EMOTIONAL JOURNEY
On August 30th, a message came into my phone from my friend Rob O’Keeffe – ‘You missed a Ballylooby centenary, ‘John Mahony’’.
Myself and Rob are currently writing a book on a recently discovered IRA map and Rob had sent me Sean Fitzpatrick’s roll of honour and sure enough, after ‘John Mahony’, the description read: ‘Volunteer Graigue Company, brutalised and neglected by the Free State in Kilkenny Jail. Died in Cashel hospital 24/06/1923.’
I immediately went to my bundle of copies of 6th Battalion papers. I was lucky to have been given access to the papers of Sean Myles who was a local IRA leader and organised pension applications during the 1930’s. The ‘Graigue Local Active Service Unit’ or company as they are more commonly known, was part of the 6th Battalion 3rd Tipperary Brigade IRA. There was 39 members and sure enough, there was John Mahony’s name with, in brackets, ‘deceased’ written beside it. My phone alerted me again to a message and it was Rob who had located John Mahony’s pension application online and he sent me the link. Castlegrace was his address.
In a poignant letter to the pension board Alice Mahony, John’s mother, had written the following lines: “The people responsible for his removal from Kilkenny Jail saved themselves nicely, for if he died in jail the responsibility would be theirs, but they made sure he would die a ‘pauper not a Hero’”.
Perhaps the moving of John from Kilkenny Jail where if he had died as a prisoner, a Republican, helped to hide and cover up John’s story from the public and media of the time. He was transferred days before he died to Cashel ‘Poor House’ Hospital.
I have been two years now travelling the boithrins and graveyards of this lovely part of South Tipperary, interviewing locals and gathering info from various sources, along with Rob, and not once had anyone mentioned a local who died during the Civil War. There have been amazing moments along the way, sitting in IRA ‘safe houses’ in the same kitchens the great men of the IRA Flying Columns frequented, holding old rifles, the bag that DI Potter had with him when executed, IRA medals, bullets, boots, glasses, all sorts of relics and heirlooms - some of really important historical value, all of massive emotional importance.
There were emotional moments; being able to show sons of IRA men information about their fathers they never knew. We made amazing discoveries along the way, I was brought to the two ‘dugout’ sites in Graigue, shown an IRA ‘dugout’ on the slopes of the Galtees! All great days but no one once mentioned the name - John Mahony. It seemed he was lost in the midst of time and his memory had faded, his story forgotten.
In every parish and village in Ireland there are locals who are the person to go to for information. They are the unrecognised historians, storytellers of their parish. Kathleen Moloney of Castlegrace is one of these local legends. Kathleen had within a few days of contacting her, traced the house John Mahony lived in and had found his birth cert and the family Census records online. There still was a big part of the puzzle to be solved though. Where was John Mahony buried?
We had located the grave plot in Duhill Cemetery of two of John’s siblings, but no mention of John. I rang Fr John Nally the local priest. Fr John suggested the old graveyard at Castlegrace known as ‘Tullaghorton’, which was the original graveyard for generations of locals. The following Sunday a week after our hunt began, I spent a few hours going grave to grave in the hope I might find a Mahony headstone, but to no avail.
I trekked Tubrid graveyard and Ballylooby, no luck in either place. In the preceding days I had contacted Neil Donovan of Ballyporeen, a local historian and an expert on the IRA in his area of Ballyporeen, and when I got home a bit deflated one Monday evening, Neil rang me with more new information regarding John Mahony’s arrest in Two-Mile Borris.
David Moher of Mitchelstown was in charge of an Anti Treaty Column of which John Mahony was a member. On July 15th, 1922 at Two-Mile Borris, 14 of this column including John Mahony were arrested by Free State forces. In the weeks leading up to this incident, David Moher’s column had taken part in the capture of Urlingford Barracks and had fought Free-Staters at Mary Willies, Longford Pass on 8th July, where they lost another hero of Ireland and a Tipperary man, Patrick John English, a member of the 6th Battalion who hailed from only a few miles from John Mahony’s home. Patrick is buried in Whitechurch and in a fitting tribute, his headstone carries the line ‘Who was killed in battle for Ireland’s cause’.
A MARKED
GRAVE?
The breakthrough finally came in the following days. I had arranged to meet Fr John at Duhill to ask about a possible record of graves I had been told had been kept at one stage in
Duhill Church. That day, going back over copies of pension applications and letters written by the local company, I stumbled upon Denis Looby’s hand written account of life during those turbulent times. The following lines - “One man of the Battalion died in prison, when his funeral arrived in Duhill Cemetery I fired 3 volleys over his grave for which I was arrested a few days later” - jumped off the page at me. I was delighted!
We now had solved the graveyard mystery as to where John Mahony was. We knew there was a Mahony grave in Duhill with John’s sisters, but no mention of John on the headstone. Surely for a man who had paid the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of his country’s freedom he had to be in a marked grave? I walked Duhill Cemetery that evening and then went to Mass, as I had arranged to meet Fr John afterwards. I told him about Denis Looby’s letter, but Fr John had no records of graves.
However, the next breakthrough that solved the mystery of John Mahony’s final resting place came when Ann Moloney, the sacristan, confirmed her mother Catherine had told her John Mahony, the IRA man, was buried in the same plot as his sisters and in an unbelievable twist, Ann confirmed she lives in the old Mahony home!
Another amazing coincidence was, that night in Duhill, the anniversary Mass was for a member of a local family, and it was on to