Joe Creedon, a local historian and hotelier is steeped in the history of his native Inchigeelagh. He is very involved in all things historical and cultural in the region including the organising of the Daniel Corkery Summer School each year, which celebrates the life of one of Cork’s famous sons with a week of music, poetry, painting and history.
1948
Interview: WCOH0004
Joe was interviewed on the 3rd of November 2016 by Marian O’Leary
The following topics are covered in Joe’s interview.
Joe starts with the arrest of Roger Casement and his wife’s connection with Patrick Sheeran, the sympathetic RIC man who sent word to Thomas Ashe about the arrest of Casement. He speaks of Inchigeelagh village being under curfew and the commandeering of the two hotels by the British Army during the War of Independence. Later during the Civil War, when the Free State army was billetted in what is now Creedon’s Hotel, it was said that on one night Eamonn de Valera and Michael Collins both stayed there unaware of the other’s presence. He describes the shooting of Seargent Maunsell outside the hotel by three local IRA men in 1920 and some 80 years later the Mass of Reconciliation attended by the families of the victim and those responsible for his death. Joe describes the aftermath of the Kilmichael ambush, the making of the coffins for both the IRA and British casualties by the local undertakers and the eventual burial in the old graveyard of Cecil Guthrie, the Auxiliary soldier who escaped the ambush, only to be later detained and shot by the local IRA. He mentions Mother Jones the female Civil Rights activist whose people came from Inchigeelagh and who campaigned for the Irish who were locked out of the mines in Butte, Montana during WWI as a result of their pro-German sympathies. He also described the poor reception given to Micahel O’Leary, the poster boy of WWI and recipient of the Victoria Cross, when he came back to Inchigeelagh in Sept 1916, in the aftermath of the executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Joe describes him as being ‘in the tradition of O’Leary soldiers’ and cites many other examples of O’Leary men who fought for the glory of foreign countries. Finally, Joe describes the 2016 commemoration of the Lyre and Dunmanway Volunteers who marched to Inchigeelagh in 1916 and finishes by listing the occupants of the houses one hundred years ago.
Kilmichael Ambush WCOHAS_0031
Joe recalls seeing Tom Barry when he was a child, speaking to his father. He also outlines the local experience of the Revolutionary period and refers to many names connected with that experience.
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Maunsell WCOHAS_0032
Joe speaks about the shooting of Maunsel during the War of Independence. He also speaks about Fr O’Leary who was a republican priest who was moved from the area and his replacement with Fr. Burts
NOTE: This refers to the killing by the IRA of Sgt. Daniel Maunsell of the RIC on 21 August 1920. in Inchigeelagh. Maunsell was killed while returning to Macroom from his home at Inchigeelagh. Until shortly before his death he had been the head of the police barracks at Inchigeelagh. A police patrol returning from the scene of the attack on Maunsell was itself ambushed at Lissardagh, with the result that a number of other RIC men were wounded.
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