Civilian John (Jack) Donovan or O’Donovan

Civilian John (Jack) Donovan or O’Donovan (aged 21) of Minanes, Drinagh, near Dunmanway (near Minanes)

Date of incident: night of 17-18 July 1923

Sources: Death Certificate (Cork Urban District No. 6, Union of Cork), 19 July 1923; SS, 21, 28 July 1921; FJ, 25 July 1923; CE, 25 July 1923; Keane (2017), 362, 423.

Note: The farmer John Donovan (aged 21 and unmarried) was shot and fatally wounded near his residence at Minanes in the Dunmanway district by a party of National soldiers on Wednesday, 18 July 1923, when he and others allegedly failed to obey an order to halt. He and his sister Mary Donovan, along with five other persons, were returning from a party at Minanes near Dunmanway about midnight on Wednesday, 18 July, when ‘they heard the noise of a car slowly overtaking them’, as Mary Donovan testified at the inquest held at the Mercy Hospital into her brother John’s death there. ‘She thought she heard the call to halt, but immediately shots were heard. Witness [Mary Donovan] and her friends threw themselves into the dyke for shelter, and her sister called out: “Don’t shoot us; we only are girls.” When witness and the party were moving back along the dyke, a man demanded them to halt. Then someone said, “Jack Donovan is dead.” Witness went back to her brother and found him in the dyke. He told her his leg was broken. The men who had been firing were standing with him. Medical evidence was given [at the inquest] that death was due to septic absorbtion following a compound fracture of the thigh, the result of a bullet wound.’ See FJ, 25 July 1923.

According to another account of the inquest, Mary Donovan explained that at about 11 p.m. on the night of Tuesday, 17 July 1923, she had gone with her deceased brother and her sister Julia from their house at Minanes to the house of Daniel Donovan of Minanes, about a half-mile distant, to see Daniel Donovan’s daughter, who was going to England the following morning. At about 11:30 p. m. the three Donovans (the brother and his two sisters) left the house in the company of five other named persons and walked to the public road in two groups (five in front and three behind) in order to make their way home. They heard the noise of what they took to be a common car approaching them from behind. ‘When the car got near them, they thought they heard the word “Halt!”, and then the shots rang out immediately.’ Clearly, these civilians did not recognise the car as a military one. They shouted at the occupants of the car to stop shooting, but the firing persisted. Patrick Donovan (one of the civilians in the group) ‘shouted for the third time. He also said for God sake not to shoot as there were girls there. The firing kept on, and the people who were firing said: “Blast you; come back.”’ John Donovan was now lying in the dyke, having been shot in the leg, and he could not stand up when told by three or four soldiers to do so because his leg was ‘broken’, as he told the soldiers. The wounded Donovan was taken to the nearby house of James Connolly, where he was visited by a priest and doctor. ‘The ambulance came about 11 o’clock the following morning and removed her brother to Cork to hospital.’ The military claimed that the soldiers had asked the men in the group at the scene: ‘“Why didn’t you halt when we challenged you?’” John Donovan was admitted to the Mercy Hospital at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 18 July 1923, and then had an operation on his badly wounded knee. His relatives had refused to consent to amputaton of the wounded leg, and gangrene set in. His condition deteriorated after the operation, and he died the following morning. See CE, 25 July 1923.

John Donovan was in 1911 one of the four children of the farmer, widow, and household head Margaret Donovan of house 6 in the townland of Minanes in Drinagh parish between Dunmanway and Skibbereen. All four of these children (two sons and two daughters) co-resided with their mother at Minanes in that year. They ranged in age from 8 to 13. John Donovan (then aged 9) was the second son; his older sister Julia was aged 11 and his younger sister Mary or May was aged 8.