Civilian Timothy Hourihan

Civilian Timothy Hourihan (aged 57) of Cappeen East near Castletown-Kinneigh (near Castletown-Kinneigh)

Date of incident: 13 March 1921

Sources: CC, 15 March 1921; FJ, 17 March 1921; CWN, 26 March 1921; SS, 10 Sept. 1921; Military Inquests, WO 35/152/17 (TNA); Philip Chambers’s WS 738, 7-8 (BMH).

Note: A farm labourer aged 57, Hourihan was shot on a Sunday when a party of Auxiliary police from Dunmanway surrounded the district of Castletown-Kinneigh. Hourihan allegedly disobeyed an order to approach a patrol party and ran off into cover. When he returned to the site, he was mortally wounded by Auxiliary G. F. Constable and died later that day. His coffin was brought to Bandon Military Barracks. He left a wife and eight children. See Military Inquests, WO 35/152/17 (TNA).

According to Philip Chambers, captain of the Coppeen Volunteer Company, there was no excuse for the killing of Hourihan. Chambers was headed home armed with a revolver and carrying a dispatch on Sunday, 13 March 1921, when he ‘met a man whom I knew well—Tim Hourihane [sic], a labourer. I had a brief conversation with him and then we parted. I crossed into my own farm, and about 150 yards away I saw an Auxie on high ground, armed with a rifle and apparently scanning the countryside. I was full[y] sure I had been seen and kept on moving towards him. I got lost to view in an intervening gully, where I hid the revolver and ate the dispatch, and I stayed put where I was. A short time later, the shadow of the armed Auxie showed right in front of me, and I was convinced that I was nabbed, but obviously he had missed me. About the same time, Tim Hourihane, to whom I had been speaking a short time before, appeared about 20 yards away. I beckoned to him to move off, and just as I did, the Auxie, who had seen him, came along and searched him. I remained under cover. After the search Hourihane was allowed to proceed, and as he moved along the high ground, I heard a shot and saw poor Hourihane fall to the ground. In a short space of time about twenty Auxies were gathered around him. They secured a door from a nearby farmhouse and brought the remains on a door to his own home, which was only a few hundred yards away. The Auxies remained in the locality until near nightfall, when they moved off. I then returned to my own home.’ See Philip Chambers’s WS 738, 7-8 (BMH).

Hourihan’s wife Nora died on Saturday, 3 September 1921, after a brief illness at a comparatively young age (about 49). ‘Mrs Hourihan’s death [at Coppeen East], coming so shortly after that of her husband, will be all the more regretted by everybody knowing the tragic facts of the case. . . . She leaves a large and helpless lot of orphans to mourn her premature death. A large concourse of people followed the remains to Kin[n]eigh Churchyard’ two days later. See SS, 10 Sept. 1921. In 1911, when there were seven Hourihan children (five sons and two daughters), they ranged in age from 1 to 13.