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1921-68

Volunteer Patrick Ronayne

Volunteer Patrick Ronayne (aged 24) of Greenhill/Burnfort (Mourne Abbey)

Date of incident: 15 Feb. 1921 (executed by crown forces at Cork Military Detention Barracks on 28 April 1921)

Sources: Military Inquests, WO 35/157B/24 (TNA); Richard Willis and John Bolster’s WS 808, 12-13 (BMH); Tadhg McCarthy’s WS 965, 9-11 (BMH); Leo O’Callaghan’s WS 978, 15-18 (BMH); Jeremiah Daly’s WS 1015, 6-8 (BMH); Tadhg Looney’s WS 1196, 9-14 (BMH); John Ronayne’s WS 1269, 7-10 (BMH); John O’Sullivan’s WS 1376, 9-11 (BMH); Website on the War of Independence for County Cork, under the Second Cork Brigade and under ‘Serious Reverse for I.R.A. at Mourne Abbey’; O’Donoghue (1954, 1986), 136-37; 

http://homepage.eircom.net/~corkcounty/Timeline/Mourne%20Abbey.htm;   http://www.tameside.gov.uk/museumsgalleries/mom/objectfocus/razor (17 Sept. 2015); http://irishvolunteers.org/cork-county-gaol-ira-volunteers-executed-memorial/ (accessed 3 Nov. 2015); Mourne Abbey Memorial, Knockmourne, Mallow; UCC IRA Memorial.

 

Note: Patrick Ronayne was executed at Cork Military Detention Barracks on 28 April 1921. His name appears on the bronze plaque on the outer wall of the former Cork County Gaol (Gaol Walk, Western Road), near where his remains were interred. Patrick Ronayne was one of the ten living children (eleven born) of the Greenhill farmer James Ronayne and his wife Julia. All ten (five sons and five daughters) co-resided with their parents in 1911. Volunteer Ronayne (then aged 14) was the third child and second eldest boy.

He had been born at Greenhill near Mourne Abbey on 24 April 1897. As a boy, he was a member of his local parish football team. In 1916, the year of the Easter Rising, he joined the Volunteers, becoming a member of the Burnfort Company of the Mallow Battalion of the Cork No. 2 Brigade. Along with other members of his company, he participated in the celebrated capture of Mallow Military Barracks on 28 September 1920. His capture by British forces in the abortive Mourne Abbey ambush in mid-February 1921 led to his execution alongside his Burnfort Company comrade Thomas Mulcahy towards the end of April. See http://irishvolunteers.org/cork-county-gaol-ira-volunteers-executed-memorial/ (accessed 3 Nov. 2015).    

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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