Victims of Caherguillamore Ambush memorialised in Limerick

A CROWD gathered outside Bruff GAA grounds to “finally immortalise” the victims of the Caherguillamore Ambush.

The victims of the Caherguillamore Ambush which took place on St Stephen’s Day, 1920, during the War of Independence are considered to be one of, if not, the most important people in the Bruff locality’s history.

On the day of the ambush, hundreds of young locals cycled and walked their way to a night of “expected fun” in Caherguillamore House, between Bruff and Grange.

“A few hours later this innocence was destroyed by one of the darkest events of the whole War of Independence,” Pat Hayes, local historian said at the memorial.

“It is our duty to commemorate the people whose names are often forgotten before their names are lost for posterity,” he added.

The work of finding names of all those involved in the Caherguillamore Ambush took about two years and the research was conducted by Tom Toomey, Ciara Hogan, Pat Kinnane, Stephen Kelly, Biddy Hayes and Pat Hayes.

Over 140 men are now listed on a plaque outside the GAA grounds, immortalising their involvement on the night that took five lives and for the first time ever there is a list of women who were in attendance at Caherguillamore House on the night.

The ceremony was accompanied by the reading of a poem by former senator Martin O’Dwyer about the events. Mr O'Dwyer was in attendance at Caherguillamore on the night. The poem was read out by Biddy Hayes.

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Tom Toomey gave a brief synopsis of the events that took place over a century ago.

“We have identified at least 140 men who were arrested. It was the largest arrest of prisoners during the War of Independence. Even bigger than the number that were captured at the burning of the Custom House in Dublin in June 1921,” Mr Toomey said.

The memorial unveiled by Pat Kinnane and Ciara Hogan, lists out all the names involved in the Caherguillamore Ambush and features a QR code at the bottom that will bring you to a web page where the list of names will be updated once more names are found, future-proofing the memorial.