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Scanned copy of photo of Patrick Hennessy.
Scanned copy of a photo of Patrick Hennessy, smiling and dressed in a suit, pocket watch albert visible with at least one GAA medal attached; image show the reverse side of a postcard as the original document was a postcard with an image on one side and a space for correspondence on the other.
Patrick Hennessy from Clooney was the County Secretary of the GAA when Clare won their first All-Ireland Senior Hurling title in 1914.
An active member of the IRA’s mid-Clare Brigade during the Irish War of Independence, he took the anti-treaty side during the Irish Civil War. On 16 January 1923 he was arrested along with his friend Con McMahon from a dug out near Clooney by Free State troops, following an anti-treaty IRA attack on Ardsollus railway station near Quin which put the station out of action.
Free State troops claimed they found ammunition in a cock of hay near where they were in hiding, though Hennessy denied they had any firearms or ammunition with them. Both men were executed on 20 January 1923.
While both men took part in the attack at Ardsollus, it is widely believed that they were betrayed and framed in relation to the possession of ammunition, at crime which carried the death penalty. Hennessy and McMahon were two of the 77 executions carried out by the Free State government between November 1922 and May 1923 during the Irish Civil War.
The original postcard was sent to Hennessy’s aunt Emily who lived in the USA. She wrote on the back ‘Poor Patrick, Jan 20, 1923’. The donor is Emily’s daughter who lived in California at the time of donation.
Collection: Patrick Hennessy
Category: Visual Representation