Honouring the memories of Halpin and Moran each year
IN January of 1919, the newly elected Dáil met for the first time and with a large majority of Sinn Féin members declared a free nation in Ireland. On the same day, an ambush at Soloheadbeg, in Co. Tipperary, resulted in two dead R.I.C. men. Those two happenings triggered the War of Independence.
For the next twelve months there followed a series of events, arms raids, shootings, campaigns to free Sinn Féin prisoners, drilling illegally, the Sinn Féin Courts set up by the Dáil to implement justice in a new style, reprisal shootings by the army, the proclamation of the Dáil in September 1919 as “illegal” by the Parliament in London, speeches by Cardinal Logue, both to protect his “flock” and to warn them also.
While incidents of “war” took place countrywide almost every day, the Drogheda area did not escape viz. July 1920, Termonfeckin Barracks (R.I.C.) was destroyed and two young men, Seamus Cogan and Patrick McDonnell were shot dead in Oldcastle; Drogheda was sacked by a Black and Tans gang in October; two young men, Patrick Tierney and Seán O’Carroll were shot in Ardee in November; a robbery on the Hibernian Bank at the Tholsel got away with £3,600; Balbriggan was sacked in September 1920 and a police constable and two men were murdered, Seamus Lawless and Seán Gibbons; within a week Trim was sacked. To describe the state of the country as “chaotic” would be an understatement.
The Government response was to apply more coercion and gradually to drive a car or even a bicycle required a military permit. Responses and reprisals grew rapidly and on November 21st, 1920, fourteen British Army officers and special agents were murdered by Sinn Féin. Bloody Sunday in Croke Park followed, with ten players and spectators shot dead and fifty injured by the British Army. On the 9th of February 1921, two young men in Drogheda were abducted from their homes in town by armed raiders with foreign accents, brought to the Mornington road, just under the Viaduct, and shot in the back in the small hours of the morning. Thomas Halpin was a recently elected Sinn Féin Alderman, aged 25, with a wife and child, living in George’s St, abducted at 12:30am, while his comrade Seán Moran, aged 33, also with a wife and child, was taken about an hour later. The two bodies were found the next morning on top of each other at 7:30am by a man named O’Brien from Mornington. Both of the men would have been wellknown as Sinn Féin members and were interned in Wandsworth prison in England after 1916. Mrs. Moran and her baby went back to live with her family in Enniscorthy and baby Oliver Halpin grew up to be a famous Louth GAA player and stage personality and his daughter now lives in Meadow View.
A Celtic cross as a monument to the two men was erected in 1930 and has been a destination for commemorative marches since then, usually at Easter weekend because of the murders happening on Ash Wednesday.
The names of Seán Flanagan, Liam Leech, Larry Grogan, Patrick Cooney, - Mannion and Bernard Daly have been added since on the base of the cross. In the 1940s, the 40 houses at Halpin’s Terrace, Platin road and 70 Moran’s Terrace houses, also Platin road, were named in honour of the two men.
While murder, intimidation, punishments and sabotage continued in North Louth, Counties Down and Armagh, the crime of Ash Wednesday was not repeated in the Drogheda area for the rest of the year of 1921. The only newsworthy matters were an incident at Platin when the train to Oldcastle was stopped, searched and all the “Belfast” mail destroyed, and the robbery of Mr. McQuillan’s drapery shop in Collon by deserters from the British Army. The War of Independence was declared at an end in December, the Truce having been signed on July 9th, 1921 and the Treaty eventually signed on December 6th, 1921.
The total casualties in the War amounted to 1,400 people, made up of 624 “British” security forces and 752 “IRA members plus civilians”. Civilian numbers alone came to 200. No person was ever prosecuted for the murders of Thomas Halpin and Seán Moran. In later years, when pensions were awarded by the Irish Free State government, Mrs. Halpin was refused because her husband was a “politician”, while Mrs. Moran’s request was granted because of her husband’s title as Captain Seán Moran, 1st Battalion, South Louth Brigade.
A memorial service organised by Louth County Council, with Mayor Frank Godfrey and councillors in attendance, will be held this year and all are welcome. The ceremony will commence at 11.30am on Sunday, February 10th and the principal speaker will be the President of the Old Drogheda Society, John McCullen.