Victims of Dublin’s Bloody Sunday laid to rest

Dublin, 27 November 1920 - Religious services and funeral masses have been held for the victims of the Dublin violence of Sunday 21 November.

The most imposing display was that afforded to nine of the 14 officers who were killed in their lodgings on Sunday morning.

Before departure for London, their remains were conveyed from the George V Military Hospital to the North Wall on gun carriages covered in union jacks and accompanied by over a thousand troops. A government request that all shops and places of business in the city be closed between 10 am and 1 pm on the morning of their departure was universally observed. Huge crowds gathered on the streets to pay their respects as the funeral cortege passed.

The coffins of the nine men were returned to London via a destroyer to Holyhead and a special train to Euston, from where the men’s remains were carried upon gun carriages covered in union jacks and white flowers.

(L) A coffin carrying one of the dead military officers flanked by Auxiliaries with RIC men behind. (R) Victims of the ‘murder gang’ – 11 of the offiers killed in Dublin. Click to enlarge (Images: Illustrated London News, 4 December 1920)

In London’s Parliament Square and the vicinity, was thronged with mourners, and Westminster Abbey was full a long time prior to the arrival of the procession. In attendance at the Abbey was Prime Minister, David Lloyd George; the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood; Sir Henry Wilson; and General Henry Horne, who represented the king. Winston Churchill and other cabinet ministers were also present.

The three catholic officers – Lt Aimes, Lt Bennett and Lt Mahon – were taken to Westminster Cathedral, outside of which an RIC band played the Irish lament.

The funeral scenes of the other victims of the weekend's violence were somewhat different. Richard McKee and Peadar Clancy were afforded a full Volunteer funeral on 26 November, their coffins draped in the tricolour. The two men, along with Conor Clune, were shot dead, Dublin Castle alleges, trying to escape from a guardroom in Exchange Court.

Volunteer comrades of Clancy and McKee carried their coffins upon their shoulders and laid them in hearses full with floral tributes. Requiem Mass was celebrated in the Pro-Cathedral by Father Michael O’Flanagan in front of an enormous congregation. The remains of Clancy and McKee were brought in a cortege from the Pro-Cathedral to Glasnevin Cemetery. As the procession reached the Rotunda, it had to turn down Parnell Street as a raid was in progress at the Dáil Éireann Ministry of Labour.

Scenes from the funerals of McKee and Clancy in Dublin (Image: Irish Independent, 27 November 1920)

The remains of Conor Clune, whose employer has dismissed any suggestion that he was a member of the IRA, have been returned to Quin in Co. Clare for interment.

On 25 November, a number of funerals were held in Dublin for the victims of the Croke Park shootings.  

One of these, Jennie Boyle, had been due to get married next week. She and her fiancé both worked in the Irish Automobile Drivers’ and Mechanics’ Union, who passed a vote of condolence to their deceased colleague. Her funeral mass took place in St Kevin’s Church on Harrington Street. A crowd of 1,000 people assembled on nearby Synge Street to pay their respects. 

Boyle’s remains were interred in Glasnevin, as were those of 14-year-old John William Scott of Fitzroy Avenue, whose funeral was attended by a large number of his friends and school-mates.

It has also been reported that William Cullinane, a student, has died from the wounds he sustained in Croke Park. Cullinane was preparing for the priesthood and his funeral will take place in Claregalway.

[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.]