Anti-Treaty Soldier (Captain) Patrick Burns

Anti-Treaty Soldier (Captain) Patrick Burns (aged about 43) of 1 Fitzgerald Place, Fermoy (Ballincollig Military Barracks)

Date of incident: 11 Aug. 1922

Sources: Death Certificate, 21 Aug. 1922; CE, 23, 25 Aug. 1922, 21 Aug. 1923; MSPC/2RB692 (Military Archives); List of IRA Interments (Boole Library, UCC); O’Farrell, Who’s Who, 213; Cork One Brigade (1963), Roll of Honour; Last Post (1976 ed.), 96; O’Mahony (1986), 106; Borgonovo (2011), 116, 147, fn. 30; Keane (2017), 298, 416. 

Note: Patrick Burns was badly burned along with another IRA soldier when the Irregulars set fire on 11 August 1922 to Ballincollig Military Barracks during their retreat from Cork city to Macroom. On that day the National Army had landed in Cork Harbour. Asleep in the barracks at the time of the fire, Burns died of his injuries on 21 August 1922 at the Mercy Hospital in Cork city. He was the son of Timothy and Margaret Burns, formerly of Powder Mills, Ballincollig. See CE, 23 Aug. 1922. One Cork Examiner report incorrectly gave the dead soldier’s name as Byrne. See CE, 25 Aug. 1922. But the circumstances and other direct evidence (including a death certificate and his pension file) conclusively indicate that the victim was Patrick Burns, a resident of 1 Fitzgerald Place in Fermoy. See MSPC/2RB692 (Military Archives); Borgonovo (2011), 116; Keane (2017), 298. Burns was buried in the Republican Plot in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork city. See Last Post (1976 ed.), 96.

A memorial notice for Patrick Burns appearing in the Cork Examiner of 21 August 1923 gave his address as Old Market Street in Fermoy and his IRA status as First Battalion (Engineers) of the Cork No. 2 Brigade. He was said to have died a year earlier ‘from injuries received whilst performing his duty’. See CE, 21 aug. 1923.

Patrick Burns had served with the Volunteers from 1916 onwards—during the War of Independence, the Truce period, and the Civil War. At different times he had been a member of the Cork No. 1  (Second Battalion) and the Cork No. 2 Brigades. He attained the rank of captain in the Volunteers. He had been a carpenter and an engineer in civilian life. His wife Ellen Burns received a dependant’s allowance for herself and her two children under the Army Pension Acts. See MSPC/2RB692 (Military Archives).

Patrick Burns was in 1901 one of the three children and the second son (then aged 22) of the cooper Timothy Burns and his wife Margrette. These three adult children co-resided with their parents in that year at house 53 in Ballincollig. The father Timothy Burns was then employed as a cooper, as was his first son William Burns (then aged 25). The daughter Annie worked as a dressmaker, and the victim Patrick Burns himself (as noted above) was employed as a carpenter. In the death notice for Patrick Burns that appeared in the Cork Examiner in late August 1922, it was noted that his parents had formerly resided at the Ballincollig Powder Mills. See CE, 23 Aug. 1922.