Family appeals for justice 100 years on
IT is 100 years since Kevin Barry was executed, but another Dublin family is also grieving for someone killed exactly a century ago by British forces.
Eight-year-old Annie O’Neill was shot dead while playing in the street on November 13, 1920, during the War of Independence, and her family is still seeking an explanation.
They are campaigning for the British War Records Office at Kew in London to hand over the records relating to Annie’s death.
Little Annie was one of five children born to Andrew O’Neill and Kate Byrne of 22 Charlemont Avenue, Ranelagh – a row of labourers’ cottages that no longer exists.
A striking little girl with blonde hair, she had a best friend, Teresa Kavanagh, who lived next door and the pair used to play in front of the cottages. Her nephew Paul O’Neill, 60,
‘Reports of what happened to Annie are confused’
takes up the story. ‘Her father Andrew had died two months previously from tuberculosis. This had left her mother Kate to look after their five children on her own.
‘Reports of exactly what happened to Annie are confused as later claims by the military and civil authorities conflict with statements given by eye witnesses.
‘Early military reports and eye-witness statements say that five or six young men were standing on the corner of Charlemont Avenue and Charlemont Street, when an open-topped military car containing “military officers”, followed by a lorry containing troops from the Lancashire Fusiliers regiment, came over Ranelagh Bridge and screeched to a stop beside the young men.
‘Annie was outside her home on the avenue playing with her friend Teresa, who was six years old. Annie was hit in the chest by one of the bullets. Teresa was hit in the arm.’ The authorities would later claim only one bullet was fired that day and that it was this same bullet that passed through Annie and struck her little friend Teresa in the arm.
Even in a city jaded by bloodshed, Annie’s death caused revulsion. A photographer from the Irish Independent was dispatched to Charlemont Cottages. ‘The photograph of the scene of the shooting which appeared in the Irish Independent on November 16, 1920 was accompanied by a report which stated that the shooting took place outside the girl’s home,’ says Mr O’Neill.
The following day, November 17, Annie was laid to rest in Deansgrange Cemetery, and a picture of her tiny coffin being carried through the crowd appeared on the front pages.
Mr O’Neill discovered from the funeral director’s record that it had been paid for by Madeleine Ffrench-Mullen, who took part in the Easter Rising.
The records held by the British War Office in relation to the killing are less forthcoming.
‘We’ve never been able to find the records of the evidence we know was given by eye witnesses at this inquiry,’ says Mr O’Neill.
‘All we know are the findings the court gave as to the cause of Annie’s death. It reads: “Accidentally shot by a military officer justifiably and in the execution of his duties firing on another person unknown.”
‘I believe the records are in
Kew and they were removed because they are so embarrassing for the British forces. Shooting a child in broad daylight.’
Mr O’Neill is asking anyone who may know more about the report of the military inquiry to get in touch at annienotforgotten.ie. ‘If anyone can help us find out more about what happened to her, we would appreciate it. She deserves it.’