Volunteer Captain Patrick Walsh

Volunteer Captain Patrick Walsh (aged 33) of Dunnamaggan, Co. Kilkenny (Fermoy Military Hospital)

Date of incident: 13 May 1921

Sources: II, 16 May 1921; Death Certificate (Fermoy District, Union of Fermoy), 18 May 1921; FJ, 25 May 1921; Last Post (1976), 87; Dunamaggan Memorial, Co. Kilkenny.

Note: A member of B Company of the Eighth Battalion of the Kilkenny Brigade, Patrick Walsh was wounded in the left thigh in a clash with crown forces at Knocknagress near Tullaroan in County Kilkenny on 13 May 1921. Walsh and another Volunteer named John Quinn were badly wounded, and three other Volunteers were reportedly captured along with them. Quinn and Walsh were taken to Kilkenny Military Hospital, where Quinn ‘died soon after admission, being wounded in the stomach and legs’. See II, 16 May 1921. Doctors made further efforts to save Walsh’s life, but after an unsuccessful operation made necessary by the onset of gangrene, he died on 18 May at the Fermoy Military Hospital. British soldiers visited the house in Dunnamaggan where he was waked. They were also present at his funeral there and went so far as to remove the tricolour from his coffin. See FJ, 25 May 1921.

In 1911 Patrick Walsh was the only child of the Dunnamaggan West publican Matthew Walsh and his wife Mary. Volunteer Walsh was buried in Dunnamaggan.