Ballincollig Historical Society Cumann Seanchas Bhaile an Chollaigh

Wreath laid at the monument to Comdt Michael O Neill at Ballygroman Upper tonight.

3rd Batt Vice-Commdt Jim Foley, 'D' Coy, Aherla.

COMMANDANT LEO MURPHY'S STOLEN SHAVING KIT RETURNED TO CORK.
Yesterday at Cork Public Museum the shaving kit of Leo Murphy, OC 3rd Batt. 1st Cork Brigade IRA, was unveiled at Cork Public Museum. This shaving kit was stolen from the body of the then 19 year old after he was first wounded and then summarily executed by plainclothes British undercover IOs in Waterfall on 27th June 1921. Ballincollig born Commandant Murphy had been attending an IRA meeting in the then O Donovan's pub when the British raiding party arrived suddenly around 10:30 pm. He made a gallant effort to escape as he made his way unarmed out of the surrounded premises and ran down the road. He was followed by at least 2 British IOs who fired at him and wounded him in the legs. As he lay defenceless on the roadway he was then shot through the head and killed. His body was searched by his killers and his papers and shaving kit removed. The shaving kit has been on display for years as a trophy of war, in the Manchester Regiment Museum in Ashton-under-Lyne just outside Manchester. Due in the main to the efforts of Ballincollig historian Chris Hassett and Sinn Féin Cllr Eolan Ryng, Commandant Murphy's property has now been restored to his native place. We salute them both for their successful effort. Maith sibh beirt.

Photo: Pat Higgins who was a leading Volunteer organiser and Adjutant of the Cork Brigade, Irish Volunteers at Easter 1916.
Pat was born in the Powder Mills, Ballincollig in 1883. His father William was a cooper who worked in the Powdermills and also a Fenian who was arrested at work in 1867 and imprisoned in Cork Gaol for a period. After release William resumed work in the Powdermills and married Margaret Walsh in Ballincollig on 26/2/1870 .
The couple settled down to married life in a little house in the Powdermills complex and the following children were born to William Higgins & Margaret (nee Walsh) in Ballincollig.
Anthony born 5/11/1870 (died 1871), Anthony born 8/2/1872, Mary born 17/8/1873, Edmond / Edward born 6/7/1875 (died 1/11/1894 aged 19 of TB), William born 8/7/1877 (died 25/5/1887 aged 9 years of Typhoid Fever) Michael John born 2/11/1879 (died 30/11/1885 aged 6). Patrick born 22/2/1883. Joseph born 22/4/1885. Their mother Margaret Higgins died 2/5/1895 of TB aged 50 years. Mary Higgins, who was a dressmaker, died of TB aged 24 on 10/10/1898 in 2 Cove Street, after the family left Ballincollig for Cork due to the downturn in employment at the Powdermills. By 1901 only the father William and his 3 remaining sons Anthony, Patrick and Joseph are listed in the 1901 Census at Maymount in Cork City, living with William’s sister, a widow. Joseph went on to become a well known art teacher and sculptor, Anthony ran a grocery shop in Washington St., and Patrick (Pat) was elected as an Alderman to Cork Corporation for SF/ITGWU in the January 1920 local elections. (to be continued) # History # Cork # Muskerry

The Volunteer Patrick Burns Memorial Committee will unveil a plaque at the East Gate in memory of Ballincollig's forgotten patriot at 7pm on Friday 30th August 2024. We are honoured that Cllr Joe Lynch, who is a member of our committee, will unveil the plaque.

Coming to St Peters North Main Street
March 2024 - "The Soldier and the Spy"
Running from: 12th March to 14th of March
Showings: 12:00 12/03/24 & 14/03/24 // 18:00 13/03/24
FREE ADMISSION, NO BOOKING REQUIRED..........................................................................
Written by Gerry White, directed by Jon Whitty, and performed by the 2023-24 class of the Acting for Stage and Screen Course at the Cork College of Further Education, Tramore Road Campus, The Soldier and the Spy tells the story of Florence O’Donoghue, an officer of Cork No.1 Brigade of the IRA and Josephine Marchment, a war widow employed in Victoria Barracks in Cork. It is a story of romance, danger and espionage set against the backdrop of Ireland’s War of Independence. It is also the story of how the IRA managed to place a spy in the heart of the British military establishment in Cork.

Death Of Vol Patrick Burns.

After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 Patrick Burns remained loyal to the Republican cause and before the Civil War broke out in 1922 he was transferred to Cork No1 Brigade area. Ironically, as he had vast experience of barracks maintenance, he was sent to Ballincollig Barracks to serve under OC Mick Murphy of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade IRA. Murphy was appointed OC of Ballincollig Barracks in May 1922 when British occupation forces were withdrawn. He found Patrick Burns, now promoted to Captain of Engineering to be ‘a most exemplary officer and a most efficient Volunteer.’ When Free State Forces landed in Passage and invaded Cork City in August 1922 Patrick was still a member of the garrison in Ballincollig Barracks. It was decided by Republican Forces not to defend the barracks and orders were received that it should be burned out. As the barracks was being evacuated Patrick Burns was asleep inside, after being on duty, and was accidently trapped when the barracks went up in flames. He received extremely serious injuries and was removed to the Mercy Hospital in Cork where he died on 21st August 1922. His funeral to the Republican Plot from the South Chapel was organised and carried out the following day by the courageous women of Cumann na mBan in the city. Poignantly, a son Patrick Gerard was born to Ellen and Patrick 2 months later on 24/10/1922.
Volunteer Patrick Burns lies buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s, Cemetery, and sadly is not commemorated anywhere in his native Ballincollig.

After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 Patrick Burns remained loyal to the Republican cause and before the Civil War broke out in 1922 he was transferred to Cork No1 Brigade area. Ironically, as he had vast experience of barracks maintenance, he was sent to Ballincollig Barracks to serve under OC Mick Murphy of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade IRA. Murphy was appointed OC of Ballincollig Barracks in May 1922 when British occupation forces were withdrawn. He found Patrick Burns, now promoted to Captain of Engineering to be ‘a most exemplary officer and a most efficient Volunteer.’ When Free State Forces landed in Passage and invaded Cork City in August 1922 Patrick was still a member of the garrison in Ballincollig Barracks. It was decided by Republican Forces not to defend the barracks and orders were received that it should be burned out. As the barracks was being evacuated Patrick Burns was asleep inside, after being on duty, and was accidently trapped when the barracks went up in flames. He received extremely serious injuries and was removed to the Mercy Hospital in Cork where he died on 21st August 1922. His funeral to the Republican Plot from the South Chapel was organised and carried out the following day by the courageous women of Cumann na mBan in the city. Poignantly, a son Patrick Gerard was born to Ellen and Patrick 2 months later on 24/10/1922.
Volunteer Patrick Burns lies buried in the Republican Plot in St Finbarr’s, Cemetery, and sadly is not commemorated anywhere in his native Ballincollig.

Kilworth Camp near Fermoy

Patrick Burns left Ballincollig and gained employment in the British Army Barracks in Kilworth as a carpenter in 1904. The rest of the living Burns children also eventually emigrated to the USA and England.
Patrick married Ellen O Donoghue of Main St., Kilworth in 1909 and initially they had 2 daughters, Margaret Mary born 18/6/1910 and Kathleen, 27/6/1913, in Kilworth.
Patrick eventually became foreman carpenter in the maintenance section of Kilworth Barracks. He had strong Republican sympathies and after 1916 he joined the Kilworth Company of the IRA as an Intelligence Officer. He was a friend and confidant of hunger striker Michael Fitzgerald, Brigade Commandant Liam Lynch and other senior officers of Cork No 2 Brigade. Ellen along with her sister Nora were later members of the local Cumann na mBan unit. Their brother Patrick O Donoghue was also a member of the Kilworth IRA Company.

Decline of the Powdermills.

When Patrick Burns was born, the Powdermill company was trading under the name of ‘The Royal Gun Powdermills Company’ and was turning out vast quantities of black gunpowder, mainly for export. The works were owned at this stage by Sir John Tobin of Liverpool, who had made his fortune as an infamous slave trader, and had previously employed over 500 workers in Ballincollig. Coopers made the wooden casks and barrels that were used to store and transport gun powder and work for coopers began to decline from 1870. This decline was due to a number of factors, including a reduction in production, the importation of machine-made barrels from England and the use of metal canisters for sporting powder. Industrial disputes broke out in 1886, 1892 and again during the late 1890s when the number of coopers employed in Ballincollig began to seriously decline, due to the invention of alternatives to black gunpowder like dynamite, nitro-glycerine, and gun cotton. Coopering in Cork was established under the rules of the Cork Coopers Society based in the city, and as job opportunities in the urban area also declined, the Ballincollig based coopers were blocked from taking up employment there. This left emigration to England, Scotland or the USA as their only alternatives. When the Powdermills finally closed in 1903 many tradesmen from Ballincollig were forced into this situation, adding further to the decline of the local economy.
After attending national school in Ballincollig, Patrick, aged 14, followed older brother William, already serving an apprenticeship as a cooper, into the Powdermills, where he was apprenticed to a carpenter. Patrick worked in the complex until its closure in 1903 when the Burns family were faced with a stark economic future. William (Bill) then aged 27, emigrated to England where he found employment in a gunpowder mills near Kendal, Westmoreland. His father Timothy followed him over later and remained there until he died in 1910. Patrick’s mother Margaret, who was living alone at this stage, passed away in Ballincollig on 9/10/1907 aged 64, in the presence of her son William, who had returned from England to care for her.

Fenianism

The Ballincollig powder mills complex was a hotbed of Fenianism during the mid-19th century and found its most ardent adherents among the traditional craft workers who worked there. These included coopers, millwrights, carpenters and powder men who manufactured the gun powder. Several were arrested and imprisoned after the Fenian rising of 1867 but many were taken back to work on release from captivity. William Higgins was a Fenian who worked as a cooper in the gunpowder mills in Ballincollig in the 1860s. He was arrested, whilst at work in the Powdermills, in March 1866 on suspicion of being involved in the Fenian movement with John McCartney, a cooper, and John Dunne, a powder man. (Cork Examiner 21/3/1866. P3). The three men were arrested under the Habeas Corpus (Suspension) Act which allowed the British Authorities to jail suspects without the inconvenience of bringing them before a court. This measure had just been introduced by the British Government to free up the Special Commission Courts put in place to deal with the senior Fenian leadership. Anyone arrested in Cork for possession of arms or of administering the Fenian Oath from early March of 1866 was jailed merely ‘on suspicion’ without the necessity of a trial or indeed of evidence being produced against them. This, of course, was wide open to abuse and as reported in the national press the three Ballincollig workers ‘were taken by Head Constable Mack, Constable Drury, and party, when at work and shortly afterwards lodged in the Bridewell. Their houses though minutely searched on that as well as on previous occasions, contained nothing of an objectionable nature. Yesterday morning the parties were conveyed to the County Jail.’ (Freemans Journal 22/3/1866. P2)
Timothy Burns, Patrick's father, worked alongside William Higgins and John McCartney as a cooper and lived 2 doors away from McCartney in the Powdermills and it would be a major surprise if he too was not involved in the Fenians.

Photo: Coopers who worked in the Ballincollig Powdermills. (Undated).

To be forgotten is to die twice according to tradition, and tradition runs like a thread through the life story of Patrick Burns, patriot son of Ballincollig.
Patrick Burns was born to Margaret and Timothy Burns, at home in the Powdermills, Ballincollig on Ireland’s traditional national holiday, St Patrick’s Day, March 17th in 1879. He was the 2nd youngest of 7 children born to the Burns family and their youngest son.
His mother was formerly Margaret Melifont of Clogheen, Kerry Pike and his father Timothy was a cooper employed in the Powdermills, Ballincollig. Timothy and Margaret were married in Cork in 1868 and they can be found in house 53 in Ballincollig in the 1901 Census return.

Marriage Certificate of Margaret Melifont and Timothy Burns from 1868.