A Pike-head from Rusheen, Co Cork A simple-enough piece of metal symbolises the local innovation used when it came to assembling weapons a century ago in mid-Cork. This pike-head was donated to our collection at Independence Museum Kilmurry by a former Irish Volunteers/IRA member from Rusheen, another of the company areas in the same Macroom Battalion as Kilmurry. The company there, a few miles the other side of the River Lee from Kilmurry, was established in early 1917 as the re-organisation of the Irish Volunteers gathered pace in the aftermath of the Easter Rising. Just as they had
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September: Rush Light Holder from Kilkea Castle
Rush light Holder from Kilkea Castle – Home of Lord Edward Fitzgerald Even though the Independence Museum Kilmurry is situated in the heart of the War of Independence battlegrounds of that era there was little or no recorded activity around this area during the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798. This rebellion still being sung about to this day seems to have passed this area by. This was probably due in no small part to the militias led by the local gentry like the Warrens and the Ryes. However we do have one artefact and it comes from the
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August: Aghabullogue Hurley – Cork’s First All Ireland Title.
Hurley from Cork’s First All-Ireland – Aghabullogue 1890 Many of the radical generation that led the struggle for Irish independence cut their teeth in the Gaelic League, the organisation set up in 1893 by Douglas Hyde and Eoin MacNeill to revive the Irish language and culture; many of its most active members who were also members of the secretive IRB (who had infiltrated the organisation) would go on to be key organisers and participants in the Easter Rising. Less than a decade earlier another cultural revival movement, The Gaelic Athletic Association also attracted the attention of the IRB to its
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July: Irish Democratic Labour Federation Badge
Irish Democratic Labour Federation badge It is one of the smallest items in our collection, but this tiny badge is a reminder of one of the most important movements in the decades leading up to the Irish revolutionary period. Anybody who has read any of our local historian Michael Galvin’s many books on life in Kilmurry and mid-Cork from the Famine days onward will be aware of the significant role of the labour movement in political and social developments through to the War of Independence. In fact, many of those who were centrally involved in the labour movement
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June Terence MacSwiney Dish Ring
A WEDDING GIFT TO TERENCE & MURIEL MacSWINEY, JUNE 1917 This silver dish ring is a reminder of the family life of Terence MacSwiney. It has been added to our collection at Independence Museum Kilmurry as we mark the centenary of his wedding to Muriel Murphy in June 1917. The couple had met through mutual friends at Christmas 1915 but – with Terence deeply immersed in his activities with the Irish Volunteers and arrested in May 1916 after the Easter Rising – romance did not blossom immediately. However, Muriel became a support to him and others in the separatist
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May: The Famine Pot
The Great Irish potato famine began in 1845 and due to further potato blights and poor growing weather lasted until 1852. It had a catastrophic effect on the Irish population. Over 1 million people died and 1 million people were forced to emigrate to escape the Great Hunger. Kilmurry parish and its environs were no different to the rest of the country in this regard. One of the symbols of the famine was the famine pot and the one in the picture is from the Soup House Cross in the Canovee side of Kilmurry parish. The soup houses came
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April: Shard of Wood
After enduring a long, slow and tortuous death over the preceding 74 days, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, Teachta Dála for the Mid-Cork Constituency of the 1st Dáil Éireann and O/C of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA, finally achieved his freedom, as he said he would at the outset of his ordeal on foot of the two-year sentence he received at his court martial in Cork on August 16th, 1920, for having “seditious” documents. “… I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month”. However the Dublin Castle authorities, only too aware of the
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March – Chinese Embroidered Hat
A 100-year-old gift from China to Crookstown In late 1916, Fr Edward Galvin was home in Ireland to raise funds and recruits for the ongoing missionary work in which he was involved in China. This colourful oriental-style hat was a gift from him to one of his nephew’s the following year. Fr Galvin was a native of Newcestown, a village between Kilmurry and Bandon, one of a large family of John and Mary Galvin. They moved to nearby Crookstown in the first century of the 20th century. By then, Edward was being educated at St Finbarr’s College, Cork’s diocesan seminary, before
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February – Grenade and Home-made Bomb
War of Independence Grenade and Home-made Bomb The amateur nature of the Irish Volunteers and the IRA in their encounters with British Crown Forces is demonstrated well in this makeshift home-made bomb. Emptied cans of fruit, treacle or other such delicacies were used in their manufacture from as early as 1917 by members of Kilmurry’s Irish Volunteer’s company. Like many other companies in mid-Cork, they were taught how to make them and provided with the explosive material by Charlie Browne. He was an officer of the Irish Volunteers battalion headquartered in Macroom, and had spent several weeks interned in the
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