CONNACHT TRIBUNE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2016
The Death of Patrick Waters
BY RÓNÁN GEARÓID Ó DOMHNAILL
Galway RIC man
was killed in Kerry
– and a century on
his body has never
been found
On Halloween evening 1920, a young
RIC constable from Galway vanished
in Tralee and his body was
never recovered.
Those who killed him and disposed of his
body never informed his family – and Patrick
Waters became one of what became known
as ‘the disappeared’.
Patrick Waters or Pádraig Ó Tuairisg as he
was known locally, was born on 15 May 1896
in Lochán Beag near Indreabhán in Connemara.
He came from a family of eight children,
five sons and three girls. According to the 1911
census, which lists him as a sixteen-year-old
scholar, he had a number of younger siblings.
By the time he enlisted in the RIC his occupation
was given as farmer.
Farmers in South Connemara were not
that big and a job in the RIC would have provided
a steady income with a pension after 25
years and financial support for his family.
Waters had limited options if he did not
want to farm the land, go to America or join
the priesthood.
Thus he went into Galway and was recommended
by District Inspector Hildebrand.
According to the RIC register, the original
of which is kept in the Public Records Office,
Kew, Surrey, he was appointed constable
with the number 69079 on 17 April 1917.
No promotions or punishments are
recorded and Tralee was his first and only
posting.
The RIC – unlike the police in Britain – were
armed and essentially the eyes and ears of
the British government.
Most of the rank and file members were
Catholic while the officers were Protestant.
They never served in their home county or
even that of their wives.
Things changed however when on 11 April
1919 the Dáil announced a policy of ostracism
of RIC men. There were now seen as agents
of the crown and traitors.
The War of Independence itself began in
1919 with the killings of two RIC constables,
Patrick MacDonnell and James O'Connell,
when they were shot by Dan Breen at Soloheadbeg,
County Tipperary.
Recruitment dropped and resignations increased.
The infamous Black and Tans, former
British soldiers now filled their ranks.
Those who remained in the force did so
out of a sense of loyalty to duty and some,
such as Glenamaddy man Jeremiah Mee,
worked with the IRA providing them with
valuable information.
In the last of week of October 1920, the IRA
HQ in Dublin ordered attacks on Crown
forces across the country.
This was in reprisal for the death of Terence
MacSwiney who died on hunger strike
in Brixton prison on 25 October and also for
Kevin Barry who was due to hang on 1 November.
The RIC patrolled in large numbers and
Waters would have been safe in his barracks.
His Achilles heel however was that he single
man far away from home and probably looking
to find a wife.
According to Ryle Dwyer in his book Tans,
Terror and Troubles - Kerry’s Real Fighting
Story 1913-23, both he and Ernest Bright were
lured to a house in Strand Street by two local
women, believed to be in the Cumann na
mBan.
The two men were confronted by IRA man
Paddy Paul Fitzgerald who was waiting at Gas
Terrace.
What happened next, I have pieced together
from different witness statements of
former IRA men, given to the Bureau of Military
History in the late 1940s and early 1950s
and made public in 2003.
As they were unarmed they had no choice
but to surrender. They were passed on to the
Strand Street company and according to IRA
man Michael Doyle, were shot later that night
at a spot at the end of the canal known as The
Point, on orders of Brigade staff
and Paddy Cahill as Brigade officer.
The RIC register for Waters states
that he died on 31 October and had been ‘kidnapped
and presumed murdered’.
The IRA never publically acknowledged
killing the two constables. All the Waters family
would learn is that their loved was sent to
Kerry where he was killed but they would
never have a body to mourn over.
When it became known that the constables
were missing, the Black and Tans unleashed
a reign of terror in Tralee in events which become
known as the Siege of Tralee which
lasted for nine days.
Several notices are put up around the town
declaring that unless the two RIC men were
returned by 10am on the 2 November terrible
reprisals would be unleashed.
A few days previously, two unarmed constables
in Ballylongford, James Coughlan and
William Muir had been taken by the IRA and
held for sixty hours until IRA HQ in Dublin
ordered their release.
The British authorities had threatened to
raze the town to the ground if they were not
released. Both were released though had
been severely beaten.
The RIC in Tralee were hopeful that by
threatening the local population, Waters and
Bright would also be released. They did not
know they were already dead and had been
secretly buried.
When the two constables never reappeared,
rumours began to circulate and it
was reported locally that the pair were
thrown alive into the furnace in Tralee Gas
Works, which was repeated in Richard Abbott’s
Police Casualties in Ireland 1919-1922,
written in 2000.
Another theory was that they were buried
in the canal near the house of the lockkeeper,
William O’Sullivan, who was a member of the
IRA Company involved in killing Waters.
His grandson told local historian Ryle
Dwyer in the mid-1990s that he believed that
the two constables were buried in the family
tomb at Clogherbrien graveyard just outside
Tralee on the road to Fenit.
When his grandmother died in 1926, his
grandfather was horrified at the idea of burying
her in with the two constables and she
was buried outside the tomb. This in my view
is the strongest theory of where Waters is
buried.
I went along to Clogherbrien graveyard
and discovered two O’Sullivan tombs. Beside
one was a cross corroborating this story
and the O’Sullivans were buried outside
their tomb since 1926. Jim
Herlihy, author of The Royal
Irish Constabulary - A Short
History and Genealogical
Guide believes that Waters
may be buried in Derravrin
bog in Lixnaw, close to Listowel.
Farmers Michael O'Connell
and Brendan Cronin
who want see the body
buried there given a
proper burial, claim it
is still located under a
crab tree.
Others such as
Helen O’Carroll, the director
of Kerry County
museum, with whom I
spoke, are sceptical of
this. Lixnaw is about 18
km from Tralee and to transport
a body such a distance
would have been very risky.
Clogherbrien on the other hand is in
close proximity to the canal.
In either event, the body of Waters is
one of the few never to have been recovered.
Patrick Waters was neither a nationalist
nor a unionist. He was a small farmer from
the rocky shores on Galway Bay trying to
make a living in difficult times and came
from a very similar background to those who
ended his life.
People get killed in wartime but it benefits
nobody to deny the family the corpse of their
loved one. I believe Patrick Waters is buried
at Clogherbrien – and maybe now, after
nearly a hundred years, it is finally time to
bring him back to Galway.
Rónán Gearóid Ó Domhnaill, from Galway
city and living in Dublin, is the author of Gone
the Way of Truth - Historic Graves of Galway
published by the History Press.
For several years now the North side of
Dublin has been my home and amidst the soulless suburban sprawl there are
traces of the past which have survived centuries of change. The little known 12th
century Church of St Doulagh’s in Kinsealy, just off the Malahide road is one
such gem and so much of the medieval period is represented. It is easily
recognisable by its stone roof and unusual shape. There are very few churches
with stone roofs which have survived the passage of time, Cormac’s Chapel at
the Rock of Cashel and St Kevin’s Kitchen at Glendalough being the few
examples. St Doulagh’s is however the only one in the country which is still
used for religious services and is under the stewardship of the Church of
Ireland. The visitor is greeted at the entrance by a sandstone cross which is
believed to date from around the 13th century. The choice of stone
was unusual choice of material as the local stone would be limestone. 
The
Church is named after Doulagh who lived in the 7th century but
little else is known about him as documents written about his life were
believed to have been destroyed in the 17th century. What is known
about him is that he was an anchorite. I wrote about anchorites in my book Fadó Fadó Tales of Lesser-Known Irish
History. They were common in the early Christian Church, especially in
Eastern Europe and the Middle East and were different to hermits as although
they also lived alone, they did not move about. Indeed, they never left their
cell and were very much anchored to it. They were walled in in a special
ceremony and depended on support from the outside world. In a reminder of their
mortality they dug their own graves in their tiny cell with a small spoon. The
cell had several small windows, one for food, another one looked onto the altar
and another one allowed them talk with the public. Anchorites were regarded as
living saints and people
came to them for advice and to ask them to pray for intercession. There were also anchoresses, usually widows or young
girls who wanted to escape an unwanted arranged marriage. St Doulagh’s has an
anchorite cell attached to it and these are relatively rare in Ireland. The few
other examples that exist are at Fore Abbey in Westmeath and at St Canice’s
Cathedral in Kilkenny. The church is divided into sections from different era,
the newest being from 1865. The walls of the oldest part of the church are
three foot thick. There is
an altar like tomb inside, believed to be the resting place of St Doulagh
himself. In the oratory there is a hole which is believed to cure
headaches. As you ascend the 15th
century bell tower, there
is an alcove known as a penitent’s cell. It is just long enough for a man to
lie down in but not high enough for him to sit upright. This was where the
monks lay for days as part of a punishment. It was also used by lay people and
according to one local superstition, if a pregnant woman rolls in it three
times, she will not die while giving birth. St
Doulagh’s also has a leper’s window or squint, designed for those afflicted to
see the altar and receive the sacrament without coming into contact with the
congregation. Leprosy was widespread in medieval
Dublin and hospitals such as the Hospital of Saint James on Lazar’s Hill now
Townsend Street were set up to fight the spread of it. Those afflicted went
there to die but as far as society was concerned they were already dead and
they lived a purgatory type of existence. The site also contains a holy well,
St Doulagh's Well, watched over by a white thorn tree. The well was a cure for
the eyes but it was also used for baptizing. Indeed, it is the only free
standing external baptismal font in the country and is covered by an octagonal
shaped building. In 1609, it was covered in beautiful frescoes, financed by the
Fagan family of Feltrim, a nearby village. The frescoes featured Saint Patrick,
SBridget, St Columcille and St Doulagh. 
Unfortunately, they were destroyed by
Sir Richard Bulkeley, founder of Dunlavin, County Wicklow, on his return from
the Battle of the Boyne. Crowds assembled there for St Doulagh’s pattern day
every 17 November until they were suppressed by the clergy in the late 18th
century due to the drunken rowdiness associated with it. Right beside it is a
small pool known as St Catherine's pond with stone seating, which some believe
was used for baptising girls. St Doulagh’s can be reached using Dublin
Bus and is open Sunday afternoons. Admission is free though donations are
welcome. Parking is not available.
