THOMAS MAC CURTAIN MEMORIAL ON GREAT WILLIAM O’BRIEN STREET CORK
I think that I first photographed this memorial in 2014 and I have photographed it a number of times since but I never noticed until now that certain elements are coloured. I photographed here in August 2021 but due to a damaged lens most of the photographs were unusable.
The Memorial is located near the church and in front of the Baldy Barber (Dick Moriarty) on Great William O’Brien Street (originally Great Britain Street).
Tomás Mac Curtain (20 March 1884 – 20 March 1920) was a Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Ireland. He was elected in January 1920.
On 20 March 1920, his 36th birthday, Mac Curtain was shot dead in front of his wife and son by a group of men with blackened faces, who were found to be members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) by the official inquest into the event. In the wake of the killing Mac Curtain’s house in Blackpool was ransacked.
The killing caused widespread public outrage. The coroner’s inquest passed a verdict of willful murder against British Prime Minister Lloyd George and against certain members of the RIC. Michael Collins later ordered his squad of assassins to uncover and assassinate the police officers involved in the attack. RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who had ordered the attack, was fatally shot, with Mac Curtain’s own revolver, while leaving a Protestant church in Lisburn, County Antrim, on 22 August 1920, sparking what was described by Tim Pat Coogan as a “pogrom” against the Catholic residents of the town. Mac Curtain is buried in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork.
His successor to the position of Lord Mayor, Terence MacSwiney, died while on hunger strike in Brixton prison, London.
MEMORIAL PLAQUE IN LIMERICK AT BROWN’S QUAY – O’DWYER VILLAS
Brown’s Quay was named after a local brewer. It was also the riverside location of Archibald Walker’s Thomondgate Distillery.
“In memory of the deceased relatives of the residents of O’Dwyer Villas”. This plaque is located on a wall at Belfield Court on Brown’s Quay in Limerick.
I cannot determine what this refers to. However, it was really the name “Kevin Kiely” that caught my attention.
Kevin Kiely is an Irish politician and former Mayor of Limerick from 2009–10. He was made a Peace Commissioner in 1983 by the then Fine Gael Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan. He is a member of Fine Gael.
He was first elected to Limerick City Council in 1985. He was re-elected to the council in June 2009. He is a member of the Governing Authority of the University of Limerick. He is Chairman of Limerick City Council Joint Policing and a former Chairman of Limerick City Council Future Planning.[
In November 2009, he called for unemployed European Union nationals to be deported from Ireland. His views led to a debate over racism. This was part of a broader controversy surrounding racist comments from Fine Gael members in Limerick.
In March 2010, he called for a change to the law which bans selling alcohol on Good Friday and Christmas Day, at a time when a rugby match was due to take place in Limerick city. Shortly before leaving office in June 2010, he again was the subject of national news when he called for the re-introduction of capital punishment.
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