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1920-69

Civilian Michael Lynch Jr

Civilian Michael Lynch Jr (aged about 21) of Ballymakeera (Ballymakeera outside Ballyvouney)

Date of incident: 5 Sept. 1920

Sources: CC, 6 Sept. 1920; CE, 6, 7 Sept. 1920; CCE, 11 Sept. 1920; SS, 11 Sept. 1920; Patrick O’Sullivan’s WS 794, 9-10 (BMH); Daniel Harrington’s WS 1532, 9 (BMH); Patrick J. Lynch’s WS 1543, 11 (BMH); Ó Suílleabhaín (1965), 157-59; ‘The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Division Area’, Irish Sword, 27 (Spring 2010), 138; Sheehan (2011), 135; Ó hÉalaithe (2014), 125, 131-34, 273, 353.  

 

Note: Lynch was shot dead by British forces after he came from his house a few hundred yards away to see what all the shooting was about just outside Ballyvourney on 5 September 1920. Two of his brothers served in the RIC, and one of them had been an army officer in the Great War. See CE, 7 Sept. 1920.

According to Jamie Moynihan’s memoirs, Lynch had been murdered: ‘Hearing the firing, he [Lynch] naturally became inquisitive and walked out to the edge of the main road to investigate. He was only standing there for about half a minute looking at the [British] lorry when he was fired on from the vehicle, and he fell dead on the roadside. His family rushed out and lifted him up, but it was too late, and they told a passer-by to call the priest and doctor. The priest, Fr Joe Shinnick, arrived in a short time and attended to Michael, anointing him and saying prayers for the dead over the body. Fr Shinnick did not know at this stage that Liam Hegarty was also dead. However, he walked the short distance to the lorry and rapped on the steel body to enquire if there were any others wounded, but there was no reply. He looked around and saw tracks of blood, and following the tracks, he found Liam Hegarty’s body inside the fence. He attended to Liam immediately, anointing him, and as he said afterwards, it was his second anointing in fifteen minutes. The lorry was still in position as he completed his errand of mercy, and the priest must have known there were soldiers inside because, before leaving the scene, he accused the concealed killers of wilful and deliberate murder and called down the wrath of God upon them for their vile and loathsome deeds. As soon as Fr Shinnick had left the road of death, the lorry drove away into Macroom.’ See Ó hÉalaithe (2014), 134.

In 1911 Michael Lynch was one of the seven children (and probably the youngest child) of Balymakeera farmer Michael Lynch and his wife Bridget.

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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