SLIGO COMMEMORATION JUNE 2025
On behalf of the National Collins22 Society I’d like to thank and congratulate our esteemed member Kieran Gillan for his incredible research and dedication regarding National Army soldiers who died during the Civil War. I’d also like to thank him on behalf of us all for his kind mention and representation of the National Collins22 Society at this morning’s event.
Those remembered this morning were Private James Byrne and Sergeant James Skeffington who are confirmed to be in the Plot, and the Cross also remembers Private James Sweeney who died in the Rockwood Ambush and Private Henry Conlon who died in an accidental shooting at Arigna Barracks.ieKieran recently informed me that the family of Private James Byrne had placed a plaque on the grave not too long ago and have given their backing to have the Cross placed on the grave also. It’s interesting yet sad to note that James was actually the youngest National Army Soldier to be killed in combat during the conflict.
A huge effort went into this particular event by Kieran which forms part of ‘The Legacy Project of the Decade of Centenaries’ who was joined in this incredible endeavour by the Sligo towns Men’s Shed supported by Sligo County Council through the Commemorations Programme 2025.
Kieran, like myself has a keen interest in those who died while serving in the National Army during the Civil War and has carried out some incredible research in that field.
North West correspondent Shane Ó Curraighín carried out a report for RTE.ie on today’s event as part of the background to the National Army Plot in Sligo, and thanks to Kieran has included the work that the National Collins22 Society carry out in Glasnevin each.
See link report below:
https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2025/0628/1520690-civil-war-memorial-sligo/
The following is the main speech delivered by Mr Kieran Gillen of the National Collins22 Society at the unveiling of a Memorial Cross on the previously unmarked National Army Plot at Sligo Town Cemetery on the 103rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Irish Civil War – 28/06/2025.
Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, and a special welcome to Leas Cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council Cllr Edel McSharry and to the family of Private James Byrne, distinguished guests, members of Sligo Men’s Shed and to the retired members of the Defence Forces present.
My name is Kieran Gillen, I’m a member of the National Collins22 Society, and like Private Byrne I am also from Sligo Town.
The National Collins22 Society was set up to honour the memory of Michael Collins and those associated with him. There members gather every Saturday morning at his grave in Glasnevin and replace the flowers and keep it tidy. On the first Saturday of every month they will pick a grave from a person who fought on either side of the Civil War divide and place flowers on their grave.
Collins grave is situated in the centre of what is known as the National Army Plot. There you will find the final resting place of around 180 soldiers who died on the pro-Treaty side of the Civil War.
We are all gathered here today on what is the 103rd anniversary of the start of the Irish Civil War, which officially began just after 4am on the 28th of June 1922 with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin …So 103 years and seven hours to be exact!
This morning’s ceremony will see the unveiling of two memorials; a plaque put in place by the family of Pte James Byrne and a wooden Cross made by members of Sligo Men’s Shed in memory of Sergeant James Skeffington who is also buried in this plot. The Cross will also be dedicated to the memory of three other National Army Soldiers, Commandant Sean Adare, Pte John “Jack” Sweeney and Pte Henry Conlon who all died during the eleven month conflict and are buried elsewhere in this cemetery.
Around 650 pro-Treaty National Army troops died either in combat, illness, drowning or accidental shootings between June 1922 and May 1923. If you include deaths from disease and accidents after this date up until the 1st of October 1924, the official date that the Defence Forces came into being and the number rises to nearly 800 fatalities.
At the height of the Irish Civil War in early 1923 the National Army had reached the number of almost 55,000 enlisted men nationwide, so large in fact that when the new Irish Free State was seeking to gain membership of the League of Nations, one of the conditions of entry was to decrease the size of its army.
In the case of County Sligo a National Army is of course just that, made up of men from all over Ireland. Looking through the places of residence for some of these soldiers, they came from counties such as Cavan, Donegal, Offaly, Fermanagh, and Dublin. Of the 21 Free State
Soldiers listed as fatalities for Co Sligo, thirteen were killed in combat, five by accidental shooting, two of which took place in Tubbercurry Barracks.
Accidental Shootings were a regular occurrence throughout the country with a total of 176 being recorded nationwide, a sign of the type of training (or lack of) the soldiers had when it came to handling weapons.
Men joined the National Army for many different reasons; some were members of the IRA who followed their Commanders in supporting the Treaty. Others were men who may have seen service in WWI and wanted to put their skills to use, and then there were those who just simply found the idea of a career with accommodation, uniform, food and pay as a good enough reason to take up arms to defend the new State.
A National Army Census was carried out on the night of the 12th November 1922, and in the County Sligo there were 493 men listed on active duty.
· Ballysadre 19
· Ballymote 50
· Markree Castle 105
· Sligo Town 248
· Tubbercurry 71
Private James Byrne
The first fatality on all sides during the Civil War in Sligo was Pte James Byrne who also turned out to be the youngest National Army Soldier to be killed in combat during the conflict. Born in 1907, James was only fifteen and a half years old when he was killed instantly after receiving bullet wounds to the head and lung while leaving his post at Sligo Jail in a lorry. His body remained in the vehicle for several hours until it was deemed safe to go outside and bring his body back into the safety of the jail.
James had lived with his family on Bridge Street in the town and when he was fifteen years old he was already looked upon as a grown man, having finished up school the year before. When enlisting he gave his civilian occupation as Labourer, the new army then still being referred to as ‘Dail Forces’ in newspaper reports. James had two older brothers, Thomas and John who had also signed up to join the National Army, and their mother Margaret was an incredibly tough woman. Reading through the Military Pensions Collection it really brings home the hardships that people endured at the time. Not only did she loose her fifteen-year-old son in the Civil War, but she’d also suffer more tragedy when her son John contracted Tuberculosis. Correspondence in the pension file shows how their desperate mother asked for the dependence pension for James so she could use the money to take his sick older brother John to Lourdes. However, John sadly die from the disease in December 1924 aged only nineteen.
When I first began to research the Civil War in Sligo the story of young James Byrne has always been on my mind. While he was able to wear a uniform and carry a gun, he was still too young to vote on any Treaty. I share with James something very precious, the fact that we are both from Sligo Town, and growing up in Oakfield on the edge of town, I would hear the bells of the Cathedral, the same bells James would have heard.
It is an honour to be here today with his family and appreciate the simple plaque that will inform future generations of the importance of this plot and who now rests here in peace.
Sergeant James Skeffington
On the night of the 9th December 1922, there was an anti-Treaty raid at the Town Hall which was then occupied by the National Army. Responding to the raid, several soldiers including Sgt Skeffington left their post at the Courthouse and proceeded towards the Town Hall. When they arrived they were fired at and Sgt Skeffington was killed instantly.
James Skeffington was thirty two years old and lived with his mother Kate on Charles Street. On the corner of Charles Street and John Street was the home of Volunteer Paddy Carroll who took the anti-Treaty side and was killed three months before, high up on Kings Mountain, one of the ‘Noble Six’. The two young men’s homes were as close to each other as their graves are today in this cemetery.
A report of James Skeffington’s funeral was published in the Sligo Champion December 16th 1922 as follows:
The funeral of Volunteer James Skeffington who was shot near the Town Hall on Saturday night took place on Tuesday after High Mass in Sligo Cathedral. All business establishments in the town were closed between 2 and 3 o’clock and the funeral, which was carried out with full military ceremonial was very largely attended. At the cemetery three volleys were fired over the grave and a bugler sounded the Last Post.
Among the wreaths were:
“In loving remembrance” from Mrs G Robinson, Church St.
“In loving Memory of a brave Soldier” from Mr and Mrs Byrne, Bridge St.
“With Deepest Sympathy,” from Col Commandant Fallon, Officers and men of the Sligo Garrison;
“With Deepest Sympathy” from the Sligo Branch Cumman na Saoirse;
“With Deepest Sympathy” from Sgt Crowe;
“In fond remembrance” from his friends in Forthill and Holborn St;
“From a fond friend” Mrs McGuinn, Hazelwood.
This Memorial Cross is also dedicated to the memory of Private John Sweeney. John, sometimes referred to as ‘Jack’ died on the 15th of July 1922 in Sligo Infirmary from wounds he received at the Rockwood Ambush two days earlier. His occupation was listed as a Bakers Apprentice at Farrell’s on Albert Street and he also worked on the family farm in Calry. He was seventeen years old when he died and his name appears on the memorial plaque on Rockwood Parade in Sligo Town.
Rockwood Parade was given its name in honour of those National Army troops who died in the ambush in 1976 when Cllr Sydney Gallagher had campaigned for it. The motion was passed when a young Counsellor by the name of Declan Bree seconded it.
Commandant Sean Adair of the National Army was also killed in the Rockwood Ambush. Originally from Lisburn, Co Antrim, he had previously been a member of Na Fianna Éireann and served with the Scottish Brigade of the IRA during the War of Independence. He took part in the attempted jailbreak of Frank Carty from Prison in Glasgow, who would later partly lead the anti-Treaty ambush at Rockwood against the Free State Forces.
Finally, Pte Henry Conlon was accidentally shot and killed at Arigna Barracks, Co Roscommon on St Patrick’s Day 1923. Conlon had lived on Holborn Hill and had been a member of the Connaught Rangers and served in India with some of the men who had mutinied. He is buried in the Conlon family Plot.
Dr Anne Dolan wrote in her 2003 book “Commemorating The Irish Civil War”
“Nothing has robbed the Free State Soldier of his dignity more than its Government’s treatment of his memory”
This may no longer be the case with the unveiling of a National Army Memorial to the dead of the Irish Civil War next to the grave of General Michael Collins in Glasnevin. Alas, the plot we stand next to this morning proves that there remains work to be done in remembering those who died for the State in its earliest of days.
During the re-dedication of the National Army Plot at Glasnevin in July 2023, General Sean Clancy of the Defence Forces publicly acknowledged what he called the hurt, tragedy and atrocities perpetrated against anti-Treaty Republicans during the Civil War.
As a Sligo man with a passion for history, I agree with this statement and can confirm that many of the anti-Treaty Forces killed in Sligo were shot in the back while trying to escape and in some cases after they surrendered.
At a ceremony organised by retired members of the Defence Forces in November 2022 at Glasnevin to honour the National Army Civil War dead it was stated:
“Building a stronger, more modern Ireland means understanding and including all voices and experiences from its history,
The history of Ireland is incomplete without adequately commemorating the National Army Civil War Dead.
There cause was duty,
Their sacrifice came from duty,
Our duty is to honour them.”
In 2023 on the 101st Anniversary of the death of Michael Collins, a Sligo man delivered the oration at Beal na Blath.
He quoted a line from a Christy Moore song,
“There is no feeling so alone as when the one you are hurting is your own”
That Sligo man was Tommie Gorman. Tommie, more than most knew what it was like to be around a divided people, but he also had the ability to bring people together. Like the Big Fella, Tommie left this world when he still had so much more to do. It is the work they achieved in their lifetime that we will be forever grateful for. Engraved on the back of the National Army Memorial in Glasnevin is a quote from a verse by another man who had a strong passion for Sligo,
“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends”.
WB YEATS
Ends….