- Home
- Collections
- Atlas Resources for Schools
- Cork Fatality Register
- Mapping the Irish Revolution
- Mapping IRA Companies, July 1921-July 1922
- Mapping the Burning of Cork, 11-12 December 1920
- Martial Law, December 1920
- The IRA at War
- The Railway Workers’ Munitions Strike of 1920
- The Victory of Sinn Féin: The 1920 Local Elections
- The War of Words: Propaganda and Moral Force
- The IRA Offensive against the RIC, 1920
- De Valera’s American Tour, 1919-1920
- The British Reprisal Strategy and its Impact
- Cumann na mBan and the War of Independence
- The War Escalates, November 1920
- The War of Independence in Cork and Kerry
- The Story of 1916
- A 1916 Diary
- January 9-15 1916
- January 10-16, 1916
- January 17-23, 1916
- January 24-30, 1916
- February 1-6 1916
- February 7-14, 1916
- February 15-21, 1916
- February 22-27, 1916
- February 28-March 3, 1916
- March 6-13,1916
- March 14-20, 1916
- March 21-27 1916
- April 3-9, 1916
- April 10-16, 1916
- April 17-21,1916
- May 22-28 1916
- May 29-June 4 1916
- June 12-18 1916
- June 19-25 1916
- June 26-July 2 1916
- July 3-9 1916
- July 11-16 1916
- July 17-22 1916
- July 24-30 1916
- July 31- August 7,1916
- August 7-13 1916
- August 15-21 1916
- August 22-29 1916
- August 29-September 5 1916
- September 5-11, 1916
- September 12-18, 1916
- September 19-25, 1916
- September 26-October 2, 1916
- October 3-9, 1916
- October 10-16, 1916
- October 17-23, 1916
- October 24-31, 1916
- November 1-16, 1916
- November 7-13, 1916
- November 14-20, 1916
- November 21-27-1916
- November 28-December 4, 1916
- December 5-11, 1916
- December 12-19, 1916
- December 19-25, 1916
- December 26-January 3, 1916
- Cork's Historic Newspapers
- Feature Articles
- News and Events
- UCC's Civil War Centenary Programme
- Irish Civil War National Conference 15-18 June 2022
- Irish Civil War Fatalities Project
- Research Findings
- Explore the Fatalities Map
- Civil War Fatalities in Dublin
- Civil War Fatalities in Limerick
- Civil War Fatalities in Kerry
- Civil War Fatalities in Clare
- Civil War Fatalities in Cork
- Civil War Fatalities in the Northern Ireland
- Civil War Fatalities in Sligo
- Civil War Fatalities in Donegal
- Civil War Fatalities in Wexford
- Civil War Fatalities in Mayo
- Civil War Fatalities in Tipperary
- Military Archives National Army Fatalities Roll, 1922 – 1923
- Fatalities Index
- About the Project (home)
- The Irish Revolution (Main site)
1920-66
Civilian George Walker
Civilian George Walker (aged about 34) of 27 Cottrell’s Row, Queenstown (Queenstown/Cobh)
Date of incident: 28 Aug. 1920
Sources: CE, 30, 31 Aug., 6 Sept. 1920; II, 30, 31 Aug. 1920; FJ, 31 Aug. 1920; Nenagh Guardian, 4 Sept. 1920; Nenagh News, 4 Sept. 1920; Connacht Tribune, 4 Sept. 1920; Strabane Chronicle, 4 Sept. 1920; Ulster Herald, 4 Sept. 1920; Inquest Book, no. 2, 1897-1929 (TNA); Sheehan (2011), 43, 220.
Note: Walker was shot and fatally wounded at Cobh by a military patrol of the Cameron Highlanders on the night of 28 August 1920. An ex-soldier (with twenty-one years’ service) who had fought in the South African war at a very young age, Walker was employed on the War Office launch ‘Alice’. Wounded twice in the Great War, Walker ‘was almost crippled and had to carry a stick to assist him in walking. He was called upon to put up his hands by a patrol of the Cameron Highlanders, and failing to obey promptly enough, he was fired at.’ He died the next day from bullet and bayonet wounds at the Cobh Military Hospital ‘after receiving the Last Sacraments’. A native of Liverpool, he left a wife and six children (aged one to eleven). See II, 30 Aug. 1920.
At the subsequent coroner’s inquest his wife Julia Walker explained that after she had heard shooting outside her house on Saturday night, 28 August, and had ‘heard the soldiers coming along’, she had awakened her husband and sent him to fetch one of their boys, ‘who was at his grandmother’s a short distance away’. Julia Walker had intended to go herself, but before leaving, her husband had ‘said he would “Hands up” if the military halted him, because he, having been in the army, knew their ways, [and] that she would not know what to do’. She thus thought now that ‘he must have been taken unawares’. When her husband was shot, he was only a short distance away from her—at the end of the steps to their house or building. Though she could not see or hear the soldiers from where she stood, she did hear her husband moan after two shots were fired at him. George Walker was mortally wounded shortly before 11 p.m. on Saturday night and died at 3:40 a.m. Sunday morning from bullet wounds in the stomach and hip. See CE, 31 Aug. 1920.
The jurors at the coroner’s inquest ‘found that [the] deceased died from shock from wounds inflicted by a patrol of Cameron Highlanders who, it was declared, had the night before “wrecked the town”. They added that there was no evidence of provocation and commended the widow and family of [the] deceased to the consideration of the military authorities. The jury complained of the absence of military at the inquest.’ See FJ, 31 Aug. 1920. Part of the context for the death of George Walker was the killing of Private Charles Edward Hall by the IRA on 27 August, which had in turn prompted a military riot by the Cameron Highlanders in Cobh on the night of 27-28 August—a riot bitterly noted by the coroner’s jury in the case of Walker’s death. See Ulster Herald, 4 Sept. 1920.