Lemass laid to rest after decomposed body found in Dublin Mountains
Dublin, 17 October 1923 - The funeral of Noel Lemass, whose decomposed body was discovered last week in the Dublin Mountains, took place yesterday. Mr. Lemass had, the Coroner at the inquest into death has made clear, been subjected to a brutal murder.
The remains of Mr. Lemass were laid to rest at Glasnevin Cemetery following a requiem mass at the Pro-Cathedral, which was packed with friends and sympathisers of the deceased. A guard of honour was also provided by his old IRA comrades, and wreaths were received from many units of the old IRA, as well as from Dublin Corporation. A volley of shots was also fired over the grave of Mr. Lemass in the cemetery grounds, where the parents and relatives of the deceased were the chief mourners.
At the opening the inquest into Mr. Lemass’s death in Rathmines Town Hall, Dr. J.P. Brennan, Coroner for South County Dublin, began by remarking: ‘It is always a sad thing to hold an inquest, but this is a doubly sad one.’
Dr. Brennan stated that Mr. Lemass had been abducted on the streets of Dublin on July 3rd last and had been brutally murdered elsewhere. His teeth, it appears, had been torn from his jaws, and some hair was lying beside his corpse, suggesting that something pitiless and savage had taken place.
In a remarkable development early in the inquest hearings, the advocate representing the deceased’s brother asked that evidence be taken from two witnesses, Mr. Christopher Tuite of Stillorgan Grove and Mr. Richard Broderick of Glenageary, with a view to saving them from assassination. The witnesses have stated that they received documents signed by ‘50 members of the old IRA’ ordering them to appear at Military Headquarters in Dublin ‘to deny absolutely that (officer named) ever stated to you that he shot the late lamented Mr. Lemass.’ Indeed, a document sent to Mr. Broderick read out before Dublin Corporation stated that he, Broderick, had been ‘sentenced to death for making statements likely to cause dissatisfaction amongst our forces’
The sentence would only be commuted if Broderick presented himself to military headquarters and denied that Captain J. Murray ever stated that he had shot Mr. Lemass. The document concluded with the chilling warning: ‘Lemass is gone, and the earlier he is forgotten the better. Take care you do not meet the same fate.’
[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.]
