1921-109

Volunteer Daniel Callaghan or O’Callaghan

Volunteer Daniel Callaghan or O’Callaghan (aged about 22) of Dripsey (Cork Military Detention Barracks)

Date of incident: 28 Feb. 1921 (executed by crown forces)

Sources: FJ, 28 Feb., 1 March 1921; II, 28 Feb., 1, 15 March 1921; CE, 1 March 1921; CCE, 12 Feb., 5 March 1921; Connaught Telegraph, 5 March 1921; Kerryman, 5 March 1921; Ulster Herald, 5 March 1921; Military Inquests, WO 35/155B/1 (TNA); Peter Kearney’s WS 444, 12 (BMH); Denis Dwyer’s WS 713, 5-10 (BMH); Denis Collins’s WS 827, 18 (BMH); Daniel McCarthy’s WS 1457, 6-7 (BMH); Michael Mullane’s WS 1689, 8-10 (BMH); Daniel McCarthy’s WS 1697, 13-14 (BMH); Roll of Honour, Cork No. 1 Brigade (Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Cork); Barry (1949, 1989), 165-66; War of Independence website for County Cork, under First Cork Brigade, and under ‘Capture of I.R.A. Volunteers at Dripsey’; Kautt (2010), 125-30; Sheehan (2011), 107, 230; Ó hÉalaithe (2014), 156-60, 274; http://www.tameside.gov.uk/museumsgalleries/mom/objectfocus/razor (17 Sept. 2015); Dripsey Ambush Monument; Donoughmore Cemetery IRA Memorial; UCC IRA Memorial.

 

Note: Callaghan was one of six Volunteers executed by firing squad at Victoria Military Detention Barracks in Cork city on this date. He had been captured in the attempted Dripsey ambush of 28 January 1921. Born in 1899 at the Model Village in Dripsey, Callaghan was educated at Tullig National Schools. He was a keen sportsman and played with the Inniscarra Hurling Club in 1919. Earlier, in March 1917, he had joined the Volunteers and became a member of E Company of the Sixth Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade. His life and death closely mirrored that of his Dripsey-ambush and E Company comrade Thomas O’Brien. See http://irishvolunteers.org/cork-county-gaol-ira-volunteers-executed-memorial/ (accessed 3 Nov. 2015).

Daniel Callaghan was one of the eleven children of the Agharinagh (Dripsey) widow and farmer Mary Callaghan (aged 52 in 1911). With the exception of his sister Kathleen, Daniel Callaghan (aged 12 in 1911) was the youngest of the eight children still living at home with their widowed mother. After his execution at Victoria Barracks at the end of February 1921, Volunteer Callaghan was buried in the grounds of the Cork County Gaol. 

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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