Anti-Treaty Soldier Christopher (‘Christie’ or ‘Christy’) Olden

Anti-Treaty Soldier Christopher (‘Christie’ or ‘Christy’) Olden (aged about 19) of 27 Ballymacthomas Lane, Cork city (at or near Rochestown or Douglas)

Date of incident: 9 Aug. 1922

Sources: CE, 18 Aug. 1922, 9 Aug. 1923; Roll of Honour, Cork No. 1 Brigade (Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Cork); MSPC/DP2702 (Military Archives); IRA Pension Rolls, MSPC/RO/28 (Military Archives); Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 25; O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 219; Cork One Brigade (1963), Roll of Honour; Last Post (1976 ed.), 95; O’Mahony (1986), 106; Borgonovo (2011), 147, fn. 30; Keane (2017), 295.  

Note: A member of D Company of the First Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade, Olden was seriously wounded while fighting with the anti-Treaty IRA at or near Rochestown on 9 August 1922 and died of his wounds two days later. He was interred in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork city, where his gravestone records 12 August 1922 (by mistake) as the date of his death. See Roll of Honour, Cork No. 1 Brigade (Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Cork); MSPC/DP2702 (Military Archives); Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 25; Cork One Brigade (1963), Roll of Honour.  

‘At a special meeting of the Committee of the Cork City and County Handball Association, deep regret was expressed at the untimely death of Mr Christie Olden, a well-known city handball player. The late Mr Olden was the Cork Junior Handball Champion for 1921.’ See CE, 18 Aug. 1922.

His pension file indicates that Christopher Olden died on 11 August 1922 at the South Infirmary in Cork city from the effects of gunshot wounds received on 9 August while he was in action against National Army forces. The location of the engagement in which he was fatally wounded is variously identified as ‘Rochestown’, ‘between Douglas and Passage’, and ‘Marlboro Hill, Douglas’. Olden had served with the IRA from 1919 during the War of Independence, the Truce period, and the early part of the Civil War. The file indicates that during the Civil War he had fought in the counties of Limerick, Clare, and Cork. In civilian life Christy Olden had been an employee of Messrs Furlong’s Bakery in Cork city. He had been born in 1902 at the South Infirmary, and his age at death was given as 19½ years old. His mother Elizabeth Olden was awarded a partial-dependant’s allowance or gratuity of £70 in 1933 under the Army Pensions Acts. See MSPC/DP2702 (Military Archives).

Christy Olden was in 1911 one of the five living children (seven born) of the butcher Edward Olden and his wife Eliza, who resided at 27 Ballymacthomas Lane in Cork city. Two sons (including Christy, then aged 8) and two daughters were co-resident with their parents. One child had left the family home, and two others had apparently died in infancy.