Volunteer Lieutenant Edward (Ned) Waters

Volunteer Lieutenant Edward (Ned) Waters (aged about 24) of Glashaboy West, Burnfort, Mallow (Nadd near Kanturk)

Date of incident: 10 March 1921

Sources: CC, 11 March 1921; FJ, 11, 12 March 1921; CE, 12, 14 March 1921; II, 12 March 1921; Military Inquests, WO 35/151A/60 (TNA); George Power’s WS 451, 18-19 (BMH); WS 744 of Jeremiah Murphy, Michael Courtney, and Denis Mulchinock, 14-17 (BMH); Richard Willis and John Bolster’s WS 808, Appendix 8; Seán Moylan’s WS 838, 209-10 (BMH); John Winters’s WS 948, 5-6 (BMH); Leo O’Callaghan’s WS 978, 19-20, 22-23 (BMH); Jeremiah Daly’s WS 1015, 9 (BMH); John Moloney’s WS 1036, 13-17 (BMH); Joseph P. Morgan’s WS 1097, 15-18 (BMH); Tadhg Looney’s WS 1196, 13-14 (BMH); Michael O’Connell’s WS 1428, 14-15 (BMH); Moylan (2004), 110-12; Last Post (1976), 82; O’Donoghue (1954, 1986), 142-44; Carroll (2010), 107; Sheehan (2011), 76; IRA Nadd Memorial; IRA Boggera Mountains Memorial; Kilshannig Memorial, Glenview, Glantane Main Street; http://www.independent.ie/regionals/corkman/news/rededication-of-nadd-monument-27091540.html (accessed 22 March 1921).     

Note: Waters and three other Volunteers were killed in a raid at Nadd by British forces acting with benefit of enemy intelligence from Daniel Shiels. IRA officer Leo O’Callaghan vividly recalled Shiels’s role and the killing of three of the captured Volunteers by British forces: ‘In March of 1921 Shiels was with the Kanturk Battalion column at the brigade headquarters at Nadd. He went into Kanturk to draw his British army pension. The I.O. of the Kanturk Battalion (Michael Moore) noted that Shiels was drinking in the Kanturk publichouses and then became aware of the fact that Shiels had called at the Kanturk R.I.C. B[arrac]ks. Moore sent a dispatch with all haste to Nadd. The dispatch never arrived. Next morning there was a huge dawn concentration of British military on Nadd and convoys of troops from Kanturk, Ballincollig, Fermoy, Buttevant, and Tralee [that] encircled the mountain. General Liam Lynch and his staff got through one gap in the khaki ring, but Volunteers Kiely, Herlihy, and Twomey of the Kanturk Batallion were surprised asleep in Herlihy’s house with Joe Morgan, Lieut. Ned Waters, and Volunteer John Moloney of the Mallow Batallion. As they were being lined up in their stockinged feet to be executed at the rere of the cottage, Morgan and Moloney made a daring break for liberty. Both were wounded but succeeded in escaping into the mist. Both are still alive [in July 1954]. The others were shot where they stood. Shiels was at Nadd that morning with the British. He was in Black and Tan [i.e., RIC] uniform and was recognised and saluted by Tom Bride of Nadd, the proprietor of the pub there. He disappeared and was never traced. Hundreds of photographs of him were circulated by the I.R.A. to England and America, but he was not found. He is believed dead.’ See Leo O’Callaghan’s WS 978, 19-20 (BMH). 

Volunteer Ned Waters, a Protestant, was interred in Bweeng. He was one of the seven living children (eleven born) of Glashaboy West farmer Timothy Waters and his wife Mary. Five of their sons and a daughter, ranging in age from 14 to 31, lived with them in 1911. Edmond or Ned (then aged 14)