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1921-336

Civilian Patrick Joseph Cronin

Civilian Patrick Joseph Cronin (aged about 24) of Castle Street, Dunmanway (near Dunmanway).

Date of incident: 12 or 14 Aug. 1921 (executed by IRA as suspected spy and disappeared)

Sources: Application of Mary J. Cronin to Irish Grants Committee, 24 Jan. 1927 (CO 762/92/2, TNA); Application of William Jagoe to Irish Grants Committee, received 11 June 1927 (CO 762/4/1, TNA); Keane (2017), 279-80, 414.

 

Note: The IRA in Dunmanway appears to have executed the local tradesman Patrick Cronin on about 12 August 1921 as a suspected spy. It seems that his body was never found and that reports of his death never reached the newspapers. Early in 1927 the victim’s mother Mary J. Cronin of Castle Street in Dunmanway applied for compensation to the Irish Grants Committee (IGC) in relation to the death of her son Patrick. She cited the ‘loss of son being shot. He got shot by Republican Forces during Truce time on or about August 12th or 14th 1921.’ She stated that the reason why he had been killed was that the IRA suspected that he had been giving information to the Auxiliaries ‘as he was a marked loyalist’. She sought £700 in compensation from the IGC. Asked to describe her current financial position, she replied: ‘Very bad. Just a mere existence doing odd jobs at washing on a few days per week. As my poor boy which [sic] used to maintain me was working at tailoring & previous to this he joined the Navy when [the] war was just fresh in 1915 & got discharged in 1920.’ See Application of Mrs Mary J. Cronin to Irish Grants Committee, 24 Jan. 1927 (CO 762/92/2, TNA).

The Dunmanway draper William Jagoe confirmed in his 1927 application to the IGC that an IRA intelligence officer named Denis Barry, a local tailor, had informed him one evening in August 1921 that he (Jagoe) was ‘marked down for assassination’ (one of seven persons whom Barry claimed were marked in this way in Dunmanway). Jagoe stated that on the very evening that he had been thus threatened, Patrick Joseph Cronin—a Catholic loyalist, a Dunmanway tailor, and a former Royal Navy seaman—had been shot dead for having helped the police. See Application of William Jagoe to Irish Grants Committee, received 11 June 1927 (CO 762/4/1, TNA).

Cronin was buried in an unmarked grave in waste land in the townland of Mohona not far out of the town of Dunmanway. Until 10 or 20 years ago a simple white cross at a sharp turn on the road nearby indicated that there was awareness of his place of burial. (Thanks to Michelle O'Driscoll and Finn Mannix for this information)

 

Patrick Joseph Cronin was in 1911 one of the three children of the shoemaker James Cronin and his wife Mary. The family resided at 8 Castle Street in Dunmanway. Patrick (then aged 14) was the oldest of the three children. He had a younger sister and a younger brother.

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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