1922-38

Civilian John Tehan or Teehan

Civilian John Tehan or Teehan (aged about 40) of Lackenroe near Glanmire, native of County Kerry (Ballygriffin/Killavullen near Mallow)

Date of incident: 26 June 1922

Sources: Death Certificate (Rahan District, Union of Mallow), 26 June 1922; CE, 28 June, 31 Aug. 1922; FJ, 28 June 1922; Belfast Newsletter, 28 June 1922; Lankford (1980), 230; Herlihy (1997), 227; Abbott (2000), 294-95; Keane (2017), 288-89, 415.

 

Note: An ex-sergeant of the RIC, Tehan had been stationed at Mallow (and earlier at Castletownroche) prior to disbandment of the force in April-May 1922. He had then retired and gone back to his native county of Kerry. For a holiday he returned to Mallow on Saturday, 24 June, and two days later, he was kidnapped by the IRA and driven away in a motorcar into the countryside. His body was found that Monday evening in a field at Killavullen (or Ballygriffin, according to the death certificate). He had been shot in the head. He was not identified immediately, and his body was removed to Mallow workhouse. See Death Certificate (Rahan District, Union of Mallow), 26 June 1922; CE, 28 June 1922; FJ, 28 June 1922. Since no orders had been issued by IRA authorities for his execution, it was an unauthorised killing. It was alleged that Tehan had been involved in the British ambush of IRA men at Mourneabbey on 15 February 1921 (three Volunteers had been shot dead, a fourth had died later of his wounds, and two others had been executed after being captured). See Lankford (1980), 230. The victim’s wife Kate Tehan provived details of his abduction and murder in her formal claim (made in August 1922) for compensation of £10,000. Her claim was officially opposed. See CE, 31 Aug. 1922.

In 1911 John Tehan (then aged 29) was a resident of house 41.2 in Lackenroe townland near Ceherlag and Glanmire. He and his wife Catherine were the parents of only one child—an infant daughter named Margaret, but they had been married for only a year. Though mother and daughter had been born in West Cork, John Tehan was a native of County Kerry and was serving as an RIC constable.

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