National Army Soldier John Walsh

National Army Soldier John Walsh (aged 21) of 25 Barretts Buildings, Blarney Street, Cork (White’s Cross, Ballyvolane, near Cork city)

Date of incident: 24 Nov. 1922

Sources: CE, 25 Nov., 1 Dec. 1922, 24 Nov. 1923; II, 1 Dec. 1922; FJ, 1 Dec. 1922; SS, 2 Dec. 1922; Death Certificate (Cork Urban District No. 4, Union of Cork), 29 Nov. 1922; MSPC/2D223 (Military Archives); O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 211; Keane (2017), 328, 419.

Note: Private John Walsh of the Fourth Company of the First Cork Brigade sustained severe injuries to the head, face, and eyes in the trip-mine explosion at White’s Cross near Ballyvolane in the northern suburbs of Cork city on 24 November 1922. By the tremendous force of the explosion he was blown into an adjacent stream and appeared to be drowning before he was pulled from the water by two of his comrades. He was unconscious when admitted to the North Infirmary in Cork city and never regained consciousness before dying on 29 November. The subsequent court of military inquiry found that Walsh and McCann had ‘died from destruction of the vital parts caused by the explosion of a trap mine placed on the public highway at Ballyvolane by some persons, members of a small minority in armed rebellion against the government established by the Irish people’. See CE, 1 Dec. 1922. The causes of death were officially stated as laceration of the brain and septic infection from wounds received in the mine explosion. See Death Certificate (Cork Urban District No. 4, Union of Cork), 29 Nov. 1922. Lieutenant Sean Flynn of the National Army inserted in memoriam notices for his comrades Sergeant Major Thomas McCann and Private Jack Walsh (killed or mortally wounded in a mine explosion at Balyvolane a year earlier) in the Cork Examiner of 24 November 1923.

Before joining the National Army, Private Walsh had reportedly served in the British army with the North Lancashire Regiment, the Liverpool Regiment, and the Dublin Fusiliers. See FJ, 1 Dec. 1922. In civilian life he had been a carpenter with wages of £3 a week. The Civic Guard report of 10 March 1924 indicated that his mother Catherine Walsh was receiving a separation allowance of £2 10s. a week from the British government on account of her husband William’s service in the British Royal Navy up to the time of her son’s death. Her husband was a plumber by trade but was then unemployed. Catherine Walsh was awarded a dependant’s allowance or gratuity of £30, which was raised to £50 on appeal. She claimed to be ‘suffering from nervous breakdown since [the] death of my son’. See MSPC/2D223 (Military Archives).