National Army Soldier Daniel Hurley

National Army Soldier Daniel Hurley (aged 25 or 26) of 25 Clancy Street, Fermoy (near Glanmire)

Date of incident: 6 Dec. 1922

Sources: Death Certificate (Cork Urban District No. 6, Union of Cork), misdated 7 Dec. 1922; CE, 7, 8, 9, 16 Dec. 1922, 6 Dec. 1923; MSPC/2D437(Military Archives); CW/OPS/04/13 (Military Archives); Keane (2017), 334, 420.

Note: A motorcar carrying the mails between Fermoy and Cork city was attacked at Bleachhill near Glanmire on Wednesday, 6 December 1922. The motorcar was escorted by several National Army Soldiers, two of whom (including Hurley) were seriously wounded in the attack. Hurley died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen at the Mercy Hospital in Cork later the same day. The car and the mails ‘were brought safely to Cork’. See CE, 7 Dec. 1922. This was the second attack on the mail car and its military escort within the previous three weeks. Hurley was widely known and admired in Fermoy. He had served with the Leinster Regiment during the Great War and ‘managed to get out of it with hardly a scratch’, though he had seen combat in several major engagements. He had been a member of the National Army for only ‘the past couple of months’. He left behind a grieving young wife, mother, brothers, and sisters. See CE, 8 Dec. 1922. See also CW/OPS/04/13 (Military Archives).

Hurley was interred in the family burial place at Castlehyde with full military honors and amid a great outpouring of public sympathy on Saturday, 9 December: ‘The remains were enclosed in a massive coffin draped with the tricolour, and following the chief mourners were a large number of troops, marching four deep, under the control of Commandant McGrath and Captain Christie. The Legion of Ex-Soldiers (Fermoy branch) to the number of 80 followed. . . . The attendance of the general public was large and representative and fully attested to the respect and esteem in which the family of the late Volunteer are held in the town and district of Fermoy. . . . All the shops were closely shuttered during the progress of the funeral cortege, and on passing the military headquarters at Abercrombie House, the flag was lowered, and arms presented, as a mark of respect to the memory of the deceased.’ See CE, 16 Dec. 1922.

Private Hurley had been in receipt of a pension arising from his previous service in the British army. He left a young wife and child. Mary Hurley, this soldier’s wife, was awarded a widow’s allowance of 17s. 6d. per week during her widowhood along with an allowance of 5s. per week for their child. When she later remarried, she received a remarriage gratuity of £45 10s. See MSPC/2D437(Military Archives)