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From: "conaught" <>
Subject: [MAYO] Easter Week Series #3
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:54:17 -0700



Tomás MacCurtain - He was born March of 1884 in Ballyknockane, County Cork.
He went to school at Burnfort and North Monastery School in Cork. He
joined the Blackpool branch of the Gaeilge League in 1901, the following
year he became the secretary of the local organization. He became a (Irish)
Volunteer in 1914. With Terence MacSwiney he dispersed the Volunteers in
Cork on the orders from Eoin MacNeill who countermanded the order at
Easter 1916. MacCurtain was Lord Mayor of Cork.

MacCurtain received many death threats as did other leading Republicans.
Most of these people lived "on the run". This wasn't possible for
MacCurtain, father of 5 and a leading figure in Cork. A few days after
receiving what was to be his last death threat, and after a policeman had
been shot in Cork, police closed off the area around MacCurtain's home. A
group of men dressed in civilian clothes made up of Royal Irish
Constabulary, some having English accents broke into the home of Tomás
MacCurtain and shot him dead in front of his wife and family.

Lord French and Lloyd George claimed that MacCurtain was killed by his own
people. An inquest was held and the police selected the jury. The verdict
of the inquest:

"We find that Alderman Tomas MacCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, died from shock
and hemorrhage, caused by bullet wounds and that he was wilfully wounded
under circumstances of the most callous brutality: and that the murder was
organised and carried out by the RIC officially directed by the British
Government.

We return a verdict of wilful murder against David Lloyd George, Prime
Minister of England;Lord French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Ian MacPherson,
late Chief Secretary of Ireland; Acting Inspector General Smith of the RIC,
Divisional Inspector Clayton of the RIC; DI Swanzy and some unknown members
of the RIC. "**

© 2001
Margaret Kristich

All rights reserved

References:
** Michael Collins, The Man Who Made Ireland by Tim Pat Coogan; p 124;
Roberts Rinehart Publishers; 1992; Boulder, Colorado

Michael Collins, The Man Who Won the War by T. Ryle Dwyer;Mercier Press,
Cork; 1990

The Irish Republic by Dorothy Macardle;Corgi Books' 1968; London

A Dictionary of Irish Biograghpy by Henry Boylan;Roberts Rinehart;
1998;Niwot, Colorado






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