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1922-79

Anti-Treaty Soldier (Lieutenant) Donal McCarthy Jr

 

Anti-Treaty Soldier (Lieutenant) Donal McCarthy Jr (aged about 20) of Carrigbaun near Drinagh, Dunmanway (Bantry)

Date of incident: 29-30 Aug. 1922

Sources: FJ, 31 Aug., 5 Sept. 1922; Belfast Newsletter, 1 Sept. 1922; Derry Journal, 1 Sept. 1922; CE, 1, 5, 25 Sept. 1922, 1 Sept. 1923; SS, 2 Sept. 1922; II, 5 Sept. 1922; MSPC/DP7854 (Military Archives); Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 208; O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 217; Last Post (1976 ed.), 97; Keane (2017), 300, 417; http://www.irishmedals.org/anti-treaty-killed.html (accessed 12 July 2017).

 

Note: IRA Lieutenant Donal (or Daniel) McCarthy died on 30 August 1922 at The Square in Bantry while fighting with the anti-Treaty IRA. His death certificate indicates that he received a bullet wound in the head and died from shock and haemorrhage within an hour. See Copy of Death Certificate (Bantry District, Union of Bantry), 30 Aug. 1922, registered 23 March 1923, in MSPC/DP7854 (Military Archives); CE, 1 Sept. 1923.  McCarthy too was buried at nearby Kilmocomoge. See CE, 5 Sept. 1922; Last Post (1976 ed.), 97. His name appears on the memorial of the Cork No. 5 Brigade of the IRA in the middle of Bantry.

According to his pension file, McCarthy had served as a company quartermaster in the Cork No. 5 Brigade under the command of Gibbs Ross. In civilian life McCarthy had been employed by Cades of MacCurtain Street in Cork and also by Dalys of Kyrl Street in the city. The Military Service Registration Board certified that McCarthy had served with the IRA from January 1921 until his death. His mother Kate McCarthy claimed that her son Daniel or Donal had begun his service as a member of Na Fianna Éireann beginning in 1917 and then transferred to the IRA. His sister Eily Daly claimed that he had served first with G Company of the Third Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade and then with Drinagh Company of the Fourth Battalion of the Cork No. 3 Brigade from 1919 onwards. She also stated that her brother had been arrested by British forces in June 1920 but was released after participating in a hunger strike. Neither McCarthy’s mother nor his sister was successful in their applications for gratuities or allowances under the Army Pensions Acts. See MSPC/7854 (Military Archives). 

Donal (Daniel) McCarthy Jr was in 1911 one of the eleven children of the Carrigbaun National Teacher Daniel McCarthy Sr and his wife Kate. All eleven co-resided with them in that year; they ranged in age from under 1 year to 21 and included seven sons and four daughters. Their third son Daniel Jr was then aged 9. (The mother Kate McCarthy may have been married to another man earlier, as she had a daughter named Mary Kate aged 21, even though she indicated to the census-taker that she had been married to Daniel McCarthy Sr for only fifteen years.) 

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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