O’Connor clan descends on Brosna to commemorate village’s native son and Irish Volunteer Batt O’Connor

BROSNA was the focus of another great Kerry commemoration on Friday as O’Connor clan members from across the county and beyond arrived to celebrate the memory of Irish Volunteer and TD Batt O’Connor.

A leading figure in the War of Independence who went on to serve as a TD for Dublin until his death in 1935, Batt O’Connor was also central to the 1916 Rising in Kerry. Sent to Kerry by Republican HQ in Dublin in the company of Con Collins in 1916, Batt managed to evade capture on Collin’s apprehension by the RIC. But he was arrested on his way into Dublin and interred in Frongoch where he struck up a lasting friendship with the Big Fella himself, Michael Collins.

Following his release from Frongoch he helped reorganise the Irish Volunteers, going on to play a key role in the War of Independence. He also famously used his building expertise to great effect, fashioning hiding places in premises across Dublin for on-the-run patriots, not least Michael Collins himself. Now, thanks to one modern-day O’Connor we can read about Batt’s life in great detail in a book that was central to Friday’s commemorations –Bertie O’Connor’s Bartholomew O’Connor: An Account of his Life and Fight for Irish Independence. Joining Bertie and his own family were a host of O’Connors and other relatives of the great patriot as the Defence Forces carried out a full colour ceremony following Mass.

“Batts’ cousins were led into the church by Anthony O’ Carroll, a grandnephew and his wife who had come from Limerick. Ninety-yearold Kathleen Curtin Castleisland followed on proudly holding Batt’s gold watch,” Bertie told The Kerryman. Relatives played a huge role in the Mass, which was followed by the Defence Forces’ stirring Colour Party. Among those recalling Batt O’Connor was Minister of State Eoghan Murphy who told how he had grown up in the same neighbourhood in which Batt O’Connor lived in Donnybrook. Brosna relative Laura O’Sullivan read her cousin’s words on the Proclamation: “the sweet words of freedom that anointed the soul of the Patriot by preserving his Race willing to accept death over slavery.”

Members of the Irremore/Clashmealcon/Ardoughter sept of the O’Connor clan with patriarch Bertie (centre ) holding his latest book, an account of the Life and Times of Brosna’s Batt O’Connor. The launch of the book was among the highlights of Friday’s...