Fight to save an innocent son from gallows

Lifestyle – One-hundred years ago this Sunday, 22-year-old Tommy Whelan from Clifden was executed in Mountjoy Jail for the murder of a British Army captain during Ireland’s War of Independence. There was strong evidence of his innocence and his mother Bridget took the train to Dublin to plead for his life. Bridget’s granddaughter Mary shares this family story and memories of her grandmother with JUDY MURPHY. 

When Mary Whelan Pryce was about seven years old, she took to exploring the loft of her family home, on the Sky Road a couple of miles from Clifden.

It took effort, given that there was no ladder but Mary managed to clamber onto the traditional dresser and launch herself into the space under the thatch roof.

Up there, by candlelight one day, she made a discovery that rocked her young world.

“There was a rusty Fox’s biscuit tin,” recalls 72-year-old Mary, “and inside I found these letters between my grandmother and her son Thomas, who was executed on March 14, 1921.”

Mary’s uncle, Tommy, her father’s older brother, had grown up in that same house but she had never heard of him.

Mary had an extraordinarily close relationship with her paternal grandmother, Bridget, who lived with them until her death in 1960 at the age of 94.

All these years later, Mary’s eyes light up as she recalls the fun they had together, the trips into Clifden for shopping and the stories her grandmother told her. But this was different.

Back on solid ground Mary asked Bridget about the letters in the tin.

Bridget began to cry. Mary who had never, ever seen her grandmother shed tears before, cried too.

Then Bridget shared the story of Tommy’s life, a journey which had taken him from Sky Road to Ringsend in Dublin to his execution in Mountjoy. She didn’t share all the details with Mary that day, but Bridget’s extraordinary efforts to save her son’s life had put this dignified, humane Connemara woman at the heart of the national struggle. Her heroism and stoicism also earned her the admiration and friendship of people like Maud Gonne.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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