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Archiver > MAYO > 2001-04 > 0987542609


From: "conaught" <>
Subject: [MAYO] Easter Week Series #6
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 14:23:29 -0700


Thomas Ashe - (1885-1917) born is Lispole, Co. Kerry and trained as a
teacher in De La Salle College, Waterford. He lived in Lusk, North County
Dublin while teaching in the Dublin National Schools. In the 1916 Easter
Rising he commanded the Fifth Battalion, North County Dublin (The Fingal
Volunteers). In an encounter with armed Royal Irish Constabulary at
Ashbourne, Co. Dublin, he captured four police barracks with
large quantities of arms and ammunition. Arrested soon after, the British
court martialed and sentenced him to death. The sentence was commuted to
penal servitude for life. Released in 1917 he was re-arrested for making
speeches "calculated to cause disaffection" according to the government and
sentenced to one year's imprisonment at hard labor. With other Republican
prisoners at Mountjoy prison, his demand to be treated as a prisoner-of-war
was refused. The prisoners went on a hunger strike as the only form of
protest left to them. Ashe collapsed and died on 25 September 1917 after
being forced to lie on a cold floor for fifty hours, then force-fed. In his
weakened condition that was enough to cause his heart and lungs to stop.
Ashe was buried in his IRA uniform. Countess Markievicz, with a revolver in
her belt, led Veterans of the Easter Rising, Armed Volunteers in uniform,
and 30,000 people who followed his funeral. Ashe's death whipped up
sentiment and Volunteer battalions were reorganized in Dublin.
The remaining prisoners in Mountjoy were granted political status.

© 2001
Ellen Naliboff

All rights reserved

Selected references:
Boylan, Henry, A Dictionary of Irish Biography, Third Edition, Gill &
Macmillan, Dublin, 1998.

Connolly, S.J., editor, The Oxford Companion to Irish History, Oxford
University Press, 1998.

Foster, R.F., Modern Ireland, 1600-1972, Penguin Books, 1988.

Fry, Peter and Fiona Somerset, A History of Ireland, Barnes & Noble, New
York, 1988

Llywelyn, Morgan, 1921, A Tom Doherty Associates Book, New York, 2001.






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