Noel rescues West Kerry hero from being lost to history
THE life and untimely death 100 years ago of the Irish Volunteer Tomás Ruiséal from Coimín, Ballydavid, will be remembered in West Kerry this Easter with a commemoration at his grave in Kilmalkader.
The commemoration is being organised by Ruiséal’s grand-nephew, Noel Ó Murchú (Purge) who feared all memory of the patriot would be lost if something wasn’t done to recall his story.
This thought came to Noel when he was visiting his own parents’ grave in Kilmalkader three years ago. He also stopped by his grand-uncle’s headstone in the graveyard and thought very few people knew who he was and it wouldn’t be long before he was completely forgotten.
Spurred on by the thought “if I don’t do it, who will,” Noel began seeking out what information he could find on Ruiséal’s life; talking to relatives, trawling through the archives of The Kerryman and visiting the places where he lived and died in County Clare.
The end result of Noel’s research is a book entitled ‘ The Life and Death of Thomas Russell (Beatha agus Bás Thomáis Ruiséal)’. The book relates how Ruiséal was born in Coimín in 1896 and went to school in Muiríoch, where he was kept on as a teaching assistant after he finished his schooling. He subsequently went on to the De La Salle teacher training college in Waterford and graduated from there in 1917. He was unable to find work in Corca Dhuibhne so he moved to Carrigaholt in County Clare where he was employed as a Conradh na Gaeilge-funded Irish teacher, earning £2 per week.
As a youth in Coimín, Ruiséal had joined the Baile na nGall branch of the Irish Volunteers and he continued his association with the Republican movement after he moved to Clare. It soon proved to be his downfall.
Following a number of Republican-organised disturbances in Clare, martial law was declared in the county in March 1918. On Palm Sunday, March 24, 1918 the local branch of the Irish Volunteers staged a paramilitary demonstration in Carrigaholt, which was followed by a Sinn Féin meeting in a local hall.
A unit of the British Fife and Forfarshire Yeomanry was dispatched to break up the meeting and soldiers entered the hall with fixed bayonets to drive the men out. Amid the confusion that followed Ruiséal was bayonetted in the back, suffering a fatal would that was to claim his life in Kilrush hospital on March 27.
Under the oppression of martial law, his body was rowed secretly across the River Shannon and was met in Tarbert on Good Friday by a large gathering that included members of Ruiséal’s family. The cortege proceeded from Tarbert to Listowel where Irish Volunteers shouldered Ruiséal’s remains through the town before the funeral continued on to Tralee where, again, it was met by a huge Republican gathering.
Ruiséal’s body remained overnight in St John’s Church in Tralee before being taken by train to Dingle where the coffin was shouldered from the train station to St Mary’s church.
The funeral on Easter Sunday 1918 was described as the biggest ever seen in West Kerry, with 1,000 Irish Volunteers from throughout West Kerry lined up outside the church on Green Street. Although a hearse was available, the Volunteers carried Ruiséal’s coffin all the way to Kilmalkedar, at the head of a mile-long cortege which included more motor vehicles than had ever previously been seen in West Kerry.
In the wake of Ruiséal’s death a huge fundraising campaign was held and it succeeded in raising £400 (the equivalent of his wages for four years) to provide relief for his family, education for his younger brothers, and an impressive memorial headstone for his grave.
Ruiséal’s father, Michael (Micil Clausín) who was notable for being a renowned, but illiterate, poet left a simpler and equally enduring memorial in the form of a lament for his dead son. Broken-hearted and with “no good left in him” Micil died on Palm Sunday 1928, the same day on which Tomás was fatally stabbed ten years earlier.
Noel’s book will be launched by Boscó O Conchúir in O’Flaherty’s bar, Dingle, at 5pm on March 25. On the following day a two-week exhibition on Ruiséal’s life will open in Dingle Library and at 12 noon on Easter Saturday, March 31 – exactly 100 years after Ruiséal was laid to rest – a commemoration will be held in Kilmalkedar graveyard. The commemoration will include a reading of the original funeral oration by Noel Ó Murchú, and Bríd Ní Mhoráin will recite Micil Clausín’s lament ‘Caoine Thomáis Ruiséal’.