Relatives joy at honour
A look came over Martin Savage’s mother’s face when he was killed and never left it, recalled his niece Pauline Corcoran.
She, along with ten other members of the Savage family, drove down to Sligo from Dublin to witness their uncle being honoured in his native county for giving his life to Ireland.
“Martin was my mother’s brother,” she told The Sligo Champion after the ceremony to rename the bridge in his memory.
Pauline remembered her mother talking about her uncle often.
“She spoke about him and what happened and the effects it had on the family and particularly her mother. Her mother (Martin’s mother), she said, a look came his mother’s face that never left it from the day she heard he was murdered,” she said.
“It was very sad and this is very emotional for me, you wouldn’t believe it. To see him being honoured in this way after so many years, close to a hundred years now, it’s just mind-boggling for me, it’s wonderful,” she said.
“It was wonderful having the President here. Sligo County Council are just fantastic for what they do. I can’t thank them enough,” she added.
Closer to home, Eddie Savage who lives in Rathcormac is one of Martin Savage’s nephews.
“I suppose it means a lot, when you come to my age,” he told this newspaper.
“It really wasn’t talked about that much, but what I would gather from my older brothers, you get the impression that my father would rather you didn’t ask. When we were growing up, Sinn Féin was a close second to the rosary, a very close second,” he said.
Martin Savage’s grand-nephews Mick Farry and Martin Taylor travelled to Ballisodare from their home in Drumcondra and the North Strand for Friday’s occasion.
“We’d be very proud of our history and attachments to Sligo and Martin Savage’s input into the War of Independence,” said Martin. “As a child I remember being dragged up the Navan Road to his memorial up in Ashtown where he was shot and we’d be brought up there every year,” he said.
“We used to have a military mass in the church on the Navan Road and a colour brigade of the old IRA and we’d parade the last mile up to his headstone and lay a wreath. So we’re very proud,” he said.
“We still do that tradition and go up every year,” said Martin. Their grandmother, who would have been a sibling of the Sligoman, “never stopped” talking about him.
The celebrations in Ballisodare continued after the re-naming ceremony with refreshments and food served to President Higgins and locals in The Sally Gardens pub afterwards.