Volunteer Adjutant Michael Finbarr Hallahan

Volunteer Adjutant Michael Finbarr Hallahan (aged about 22) of 12 Commissioners Buiuldings, Midleton (Clonmult)

Date of incident: 20 Feb. 1921 (dead in combat)

Sources: CE, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Feb. 1921; Military Inquests, WO 35/155A/53 (TNA); Seán O’Mahony Papers, MS 44,047/3 (NLI); Joseph Aherne’s WS 1367, 52-58 (BMH); Michael Kearney’s WS 1418, 21-23 (BMH); Patrick J. Whelan’s WS 1449, 51-58 (BMH); John P. O’Connell’s WS 1444, 15 (BMH); John Kelleher’s WS 1456, 23-24 (BMH); Patrick J. Higgins’s WS 1467, 3-7 (BMH); Diarmuid O’Leary’s WS 1589, 4-8 (BMH); Roll of Honour, Cork No. 1 Brigade (Cork Public Museum, Fitzgerald Park, Cork); Last Post (1976), 80; O’Neill (2006), 62, 96-100; Borgonovo (2007), 88; McCarthy (2008), 232; ‘The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Division Area’, Irish Sword, 27 (Spring 2010), 84-85, 143; Rebel Cork’s FS, 190-95; Sheehan (2011), 125; Midleton IRA Memorial, Main Street, Midleton; Cork No. 1 Brigade Memorial, Holy Rosary Cemetery, Midleton; Clonmult Ambush Site Memorial; Clonmult Village Memorial; http://midletonheritage.com/2015/12/11/few-families-suffered-as-we-did-war-of-independence-pension-files-associated-with-midleton/ (accessed 13 March 2016).    

Note: Adjutant commander of the column attached to the Fourth Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade, Volunteer Michael Hallahan was killed in combat at Clonmult. In 1911 he was one of the four living children (six born) of flour-mill worker John Hallahan and his wife Elizabeth of 12 Commissioners Buildings in Midleton. All four children (a daughter and three sons) were co-resident with their parents in 1911. Michael was the third child. He was buried in the Republican Plot of Holy Rosary Cemetery in Midleton. At least four of the Volunteers killed at Clonmult—Liam Ahern, the brothers David and Michael Desmond, and Michael Hallanan—lived in the Commissioners Buildings in Midleton. 

Volunteer Hallahan was a tailor by trade prior to his death. He was employed by the merchant tailor J. Roche of Charles Street in Midleton. Hallahan had regularly subscribed £2 a week from his wages towards the upkeep of his family. Since his father John Hallahan had been earning £3 a week at the time of his son’s death while in regular employment at Hallinan’s Flour Mills in Midleton, and had then only a wife and daughter to support (one son was still at home), he was not regarded by local Garda Edgar Devlin as even partially dependent on his deceased son. Under that circumstance John Hallahan would not have qualified for an award under the Military Service Pensions Act of 1923. At first his claim was denied altogether, but on appeal he and four others with initially small Clonmult-death awards were each granted £100. See Garda Edgar Devlin to Sergeant A. Beirne, 19 Feb. 1924, and other documents, quoted at http://midletonheritage.com/2015/12/11/few-families-suffered-as-we-did-war-of-independence-pension-files-associated-with-midleton/ (accessed 13 March 2016).