RIC Sergeant Ambrose O’Shea or Shea

RIC Sergeant Ambrose O’Shea or Shea (aged 46) from County Wicklow (Rosscarbery)

Date of incident: 31 March 1921

Sources: CC, 1 April 1921; II, 1, 23 April 1921; CCE, 2, 16, 23 April 1921; CE, 2, 11 April 1921; Weekly Summary of Outrages against the Police (CO 904/148-50/273, TNA); Military Inquests, WO 35/159A/14 (TNA); Peter Kearney’s WS 444, 9-11 (BMH); William Norris’s WS 595, 12 (BMH); John O’Driscoll’s WS 1250, 11-12 (BMH); Michael Coleman’s WS 1254, 16-17 (BMH); Timothy Warren’s WS 1275, 15 (BMH); Michael O’Driscoll’s WS 1297, 8-9; Ted O’Sullivan’s WS 1478, 35-37 (BMH); Christopher O’Connell’s WS 1530, 22-25 (BMH); Con Flynn’s WS 1621, 20-22 (BMH); James Doyle’s WS 1640, 21-23 (BMH); Barry (1949, 1989), 142-53; Abbott (2000), 216-17; ‘The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Division Area’, Irish Sword, 27 (Spring 2010), 145; Deasy (1973), 260-62; Sheehan (2011), 129; Leeson (2011), 143-44.

Note: The remains of Sergeant O’Shea, like those of Constable Bowles, at first remained in the debris of the burned RIC barracks at Rosscarbery. He was initially interred in the Rosscarbery Burial Grounds, but his remains were subsequently transferred to Baltimore in far West Cork, where he left a wife and three children. He had been stationed at Baltimore before his transfer to Rosscarbery. See CCE, 16 April 1921. Mrs Christina O’Shea and her family later claimed £10,000 in compensation for the killing of her husband Sergeant O’Shea (with 26 years’ service) at Rosscarbery on 31 March 1921. See CE, 29 June 1921.

Newspaper reports indicated that a third member of the RIC, Constable Reynolds, died of his wounds in a Cork city hospital, but this death has not been confirmed by searches for other evidence, including a possible death certificate, and the press reports appear to have been mistaken. See CE, 11 April 1921; CCE, 16 April 1921.