Plans in place for Ághas centenary

MONUMENT PLANNED IN LISPOLE FOR IRISH VOLUNTEERS FOUNDER MEMBER TOMÁS ÁGHAS

A SERIES of initiatives to commemorate the centenary of Tomás Ághas’ death have been agreed following a public meeting at Scoil Náisiúnta Eoin Baiste in Lios Póil on Sunday and they are due to take place over the next 12 months.

Sunday’s meeting took place exactly 99 years on from the Kerry patriot’s passing, and was attended by locals, UCC history lecturer Gabriel Doherty, Coiste Cuimhneacháin Tomás Ághas, as well as councillors Seamus ‘Cosaí’ Mac Gearailt, Toiréasa Ferris, and Michael D O’Shea.

“We took a number of suggestions from those who attended on how best to honour Tomás Ághas,” Risteard Mac Eoin of the Coiste Cuimhneacháin told The Kerryman. “Among these efforts will be a series of talks and commemorative walks during August’s Féile Lios Póil.”

Micheál Ó Móráin’s 1985 booklet on Ághas will also be relaunched with new information included, while a new monument is to be unveiled in Ághas’ home townland of Cinn Aird two days prior to the centenary.

Risteard says that plenty more besides these ideas will be put into practice. “We’ll discuss a few more of the ideas that were put forward last night at future meetings over the coming months.”

Ághas died at the Mater Hospital in Dublin on September 1917 from the effects of force-feeding by Mountjoy prison authorities. He had begun a hunger strike days previously.

A member of the Gaelic League, the GAA, and the IRB, he was also a founding member of the Irish Volunteers, and commanded the Fingal battalion in Ashbourne during the Easter Rising.