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1921-71

Volunteer John McGrath

Volunteer John McGrath (aged about 26) of Lisheenaleen (Rathclarin) near Kilbrittain (Crushnalanive Cross)

Date of incident: 16 Feb. 1921

Sources: CE, 18 Feb., 22 March 1921; CCE, 19 Feb. 1921; Military Inquests, WO 35/154/1 (TNA); MSP34/REF29262 and MSPC/1D232 (Military Archives); Mary Walsh’s WS 556, 5-6 (BMH); WS 560 of James O’Mahony et al., 18 (BMH); Denis Collins’s WS 827, 27-29 (BMH); Richard Russell’s WS 1591, 18 (BMH); Michael J. Crowley’s WS 1603, 14 (BMH); Charles O’Donoghue’s WS 1607, 9 (BMH); Deasy (1973), 220-24; Rebel Cork’s FS, 207; Last Post (1976), 80; ‘The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Division Area’, Irish Sword, 27 (Spring 2010), 143; Sheehan (2011), 137; Kilbrittain Republican Monument.

 

Note: A labourer in civilian life, McGrath was cornered and killed along with three other Volunteers by a night patrol of the Essex Regiment on 16 February 1921 at Crois na Leanbh (Crushnalanive). He was a member of the Kilbrittain Company of the First (Bandon) Battalion of the Cork No. 3 Brigade. He was in 1911 one of the four children (two sons and two daughters) of the Lisheenaleen agricultural labourer Thomas McGrath and his wife Mary. Volunteer McGrath was interred in the Republican Plot in Kilbrittain Churchyard. Under the Army Pensions Acts, his father Thomas, his mother Mary, and his sister Ellen (married to Timothy Murphy) made successful applications for pension allowances. Volunteer McGrath received a posthumous Service Medal (1917-21) with Bar. See MSPC/1D232 (Military Archives).

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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