1922-131

Anti-Treaty Soldier Michael Hayes Jr

 

Anti-Treaty Soldier Michael Hayes Jr (aged 18) of Shannon Street, Bandon (Lissanisky near Upton)

Date of incident: 4 Oct. 1922

Sources: Death Certificate (Innishannon District, Union of Bandon), 4 Oct. 1922 (registered 23 Oct. 1922); CE, 10, 14 Oct. 1922, 5 Oct. 1923; FJ, 10, 11 Oct. 1922; Belfast Newsletter, 10 Oct. 1922; Derry Journal, 11 Oct. 1922; SS, 14 Oct. 1922; Leinster Leader, 14 Oct. 1922; Anglo-Celt, 14 Oct. 1922; Donegal News, 14 Oct. 1922; Ulster Herald, 14 Oct. 1922; MSPC/4256 and MSPC/DP6907 (Military Archives); Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 208; O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 215; Last Post (1976 ed.), 98; Keane (2017), 312, 418; http://www.irishmedals.ie/Anti-Treaty-Killed.php (accessed 13 July 2017).

 

Note: Michael Hayes was killed at or near Upton on 4 October 1922 while fighting with the anti-Treaty IRA. O’Farrell indicated that Hayes had been killed while in Free State custody. See O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 215. The Last Post too stated baldly in its brief entry on him that Michael Hayes had been ‘murdered after being captured at Upton’. See Last Post (1976 ed.), 98. The official National Army report on the incident (quoted in the previous entry) should not be credited. Hayes was interred at Bandon on 7 October 1922. See CE, 14 Oct. 1922.

The Military Service Registration Board later certified that beginning in 1919 Michael Hayes Jr had served first in the Bandon-area sluagh of Na Fianna Éireann and then in the First (Bandon) Battalion of the Cork No. 3 Brigade during the War of Independence and part of the Civil War. In civilian life he had been a carriage painter. In 1921 he took part in the burning of the Allen Institute in Bandon and was present when the IRA arrested (and held captive) three well-known Cork magistrates and landowners—Lord Bandon most prominent among them. During the Civil War Hayes saw action with the anti-Treaty IRA in a series of locations, including Limerick city, Buttevant, Bruree, Athlacca, Ballygibbon, Kilmallock, and Kinsale. None of the applications from relatives of this IRA soldier for an allowance or gratuity under the Army       Pensions Acts was successful. See MSPC/4256 (Military Archives).  

Michael Hayes Jr was in 1911 one of the three children of the hardware clerk Michael Hayes Sr and his wife Margaret of 11 Kilbrogan Street in Bandon. All three of these very young children (two sons and a daughter) co-resided with their parents in that year. Michael (then aged 6) was the oldest of the three. He was also the only Michael Hayes in Bandon in 1911 under the age of 30, and his census age matches up well with the age of 18 assigned to him at his 1922 death in another source. According to a record in his pension file, he was born on 1 August 1904.

The Irish Revolution Project

Scoil na Staire /Tíreolaíocht

University College Cork, Cork,

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