- Home
- Collections
- Atlas Resources for Schools
- Cork Fatality Register
- Mapping the Irish Revolution
- Mapping IRA Companies, July 1921-July 1922
- Mapping the Burning of Cork, 11-12 December 1920
- Martial Law, December 1920
- The IRA at War
- The Railway Workers’ Munitions Strike of 1920
- The Victory of Sinn Féin: The 1920 Local Elections
- The War of Words: Propaganda and Moral Force
- The IRA Offensive against the RIC, 1920
- De Valera’s American Tour, 1919-1920
- The British Reprisal Strategy and its Impact
- Cumann na mBan and the War of Independence
- The War Escalates, November 1920
- The War of Independence in Cork and Kerry
- The Story of 1916
- A 1916 Diary
- January 9-15 1916
- January 10-16, 1916
- January 17-23, 1916
- January 24-30, 1916
- February 1-6 1916
- February 7-14, 1916
- February 15-21, 1916
- February 22-27, 1916
- February 28-March 3, 1916
- March 6-13,1916
- March 14-20, 1916
- March 21-27 1916
- April 3-9, 1916
- April 10-16, 1916
- April 17-21,1916
- May 22-28 1916
- May 29-June 4 1916
- June 12-18 1916
- June 19-25 1916
- June 26-July 2 1916
- July 3-9 1916
- July 11-16 1916
- July 17-22 1916
- July 24-30 1916
- July 31- August 7,1916
- August 7-13 1916
- August 15-21 1916
- August 22-29 1916
- August 29-September 5 1916
- September 5-11, 1916
- September 12-18, 1916
- September 19-25, 1916
- September 26-October 2, 1916
- October 3-9, 1916
- October 10-16, 1916
- October 17-23, 1916
- October 24-31, 1916
- November 1-16, 1916
- November 7-13, 1916
- November 14-20, 1916
- November 21-27-1916
- November 28-December 4, 1916
- December 5-11, 1916
- December 12-19, 1916
- December 19-25, 1916
- December 26-January 3, 1916
- Cork's Historic Newspapers
- Feature Articles
- News and Events
- UCC's Civil War Centenary Programme
- Irish Civil War National Conference 15-18 June 2022
- Irish Civil War Fatalities Project
- Research Findings
- Explore the Fatalities Map
- Civil War Fatalities in Dublin
- Civil War Fatalities in Limerick
- Civil War Fatalities in Kerry
- Civil War Fatalities in Clare
- Civil War Fatalities in Cork
- Civil War Fatalities in the Northern Ireland
- Civil War Fatalities in Sligo
- Civil War Fatalities in Donegal
- Civil War Fatalities in Wexford
- Civil War Fatalities in Mayo
- Civil War Fatalities in Tipperary
- Military Archives National Army Fatalities Roll, 1922 – 1923
- Fatalities Index
- About the Project (home)
- The Irish Revolution (Main site)
1923-33
National Army Soldier Michael O’Brien
National Army Soldier Michael O’Brien (aged about 25) of Kilmona in Grenagh parish near Blarney (Cork city)
Date of incident: 2 April 1923
Sources: CE, 3, 4, 5, 6 April 1923, 2 April 1924; FJ, 4 April 1923; MSPC/3D56 (Military Archives); General Weekly Return of the Cork Command of the National Army for 7 April 1923, CW/OPS/04/05 (Military Archives); O’Mahony (1986), 107; Keane (2017), 356, 422; http://www.irishmedals.ie/National-Army-Killed.php (accessed 2 Aug. 2017).
Note: Private Michael O’Brien was mortally wounded in a double bomb attack on the night of 2 April 1923 (Easter Monday night) by four armed men riding bicycles who hurled bombs at Free State sentries who were guarding the Cork Electric Power House (Albert Road Power Station) and the Cork, Blackrock, and Passage Railway station. The explosions were ‘almost simultaneous’. Another soldier and a girl were slightly wounded in the incidents. Two youths aged about 16 or 17 years old were taken into custody in connection with these explosions. See CE, 3 April 1923.
O’Brien was a member of the Railway Protection and Maintenance Corps of the National Army, and he was stationed at the post guarding the Cork, Blackrock, and Passage Railway station in Cork city on the night of the attacks. About a dozen other unarmed military men were standing near him around the door of the station; only the sentry at the nearby gate was armed. See CE, 6 April 1923. Badly wounded in the left side of his body, O’Brien died at the Mercy Hospital on 3 April 1923, less than ten hours after admission. The third son of Thomas O’Brien of Kilmona, he was interred at Grenagh on 4 April. See CE, 4 April 1923. A subsequent court of military inquiry concluded that O’Brien had died from a wound ‘caused by a splinter of a bomb thrown by persons in armed opposition to the present government, and that such persons were guilty of wilful murder’. See CE, 6 April 1923.
Michael O’Brien was in 1911 one of the eight children of the ‘plate layer’ Thomas O’Brien and his wife Nora. Six of these eight children (three daughters and three sons) co-resided with their parents in that year at house 15 in Kilmona townland in Grenagh parish near Blarney. The six co-residing children ranged in age from 3 to 17. Michael O’Brien (then aged 12) was in the middle of the three sons still living at home, but he apparently had two older brothers, one of whom was not recorded in the 1911 census.
It is not surprising that Michael O’Brien decided to serve with the Railway Protection and Maintenance Corps of the National Army. In civilian life he had been employed by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company. His elderly father Thomas O’Brien was awarded a gratuity of £80 by the Army Pensions Board in consideration of the death of his third son Michael. See MSPC/3D56 (Military Archives).
