Funeral held for Sinn Féin MP who died of flu in British custody

Thurles, 10 March 1919 - Yesterday, the funeral took place of Pierce McCan, MP for East Tipperary. He died earlier this week from pneumonia in a nursing home where he had been moved from Gloucester Prison suffering from influenza.

McCan is the third Sinn Féin prisoner to die in British custody, following Thomas Ashe in 1917 and Richard Coleman last December.

His body was returned to Ireland on 8 March on board the RMS Ulster, arriving into Kingstown from Holyhead. Also on board the mailboat were a number of recently released Sinn Féin prisoners, several of them only learning of Mr McCan’s death on arriving at Holyhead.

From Kingstown, McCan’s remains were taken to the Pro-Cathedral where requiem mass was celebrated. Afterwards, a public procession was held to take the body the Kingsbridge Railway station for passage to Thurles in his native county.

The procession in Dublin also included members of Dáil Éireann (left) and members of the Irish Volunteers (right) (Images: Irish Independent, 10 March 1919)

The procession to Kingsbridge included the Lord Mayor of Dublin and members of Dáil Éireann, Cumann na mBan, and the Boy Scouts. His coffin was draped in republican colours and carried wreaths from his fellow Sinn Féin prisoners.

In addition to Mr Can’s relatives, several Sinn Féin MPs travelled with the coffin to Thurles, where the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, with several of his clergy, met the remains at the entrance of the cathedral. After the funeral mass the cortege that made its way to the cemetery extended over three miles and took nearly two hours to pass a particular point.

The graveside oration was delivered in Irish by Cathal Brugha MP, who described his former colleague as a ‘model christian and catholic’, as well as ‘high-souled’ and ‘noble-hearted’.

Left: various members of the clergy walk in the funeral cortege. Right: McCan's family at the funeral - his widow and mother in the foreground and his father (head bowed) standing behind them (Image: Irish Independt)

Mr McCan, who attended Clongowes Wood College and managed his father’s farm in east Tipperary, was prominent in the Irish language movement and was involved with the East Tipperary Hunt to the extent that, when the recent ban on hunting was being discussed, the master of the local hunt made reference to his association with the sport in his protest to the Sinn Féin executive.

He was a nephew of the late Patrick Power, former Nationalist MP for East Waterford. McCan was interned for several months in the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916 and incarcerated again in May 1918 along with other leading Sinn Féiners for their alleged part in a so-called ‘German plot’ in 1918.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]