Anti-Treaty Soldier Michael Valentine Coakley

Anti-Treaty Soldier Michael Valentine Coakley (aged 23) of 5 Wood’s Place, off York Street, Cork city (Kealkil village)

Date of incident: 14 or 15 Aug. 1923

Sources: Death Certificate (Kealkil District, Union of Bantry), 15 Aug. 1923; MSPC/DP3720 (Military Archives); MSPC34/REF59162 (Military Archices); CW/OPS/04/04 (Military Archives); CE, 16, 17 Aug. 1923; FJ, 16 Aug. 1923; SS, 18 Aug. 1923; Keane (2017), 362-63, 423.

Note: Conflicting accounts of the death of Michael Coakley were given at the inquest into his death held at Bantry on Thursday, 16 August 1923: ‘An inquest was held here [Bantry] this afternoon touching the circumstances of the death of a young Cork man named Michael Coakley, who was shot dead at Kealkil village on Tuesday night [14 August] while attending an annual dance and gathering in a local public house. A military raid took place on the occasion to round up irregulars in the village. The military witnesses deposed that when approaching the [public] house, shots were fired at them from where the dancing was going on, and Lieutenant Connolly, who was in charge of one party, and a soldier near him were hit and dangerously wounded. The civilian evidence went to show that the dance was in full swing about . . . 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday [15 August] when shots were heard outside, and National Army Soldiers surrounded and entered the place; that Coakley fell dead, and two other civilians who were participating in the pastime were seriously wounded. The military witnesses stated that the wounds on one of the civilians was [sic] the result of buckshot, which the military do not use. The jury returned a verdict of death by a bullet wound caused by some person unknown, and tendered sympathy to [the] deceased’s mother and relatives. Lieut. Connolly was dangerously wounded in the back and lies in the Cork Mercy Hospital. The two civilians and a soldier also wounded on the occasion are improving.’ See SS, 18 Aug. 1923. This report appeared first in the Cork Examiner of 17 August 1923.

In its report on the incident the Freeman’s Journal noted that that Michael Coakley had been ‘employed as a confectioner’s assistant’ at Messrs F. H. Thompson and Son in Cork city. On Saturday, 11 August, Coakley had ‘left for a week’s holiday in the district where he so tragically met his death’. Besides the death of Coakley and the shooting of Lieutenant P. Connolly, two civilians named McCarthy and Connolly or Connell, ‘both residents of the Bantry district’, had been wounded. There was also a larger context: ‘Being the eve of Lady Day, large numbers assembled in the village [of Kealkil] to join in dancing and other amusements. The place is locally reputed to be a rendezvous for Irregulars, and during the night a party of troops from Bantry went to the district. They held up some people whom they apparently suspected. It was in a local publichouse, where a dance was in progress, that the casualties occurred.’ See FJ, 16 Aug. 1923.

According to an operations report of the 30th Battalion of the National Army for 15 August 1923, a ‘civilian’ named Michael Coakley of York Street in Cork city was shot dead in the incident at Kealkil on that date. See CW/OPS/04/04 (Military Archives). 

There is a good case for identifying Michael Coakley as an IRA soldier rather than as a civilian. In a letter dated 26 March 1938 and issued by the Department of Defence to the victim’s mother Catherine Coakley, she was informed that her application for a pension or gratuity had been denied because her son had not been wounded ‘while engaged in military service’. But earlier the Military Service Registration Board itself had certified that Michael Coakley had indeed been killed while on military service and had been sent to Kealkil with despatches for the Cork No. 5 Brigade of the IRA. Later, on 10 March 1938, the same board essentially changed its initial decision and came to the determination that Coakley had not been on military service for the IRA at the time of his death on 15 August 1923. Coakley had been shot dead in Collins’s public house in Kealkil in an exchange of fire between a National Army raiding or search party and members of the IRA. At the time Coakley was attending a dance at which IRA members were present, and he was hit in the crossfire. This at least was the determination of the inquest jury and of a court of military inquiry, which did not assign blame for his death to either side in the encounter. See MSPC/DP3720 (Military Archives).

His mother Catherine, however, insisted that her son had been killed by a shot fired by a National Army soldier from outside the public house. The pension file contains materials showing that Michael Coakley had served with the Volunteers and IRA from 1918 until his death—during the War of Independence, the Truce period, and the Civil War. He was a member of A Company of the First Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade. See MSPC/DP3720 (Military Archives). The public house where Coakley was killed was operated by Ellen Collins Murphy, who served as head of Cumann na mBan in the Kealkil district, and who sponsored dances as one method of raising funds for anti-Treaty activists during the Civil War. See Pension Claim of Helen Collins Murphy (MSPC34/REF59162, Military Archices). Other members of the Coakley family (Michael and Timy) were present in Collins Bar on that night, in addition to their cousin, Mossie Donegan. (Thanks to Tim Coakley for this information).

Michael Coakley was in 1911 one of the eight children of Catherine Coakley and a husband not listed by the census-taker (the late Jeremiah Coakley by 1923). Seven of the eight children co-resided with their mother in that year at 8 Wood’s Lane in Cork city. These seven included four daughters and three sons ranging in age from 1 to 13. Michael Coakley (then aged 11) was the second eldest son living at home.  

Aged 23 and unmarried in August 1923, Coakley was a resident of Wood’s Place, off York Street, in Cork city. His remains were conveyed by train to the city terminus of the Cork, Bandon, and South Coast Railway. ‘The remains, which were accompanied by a large number of relatives and friends of the deceased, were brought to St Patrick’s church, from which place the funeral takes place [to Douglas] this afternoon [17 August] at 3 o’clock.’ See CE, 17 Aug. 1923.