Civilian Maurice (Michael) Griffin

Civilian Maurice (Michael) Griffin (aged about 49) of Grattan Hill, Cork city (Fisher Street, Cork)

Date of incident: 10 Oct. 1920

Sources: Death Certificate, 10 Oct. 1920; CE, 9, 11, 12 Oct. 1920; II, 11, 12 Oct. 1920; CC, 12 Oct. 1920; Irish Bulletin, 4:1 (3 Jan. 1921).

Note: At about 3 p.m. on the afternoon of 10 October 1920 the police and the military established a cordon in the centre of Cork city and then searched ‘all pedestrians caught within the cordon’. During these operations Griffin, a labourer, seems not to have heard an order to halt and continued on his way down Merchant Street (off Patrick Street). ‘Two shots were fired at him, one of which entered the right side of the back and passed through the abdomen.’ He died the next day at the South Infirmary of shock and haemorrhage from his gunshot wounds. He left a wife and at least three children; three more children had died in infancy. See II, 12 Oct. 1920. His death certificate indicates that he was shot on Fisher Street in Cork. The military action in establishing this cordon ‘around the principal streets’ of the city on a Sunday afternoon, when the streets were thronged with people, prompted great surprise and considerable consternation. The action should be understood in the context of a military response to the events of Friday morning, 8 October, when the IRA had mounted an attack on a military lorry in Barrack Street in the city centre, killing one soldier and wounding three others with two bombs or grenades (four were hurled) that landed in the lorry. Four civilians were also injured by bomb splinters and needed treated in the hospital. See II, 9 Oct. 1920; CE, 9, 11 Oct. 1920.

In 1911 the general labourer Michael Griffin (then aged 40) and his wife Mary resided in house 4.1 in Grattan Hill, Cork. Mary Griffin had given birth to six children, of whom three (a daughter and two sons) had survived infancy.