Patrick Moran (Irish republican)

Patrick Moran
Born 14 March 1888
Crossna, Co. Roscommon
Died 14 March 1921(1921-03-14) (aged 33)
Mountjoy Gaol, Dublin
Nationality Irish
Other names Paddy Moran
Occupation grocer's assistant
Known for Executed IRA volunteer : One of the Forgotten Ten

Patrick Moran (13 March 1888 – 14 March 1921) was a grocer's assistant, trade unionist and member of the Irish Republican Army executed in Mountjoy Prison along with five other men on 14 March 1921.

Background

Moran was born in Crossna, County Roscommon.[1] He was the third of eleven children of Bartholemew and Brigid Moran and attended primary school in Crossna before going to work as a grocer's assistant in Boyle.[1] In 1911 he settled in Dublin.[2]

He was an active member of the G.A.A.. He was involved in the 1913 Dublin Lock-out.[1] He was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers. As Adjutant of D Company, 2nd Battalion of the Dublin section of the Volunteers he fought in the Jacob's Factory Garrison during the Easter Rising of 1916 under Thomas MacDonagh.[1][2] In the aftermath of the Rising he was imprisoned at Knutsford Prison and later at Frongoch. He was tried in Wormwood Scrubs and released in July 1916.[3]

In 1917, he was a founder of the Irish National Union of Vintners, Grocers and Allied Trades (now Mandate. He went on to serve as the organisation's president and chairman of its Kingstown branch.[1]

Arrest and detention

After his release from internment he became a captain in 'D' Company of the 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, IRA. He was arrested on one occasion in 1920 during a strike for better conditions for members of his union and was imprisoned in Mountjoy for two weeks when he refused to take bail as he said he had done no wrong. He was arrested at his place of work on the Friday after Bloody Sunday (1920) and taken to the Bridewell Station. He was transferred two weeks later to Arbour Hill.

While in detention at Arbour Hill Prison, he was subjected to a number of identity parades and was falsely identified as being the man who had held up a motor cyclist outside 38 Mount Street, Dublin where Lieutenant Ames, a suspected intelligence officer was killed. He strongly protested his innocence of involvement in that incident on Bloody Sunday. He claimed he was at Mass in Blackrock (over four miles from the scene of the shooting) at the time. Several witnesses supported this alibi evidence but it was false.[3] However witnesses including the rector of a church attested that the claim by soldier witnesses to have known the time by the chiming of the church bell revealed that the bell had not chimed for years.[4]

Conviction and execution

He was transferred from Arbour Hill to Kilmainham Jail and incarcerated in what was known as the "Murderers' Gallery", two cells away from Ernie O'Malley, with whom he became good friends.[5] On 14 February 1921, Moran, O'Malley and Frank Teeling broke through the padlock of an outer gate of the prison. However Moran refused to take the opportunity to escape as he reportedly felt the authorities would interpret it as an admission of guilt, telling O'Malley "I don't want to let down the witnesses who gave evidence for me."[6]

Moran started a concert to distract the guards while the men escaped, with Simon Donnelly taking Moran's place. The event is related in detail in O'Malley's memoir On Another Man's Wound. He was tried the day following the break out in City Hall, Dame Street, Dublin.[1] Moran was convicted of murder three days later and sentenced to be hanged on 14 March 1921. Moran and Thomas Whelan were tried for murder; Francis Flood, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle and Bernard Ryan for high treason. They were all found guilty and sentenced to death. The Archbishop of Dublin spoke out against the sentence.[6]

The Irish National Union of Vintners' Grocers' & Allied Trades' Assistants, of which Moran had been an active member, called a half-day general strike on the morning of the executions and over 40,000 people gathered outside Mountjoy to pray for the six men who were hanged between 6am and 8pm.[7] The townships of Bray, Dún Laoghaire, and Blackrock closed down, with the municipal flags flying at half-mast, on the day of his hanging, with masses said in all churches every hour from 6am to noon. All branches of the post office throughout Ireland stopped work. [8]

Aftermath and reinterment

In 1961 a park was opened in Moran's memory in Dún Laoghaire.[7] In May 2012, the park was closed to the public as work commenced on the remvoal of the bowling green, and the construction of a library and cultural centre.

He is one of a group of men hanged in Mountjoy Prison in the period 1920-1921 commonly referred to as The Forgotten Ten. In 2001 he and the other nine, including Kevin Barry, were exhumed from their graves in the prison and given a full State Funeral. He is now buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tim Carey (2001). Hanged for Ireland 'The Forgotten Ten' Executed 1920-21: A Documentary History. Dublin: Blackwater Press. ISBN 1-84131-547-8.
  2. 1 2 Reinterment (sic) of 10 volunteers executed from Dept. of the Taoiseach : Accessed 2 November 2008
  3. 1 2 May Moran. Executed For Ireland - The Patrick Moran Story, Mercier Press (2010)
  4. ↑ Evening Herald 21 February 1921
  5. ↑ "Down Into the Mire" - Part 4 of "The Forgotten Ten" - The Wild Geese Today. Thewildgeese.com (21 November 1920); retrieved 27 January 2009.
  6. 1 2 "Kevin Barry - Just a Lad of 18 Summers", Thewildgeese.com; retrieved 27 January 2009.
  7. 1 2 An Phoblacht/Republican News. Republican-news.org; retrieved 27 January 2009.
  8. ↑ Evening Herald 14 March 1921
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