Anti-Treaty Soldier Daniel Donovan or O’Donovan Jr

Anti-Treaty Soldier Daniel Donovan or O’Donovan Jr (aged about 33) of Clogagh near Timoleague (Timoleague)

Date of incident: 6 Oct. 1922

Sources: CE, 9 Oct. 1922; FJ, 9 Oct. 1922; Evening Herald, 9 Oct. 1922; SS, 14 Oct. 1922; MSPC/DP3644 (Military Archives); Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 208; O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 214; Last Post (1976 ed.), 98; Keane (2017), 312-13, 418; http://www.irishmedals.ie/Anti-Treaty-Killed.php (accessed 13 July 2017).   

Note: Daniel 0’Donovan Jr died at Timoleague on 6 October 1922 as he was working with other anti-Treaty IRA members to bring down the bridge there. The Cork Examiner of 9 October 1922 reported: ‘During Friday night [6 October] Timoleague bridge was destroyed for the second time, and one of the irregulars engaged in the work of rendering the bridge impassible was killed. He was a man named O’Donovan. . . . It appears that he was underneath the bridge, picking out the keystone of the arch, and he succeeded in doing so, but before he could get clear, the bridge collapsed, and something like seven tons of masonry fell upon him, crushing and killing him instantly.’ See CE, 9 Oct. 1922.

Daniel O’Donovan Jr had served with the Volunteers beginning in 1917. During the War of Independence and the Civil War he had been a member of the First (Bandon) Battalion of the Cork No. 3 Brigade under the leadership of Daniel Holland and Michael O’Neill as well as Tom Barry and Liam Deasy. In civilian life O’Donovan had been a road contractor. His pension file confirms that he was killed while ‘attempting to destroy a bridge near Timoleague’. An erroneous date (4 October 1922) is given for his death. His sister Jane O’Donovan made several unsuccessful applications for an allowance or gratuity under the Army Pensions Acts, but she did eventually receive a special allowance under this legislation and collected it until her death on 30 December 1969. See MSPC/DP3644 (Military Archives). 

Daniel Donovan Jr was in 1911 one of the ten children (eleven born) of the agricultural labourer Daniel Donovan Sr and his wife Mary. Of these ten children, three still co-resided with their parents in that year in house 2 in the townland of Clogagh North near Timoleague. Daniel Jr (then aged 22) was the eldest of the three children (two sons and a daughter) still at home. After his death early in October 1922 Daniel Donovan Jr was buried in Clogagh Graveyard