Woman killed by Free State soldier returning from dance in Kerry
“I’m a Diehard anyway”, 22 year-old tells soldier before the shot was fire
Kerry, 6 September 1923 - An officer in the National Army is in Military Custody following an incident in which a young woman, Ms. Hannah Connor (22), was shot coming from a dance in Glenbeigh, Co. Kerry on the 3rd of September.
Ms. Connor subsequently died at Tralee Infirmary and a jury in the Coroner’s Court concluded that her death had been caused by a bullet wound inflicted by one or other of the two soldiers of the National Army, one of whom was identified as Lt. J. Hunter. Although the jury found that there was insufficient evidence to satisfy them at to whether the wounding was accidental or intentional. Evidence submitted to the inquest into the killing of Ms. Connor indicated that, whether accidental or not, a political motive or impulse lay behind the shooting.
Ms. Kate Connor, a cousin of the deceased, told the Coroner and jury how she and her cousin, along with another cousin, Nancy Clifford, and a soldier, named Shea were walking home to Keel, Glencar, from the dance at a hall in Glenbeigh on a Sunday night when, a short distance outside the village, they met two soldiers coming in the opposite direction. When Shea and the two soldiers engaged in conversation, one of the soldiers said to Shea: ‘You have a lot of girls with you’, to which he responded: ‘They are all Free State girls.’
It was at this point that Hannah Connor interjected: ‘No, I’m a Diehard, anyway.’ One of the two soldiers reacted by saying ‘Are you’ or ‘is that so?’ after which the witness said she heard the noise of a shot and then Hannah Connor’s scream of ‘I’m shot.’
Ms. Connor was quickly taken to a nearby house and a doctor summoned, who removed the injured victim by car to Killorglin. They were accompanied by the woman’s cousins and the two soldiers. It was in Killorglin that Lt. Hunter confessed to firing the shot, adding: ‘I thought there wasn’t a cartridge in the revolver.’ It is understood that some of the statements delivered to the inquest will now be produced before another tribunal.
[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.]
