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1922-81

National Army Soldier (Captain) John Hourihane

 

National Army Soldier (Captain) John Hourihane (aged about 24) of Tooreen near Bantry (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; SS, 2 Sept. 1922; II, 5 Sept. 1922; MSPC/2D178 (Military Archives); O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 200; Keane (2017), 300, 417.

 

Note: John Hourihane of the First Southern Division (Captain of the Third Battalion of the Cork No. 5 Brigade) died of gunshot wounds at Bantry on 30 August 1922. He was defending the National Army position in a building on the northern side of the town square when a bullet found its way through the sandbags from which he was firing and struck him in the head. He died soon afterwards. See CE, 5 Sept. 1922. He was interred in the family burial place in Drimoleague. See SS, 2 Sept. 1922.

According to his father Timothy Hourihane, his son John (born in 1898) had joined the Irish Volunteers in 1918 as a member of H Company in the Fifth Battalion of the Cork No. 3 Brigade. He later transferred to the Ballineen Company of the Third Battalion of the West Cork Brigade and in 1920 was involved with the Flying Column or Active Service Unit in the Ballinhassig district. In 1921 he participated in armed raids on the mails and in blocking roads. During the Truce period he was appointed with the rank of captain to the staff of the Third Battalion of the Cork No. 5 Brigade. His father Timothy Hourihane was awarded a gratuity of £100 in consideration of his son John’s death in the battle at Bantry on 30 August 1922. The victim’s civilian occupation was that of a tailor like his father. See MSPC/2D178 (Military Archives).

John Hourihane was in 1911 one of the nine children of the Tooreen tailor Timothy Hourihane and his wife Hannah. All nine of these children, ranging in age from under 1 year to 14, co-resided with their parents in that year. John Hourihane (then aged 12) was the eldest of their four sons, and there were five daughters

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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