Volunteer Timothy Whooley

Volunteer Timothy Whooley (aged 20) of Derrymeeleen (Templebryan Cross near Clonakilty)

Date of incident: 27 March 1921

Sources: Death Certificate (Clonakilty District, Union of Clonakilty), 27 March 1921 (registered on 24 March 1922); MSPC/1D201 (Military Achives); Ted Hayes’s WS 1575, 9 (BMH); Rebel Cork’s FS, 207; Barry (1949, 1989), 98; Last Post (1976), 83; Ahiohill IRA Memorial.

Note: Whooley, a member of the Second or Clonakilty Battalion of the West Cork Brigade, ‘was on duty at Shannonvale Cross on the Bandon road. He was armed with a “Peter the Painter”, which he placed on the ground. The gun was picked up by one of his colleagues, who knew little of the intracacies of the weapon, and before anyone could realise what was happening, Tim Wholly [sic] was shot through the head and died almost immediately. The enemy forces learned of the occurrence within a short time. They searched every house in the area but failed to find the body. They arrested the man who fired the shot, but in the absence of the body, or apparently any definite information, they were unable to charge him.’ See Ted Hayes’s WS 1575, 9 (BMH).

Ted Hayes explicitly assigned this accidental death to 23 February 1921, but Tom Barry placed the death on 22 March of that year. Whooley’s memorial marker and the family gravestone in Ahiohill Churchyard both give 27 March 1921 as the date of his death. Whooley’s death certificate (registered in the Clonakilty District on 24 March 1922) confirms his date of death as 27 March 1921 but gives Derrymeeleen in Desertserges parish as his former residence and Templebryan as the place of his death.

Volunteer Whooley was one of the seven children of Deerymeeleen farmer John Whooley and his wife Julia. In 1911 six of the children (four sons and two daughters) were co-resident with their parents. Timothy was the youngest (then aged 10) of the children living at home.