Civilian Miss Mary Hall

Civilian Miss Mary Hall (aged 32) of Castletownbere (Upton train ambush)

Date of incident: 15 Feb. 1921

Sources: Death Certificate, 15 Feb. 1921; CE, 16, 17, 18 Feb., 31 March 1921; CC, 16 Feb., 31 March 1921; FJ, 16 Feb., 3 June 1921; CCE, 19, 26 Feb. 1921; IT, 21 Feb. 1921, 31 March 1921; CWN, 26 Feb. 1921; Florence O’Donoghue Papers, MS 31,301/1, 3 (NLI); Military Inquests, WO 35/159B/12 (TNA); Malicious Injury Claims, Box 16/76, Cork County Secretary Files (CCCA); Frank Neville’s WS 443, 12-14 (BMH); Deasy (1973), 222-23; http://www.theirishstory.com/2011/02/15/today-in-irish-history-–-the-upton-ambush-february-15-1921/#.U-2IrBbOTHg (accessed 14 Aug. 2014). See esp. FJ, 16 Feb. 1921.

Note: Mary Hall, a domestic servant employed in Cork city, was one of eight civilians who were killed or died of their wounds in the Upton train ambush on 15 February 1921. She died at Upton station of gunshot wounds. Hill worked as a cook for David Desmond of Ballycurreen House, Cork, and had been employed there for the previous four months. See CE, 18 Feb. 1921. Her parents, Richard and Mary Hall of Castletownbere, applied for compensation at the Cork quarter sessions in April 1921 on account of her death. She was ‘their only daughter’. On 15 February 1921 she had been travelling to Castletownbere ‘with the intention of spending a holiday at home’. She was described as ‘a most industrious girl [and] was in the habit of contributing to the support of [the] applicants [her parents] and also helped them on the farm on the occasions of her holidays’. Her parents were granted £400—grievously small compensation, or so it must have seemed to them. See CE, 9 April 1921. The newspapers sometimes referred to Mary Hall as May Hill.