Memorial plaque for Patrick Mulchrone unveiled in west Mayo

A MEMORIAL plaque to commemorate the life and death of Patrick Mulchrone has been unveiled in Aghagowla, a few miles from Newport.

Mulchrone, who took the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, was shot by Free State forces while on a social visit to a neighbour’s home on November 1, 1922. He was unarmed.

The memorial event was organised by members of the Mulchrone and Gallagher families and 150 people gathered around the stone plaque as Michael Gallagher, who was raised in the house where Mulchrone was shot, opened proceedings.

He introduced Maureen Mulchrone, a grandniece of Patrick, who read the 1916 Easter Proclamation.

Sean Cadden offered background information about Aghagowla and its people and discussed the progress of the war in West Mayo at the time of Mulchrone’s death.

Michael Gallagher spoke of Patrick Mulchrone’s service as an IRA Volunteer and of what took place that November day when he called in to the Gallagher home for a visit. Mick Mulchrone told of what happened in the aftermath of his cousin Pat Mulchrone’s death.

During the War of Independence, Patrick Mulchrone served in a transportation unit based in Castlebar. When Free State troops took control of the town in July 1922, Mulchrone organised a boycott among other drivers. His motor vehicle was commandeered, and his active service ended.

On the day he called to the Gallagher home, Mulchrone had been a non-combatant for several months. Nora Gallagher, the woman of the house and Michael Gallagher’s grandmother, welcomed him at the door and led him into the kitchen.

She had a lodger’s infant in her arms. Three of her own young children lay in an upstairs bed, sick with measles.

Another visitor, John O’Boyle of Derryribbeen, arrived at the door and a game of cards began at the kitchen table.

A contigent of 57 Free State soldiers from Westport, led by Captain Joe Ruddy, slipped into the area on bicycles. Aghagowla was a known republican area.

A house-to-house search eventually led them to the Gallagher home, known locally as 'The Barracks' because of its former incarnation as an RIC outpost.

Machine gun fire began to tear through the upstairs window of the room in which the Gallagher children lay sick in bed.

A grenade ripped through a first-storey window and exploded beneath a couch.

Two men in trench coats burst into a back bedroom where Nora Gallagher, her husband and the two visitors had taken shelter.

Mulchrone and O’Boyle stood up and raised their arms up. One of armed men shot Mulchrone, who fell back on a bed, paralysed from the waist down with a bullet lodged in his spine. He died two days later.

A coroner’s inquest convened a fortnight later to determine the circumstances of Mulchrone’s death. The hand-picked jury heard seven hours of testimony.

Patrick Mulchrone’s 'dying declaration', as recorded by his father John, was entered as evidence. It identified Captain Joe Ruddy as the man who fired the lethal shot.

Ruddy, in his testimony, denied shooting Mulchrone.

Nora Gallagher also testified. She said she witnessed the shooting, but she declined to identify the gunman. Her son Patrick was in Free State custody, and her daughter had been told on the day of the raid that she would never see her brother again.

John O’Boyle, the one potential witness who could and would identify the shooter, requested safe passage to come to the inquest and testify. His request was denied.

After a few minutes of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict absolving Ruddy and the Free State soldiers of any responsibility for Patrick Mulchrone’s death.

At the Easter Monday commemoration, Dominick Mulchrone unveiled the inscribed stone memorial plaque.

Mick Mulchrone followed with a song dedicated to Patrick and all the men and women who lost their lives in pursuit of an Irish republic based on the principles articulated in the Easter 1916 Proclamation.

Guests also enjoyed a tour of the Gallagher house.

CLARIFICATION

As a slight clarification, the “John O’Boyle” mentioned was in fact “Thomas O’Boyle” of Derryribbeen (Intelligence Officer of the Brockagh ‘B’ Company, 2nd Battalion, West Mayo Brigade, Irish Republican Army).

O’Boyle was with Mulchrone when he was shot and, as mentioned, would have been a crucial witness at the inquest.

Joseph Ruddy (Captain in the Free State Army, and alleged shooter of Mulchrone) indicated that the purpose of the raid had been to capture O’Boyle.

O’Boyle emigrated to Lowell, Mass, USA, returning to Derryribbeen in the 1940s, where he lived with his sister Bridget O’Boyle-Keane.

- John Keane, Manchester

REFERENCES:

Remember Us, The People’s War, Newport Area, Mayo 1914-1924, Tiernaur Oral History Group, 2019

The Men of the West, West Mayo Brigade War of Independence 1919-1921, Cadden, Hughes, Keane, Keel (Eds), 2021