War of Independence deaths in Kildare or of Kildare men elsewhere in Ireland [1]

The first deaths of participants in the Irish War of Independence occurred three days before the start of the Easter Rising. On 21st April a car on the way to Tralee drove off the pier at Ballykissane, Killorglin. The driver, Tom McInerny, was the only survivor of the four Irish Volunteers who had been on their way to set up a radio transmitter to keep Tralee Volunteers in contact with the German arms ship, Aud. Twenty year old Cornelius Keating, 37 year old Charles Monaghan and 30 year old Daniel Sheehan were drowned. Theirs were the first of the almost 2,350 deaths recorded during the period April 1916 to December 1921 –commonly known as the War of Independence period. In the week which commenced with the deaths at Ballykissane a further 238 deaths were recorded. This of course was the week of the Easter Rising. Amongst the early deaths was that of James Duffy, a County Kildare man, a private in the Royal Irish Regiment. He was shot and killed while marching from Richmond barracks to Dublin Castle via Kilmainham. The troops were fired on by Volunteers led by Eamon Ceannt who had taken over the South Dublin Union. Amongst Ceannt’s men was W.T. Cosgrove, the future Taoiseach, whose father Thomas was a native of Castledermot. Another casualty of the South Dublin Union battle was nurse Margaret Kehoe from Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow who was shot and killed on the same day as Duffy. A day later Denis Kelly from County Kildare, a 43 year old ticket checker with the Great Southern and Western Railway Company was shot and killed while working at the North Wall. Another Kildare man, 42 year old Edward Murphy, the Court crier for Judge Lenihan, also died on 25th April having been shot the previous day in the vicinity of St. Stephen’s Green. On 26th April, George Geoghegan, a Kildare native and a member of the Irish Citizen Army was shot and killed as an I.C.A. contingent led by Captain Sean Connolly took over the City Hall. He is commemorated with three other victims, Sean Connolly, Sean O’Reilly and Louis Byrne in a plaque erected at City Hall by the National Graves Association. As the first week of the revolution came to an end it was marked by the death of yet another County Kildare native. Francis Salmon, a native of Straffan, was just 17 years of age when he was shot dead while standing at the door of his employer’s house at 50 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin. The young sales assistant was the youngest Kildare county native to die during the 1916 Rising. On the same day as the first of the Easter Rising leaders, Padraig Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas McDonagh were executed in Kilmainham jail, a 50 year old labourer’s widow died in mysterious circumstances. County Kildare born Margaret McGuinness, a widow, lived at 27 Pembroke Cottages, Dublin and her death is generally accepted to have been as a result of political violence. There is no question surrounding the killing of Prosperous born Michael Kavanagh, a 35 year old carter who was married with 7 children. He was bringing luggage to the Shelbourne Hotel on the first day of the Rising when his cart was seized by members of the Irish Citizens Army to make a barricade. Kavanagh was trying to retrieve the cart when he was shot in the head. He died on 17th May. Almost three years were to pass before the next County Kildare casualty of the Irish War of Independence. On the 13th of February 1919 Patrick Gavin, a 45 year old labourer from Maddenstown, was driving cattle to the Newbridge fair when he was challenged by an English soldier on sentry duty at Brownstown pumping station. It was claimed he was challenged by the sentry and reacted by threatening the sentry who shot him. The soldier was subsequently court martialled but escaped any punishment. One of the rare incidences of armed conflict within the county of Kildare during the War of Independence resulted in the killing of R.I.C. constable Patrick Haverty, a 40 year old Galway man. He was killed during the ambush at Greenhills, Kill on 21st August 1920. The ambush led by Tom Harris, the future Fianna Fáil T.D. was the first such action in County Kildare and resulted also in the death of R.I.C. sergeant Patrick O’Reilly who succumbed to his injuries ten days later. Further R.I.C. casualties in the county occurred on 19th February 1921 when Thomas Bradshaw, a 24 year old policeman from Tipperary, shot himself in Monasterevin R.I.C. Barracks. Just over two weeks later Harold Stiff, a Londoner who had joined the R.I.C. a few months earlier, committed suicide in the Maynooth R.I.C. barracks. On 21st February 1921 R.I.C. sergeant Joseph Hughes, a 35 year old former postman from Wolfhill, was shot while patrolling in Maynooth. He died the following day and the local press reported that his funeral was attended by an immense crowd while passing through Athy where all shops were closed with ‘police with reversed arms marched behind the coffin.’ Information for this article has been extracted mainly from ‘The Dead of the Irish Revolution’ by Eunan O’Halpin and Daithí Ó Corráin. ……. TO BE CONTINUED