Volunteer Cornelius Delany

Volunteer Cornelius Delany (aged about 34) of Ballincolly/Kilbarry (Dublin Hill, Blackpool, Cork city)

Date of incident: 12 Dec. 1920

Sources: CE, 13, 20 Dec. 1920; II, 16, 20 Dec. 1920, 1 Jan. 1921; FJ, 20 Dec. 1920, 2 Jan. 1921; CWN, 25 Dec. 1920; Military Inquests, WO 35/149A/2 (TNA); WS 719 of Maurice Ford et al., 10 (BMH); IRA Roll of Honour, Cork No. 1 Brigade (Cork Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Cork); Who Burnt Cork? (1921), 20, 65-67; Rebel Cork’s FS, 25, 124; Last Post (1976), 77.   

Note: Cornelius Delany was shot at his home on Dublin Hill (along with his brother and uncle) while Patrick Street was ablaze on the night and morning of 11-12 December 1920. Accompanied by a motor lorry, at least eight armed men came into the family’s house shortly after 2 a.m., awakening his father by their loud knocking. They asked the father if he was a Sinn Féiner. They wore long overcoats and had strong English accents. They bounded upstairs, and the person who shot and wounded Con Delany wore a military uniform. See Who Burnt Cork? (1921), 20, 65-67. Delaney died six days later in the Mercy Hospital from wounds inflicted by large-bore revolver bullets. The killers were clearly members of the crown forces. Yet the military court of inquiry came to the absurd conclusion that his death was the result of peritonitis ‘following a gunshot wound to the abdomen by some person unknown’. His father refused to attend the inquiry. See II, 1 Jan. 1921.

Cornelius Delany was a member of E Company of the First Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade. In 1911 he was the eldest child and first son (then aged 25) of the Ballincolly farmer Daniel Delany and his wife Julia. The Delany brothers were buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery.