Anti-Treaty Soldier John P. O’Brien

Anti-Treaty Soldier John P. O’Brien (aged about 21) of 34 Maiville Terrace, Evergreen Road, Blackroad Road, Cork city (Knockarourke near Donoughmore)

Date of incident: 14 Sept. 1922

Sources: CE, 15, 16, 18 Sept. 1922; SS, 16, 23 Sept. 1922; FJ, 18 Sept. 1922; II, 21 Sept. 1922; Death Certificate (Clonmoyle District, Union of Macroom), misdated 21 Sept. 1922 (registered on 20 Dec. 1922); MSPC/DP2154 (Military Archives); Roll of Honour, Cork No. 1 Brigade (Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Cork); List of IRA Interments (Boole Library, UCC); Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 25; O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 218; Cork One Brigade (1963), Roll of Honour; Last Post (1976 ed.), 97; O’Mahony (1986), 106; Borgonovo (2011), 147, fn. 30; Keane (2017), 305, 417; Creedon, O’Brien, and Healy Memorial, Donoughmore, Co. Cork, http://www.irishwarmemorials.ie/pdf/408.pdf (accessed 5 Aug. 2017); http://irishvolunteers.org/ira-1-cork-brigadedonoughmore-cemetery-co-cork/ (accessed 3 March 2018). 

Note: A party of Free State troops traveling from Donoughmore to Blarney in a Lancia car were ambushed on 14 September 1922 near Donoughmore by Irregulars; the National Army troops were able to secure reinforcements in Blarney and returned to the scene of the ambush, where they killed John O’Brien, seriously wounded another of the attackers (Denis Creedon), and captured three more. See CE, 15 Sept. 1922. 

A slightly later report concerned with the same events summarised up eight hours of intermittent fighting between the two sets of enemies: ‘The net result of the operations, which lasted in all about eight hours, may be summed up as follows: One irregular was killed, one was wounded, [and] three were taken prisoners; one machinegun, ten rifles, eight bombs, [and] a good deal of ammunition and other equipment were captured. The National soldiers, although some had escapes that were positively miraculous, had no casualties whatsoever.’ As darkness descended, these National troops ‘desisted and prepared to return to Cork. In the course of their operations they picked up the body of an irregular who had been killed during the encounter. He is said to be a man named O’Brien of Evergreen, Cork. He was wearing a Sam Brown belt and is believed to have been an officer amongst the irregulars. They also found a wounded irregular, whom they removed to the Mercy Hospital, Cork. . . .’ See CE, 16 Sept. 1922.

A member of D Company of the Second Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade, O’Brien was buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s Cemetery on 17 September; his coffin, ‘enveloped in the tricolour, was followed by a large number of people to the graveside. A piper’s band too was in attendance.’ See CE, 18 Sept. 1922. O’Brien’s name and date of death appear on a list of IRA interments associated with the unveiling of a republican monument in 1963. See List of IRA Interments (Boole Library, UCC). O’Brien is commemorated on a small memorial by the roadside in Donoughmore, where it is stated that he was killed in action on 14 September 1922 as a member of the Sixth Battalion [sic] of the Cork No. 1 Brigade. He is also commemorated along with fellow republicans Denis Creedon and William Healy (the latter executed by the Free State on 13 March 1923) on a larger IRA memorial in Donoughmore.

O’Brien’s pension file reveals that in civilian life he had been an engineer at Rushbrooke Docks in Cobh. His stepmother Ellen O’Brien was awarded a partial-dependant’s gratuity or allowance of £112 10s. in 1935 under the Army Pensions Acts. John O’Brien’s date of death as given by his stepmother was 13 September 1922, but his death certificate recorded his date of death as 21 September and his age as 21. It is possible that O’Brien was mortally wounded rather than killed in the engagement at Knockarourke near Donoughmore on 13 September 1922, and that he survived his wounds for a brief period. See MSPC/DP2154 (Military Archives).