Civilian Patrick Sheehan

Civilian Patrick Sheehan (aged 41) of 9 Lankford Row, Cork city (9 Lankford Row)

Date of incident: 15 May 1921

Sources: Death Certificate, 15 May 1921 (registered 11 June 1921); CE, 14, 16, 17, 21 May 1921; FJ, 19 May 1921; IT, 19 May 1921; CWN, 21 May 1921; Irish Bulletin 5:5 (7 June 1921); Borgonovo, 164-65 (note 122); Murphy (2010), 41.

Note: ‘About half past two or three o’clock’ in the early morning of Sunday, 15 May 1921, ‘a party of armed men entered the residence of Mr Patrick Sheehan at 9 Langford Row. They . . . shot him dead [and] left the house not long afterwards.’ A medical doctor found that Sheehan had been wounded ‘through the base of the heart and also through the neck’ and had died immediately. See CE, 16 May 1921.

There is strong evidence that members of the RIC assassinated Patrick Sheehan. The crime was believed to be a reprisal for a previous attack on the police. A police party surrounded the boarding house in which Sheehan and his wife lived, stormed into their bedroom, seized Sheehan from his bed, and shot him in the presence of his wife. They had been married for only a fortnight. See Irish Bulletin 5:5 (7 June 1921).

Patrick Sheehan was the fourth son of the late John Sheehan of Commons East near Bandon. See CE, 17 May 1921. In 1911 Patrick Sheehan (then aged 31) lived with his three slightly older brothers John, Joseph, and Daniel Sheehan at house 11 in Commons (Templemartin) near Bandon. His oldest brother John (a married farmer with one daughter) headed the family but shared the household with his sister and his three brothers. By occupation Patrick Sheehan and his brother Daniel were cattle dealers. Patrick Sheehan was buried in Templemartin Graveyard in May 1921.