He climbed over a hedge and into a field from where he made his way onto the Lee Road. Moylan cooly strolled up the long Lee Road until he spotted his getaway car waiting for him.

The Lee Road today.

Moylan was whisked off in the direction of Blarney where he stayed in a safe house to recover from gastric flu he had contracted during his short stint as an insane inmate!

Cork Examiner report on the escape

The brazen escape was an embarrassment for the authorities who would later rue the day they let Sean Moylan slip from their clutches so easily!

Grave of Moylan at Kiskeam cemetery

Moylan's Escape - words by Pauline Murphy.

Gerald Griffin Street - August 18 1923

On a warm August evening 33 year old Abina Murphy was walking down Gerald Griffin Street( formally Clarence Street) with her friend Kathleen Deasy. Abina came from St Marys Road in Blackpool, while Kathleen was a Spangle Hill girl. The two ladies were shirtmakers and were making their way home. 

St Marys Rd, Blackpool.

Suddenly a burst of gunfire erupted on the street. A group of lads fired at Free State soldiers standing by a wall. The Free Staters returned fire on what were presumed Republicans and Kathleen and Abina were caught in the cross fire. 

Today's Gerald Griffin Street on the city's north side

A bullet pierced through Kathleen's neck while a bullet lodged in Abinas abdomen. Even though she had suffered a horrific wound Abina was able to stumble to the door of a woman she knew, Mrs Coughlan, at No.25 Gerald Griffin Street. When Mrs Coughlan answered the frantic knocking on the door she opened it and Abina exclaimed ''Oh Mrs Coughlan I have been shot!'' She then collapsed in the doorway.

No.25 Gerald Griffin St, on the left, where Abina collapsed.

Kathleen survived her awful injury but her friend Abina would succumb to death a day later at the north infirmary hospital. She was buried in St Joesphs Cemetery where the large funeral procession included a contingent from the Cork branch of the Irish Union of Distributive Workers & Clerks, which Abina was a member of. 

Lower Glanmire Road - RIC Barracks

The Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks at 127 Lower Glanmire Road fell victim to an arson attack on the night of July 12th 1920. Along with King Street (MacCurtain Street) and St. Luke's, it was attacked by members of the First Cork Brigade and rendered useless thereafter. 

The RIC barracks today.

Although it sat in a convenient location across the road from the train station it did not deter Volunteers who raided the railway yard for supplies! But, this was an area of the city which proved dangerous for those who pledged to fight for a Republic, because it was an area populated with many unionists. 

When the Lower Glanmire Road Barracks was fire bombed on the night of the 12th of July in 1920 it sent a message to those in the area that the streets of Cork were no longer royal, they were Republican streets in a Rebel city. 

Auxies from the dreaded K Company standing outside the train station on the Lower Glanmire Road.

General Post Office - December 21 1920

It was 7:30pm on a dark December evening when three men held up the general post office on Oliver Plunkett Street in the name of the Republic. What followed resembled something from a wild west shootout.

The GPO on Oliver Plunkett Street

Three IRA Volunteers entered the post office and instructed everyone to put up their hands as a cash withdrawl for the Republican Army was about to take place.

Inside the GPO today.

 Unbeknownst to the three Volunteers there were two plain clothes detectives in the building who, instead of putting up their hands, drew their guns.

                                             The side door facing onto Pembroke Street.



A gun fight broke out in the post office between the three IRA Volunteers and the two detectives. With bullets flying everywhere, there were of course casualties. 

Cork's GPO

19 year old IRA Volunteer Patrick Tarrant from Ballintemple was at the doorway of the Pembroke Street entrance to the post office when he was struck by two bullets, one in his face and one in his chest, he was killed instantly. The other two Volunteers managed to flee the scene unhurt. 

GPO Pembroke St side

A civilian by the name of Timothy Donovan was in the post office at the time posting parcels when a bullet pierced his abdomen. The 31 labourer who had fought in WWI with the Munster Fusiliers was taken to the Mercy Hospital where he died the next day.  

Vol. Tarrant was a member of D Company 2nd Battalion Cork No.1 Brigade

12 French's Quay - June 23 1921

It was a warm June evening when 19 year old Josephine Scannell was sitting by the window in No. 12 French's Quay. The young seamstress was sowing some garments when a bullet came crashing through the glass from the street outside and ended her life. 

Frenchs Quay 1900s

It was a chaotic evening in the city. Shandon Street and Tuckey Street RIC Barracks were attacked by members of the First Cork Brigade. Up to 30 IRA Volunteers fired shots and flung tin can bombs at the barracks in a drive by attack. As they retreated towards South Gate Bridge after attacking Tuckey Street Barracks, they were pursued by a number of raging Auxileries who fired indiscriminately, injuring civilians and ultimately killing one. 

                                              French's Quay in the early 20th Century.


Among those injured that evening were Mrs O'Connor and her one year old daughter and 12 year old daughter. Five year old Hugh Murray and Denis Lenihan were also caught up in the deadly street fighting but all survived.

Josephine, or Josie as she was better known, was one of five children and following her death, Josie's parents received £1,000 compensation. Her funeral to St Joseph's cemetery attracted hundreds of mourners. The tragic death of the 19 year old seamstress demonstrated that whether it be on the street or in the home, nowhere was safe during those turbulent times in Cork.

French's Quay in modern times.

Josie's grave in St Joesphs, Ballyphehane. 

26 Evergreen Street

Sean O'Hegarty, O/C of the First Cork Brigade, was born at 26 Evergreen Street on March 21st 1881. General Tom Barry described him as: "responsible more than any other individual for the aggressive and militant activities which placed Cork No.1 Brigade amongst the leading Brigades in Ireland." 

                              Birthplace of Sean O'Hegarty.



Sean was born into a family of freedom fighters. His father John was a Fenian, his brother Patrick Sarsfield was an IRB man and his other brother Ned was an engineer of the First Cork Brigade. When Sean's father died from consumption on Christmas day 1888 the family were plunged into poverty but, the matriarch of the family, Katherine, pawned her jewellery and worked scrubbing floors in big houses to make sure her children received an education and a decent living. This determination would shine through in Sean during the testing years of revolution.

Sean O'Hegarty in later years.

Sean went to school at the North Mon and after his school days he got a job in Cork Post Office. In 1905 he joined the Celtic Literary Society, a nationalist society founded by Terence MacSwiney, and a year later he joined the IRB. 

In 1907 he co-founded the O'Growney Branch of the Gaelic League and in 1910 was chairman of Cork Sinn Fein. In February 1912 Sean married fellow Gaelic Leaguer and Republican activist Maghdalen Ni Laoghaire. In 1916 Sean was Commandant of the Irish Volunteers in Ballingeary and Bandon and had gathered his men for action but, of course the rising in the rebel county was aborted at the last minute. Of course, with all this activity under his belt, Sean was a marked man in the eyes of the occupier and he lost his job at the post office when he was ordered by the authorities to leave Cork.

Sean's banishment would not last long and he was back in the rebel county in 1917 where he got employment as a storekeeper at Cork Workhouse. On Armistice Day 1918 he organised the successful rescue of Donnchadha MacNeilus from Cork County Gaol. MacNeilus was a Donegal man but a member of the Cork Volunteers who found himself facing the gallows after shooting a constable during a raid on his lodgings on Leitrim Street. The constable was lingering for days in hospital with a gunshot wound to his face but, Sean wasn't taking any chances, if the constable died MacNeilus was sure to hang, so he organised the breakout of the Donegal man from Cork Gaol. In the end, the constable survived!

Cork Workhouse.

In the months leading up to the War of Independence Sean was leading a vast arms collecting campaign. By 1920 he had become O/C of the First Cork Brigade, he enforced a high degree of discipline in his men which marked out the Cork Brigade as one of the most feared and respected in the land. In August 1920 Sean was one of many high ranking Republican figures arrested in Cork City Hall, along with Liam Lynch and Lord Mayor MacSwiney. Sean and Lynch gave false names and adresses and were later released. If only the Brits knew who they had let slip through their net! Unfortunately for MacSwiney he was too well known and he was sent to Brixton Prison where he would die on hunger strike. 

On the 25th of February 1921 Sean led a Flying Column consisting of 60 freedom fighters to a mountainy spot on the Cork - Killarney road. What played out would go down in local lore as The Battle of Coolavokig. 

The battle site at Coolavokig, or as it is also known as Coolnacaheragh.

Sean led his men in ambushing 8 lorry loads of enemy soldiers. The 8 lorries consisted of 100 soldiers but with leadership and displine, the 60 volunteers of the IRA Flying Column put up a fight which lasted almost 4 hours. 

It wasn't an easy fight, the British soldiers carried with them civilians, what we would term today as human shields, but none were casualties that day and in fact the IRA counted no casualties on their side but many on the enemy side. When 40 British lorries were spotted coming over the horizon Sean called a halt to the hours long battle and retreated his men.

The monument many of us pass on the way to or from Kerry, marking the spot of the ambush.

Sean at Coolavokig ambush site, July 1962. 

As O/C of the First Cork Brigade Sean oversaw the rooting out of informers. Like many a lost rebellion that had passed before, informers had been the foundation of such failures, so when the Cork IRA set out to win the war for freedom they did so with the determination to overcome that most Irish of downfalls - the informer.

After the truce an uneasy relationship developed between Sean and somecif his comrades. He knew peace would not last, that the IRA would need to be ready for a resumption of war and in March he oversaw the arms raid on the British ship the Upnor at Cork harbour. 

In May 1922 Sean addressed the Dail on unity within the Republican movement. By then he had seen a viscious split tearing republicans apart and he tried to repair it but, when Civil War broke out he took neither side.  Sean, along with his Cork brigade comrade Florrie O'Donoghue founded the Neutral IRA. 

Grave of Florrie O'Donoghue, St Finbarrs Cemetery.

Bust of Sean at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork city.

In the 1930s Sean began a campaign to have excommunication orders against IRA members lifted. In 1954 he chaired the committee to repatriate the remains of Fr Dominic O'Connor OFM Cap and Fr Albert Biddy OFM Cap. The two priests were more or less the Chaplin's of the Republican Army who had died in exile. Fr Albert died in 1925 and Fr Dominic died in 1935 but thanks to the stewardship of Sean O'Hegarty the two patriot priests were finally brought home to rest in their native soil in the summer of 1958. 

The remains of the patriot priests return home. 

Fr Albert & Fr Dominic.

In 1960 Sean chaired another committee, this time it was one to raise a memorial at the Republican Plot in St Finbarrs Cemetery. Three years later on St Patrick's day 1963, the tall stone monument was unveiled by Eamon de Valera in the cemetery. 

The memorial at St Finbarrs Cemetery.

Just months after the memorial was unveiled at St Finbarrs Cemetery Sean would depart this world. The O/C of the First Cork Brigade drew his last breath at the Bon Secour Hospital in Cork on May 31st 1963. His remains were brought to Kilmurry Cemetery where he was laid to rest alongside his wife, with full military honours. 

Plaque at the gates of the historic Kilmurry Graveyard & the O'Hegarty gravestone.

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