by Liam Ó Súilleabháin

I’d like to thank Canice and the Pat Walsh Memorial Committee for asking me to say a few words today. Personally it’s a huge honor to have been asked to contribute to today’s remembrance ceremony. As you will find out, I’m certainly not a public speaker but I hope you will all bear with me for a few minutes, I promise I won’t keep you long.

I’m not a local being from Kerry but like many of you here today at times such as this we remember our own ancestors who were involved in the conflict. For me personally my grandfather Bill is very much in my thoughts and I’m very proud to have the opportunity to wear his medal here today. My grandfather was a member of Listry IRA company and later fought with his local Flying Column.

His family knew very little about his involvement in the struggle for Irish Independence he spoke very little about this part of his life and apart from having some mementos in the house his children wouldn’t really have known anything about his involvement. Like my grandfather many of those who were involved in the struggle for our Irish independence, didn’t want to be reminded of it, they didn’t want to discuss it or be asked questions about it. It was really a period of their lives they really all tried their very best to forget.

What was particularly tragic in the birth of our nation was the inevitable civil war that followed the War of Independence. Friend turned on friend, neighbour against neighbour, in some cases brother against brother. There are really no winners in any civil war and more than any other conflict in our country our civil war impacted those involved very deeply. Many survivors immigrated and those who remained struggled to return to normal life. Many suffered mental health problems or various addictions and if they were married many of their marriages broke down.

Almost 100 years on and now almost 4 generations later the horrors of the conflict our ancestors fought has passed. I feel we are now looking back on these times with rose tinted glasses. Recent TV drama’s show exciting shoot outs and daring escapes; certainly the men commemorated on our monuments didn’t share these romantic memories that are currently depicted on our TV screens.  The lives of the majority of those who were heavily involved in the fight for Irish Freedom never returned to normal afterwards. When you look someone in the whites of their eye and you’re looking down the barrel of a gun and YOU make that decision to pull the trigger and YOU end that person’s life. One life ends that’s clear.  What’s less well understood is how in that split second: the life of the person who pulls that trigger is changed and changed forever.

Pat Walsh who we remember today and his comrade Séan Quinn from Mullinahone were both young men who were willing to sacrifice their lives for Irish Freedom. They were probably unlucky when they jumped onto a ditch in Knocknagress, Tullaroan into the sights of the British Army. Both were severely wounded and captured and that night when they lay in the British military hospital in Kilkenny a priest Fr. Kavanagh who attended them for the last rites later stated in a letter to Séans mother:

‘They were both anxious that they would die’.

Séan Quinn was perhaps the luckier of the two and he passed away the next day from his wounds. Pat Walsh had been wounded the leg, which then became infected and he was transferred to Fermoy Military Hospital and I will just read from his grave stone of how his life ended just a few days after he was shot:

Erected by Matthew Walsh in loving memory of his son Patrick, Captain in the IRA.  He was wounded by the British and taken to Fermoy where the amputation of his leg without anaesthetics caused his death 18th May 1921. May his soul rest in peace Amen

A sobering statement from Pat’s father, forever cast in stone here in the old Dunamaggin graveyard to ensure that generations later as we read it; we too will remember Pats sacrifice.

So why did young people like Pat and Séan decide to go through all this ?

Would anyone of us here today make the same sacrifice?

Why would you willingly risk your job, your home, your family or in the case of Pat Walsh and Séan Quinn why would you willingly sacrifice your life ?

What or who was it all this really for ?

I stand here convinced that it was for us. This sacrifice made 100 years ago was for the people gathered around this monument today.

These men made the ultimate sacrifice so that WE their descendants could be born into a country with the right to govern itself. So we could all live in a nation where EVERYONE is treated as an equal. So that we can grow up in an Irish culture that embraces ALL of its heritage; our traditional music, our Gaelic games and our Irish language. Finally and most importantly despite events of the last week; a country that in my lifetime has finally become reconciled with its troubled history and has now finally embraced a peaceful future.

Here in Dunamaggin; in this small rural village where it’s people had lived in the shadow of the Norman Lords of Kells for centuries. Patriots like Pat Walsh stood up. He refused to continue to bend his knee to a foreign power and he willingly paid the ultimate price to ensure we have the Republic of Ireland we have today.

Many men who fought with Pat and his comrades may have gone undocumented, their medals forgotten or misplaced over the years. There are many forgotten crosses in fields marking the spot where these brave men once fell, but let US ensure over the coming years and in the generations to come that the legacy these men have left behind remains undiminished.

I will finish with a well quoted phrase by a son of Ireland fifty years after Pat Walsh died.

‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what ask what you can do for your country’

Pat Walsh and his comrades from Dunamaggin from Kells and from Kilmoganny certainly answered that question and as we approach the centenary of Pat’s death in 2021, let us not be found wanting in continuing to honour their memories.

Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamanna go léir

Go raibh míle maith agaibh

Liam Ó Súilleabháin 21^st April 2019

Links to our posts are below:

Pat Walsh background by L. Ó Súilleabháin

Pat Walsh background by L. Ó Súilleabháin

Distinguished army officer robs Kells Creamery by L. Ó Súilleabháin

https://patwalshmemorial.home.blog/distinguished-british-army-officer-robs-kells-creamery-1920/

https://patwalshmemorial.home.blog/distinguished-british-army-officer-robs-kells-creamery-1920/

The historic 1918 elections in Kilkenny by C. Ó hIcíhttps://patwalshmemorial.home.blog/the-1918-general-election-in-kilkenny-and-an-uncertain-future-for-ireland/

https://patwalshmemorial.home.blog/the-1918-general-election-in-kilkenny-and-an-uncertain-future-for-ireland/

https://patwalshmemorial.home.blog/the-1918-general-election-in-kilkenny-and-an-uncertain-future-for-ireland/

1918

The two Sinn Féin T.D.’s elected from Kilkenny in the 1918 election were W.T. Cosgrave (North Kilkenny) and James O’ Mara (South Kilkenny). Neither of these were present at the first Dáil meeting. Cosgrave was in jail, having been arrested on 17 May 1918 by the British. He was deemed to be part of the German Plot, a fabrication created by the authoritites to rid the country of, what they deemed, some of the most dangerous Republicans. He was imprisoned without charge or trial in an English Prison.

O’ Mara was also absent. There was a fear that all the Sinn Féin deputies who attended the first meeting of the Dáil on 21 January might be arrested by the British and that could be a reason for the absence of James O’Mara and other elected Sinn Féin deputies from the first meeting of Dáil Éireann.

O Mara and Cosgrave were part of the 2^nd ministry of Dáil Éireann, which ran from 1 April 1919 until 26 August 1921. Cosgrave was appointed minister for local government, a position he held from 2 April 1919 to 26 August 1921. Funding was one of the priorities of the new government in Ireland. O’ Mara became one of three Trustees of Dáil Éireann funds. O’ Mara was integral to the organisation of a bond drive in the United States which raised $5.1 million for the first Dáil. This was hailed as a stunning success in Ireland. Tensions emerged however behind the scenes. O’ Mara, a millionaire in his time, paid his own expenses while in America. He was critical of the running costs incurred by others. He clashed with De Valera over various items such as the manner in which a planned second bond drive in America was to be organised. These tensions eventually led to O Mara’s resignation. It was not a very harmonious resignation and O’ Mara and De Valera are said not to have spoken for almost twenty years following this. Some believed De Valera wanted to be rid of O’ Mara so as to have full control over finances in America.

C. Ó hIcí – All rights reserved

1^st meeting of Dáil Éireann: 21 January 1919

The First Dáil was elected on 18 December 1918. The Sinn Féin candidates who had been elected refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled on 21 January 1919 in the Round Room of the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The term of office for the 1st Ministry was from 21 January to 1 April 1919. The 1st Ministry was a temporary cabinet headed by Cathal Brugha, as Éamon de Valera, the leader of Sinn Féin, was in prison at the time. Ministers elected at the 1^st Dáil were:

President of Dáil Éireann: Cathal Brugha

Minister for finanace: Eoin MacNeill

Minister for Home Affairs: Michael Collins

Minister for Foreign Affairs: Count Plunkett

Minister for National Defence: Richard Mulcahy

Self-determination constituted the main political aim of Dáil Eireann. Being the first and highly symbolic meeting, the proceedings of the Dáil were conducted, for the most part, through Irish, beginning with a prayer delivered by Fr Michael O’Flanagan. The initial business was conducted swiftly and a number of documents were adopted. These documents included

– The Declaration of Independence: that asserted that the Dáil was the parliament of a sovereign state called the “Irish Republic”.

– The Message to the Free Nations of the World: asking nations to recognise Ireland as a separate nation, free from British rule.

– The Democratic Programme: a declaration of economic and social principles. 

The Dáil established a cabinet called the Ministry or “Aireacht”, and an elected prime minister known both as the “Príomh Aire” and the “President of Dáil Éireann”. Twenty-nine names were recorded as present, but the attendance of Boland and Collins were incorrectly called to conceal their mission to rescue de Valera from jail. Only 27 T.D.’s attended. The others were ‘Imprisoned by the foreigners’ (fé ghlas ag Gallaibh), deported, absent, or members of the Irish Parliamentary Party or Ulster Unionist Party and refused to attend.

The landslide victory for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election, out of which emerged Dáil Éireann, was viewed as an overwhelming endorsement of the principle of a united independent Ireland. Sinn Féin viewed the election result as a mandate to achieve this independent Ireland, by any means necessary. The British government refused to recognise the legitimacy of Dáil Éireann and in September 1919 the Dáil was declared illegal by the British authorities. On the same day that the Dáil met for the first time, the first shots of the Irish War of Independence were fired at Soloheadbeg in Co. Tipperary. It seemed that conflict between Ireland and England was now inevitable as the majority of Irish people demanded independence, something the British were not going to agree to easily.

C. Ó hIcí – All Rights Reserved

Jan 31^st 1919

The Volunteers sanction action against ‘the enemy’

The attack at Soloheadbeg, which is widely deemed the first shots of the Irish War of Independence, is a contentious incident for many people. Some argue that the ambush on January 21^st should not have occurred as no authority to act had been received from a higher power within the Volunteer Movement and also those shot were Irish Catholic R.I.C officers. These arguments were removed for most Irish people when on the 31^st January 1919, 10 days after the Soloheadbeg attack, the editorial of An t-Óglach ,the official publication of the Irish Volunteers, stated that the formation of Dáil Eireann:

“justifies Irish Volunteers in treating the armed forces of the enemy – whether soldiers or policemen – exactly as a National Army would treat the members of an invading army”

The attacking of R.I.C. and other military personnel throughout the country was now endorsed by the leadership of the Volunteers. No military personnel, or military Barracks, were safe throughout the country and they were now deemed legitimate targets. The volunteers of Kilkenny heeded the message received. The volunteers in the Dunamaggin area identified the Hugginstown Barracks as a tempting target and one which they resolved would be attacked and eliminated. To do so, the volunteers would first have to capture weapons so as to ensure the success of such an attack. This gathering of weapons became the focus of the local Volunteers activities during the initial months of the Irish War of Independence.

C. Ó hIcí – All Rights Reserved