Bloody Sunday - Dublin 21 November 1920
On 21 November 1920 Michael Collins’ Twelve Apostles ripped the heart out of the British Empire’s Secret Service in Dublin. The news must surely have been met with excitement by the Cleary clan in Limerick, where Donncadh OhAnnigan - son of my great grand aunt, Nora Cleary - was leader of the East Limerick flying column. A month after Bloody Sunday, on 19 December 1920 OhAnnnigain masterminded a deadly ambush on th Lincolnshire Regiment at Glenacurrane, just north of Mitchelstown, near his Anglesboro
home.
The British patrol was made up of two lorries and 20 members
of the regiment. Four of the party were killed and three
wounded. Letters and a medal, awarded to Lieutenant L B Sheppard
Faulkner, for 'gallant conduct in Ireland on 17 September' were
confiscated. The wounded were taken to Athmaslings Cross. The medal is in the national library.
Dublin 21 November
Among the British dead, cornered in hotel rooms around Dublin, were:
38 Mount Street, Dublin
Patrick Moran, aged 33 years - from Crossna, Roscommon - was executed for the murder of Lieutenant Aimes on 14 March 1921 at 6.00am. Patrick was a greengrocer's assistant and lived in Blackrock. He held the rank of Captain at the time of his arrest - D Coy, 11th Dublin Battalion - and had previously fought in Jacob's Garrison in Easter Week 1916 under Thomas MacDonagh. He had also been imprisoned at Knutsford and Wormwood Scrubs. He was rounded up after Bloody Sunday. Although he strongly protested his innocence Moran was sentenced to death by the court martial.
Baggelly – Captain ('Baggally' in O'Farrell's book Who's Who in the Irish War of Independence).
119 Lower Baggot Street.
Baggelly's address was listed as 19 Eccles Street, in O'Farrell's book. He had orchestrated the murder of unarmed Sinn Fein councillor John Lynch in his Dublin hotel on 22 September 1920. One theory is that John Lynch had been mistaken for IRA officer Liam Lynch who, like my great uncle Dan Cleary was from the republican Galtee stronghold of Anglesboro. Another theory is that Lynch was murdered because the legal firm for whom he worked defended republican prisoners.
Baggelly was shot by Mick Flanagan once the Captain’s girlfriend had been relocated from the bed. Seam Lemass was also in attendance.
Thomas Whelan, aged 22 years, was executed on 14 March 1921 at 6.00am for the murder of Baggelly. He was from the Sky Road, Clifden, Galway. According to Thomas's brother, Joseph, who died in 2001, Whelan had gone to Dublin at 18 years of age looking for work. After a year or two joined the Volunteers. He had worked with the Midland and Great Western Railway and lived at Barrow Street, Ringsend. Arrested in November 1920 and taken to Kilmainham, he was transferred to Mountjoy.
Whelan strongly protested his innocence. His mother went to Dublin during the trial, which lasted several days, and was present outside Mountjoy on the morning of the execution. He sang The Shawl of Galway Grey for her the night before he went to the gallows.
