11/04/2022
RIP.
Remembering The Tuam Martyrs✊🇮🇪
On April 11th 1923, six IRA Vols were executed by the Free State in Tuam Workhouse.
The six Vols were Seamus Ō Máille, Martin Moylan, John Newell, John Mc Guire, Michael Monaghan, and Frank Cunnane who had been captured by the Free Staters after a firefight at Cluide, Galway on February 21st 1923.
All six Vols were found 'guilty' of being in possession of rifles and ammunition without proper authority and sentenced to death.
On April 11th they were taken from Galway Gaol to Tuam workhouse to be executed, the Connacht Tribune of the following Saturday, April 14th describes the event:
“The condemned men, it is stated, went to their doom firmly and with brave hearts. They wrote their final letters. They had been attended during the night by two of the town priests and in the morning heard mass, at which two of them served. The priests were with them to the last."
At about 8 a.m. two volleys were fired and it is stated that the condemned men were taken out in parties of three each, lined up by the Oratory wall, blindfolded and their hands joined as in prayer.
They had prayed fervently during the night before and in the morning and were fully consoled to meet their Creator.
The six bodies enclosed in six coffins were interred in the consecrated ground within the Workhouse.
In 1924 the six men executed at Tuam with 18 other executed republicans from Tralee, Dundalk, Ennis, Kilkenny, Limerick, Cork, Athlone, Curragh, Wexford, Waterford and Carlow were handed over at a ceremony in Athlone at intervals of 10 minutes each.
They were then reburied with full Republican honours.