Anti-Treaty Soldier Daniel (Jeremiah) Casey

Anti-Treaty Soldier Daniel (Jeremiah) Casey (about 19) of Ivy House, Gurteenroe near Macroom (Gortnalicky near Clondrohid and Macroom)

Date of incident: 4 Dec. 1922

Sources: CE, 5 Dec. 1923 (in memoriam notice); MSPC/DP1603 (Military Archives); Timothy Buckley’s WS 1674, 10 (BMH); O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 213; Cork One Brigade (1963), Roll of Honour; Last Post (1976 ed.), 100; Ó Héalaithe (2014), 240-48, 275; Keane (2017), 334, 420.

Note: Daniel (Jeremiah) Casey was shot and killed while fighting with the anti-Treaty IRA on 4 December 1922 at Gortnalicky near Clondrohid. Volunteer Timothy Buckley, who had served as O/C with the Clondrohid Company—also called B Company—of the Seventh (Macroom) Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade during the War of Independence and then took the anti-Treaty side, later provided the following account of this killing: ‘With about five men from Clondrohid Company, I was on outpost duty during the attack by our battalion column on the Free State forces in Ballyvourney on December 6th, 1922. [Buckley probably meant 4 December 1922.] Enemy forces raided Gortnalicka [Gortnalicky] late in the evening of the day of this attack. They opened fire from a distance on Daniel Casey, who was alone in the district and was armed with a rifle. Casey was wounded, and when the officer in charge of the Free State forces reached the wounded man, he (the officer) shot him through the heart. This officer’s name was Conlan [Peter Conlon or Peadar O’Conlon]. My sister and my wife were the first people to reach the dead man.’ See Timothy Buckley’s WS 1674, 10 (BMH). The in memoriam notice for Jeremiah Casey inserted in the Cork Examiner of 5 December 1923 gave 5 December 1922 as the date of Casey’s death. 

A farmer’s or labourer’s son, Daniel (Jeremiah) Casey had worked as a butcher’s assistant in Macroom in civilian life. His death certificate (copy included in his pension file) gave his age at death as 19. The certificate is dated 5 December 1922, one day after the fatal encounter. He was a member of B Company of the Seventh Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade under Daniel Corkery and Charlie Browne. Material in Casey’s pension file indicates that he was in the custody of National Army forces at the time of his death—evidence tending to confirm the charge, made in Timothy Buckely’s BMH Witness Statement, that the wounded Casey had been executed by Free State Commandant Peadar O’Conlon. The victim’s mother Julia Casey was awarded a partial-dependant’s allowance or gratuity as late as 1937; she also received a dependant’s allowance between 1953 and her own death in July 1965. See MSPC/DP1603 (Military Archives).

Jeremiah Casey was in 1911 one the five children (three sons and two daughters) of the agricultural labourer Patrick Casey and his wife Julia, who resided at house 15 in rural Codrum in Macloneigh parish near Macroom. All five of these children then co-resided with their parents. The children ranged in age from a few months old (son William) to 9 years (son Andrew). Jeremiah (then aged 8) was the second and middle son.