Another curiosity successfully scratched.
| When in Dunmanway last week, I took a ramble through the old graveyard off the Kilbarry Road and spotted this headstone. I learnt that there was a 1st Western Division of the Free State Army – something new for me. I could not recall very many memorials or headstones spotted for members of the Free State Army in the Civil War and so decided to explore further. IrishMedals.org has a list, in date order, of National Army men killed during the Civil War but 28 August 1922 only has a listing of an ambush in Co. Mayo in which Private Charles Sullivan died. Wikipedia Timeline has no listing for that date. Going back to my daily email from Stair na hÉireann, I still found no reference to Captain Burke. This lunchtime, I went over to the reopened City Library and quickly found the article below which confirmed that Captain Burke was on horseback and was killed from the first volley of shots at Castlemaine – which was the second of five ambushes encountered by the National Army column that day. It was interesting to see that the article is noted as ‘Passed by Censor’ – I had not realised that there had been censorship in the Civil War. Going back to the web, the report contents are mentioned in The Civil War in Kerry by Tom Doyle. Then I realised that IrishMedals.org page has the death of James Burke in July 1922 – not August. | IN  “Capt. Burke who was killed at Castlemaine, was educated at the Presentation Brothers College and University College Cork. He fought as a brave soldier through the Irish war. His death at the hands of his own countrymen is deeply deplored.” |
Cork Examiner - August 1922
UPDATE 2018.10.29
Interesting to learn from the RTE programme Who Do You Think You Are? that Captain Burke was a second cousin-once removed of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Also that on the day following Cpt Burke’s death, Volunteer and prisoner, Jack Galvin was killed by National Irish Army near Ballyseedy outside Tralee.
Also that on the day following Cpt Burke’s death, Volunteer and prisoner, Jack Galvin was killed by National Irish Army near Ballyseedy outside Tralee.
